#for some reason i had a copy of blake show up in another city. there were two of him

[blake-the-shadow]

perhaps I should mention that i made two wrestling households in Sims 4 (namely Taker, Paul Bearer, Kane and Blake (my OC) in one house and Shawn Michaels, Triple H, and Chyna in another) and it's so entertaining

i also made a bunch of custom content related to them myself and just yesterday realized that thanks to a mod that i have installed since I started playing i can have my Sims do a Tombstone Piledriver (and also a Super RKO but whatever) and it improved my time playing with them by 100%

[lov3nerdstuff]

Hi Kay!

I just wanted to take a moment and say how deeply moving (and overall comforting) I find your writing to be! I've gone through almost the entirety of your masterlist twice in the past month alone and have found myself returning more often to the pieces of literature/poems your reference sometimes. (Especially that one poem by Benedict Smith! I've read a few more by him because of you and they're just wonderfully lovely 💛 so I'm eternally thankful to you for including it.)

I may be wrong in assuming, but I believe you may have studied/are currently studying a degree involving literature. I hope this isn't too foreward of me but I was wandering if you have any other works of literature that you'd recommend? (I'd love to read anything you recommend from poems to plays 💛) I'm slightly embaressed to say but the works I've read are quite limited to a highschool level and since I'm currently studying Pharmacy, there are very few people who can recommend me such moving works. :)

I also feel like I should apologise for writing such a large ask, so please accept this apology as well hehe 💕🥺

Sincerely,

Bek 🌻

Hey there Bek 💚💕✨

First of all... I'm incredibly sorry for how long it took me to reply to this ask, I know you sent it weeks ago and I'm honestly just ashamed of myself for only replying now! I've been taking a bit of a Tumblr break again, or rather a break from literally everything, and I guess not having written anything in a while made me feel guilty whenever I opened Tumblr, so... All I can say for myself really is that I'm sorry you had to wait so long! Again, I never ever ignore anyone, I promise! It just sometimes takes a while for me to reply 😅🙈

Now, I'm so happy to hear that you've been enjoying my writing! 🥺🥰 Hearing that it's comforting and inspiring to you is honestly such a relief and indeed does make me happy more than I can say 💚 It's so cool that you're checking up on all the references I make aaahhh 🥺🥺🥺 I love it 😁 You're always more than welcome, love! I don't think I could stop including references to literature, culture, history and the science around it even if I tried 😅☺️

And yeah, I did study classics and newer literature as a minor for my undergrad degree 😄 But tbh I still work with literally a lot even now (I'm in grad school for media and cultural studies) even though it's technically not something I've been properly taught ☺️ I'm just a nerd who likes to learn on her own, and with media and culture you can pretty much delve into almost anything you want 😂😅🤷🏻‍♀️

Now, it's not forward at all to ask me for literature recommendations! 😁😃 I truly love recommending stuff!!! I have a few up my sleeve, even though you've probably heard of a few already, for obvious reasons: A lot of what I truly enjoyed reading was something Tom Hiddleston has worked on in one way or another! It's truly a magnificent guideline for picking new literature... Just look up the literary origins of his films/shows/plays and you will be in for quality literature most of the time! I don't think I've ever mentioned it on here, but me reading High-Rise (JG Ballard) because I heard Tom would be partaking in the film adaptation was actually what sparked my love and passion for literature!!! Yep, it's that good. Now on to the recommendations though 😁(This... got rather long):

Plays

Anything by Harold Pinter really, but for obvious reasons you'll find a lot of additionally fun stuff for Betrayal, which is lovely and truly funny if you're in on the kind of humour btw

Medea by Euripides (a classic, but I love it nonetheless... You can find translations in almost every language) ((and pls stay away from Seneca's Medea, because ugh... Euripides is far better AND the og story, as much as anyone can say that for Greek mythology)

La Bohème by Puccini (I know, this is technically an opera, but if you read the libretto it's honestly just like a play... And if you're up for it, the og story is in prose and written by Henri Murger... It's better than the opera, but oftentimes more difficult to find) ((this one is hilarious and basically explains an entire cultural subgroup in the 19th century)

Faust by Goethe (many people hate it, but I LOVE this one!!! It's also been translated into any and every language, and it's so interesting philosophically!!! It's also referenced SO freaking often literally everywhere, and the operas and ballets based on it are always my fave) ((there's technically Faust I and Faust II, but you're good to go just reading the first one)

Anything by Shakespeare, obviously... Though I do love me my Hamlet like every other literature enthusiast (Yes, I can do that one famous soliloquy in act 3 scene 1 by heart as well...)

Poetry

Again, anything Shakespeare for the win, but I LOVE the sonnets and keep a copy of them with me most of the time (Yes, I own multiple copies of the sonnets...) ((My faves are 116 and 91, but there's always so much truth to be found in there!!!))

A lot of the stuff William Blake wrote is amazing, though you have to pick carefully with him if certain religious motives aren't your thing... I love The Tyger, which is an individual poem, and the collection of works called Tyger, Tyger which does have many good ones and a few ones that are a little more on the mediocre side

Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas (I know this one by heart as well... It's beautiful, and there's a version of Hiddleston reading it on YouTube, which gives you even more goosebumps than the poem does anyway)

Invictus by William Ernest Henley (same for this one, also read by the one and only) ((I love to read this when I'm feeling down or powerless))

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot (This is another wow piece with many quotable lines and truths... I love it a lot and keep coming back to it! It's also a great example of how literary modernism tried to condense the complexity and passing of time and history into a single frame that had to be intrinsically poetical in nature... As in, this poem could've been a short story in any other period, but modernists loved to make everything a poem so here you go)

Der Zauberlehrling by Goethe (This one sucks in all English translations I’ve found, poetically speaking, but in German it’s such a fun piece! If you’ve ever seen the Disney ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ with Mickey Mouse or listened to the orchestral piece by Paul Dukas, then this poem proves very useful in truly understanding either! But again, the English translation should only be taken for informational value... The German one is also worded hilariously)

Prose

Short edited by Alan Ziegler (This is a collection of short prose forms that honestly is a must for me... I love this book to pieces and have had it for years now! It’s an international anthology, so you’ll find more and less famous authors from all around the world represented with short stories, prose poems, short essays and just curious and interesting snippets of writing! I draw a lot of inspiration from this book)

High-Rise by JG Ballard (As mentioned above, I owe this book part of my personality... I don’t think I would be the same person without having read it. It’s not necessarily full of wisdom, but if you’re interested in a different kind of portrayal of the human condition, then this is the read you need to take a look at)

The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers (This is another piece that changed my perception of literature, even though this is a more ordinary and ‘fun’-value read... It’s one of my favourite books and it’s endlessly entertaining! So if the classics are a bit heavy for you, this one is perfect for casual readers as well! Its value really does lie more in the realisation of how fun literature can be, and the freedom you have as an author... So really, I could recommend everything by Moers, his style is amazing both in the German original and in the English translation. Yes, I’ve read both.)

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (This is comedic gold, stylistic gold and generally a bloody perfect book. Also a ‘fun’-value read, but it also does a magnificent job at showing you what you can do with literature, and how well-developed characters are supposed to be written)

The Penguin Book of the Undead (Penguin Classics) edited by Scott G. Bruce (This book is basically an education on fifteen hundred years of supernatural encounters and how culture wrote, used and perceived them. You get introductory texts for different periods and social groups, explaining how and why ghost stories were written and used, followed by passages of the prime source texts (eg. ancient necromancy shown on The Odyssey). Really, this book is just for cultural history nerds)

The Earthquake in Chile by Kleist (This isn’t necessarily one of my faves, but it has helped me understand what studying literature and culture can do for you. In case anyone remembers my insistence in Wicked Game that you gotta know what a pomegranate symbolises... this novella is such an instance where this knowledge would prove useful. Generally, it gives many opportunities to think about privilege and circumstance)

The Symposium by Plato (You’ll probably not want to read the entire collection of speeches tbh... But the concepts introduced mainly here and in some of Plato’s other work are well worth looking into! For example, the ‘double being’ introduces a concept that in modern fiction is called soulmates... Just sayin’)

[fantastic-bby]

Books & Poems I love

Hello, I am just dumping my favourite books and poems here because I like them and I want people to read them too bcs they're cool. Disclaimer: I haven't read some of these books in a REALLY long time, so the explanations might be a bit off since this is mostly what I remember from when I had read them. All will be under the cut and I hope someone out there finds these as enjoyable as I do!

Books

1. Huntress by Malinda Lo

Nature is out of balance in the human world. The sun hasn’t shone in years, and crops are failing. Worse yet, strange and hostile creatures have begun to appear. The people’s survival hangs in the balance.

To solve the crisis, the oracle stones are cast, and Kaede and Taisin, two seventeen-year-old girls, are picked to go on a dangerous and unheard-of journey to Tanlili, the city of the Fairy Queen. Taisin is a sage, thrumming with magic, and Kaede is of the earth, without a speck of the otherworldly. And yet the two girls’ destinies are drawn together during the mission. As members of their party succumb to unearthly attacks and fairy tricks, the two come to rely on each other and even begin to fall in love. But the Kingdom needs only one huntress to save it, and what it takes could tear Kaede and Taisin apart forever.

I cannot express how much I adore this book. It's so well-written and the entire book feels like such an adventure to read. I have to warn everyone who will read this that it is quite violent. I also love the WLW inclusion which is carried throughout the story. It's also mentioned in the beginning that Kaede does not want to marry a prince because she could never marry a man. It's filled with lots of romance and it's fantasy because I'm a sucker for fantasy reads.

My sister had bought this book for me after I had lost my first copy and my cat peed on my second copy. The first time, I had bought it from a Big Bad Wolf sale in about 2014. The second, I ordered it through Kinokuniya, but I'm pretty sure you can get it off of Amazon as well.

2. Teardrop by Lauren Kate

Never, ever cry . . .

Seventeen-year-old Eureka won't let anyone close enough to feel her pain. After her mother was killed in a freak accident, the things she used to love hold no meaning. She wants to escape, but one thing holds her back: Ander, the boy who is everywhere she goes, whose turquoise eyes are like the ocean.

And then Eureka uncovers an ancient tale of romance and heartbreak, about a girl who cried an entire continent into the sea. Suddenly her mother's death and Ander's appearance seem connected, and her life takes on dark undercurrents that don't make sense.

Can everything you love be washed away?

This is also a book that I've read multiple times. I've even read the sequel, Waterfall, but I don't think I actually got around to finishing it since I bought it right before my exams. Another love and fantasy novel, it covers a lot of grieving and pain that Eureka goes through after losing her mother and at one point, she actually wishes it was her that had died during the accident.

Her relationship with Ander is quite sudden since he just shows up out of nowhere and just happens to know practically everything about her. I, personally, enjoy this book out of the amount of angst that it's filled with. It's very well-written and I still have the first copy that I bought at the same Big Bad Wolf sale that I had gotten Huntress. I think I had gotten the sequal at Kinokuniya as well (?), but I'm not entirely sure because it's been a really long time.

3. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal, but The Reestablishment has plans for her. Plans to use her as a weapon. But Juliette has plans of her own. After a lifetime without freedom, she's finally discovering a strength to fight back for the very first time--and to find a future with the one boy she thought she's lost forever.

Another very angsty book. It centres around Juliette, a girl who, for some reason, kills everyone she touches. It's also written in First POV and in the format of a journal. It feels more personal because some of the lines are striked through to show a thought that Juliette had in the moment of writing that she decided to replace with a different approach instead.

The beginning is basically Juliette being locked away in some sort of a prison because of her 'gift' and she writes to keep herself from going crazy, but then one day some guy is put into the same cell as her. It's another romance novel and also a kind of superhero novel It also gets pretty... ahem... seggsy... at one point, but it's a good read.

I've read the entire series aside from Restore Me. I have it, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. Shatter Me is also from the same Big Bad Wolf sale as the other two lol. Juliette is also trapped in a love triangle at one point, but I won't get into it. It also gets a bit violent, but slightly less graphic than Huntress is and is also another 'self-discover' kinda book. (can you see a theme here that I read lol)

4. Winter's End by Jean-Claude Mourlevat

Four teenagers escape from their prison-like boarding schools to take up the fight against the tyrannical government that murdered their parents fifteen years earlier. But only three of the friends make it safely to Jahn's restaurant, the headquarters of a secret resistance movement, where they discover the astonishing power that one voice can have in the fight for freedom.

As the battle rages, the three friends are in a race against time to save their companion, who has been forced to participate in a deadly, ancient game for the amusement of his captors. Will this new generation prevail, or are they destined to meet the same grisly fate as their parents?

This is also extremely angsty. It's also pretty violent as well, so that's a warning for whoever will read this. Once again, well-written, nice flow to the story and I just really like this book. There's a lot of uncovering in the book that makes you go HUH because the four students end up uncovering a lot about their government and the secrets that involve the four of them.

It has a very heavy dark tone to it, which I really enjoy. It's a bit different from the other three which is less fantasy and more of a dystopian book. It's a very heroic, determination feeling that follows the students as they journey throughout the book. Also something that follows the students are a group of dog-men... things... that I'm pretty sure I actually had small nightmares imagining when I had read this in around 2013 or 2014.

Poems

Disclaimer: Half of these were poems I did essays on in high school aside from L. These are my illustrations of it and they're the ones that stood out to me when I had first read them.

1. Daffodils by William Wordsworth

I read this in high school when I was taking English Literature. It's a poem that Wordsworth wrote after his wife had passed away. I love the way it's written and William Wordsworth is one of my favourite poets. It's filled with the feeling of being lost and rediscovering the joys of the small things in life. There's a lot of imagery that refers to the flower, daffodil, and overall, it's just a a very soft themed poem.

I think the reason this poem stood out to me was because I was feeling a bit lost at the time I read it (the end of highschool) and I was desperately trying to find something I could relate to in some way.

2. Winter by Andrew Young

Another one that contains a lot of imagery. It's a poem about the beauty of Winter and how, while it's seen as a dark and gloomy season, it has hidden beauties that you can see if you're able to look past the initial image of it.

This poem in particular, I'm pretty sure I have a soft spot for in my heart mainly because of the soft spot I have for Winter in general.

3. London by William Blake

This is a more dark toned poem. It covers what old London used to be like with the raging poverty at the time. A lot of child labour and sex workers that would struggle with making money when they would accidentally get pregnant.

It's quite a depressing poem that I like because of the dark undertone and I, personally, really enjoy William Blake's works.

4. L by Bernice Chauly

L is a poem about how her daughter had cut her hair right after going to the hairdressers. While Chauly's daughter is crying when she yells at her, Chauly is reminded of when she had done something similar when she had just turned five years old. She thinks back to it and remembers that, at the time, all she wanted was to see her late father.

This is also more heavy set and it makes me think of the way children must feel when they lose their parents at such young ages.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: “Out in the Open”

Last night, out of morbid curiosity and perhaps a smidgen of self-hatred, I asked myself, “Huh. I wonder how long my RWBY Recaps are?” Not the whole project, just this season’s writings. So in the fifteen minutes between being a functioning member of society and falling into bed, I copied all my recaps from Volume Seven, chucked them into a Word document, removed the images, fixed wonky spacing, and ended up with:

Over 40,000 words. I have, arguably, written the equivalent of a middle school grade book. If middle schoolers were interested in reading salt about a web series. …Which now that I think about it, they probably are. The point though is that there’s a lot here and some of you have read every single word of it.  That’s seriously impressive and I want you to all have virtual cookies. Especially when I watch “Out in the Open” and realize how absolutely off the rails this show has gone and I consider it a minor miracle that any of us are still sticking with it.

First off, let me lay out the things I really liked about this episode:

Setting the trap for Watts at Amity Arena. Provided that Ironwood really can beat him solo (does his skill deserve that amount of self-confidence? Especially after recognizing that he should craft a team of three to go against Tyrian?), that was just an all around smart move on his part. Watts now has enough control over the technology of Mantle and Atlas that he would have come across the Amity project eventually, so best to just spill the beans on his own terms. The terms being claiming it’s complete when really that’s just a lie in order to lure Watts out into the open. And uh, yeah... take note that this was another lie. If viewers honestly believe that leaders must never ever lie/keep anything from their people simply because it’s morally wrong, then start calling out Ironwood for this now. Because we don’t get to praise some lies when they work out well (like now) and others when they don’t (like with Ozpin).

Setting up the fight at the Arena itself with Watts having control over the dust there, essentially turning the whole area into one massive weapon. If Rooster Teeth makes use of even half the possibilities here, that should make for an absolutely epic fight.

Watts’ steampunk-esque, dramatic as fuck gun. That weapon is a thing of beauty.

Yeah, basically if it has Watts in it I enjoyed myself. Everything else? Not so much.

We open on Mantle positively overrun with grimm. No surprise there. We’re once again shown though how absolutely devastating grimm remain as an enemy. Ironwood’s soldiers are able to kill the lesser grimm with their guns, but in seconds one is taken out. The older, mammoth-like grimm take at least two to three highly skilled huntsmen to defeat and, as we saw with Blake, Yang, and Elm, they’re going to be really out of breath when they’re done with just one of them. Really then, with a team of only fifteen or so, how are they going to manage all of this:

Obviously they do manage and I can’t truly fault Rooster Teeth for giving us a solution that doesn’t quite align with the problem. It’s common enough in any story to set big stakes and then have the heroes, somewhat miraculously, come out on top. Rather, this is only an issue as it pertains to the conflicts Rooster Teeth themselves have introduced, namely what telling people about Salem will do to the rest of the world as it pertains to grimm attacks. I’ll get to the details of Ironwood’s announcement in just a moment (oh boy...), but we’re seeing that same sort of ~everything is magically okay, just hand wave away the issue~ writing here. It’s one thing to watch the group struggle and then have all those grimm conveniently defeated off screen, to have the audience fill in those magical blanks during a single battle. It’s something else entirely though to do that for one of the major problems you’ve set up for a season. Ironwood is right to worry about the grimm because everything we’ve been shown tells us that an announcement of this nature would decimate the world. Mantle gets that many grimm, of that age and power, because their heat has been off for half an hour? But telling them about a woman hell-bent on their destruction doesn’t change the situation in the slightest? Everyone just conveniently cheers in solidarity rather than experiencing a base function they have no control over: fear? If RWBY adhered to its own logic that announcement should have been Mantle’s ruin. It would have been another Fall of Beacon. Because all the “We can beat her!” encouragement isn’t going to override the basic terror that comes with learning that a) someone is actively trying to kill you and b) at least two of that person’s minions are currently in your city, doing a damn good job of it. To say nothing of the added anger at learning that Ironwood was keeping this from them, that this is why he was taking resources, that he still hasn’t managed to fix things, etc. The only reason this announcement didn’t lead to Mantle’s destruction is because, again, RWBY prioritizes one very convenient emotion over all the others. Mantle miraculously comes together, putting aside all their previous fury and only feeling hope in the face of even worse news, conveniently keeping more grimm from arriving. That’s... not how an angry mob works. And as I’ve pointed out numerous times before, RWBY is no longer a fairy tale unconcerned with realism. This isn’t, as I’ve seen others insist, a wonderful moment of hopepunk. This is the writing turning repercussions on and off at their will.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself. Before all this we see Nora taking out some sort of saber-toothed cat grimm, then looking put out at the horde rushing towards her. Which for me just re-emphasizes how huntsmen are the only ones capable of handling this kind of threat. They’re almost bored at times, whereas the normal fighters are straight up dying. All of which should be a problem because there’s like twenty fully trained huntsmen in Atlas right now and we had a whole arc about how Lionheart managed to wipe out a ton elsewhere. How will the world handle these kinds of grimm attacks when the one group of people capable of beating them are so few and far between? Again, it’s not a question that is answered or shown to have any consequences attached to the implied answer of, “They can’t.” Because all those hundreds of grimm are just taken care of off screen. Somehow, someway. 

During all this we get a nice moment where Weiss saves Marrow with her knight. Love new team-ups like that! Too bad Blake and Yang are still attached at the hip. Will they ever be allowed to be girlfriends while also maintaining other relationships? Who knows.

We also see Nora dealing with the above mentioned angry mob and the only reason she’s not put into the position of defending herself against civilians is because Ironwood and Robyn conveniently pop up on the screen to make their announcement. 

Okay... Here we go. 

I’m going to be honest with you readers. I don’t even know how to write about all this. It’s just a colossal mess and my thoughts are so scattered I haven’t even figured out how to pull them together yet, let alone start expressing them to an audience. So I apologize that this recap is a mess all its own. However, I can at least start with this.

Ironwood didn’t tell them about Salem’s immortality.

That’s the crux of EVERYTHING here. I could point out how astoundingly stupid it is to tell the people this while they are currently being attacked by grimm and how, again, the only reason why that didn’t result in his people’s massacre is because the writing is straight up inconsistent about when grimm are a threat. I could spend this whole recap criticizing this moment---another moment---where we see Ruby smiling over the horrible situation she’s helped create, the story painting her as a perfect hero. I could also talk in-depth about how flawed Ironwood’s logic is. Salem inciting hatred has never and will never be the problem. What, does he think that with a common enemy the racists will suddenly open their doors to the faunus? Or that the bandit attacks will stop? That people like Jacques will suddenly start loving everyone who can’t give them more money? I’ve gotten a lot of asks over the last year regarding real life issues, asking me how we solve these horrendous problems. My answer is always the same: there is no simple solution. There is no one, convenient thing that we can implement and then bam, racism, sexism, ableism, etc. is solved forever and always. It takes generations of slow, methodical, one-step-forward-two-steps-back work in order to enact change, the precise sort of work that Ozpin was doing in the form of schooling and advocating for tolerance across Remanant. Ironwood, meanwhile, has given the people that band-aid solution. Salem is the reason we’re divided. Salem is the reason why we’re in danger. Don’t think about our own prejudices or the separate threat of the grimm. Just come together against her and it’ll all be fine, I swear. 

Which may have been a decent way of getting people to defeat Salem---we’ll tackle the other issues later---if Salem could be defeated.

Everyone realizes this is just a massive version of what Ozpin did, right? Please tell me people get that. Ozpin had a small group of people, told them about Salem, they logically worked under the assumption that they could beat her, and when her immortality was revealed he was condemned for that supposed manipulation. You sent us to fight a war we couldn’t win. How dare you?

Now Ironwood has done the same thing, but dramatically increased the number of people involved. They find out about Salem, they’re encouraged via no corrections to believe that she’s beatable, and thus this city is preparing for a war that many would view as unwinnable if they had all the information. Every one of our leaders has manipulated in this manner now. Ozpin did it, Ruby perpetuated it, and now here Ironwood is doing it again. Except that, again, given the more specific context of each scenario... I still think Ozpin was the most justified. He never wanted the group involved. Rather, they insisted they be a part of things. The group at least are all made up of skilled fighters, not everyday civilians. Telling willing huntsmen in training that they need to “take care of” Salem with the hope that they’ll continue the work of keeping her at bay is not the same thing as letting Ironwood take resources from Mantle for a doomed plan, or Ironwood telling a city of mostly defenseless people that it’s their responsibility to help him deal with this threat. This is who he is calling to action: 

Not skilled volunteers, but terrified people unwittingly drawn into the situation, and the only reason why their terror hasn’t taken over is because they’re allowed to function under the assumption that Salem can be killed. I’m all for stories where the “useless,” non-combat characters help turn the tide (it’s one of the reasons why I love Pacific Rim so much), but that scenario only works when there’s a clear end in sight; when sacrificing this peace is worth it because banding everyone together will actually lead to victory. But that’s not the case here. All Ironwood has done is set up a situation where the people, like that council member last volume, are going to start asking, “Do you think he can win against Salem? He has to. He’s our only hope. So why hasn’t he beaten her yet? Why aren’t you doing something, Ironwood?” It’s going to be this moment right here on a massive scale. 

A mob of angry people closing in on an innocent, demanding to know why Ironwood isn’t fixing a problem. What the hell is Ironwood going to do now that he’s set up an expectation he can’t fulfill? More importantly, why would he do that in the first place? I really hate how stupid RWBY has made its characters, shooting themselves in the foot in the name of “Well, secret keeping is bad.” It’s not a setup I agree with, but I could at least stomach it if everyone was on the same page regarding where they place blame. However, once again we see how Ozpin is the only one who got heat for these choices.

Everyone remember Yang’s fury over, “How could you not tell us this?” That wasn’t so long ago, folks. So why isn’t she gunning for Ironwood the second he makes his announcement? How could you tell Mantle about Salem but not that she’s immortal, the exact thing Ozpin did to us and we screamed at/physically assaulted him for? Or, more realistically considering that Yang doesn’t seem to know Ironwood has been informed about the immortality yet, why isn’t she gunning for her sister? How could you put Ironwood in the position where he does to an entire city what Ozpin did to us? This is what I keep talking about in regards to the hypocrisy. The group is endlessly furious at Ozpin for his choices, but when they make those same choices, or others make those same choices… nothing. No reaction. Or the reaction is praise. Why the hell does Ruby look like this

while watching Ironwood put an entire city into the position she was in during Volume 6? It’s the same thing! Either the city of Mantle is duped into fighting an impossible war without all the pertinent information---the thing that the fandom has raked Ozpin over the coals for supposedly doing to the group---or they’re told about the immortality later and you’re faced with all the same dangers. Who’s going to attack innocents in their fear and anger? Who’s going to dive back into their addictions? Who’s going to give up completely? Who is going to join Salem? “He’s doing it,” Ruby whispers even though hypocrisy remains the name of the game and “doing it” achieves nothing. Seriously, what did Ironwood accomplish here besides briefly emboldening his people? He could have done that through teaming up with Robyn alone. All revealing Salem has done is set up a host of new problems and put an entire city into the position the group thinks Ozpin is morally horrific for putting them in. “Telling us about Salem but not that she’s immortal is Bad” was the emotional center of Volume 6, but now suddenly it doesn’t matter anymore? Would the writing please acknowledge the double standards here? 

Especially given how many secrets still remain. In the last few hours I’ve seen multiple posts with fans writing about how happy they are that everything is coming to light when... it’s not. This is by no means a clean slate, devoid of secret keeping. In fact, you need a list to keep track of who knows what right now:

Yang: Knows that her mother is the Spring Maiden

Weiss: Knows that her sister is set to become the next Winter Maiden

Blake and Yang: Know that they told Robyn about the Amity secret

Ruby and Oscar: Know that Ironwood now knows about Salem’s immortality. The rest of the group presumably doesn’t know they told him 

Ironwood: Knows about Salem and her immortality but (potentially) not that the relic still has a question, it draws grimm, or the real reason why Ozpin left. Those secrets weren’t acknowledged either way

Robyn: Knows about Salem but not her immortality. Presumably does not know about the relics, the Maidens, etc.

Mantle: Knows about Salem but not the fact that they can’t beat her

At this point I’m just a broken record and I do apologize for that, but what else is there to say when RWBY keeps making the same mistakes every episode? More sloppy setups, more hypocrisy, more picking and choosing when there will be consequences for actions, or when characters will get angry, or even when realism applies. It says a lot about a story that I’m wincing over a shot of our supposed hero smiling and actively agreeing with the villain. Watts is 100% right when he said that “Our tin soldier’s heart has cost him his head.”

And we’ve still got half an episode of nonsense left. I’m just going to power through the rest of this. 

Hated Jaune’s ridiculous “line up!” moment. That just read as so stupid to me. I get that other people loved it but it just didn’t work on my end. There are better ways to demonstrate growth than having him learn the (oh so difficult?) skill of giving an order via treating adults like five-year-olds. 

Tyrian goes off to cause more chaos in the form of trying to murder Robyn, only to find that Clover and Qrow are there to back her up. I liked Qrow’s little line about getting a crack at him first because yeah, for him this fight is personal. Last time they met Qrow nearly succumbed to his poison and Ruby was nearly kidnapped. He deserves to get in any killing blows if Tyrian is set to die this volume. 

We learn that Neo is off to try and steal the lamp from the “farm boy” and oh yeah, wouldn’t it have been great if there was a way to avoid this whole scenario? If the group had, just maybe, put the relic into the vault like they’d intended to do from the start? Or at least give us a good reason for carrying it out in public, at the Schnee mansion of all places. RWBY is chock-full of the most contrived situations I’ve ever seen, relying entirely on random bouts of stupidity for them to “make sense.” No one thinks twice against carrying around their most precious object in a city they know has been infiltrated by Salem’s men. Ironwood starts talking about his secrets in front of the people he’s keeping secrets from. Is it really that hard to come up with scenarios that don’t rely on our heroes randomly losing a large number of brain cells?

Meanwhile, Cinder is going after the Winter Maiden and will no doubt find that Winter is guarding her. Back at the fight, Ruby tries to use her silver eyes but is too distracted. That at least is a limitation on her power, even if it doesn’t make much sense that she’d be more distracted now than when she had a leviathan grimm bearing down on her. 

Penny takes a massive hit and for a brief moment I thought, “Here! Ten episodes in and we’ll finally see Ruby have some reaction to Penny’s resurrection. After all, seeing her friend lying on the ground like that is going to trigger some pretty traumatic memories.” But no. Penny pops up with an “Ouch!” and it’s once again just another joke.

I did like them using the grimm’s own tusk to take it down though. That was a good and visually interesting plan. We also get to see Penny as the darling of Mantle again, including Robyn complimenting her over the comms. So again, what was the point of framing her, either from the villain’s or the story’s perspective? Who knows. We’re not given a reason. It’s just a thing that happened that, like always, led to no consequences. 

Watts walks into his trap, reveals that he has control over the arena, pulls out his gun, and Ironwood absolutely roasts him with, “You always were a pain in the ass.” Highlight of the episode. Everything else remains a chore to watch.

Three more episodes. Just three more and we can put this mess of a volume behind us. Or at least I can.

Until next Saturday 💚

[danyka-fendyr]

Unknown Subject

Yes this one is named after an episode of Criminal Minds. Sue me. (Please don’t though CBS you would not have much of a case but I don’t have the money for it even if you tried). Anway, this was a request from the lovely @lettersofwrittencollective and should I be writing other things? Yes. But hey! I got inspired, okay?

Summary: Spencer finds himself falling for the mind of an unsub as the team tries to navigate their way through a tricky series of puzzles, but...are things what they seem?

Warnings: Generally disturbing themes of violent death. The usual Criminal Minds murder stuff. Also, I’m giving the reader a brother, so if you don’t have one...just pretend you do. Y/B/N is Your Brother’s Name. Also, the reader is in their mid-twenties for plot purposes.

Wordcount: I could have counted the words in this fic but instead I got distracted staring at Spencer Reid’s beautiful hair. Like...who is his stylist? I need to know for science and also because I’m considering a haircut.

“Well this is interesting,” Rossi grumbled, examining the body lying cold on the table.

“The kill was fairly efficient, but inexperienced as you can see,” the ME said. “The victim was poisoned, but judging by the blood samples we have, it was clumsier than intended. We’re guessing this was a first kill, since no experienced poisoner would use a mix like this.”

“So the swelling on the face and the purple coloring are a result of that?” Spencer leaned in closer.

“That would be exactly right. The victim actually asphyxiated from other problems caused by these chemicals before the poison could reach his heart. It should also be noted that it doesn’t take much to get these ingredients. Most of them can be found commonly around the house. Take bleach, for example.”

“How did the unsub force the victims to take poison like that? It can’t have been administered orally,” Rossi said.

The ME shook her head. “It wasn’t. Interestingly, it seems the unsub injected it through the victim’s nose, like one might with a nasal clearing device, the kind you would normally put saltwater in. It would appear that the victim’s mouth was taped shut, and if the killer plugged their nostrils, they would have had no choice but to swallow.”

“It would have been a reflex,” Rossi said.

“Exactly. We can see this in the chemical burning in the nostrils as well as the mouth. Additionally, it appears the victims were all lured from well-populated places, then drugged and taken somewhere more remote.”

“What could convince these men to follow someone out of a party though?”

Reid was leaning in closer to the body. He spoke into the brief silence. “What is that? In the throat there?”

The ME reached for her tools, fishing in the victim’s throat until she found...a note.

“Something borrowed and something blue

Only he can save me from you

Where men fall to their knees and wind chimes don’t sing

When you are ready, give me a ring.”

Rossi recited the poem aloud.

“Well call me crazy, but it sounds like this unsub wants to get married,” Jennifer said.

“Yes, but look at this,” Reid said, pointing to the second verse. “‘Only he can save me from you’. What does that mean? It almost sounds like it was written from the perspective of the victim...But then who is he?”

“Maybe the unsub imagines all of these men to be unworthy suitors. I think, given the victimology and this message, we can safely conclude that this unsub is a woman. We know that she’s kidnapped multiple men all with roughly the same physical appearance between the ages of 20-30, and we know that the kills have been clean and efficient with no signs of sexual sadism or torture. Maybe ‘he’ is the one true love who will save her from all of these other ‘lesser’ men,” Hotch suggested.

“Maybe, but something about it doesn’t quite add up. If we know she’s holding multiple men hostage, then why the specific usage of ‘you’? Why send this message to us, the FBI, to find? In fact, if it’s meant for some white knight, why leave it with the body at all? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah. What about this line with the wind chimes here? What does that mean?” Morgan pointed it out on the board where Reid had copied the message over.

“It would appear to be a clue to the unsub’s location,” Rossi said.

“This lady has got to get better at her clues,” Garcia said from where she was on speakerphone.

“Garcia, can you look up levels of low wind activity in the city and neighboring towns? This unsub has a pretty clear comfort zone, so this might narrow it down some, assuming that ‘where wind chimes don’t sing’ is a specific reference to geographical location.” Reid spoke.

The sheriff of the town poked his head in. “There’s been another body found.”

“Well, our unsub is definitely getting bolder,” Morgan observed.

This body had been left out in a park, in contrast to the carefully hidden body that had washed up on the riverbank before.

“Check for a message in the throat,” Reid suggested.

Sure enough, there was another one.

“I hope that you can understand

Know that this was not my hand

All the cards are on the table, but who signed the deed

Can you solve the riddle, Dr. Reid?”

“Oh that ain’t good,” Morgan said.

“So it’s a riddle for Reid?” Hotch questioned.

“It would certainly seem that way,” Morgan said.

“Listen to this, ‘know that this was not my hand’. That almost sounds like the unsub is saying she didn’t do it.”

“Well it seems pretty clear to me that she uh..did,” JJ pointed out. “Y’know, seeing as she’s leaving notes in corpses. Plus, look at the line about all the cards being on the table. Maybe she’s saying it wasn’t her hand of cards.”

“Even if you’re right, though, that still implies a claim of innocence. Like the unsub is deflecting blame,” Rossi said.

Reid set down his coffee cup on a map, and Blake moved it so that it wouldn’t leave a stain.

“I just got the toxicology report from the lab. It looks like the same chemicals as before were used, just a more refined combo. You guys...I think we need to look at the very real possibility that we might be dealing with a younger unsub here. Maybe even a minor. If you combine the fact that her victims are mostly in their early to mid-twenties with what we know about her poison of choice...these are all common household cleaners. Something you could snag while your Mom wasn’t looking.”

Reid shook his head. “The text doesn’t match up with that theory though. Both notes are written from an almost poetic standpoint as if whoever wrote them comes from an educated background. Someone with this kind of literary prowess would have to either be very well-read or much older than you’re suggesting, likely both. Look at the rhyming patterns and the choice of words. This kind of messaging system, this kind of crime is simply too organized for a teenaged girl to pull off.”

“Wait...you guys.” JJ stood, crossing to the board that still had the first message sprawled across it for comparison. “Remember who we couldn’t figure out who ‘you’ could be? What if we’re dealing with multiple unsubs here?”

Rossi’s eyes lit up with understanding. “And one of them wants out.”

“Likely the submissive one,” Hotch said, latching onto the theory. “If we assume that the line about this not being her hand is a claim of innocence than it’s entirely possible that the dominant one roped her into this against her will somehow. It could be that the submissive one is the one luring these men away from the clubs and bars most of them disappeared from and drugged them, but it’s the dominant one doing all the killing.”

Spencer stood from the table, crossing to the board. “But by that logic, we’re assuming the older party is the submissive one, which almost never happens.”

“The unsub could have leverage against her,” JJ suggested. “Garcia, look up all missing men that fit the age parameters and type of this unsub, and then check to see if they have sisters, mothers or even aunts that have also gone missing recently.”

“On it!”

It wasn’t long before Garcia had an answer for them, with a search that specific.

“Bingo! Your hunch was right, my clever crime-solving friends. Y/B/N and Y/N Y/L/N both went missing when they went on a road trip together two weeks ago.”

“That’s right when the kidnappings started. Garcia, is it possible that Y/B/N was the dominant unsub’s first victim?” Reid asked.

“Oh, definitely little Einstein, but not for the reason you’re thinking. It was actually the sister who filed complaints of a stalker with local police. They assumed that the stalker nabbed the two and that at this point, they were probably long dead.”

“Was a suspect ever identified for the stalker?” Morgan asked.

“You know there was, lover. And you’re never going to believe this, but the suspect was, in fact, a teenage girl. Joanna Bridges, 18 years old, still in her senior year of high school. Apparently, Y/N was something of a friend to the girl. Reportedly Joanna was a bit of a loner, and Y/N, a senior, took pity on her lower classman. That all changed though when she went off to college. 

“Joanna brought a whole new meaning to separation anxiety and things got real nasty real fast. As one would suspect, fights ensued, the friendship fell apart, and then for the next four years our dear Y/N thought no more about it. Flash forward, she’s coming home, and Joanna is finishing up her senior year of high school, but she is less over it. She starts showing up at Y/N’s house making all kinds of unwanted advances, but after being rejected several times, she turned to more subtle methods, including but not limited to lurking in the background, leaving anonymous gifts, and just generally being creepy. Unfortunately, the police could never find concrete evidence, which brings us to the present. And before you ask, yes, I have addresses for both parties, and I am sending them to your cells now.”

“Thanks, baby girl,” Morgan said.

“You can thank me when you get home,” Garcia purred.

“Reid, you and JJ go to the Y/L/N house. Rossi and Morgan can go to the Bridges residence, and Blake and I will stay here and see what more we can find out about the wind chime clue.”

“Okay,” JJ said, coming back from interviewing the parents. “Apparently, like most teenage girls, Y/N pretty much lived in her room. Everything we could possibly need to know about her life before she went off to college is going to be here. If this is all really about her, then maybe we can find some clues here.”

“I mean, that much is obvious. Look at this room. It’s lived in,” Reid said, tracing a finger over a picture frame on the desk. “There’s dust here, but not much, indicating that the room was cleaned at about the normal intervals for the girl she would have been at the time.”

“Okay, Y/N, where did you hide your secrets? A diary?” JJ checked the bookshelf and then classic hiding places for a diary. “Nope. Doesn’t look like she’s kept a diary in years. Not since before middle school, even. That’s weird. Reid, if you were a teenage girl, where would you keep a diary?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t keep one. It’s like asking someone to read your thoughts. The concept always seemed incredibly invasive to me. The only journals I kept were scientific. I’d much rather have people read my work, personally.”

“Wait, Reid, that’s it. If Y/N was like most teenage girls, she would have been intensely private. But you said that her writing was advanced. Not just the work of someone who well educated, but someone who was a literary enthusiast. What if, instead of keeping a diary, she wrote poetry about her life? That way, if anyone asked, she could just dismiss it as a story.”

“Her writing does indicate experience. That was part of why I thought it couldn’t be a younger unsub. It’s too well established, too firm in its identity and style. It would make sense if Y/N is as clever as we think she is. With her poetry, she would have been hiding in plain sight, just like she was when she left us those notes.”

Sure enough, after further going through the girl’s room, they found notebooks filled with poetry. Upon first glance, they could have been mistaken for school notebooks, classic yellow and black spiral bounds, but their contents read very different.

“Look at this, Spence.” JJ ushered him closer from where he stood reading across the room reading at a much faster pace than she could. “This one talks about someone in her life who tried to hold her back. Someone who couldn’t grow up and was mad at her for trying to. That sound like anyone we know?”

“Here, let me see that.” He flipped through the notebook in a matter of seconds. “From the sounds of it, there was some serious emotional manipulation happening her. Joanna guilt-tripped her hard and made some serious attempts at gaslighting. If she had been a little older and more experienced, she might have met with more success, but her attempts were too clumsy for Y/N not to identify them as what they were eventually. She wanted to believe the best, but Joanna aggressively drove her away. ironically in an attempt to keep her close.”

“Well Joanna is older now, and probably has enough experience to be a master manipulator if she started that young.”

“We have to tell the others, see if they found anything,” Reid said, dialing Morgan’s cell and explaining what they had found.

“Yeah, that’s pretty consistent with what we’re seeing here,” Morgan said. “This girl could write the textbook on emotional manipulation, from the way her family tells it. Not that they knew what was happening. They were just as under her spell.”

“Wait, Morgan...do you think the kidnappings could be to try to manipulate Y/N into killing with her?”

“Could be,” Morgan said. “I mean, think about it. It would be the ultimate sign of dedication. I would die for you, but would you kill for me? Just do this one thing and everything will be forgiven.”

“The only problem is, Y/N doesn’t want to be forgiven. She’s smart enough to know that she’s not the one in the wrong here.”

“It’s only a matter of time though before eventually, Joanna convinces her otherwise and she breaks though.”

“Well let's hope we get there first,” Spencer said before hanging up.

While he and Morgan had been talking, JJ had been wandering the house, investigating. “Spence, come take a look at this!”

He headed out onto the back porch where JJ was, only to find dozens of wind chimes. 

“Mrs. Y/L/N, where did all of these wind chimes come from?” JJ asked.

“Oh, they were gifts. Most of them were from that sick, twisted stalker who kept sending her all the anonymous messages.”

“Were any from Joanna?” Reid asked.

“As a matter of fact, one was. She used to make them, and she made one for Y/N before they grew apart.”

“Which one of these is it?” JJ asked.

“Oh, it’s not any of these. It hangs inside, in the kitchen window. The glass it’s made out of was stained by hand, and it will fade if left out in the weather. Most of these are the same, but Y/N never cared if any of these got damaged. I think the only reason the first one is still in the kitchen is because it reminds her of a better time.”

“Ma’am, you said these were made by hand?” JJ said.

“Why yes, I believe so. Joanna’s family had some land by the water, I think, and they used to melt down the sand into glass. Very crafty, they all were.”

JJ whipped out her cell to call Garcia. 

“Your resident Bill Gates impersonator in the house, what can I do for you darling?”

“Garcia, can you tell me if Joanna and her family had any kind of craft business having to do with glass? Wind chimes, maybe?”

“One moment, please....Yes, as a matter of fact, they did. The Bridges own a little arts and crafts store famous for their beautiful wind chimes made from sand gathered from a plot of land they own near the water here and all-natural dyes. Unfortunately, these little beauties have to be kept indoors to stay at peak condition, meaning that they will never make any cheerful tinkling noises.”

“That sounds remote enough to be a holding location. Garcia, can you give me an address on that beach house?” 

“Sending it your way now sugar plum. PG out!”

The team raced for the house, and Spencer couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. Something told him this girl wasn’t a bad person. Well, actually, she had told him that. Specifically him, which was odd. How had she decided that he would be the one who could save her, and how had she even heard about him?

When the team made it into the house, they found Y/N held at gunpoint by a hysterical Joanna. The missing men must have been held somewhere else, but one that resembled Y/N lay on the floor unconscious.

“Joanna Bridges, FBI! Put the gun down,” JJ said.

“No!” Joanna screamed. “She doesn’t understand. I did this all for you. I never cared about him.” She gestured with the gun towards Y/B/N. “It was only ever you. I brought all of these men here to show you. They could never love you like I do. Don’t you understand?”

Spencer locked eyes with her. She was terrified, not that much younger than him. For a second, they seemed to click, and the look in her eyes changed.

“I understand, Joanna.” She reached out even though she looked like she might puke. “I understand now. You don’t have to do this anymore. It’s over.”

Joanna shook her head frantically. “Not until you kill one of them. You have to prove...you have to prove it.”

“Prove what, Joanna?” Spencer asked. “Prove that she loves you? She’s already proved that. She kept all the wind chimes you sent her. She wrote about you, in her poems. She loves you, I know she does. Don’t you, Y/N?”

You nodded frantically. “I do. I do, so just put down the gun JoJo.”

“You love me?” Joanna softened.

“Of course. Of course I do. So you see, you didn’t have to do this after all.”

“Say it.”

“Say what?” You asked, confused.

“Say that you love me.”

You swallowed, fighting the sick feeling in your stomach. “I love you.”

The second Joanna dropped her guard, JJ was on her, and you collapsed. You fell to your knees, but it wasn’t long before Spencer had an arm wrapped around you.

“It’s alright. It’s okay. Your clues lead us here. You were so brave and so clever,” he muttered.

“I thought,” you said, your breaths coming in shuddering gasps, “I thought if they would just call in the FBI...I read about you. I knew you could save me if I just left the breadcrumbs.”

“You did great Y/N. You did great.”

“She said, she said if I didn’t do what she said she would kill my brother,” you cried.

“It’s all going to be okay.”

A couple months later, you and Spencer were meeting for coffee. In the process of studying you and your...somewhat unique case, you two had become friends. A little more than that, actually. It was safe to say that you had a crush on him, but you had no idea if the genius reciprocated. If you had to take a guess, probably not.

“Hey uh...sorry I’m late. Paperwork.” He fiddled with the straps of his bag, an undeniable smile tugging at his lips.

“You don’t seem nearly put out enough to have been doing paperwork. Are you lying to me, Dr. Reid?” You teased.

He made a face. You had taken to calling him Spencer or Spence, and only called him Dr. Reid when you were teasing him or flirting with him. Not that he noticed the latter.

“You know I would never lie to you. Besides, I’m a terrible liar.”

You laughed. “Now that I know is a lie. You forget I’ve seen you in action. Put you in the same room as a murderer and you are one smooth criminal, Spence. Pun intended.”

He shook his head, but laughed anyway, sitting down across from you.

“Took the liberty of getting you a coffee. It’s only half full though to leave room for the sugar.”

“Actually, sugar is highly soluble-”

“I know, Spence. I was joking again.”

“Oh...Right.” 

He looked bashful, so you took pity on him, reaching out for one of his hands. It was your turn to be shy though when he intertwined your fingers. You blushed, finding it difficult to make eye contact.

“Sorry,” he said, pulling his hand away. “I can not do that if it makes you uncomfortable.”

You took his hand back, pointedly intertwining the fingers despite your continued shyness. “No. It’s okay. I like this.”

“Yeah? That’s good because I like you.” 

He blurted it out without thinking like it was one of his facts and he just couldn’t stop himself from saying it, consequences be damned. You could tell by the surprised look on his face that he hadn’t been planning on saying that.

“That’s a relief. I was afraid you didn’t feel the same way.” Your confidence bolstered by his confession, you leaned a little closer. “I like you too, Dr. Reid.”

His brow wrinkled in confusion. “Are you sure? Because you only call me Dr. when you’re teasing me.”

“For a genius, you can be really dumb sometimes, you know that? I don’t just call you Dr. when I’m teasing you. I call you Dr. when I’m flirting with you. Like I am right now.” 

You had leaned in closer so that your lips were inches apart now. 

“I’m all out of witty things to say now,” you breathed. “Your turn Spence.”

Spencer opted for action instead, kissing you gently.

“Mmm, you should do paperwork more often. I like what happens afterward.”

[papermoonloveslucy]

BOB CUMMINGS

June 9, 1910 - December 2, 1990

Robert “Bob” Cummings was born in Joplin, Missouri. His godfather was the aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright, so naturally he got his pilot’s license and studied aeronautical engineering. After the stock market crash of 1929, he gave up flying to study drama in New York City, making his Broadway debut in 1931. In 1934 he moved to Hollywood and started making films. During World War II he was a captain in the Air Force Reserves. His television career kicked off in 1952, winning an Emmy for for a TV production of “12 Angry Men.” Starting in 1955, Cummings starred on a successful NBC sitcom, "The Bob Cummings Show” (aka “Love That Bob”), in which he played Bob Collins, an ex–World War II pilot who became a successful photographer. The show ended in July 1959. It was then that he first teamed with Lucille Ball on an episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.” CBS revived “The Bob Cummings Show” in 1961, but it lasted just one season. He reprised the character of Bob Collins on a 1972 episode of "Here’s Lucy” and returned the following season for another episode. Cummings was married five times and fathered seven children. He died in 1990 at the age of 80. 

Lucille Ball and Bob Cummings first worked together in the penultimate episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” “The Ricardos Go To Japan” (November 1959). 

Cummings played himself in Japan to make a film. In reality, his next film, My Geisha (1962) starring Shirley MacLaine and Yves Montand, actually was filmed in Japan, although “The Ricardos Go To Japan” was filmed entirely in Hollywood.  

Lucy and Cummings were just two of the many stars participating in “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood” (January 10, 1960). Cummings, alone on a soundstage, tells the story of how he was discouraged from pursuing an acting career. Despite this he got an opportunity that turned into the film Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939). While filming this segment for Hopper, his second TV series “The Bob Cummings Show” had just finished its five season run on CBS.

In a 1972 episode of “Here’s Lucy,” Cummings played Bob Collins, the character he played on his own show “Love That Bob”!  

In the episode, Lucy takes a liking to Bob, although her daughter Kim thinks he is an alcoholic womanizer and goes to great lengths to scare him off. 

In 1973, Cummings returned to "Here’s Lucy” to play Bob Henning, a deceitful antiques dealer who is after a priceless chair Lucy Carter unknowingly bought. To get it back, he pretends to have a romantic interest in Lucy. 

Cummings was in attendance at the “The 38th Primetime Emmy Awards” on September 21, 1986, when Lucille Ball presented the Governor’s Award to Red Skelton. 

THE CUMMINGS CONNECTION

While both “I Love Lucy” and “The Bob Cummings Show” were on the air simultaneously, “Bob” was on Sundays on NBC while “Lucy” held down Mondays on CBS. The first “Bob Cummings Show” (later re-titled “Love That Bob” for syndication, lest it be confused by the same-titled second iteration) was a mid-season replacement that featured many of the same performers as “Lucy”:

Joi Lansing (Shirley Swanson, 24 episodes)

Nancy Kulp (Pamela Livingstone, 16 episodes)

Eliva Allman (Mrs. Montague, 7 episodes)

Marjorie Bennett (Mrs. Neimeyer, 6 episodes)

with Doris Singleton, Benny Rubin, Robert Carson, Lurene Tuttle, Bea Benadaret, Dick Elliott, Doris Packer, Charles Lane, Ruth Brady, Madge Blake, Parley Baer, Hy Averback, Tyler McVey, Hans Conried, Ellen Corby, Jay Novello, Margie Liszt, and Will Wright. 

In 1955, a year after leaving his role as Jerry the Agent on “I Love Lucy”, Jerry Hausner played a show business agent on the series. 

In 1957, “The Bob Cummings Show” did a crossover episode with “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” that featured Bea Benadaret as Blanche Morton. 

The second iteration, sometimes referred to as “The New Bob Cummings Show”, ran on CBS for just one season just prior to Lucille Ball launching “The Lucy Show.”  Like Ball’s transformation of “The Lucy Show” into “Here’s Lucy,” Cummings played a different character in a new scenario, but it was basically the same show. Some of the “Lucy” character actors crossed over to the new series, including Paul Debov, Dick Elliott, Charles Lane, Norman Leavitt, and Jay Novello.

Cummings’ first time as a regular on a TV series was on the NBC series “My Hero” which only ran one season on NBC (1952-53), concurrently with season two of “I Love Lucy.” The Los Angeles Times thought the show would "rival ‘I Love Lucy’ in popularity.”  The New York Times accused it of being a copy of ‘I Love Lucy’ and said "Cummings brought a magnificent terribleness to his part." The show was executive produced and part owned by Don Sharpe, who was also connected with ‘I Love Lucy.’  A few “Lucy” players were seen on the show: Arthur Q. Bryan, Hal March, Will Wright, James Burke, Fritz Feld, Eve Whitney, Nestor Paiva, Richard Reeves, Mario Siletti, Florence Bates, Lawrence Dobkin, and Ellen Corby. 

Another one-season series for Robert Cummings was filmed at Desilu, aired on CBS, and ran concurrently with season three of “The Lucy Show”. In “My Living Doll” Cummings played an Air Force psychiatrist in charge of a sexy, naive android (Julie Newmar). “Lucy” actors who were also on “My Living Doll” included Ellen Corby, Joe Mell, Jonathan Hole, Jackie Joseph, Parley Baer, Nestor Paiva, Maurice Marsac, Olan Soule, Tyler McVey, Lurene Tuttle, and Leon Alton. 

Just before leaving “My Three Sons” for health reasons in 1965, William Frawley did one episode of “My Living Doll.”  A few months later a cameo on “The Lucy Show” would be Frawley’s final TV performance. 

Bob Cummings had done three films with William Frawley from 1936 to 1940: 

In 3 Cheers for Love (1936) Cummings and Frawley co-starred with Elizabeth Patterson (Mrs. Trumbull) and Irving Bacon (Will Potter). Patterson and Bacon also played the Willoughbys in “The Marriage License” (ILL S1;E26) in 1952. 

One Night in the Tropics (1940) was the first film appearance of the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. Five years later, Lucille Ball played herself in Abbott and Costello in Hollywood. 

Touchdown, Army (1938) featured an uncredited appearance by Richard Denning, who, ten years later, would play George Cooper, Lucille Ball’s husband on her hit radio series “My Favorite Husband.” 

TV People, February 1956. Interestingly, Hal March (host of “The $64,000 Question”) was also a character actor on “I Love Lucy” and “The Lucy Show.”  Liberace would guest star as himself on “Here’s Lucy” in 1970.  The top of the magazine promises an article about Arthur Godfrey and his singer Janette Davis. Godfrey guest starred as himself on  “The Lucy Show” in 1965. Jack Webb’s series “Dragnet” was second only to “I Love Lucy” in popularity during the 1950s. It served as the model for all other police dramas on television. 

“The Lucy Show” and “Love That Bob” can both be found on discount DVD.  Many episodes of these series’ are no longer covered by copyright and are in the public domain. 

[scifinal]

DW s12e10: It's Quite Unfortunate That This Child Keeps On Regenerating

It's only fitting that the first post on a blog called "SciFinal" should be about a season finale.

Not that fitting is the fact that in said post I'm going to begin where it all started for me.

Part One: How I Even Got into This Mess of a Show in the First Place

While I call myself a huge Doctor Who fan, even a – *gasp* – Whovian, I must admit I am not as familiar with the franchise as I would like to be; I've seen the new show, I've seen Torchwood (though, admittedly, I had to force myself to finish the fourth season – but that's a story for another day), I've listened to a handful of audio dramas (including Kaldor City, which I consider to be canon for both DW and Blake's 7) – mostly Torchwood audio dramas, but who cares, – I've read a couple of comics, I've got a novel or two somewhere on my bookshelf, I've seen the first couple of seasons of the classic show, but that's about it. I can't say I grew up with it – it wasn't on TV when I was a kid, there isn't an official Ukrainian dub, et cetera, et cetera. I first heard about it when I was about thirteen, when my classmate did a project about something they liked – and was pretty dismissive of my peers' hobbies at the time, believing myself to be somewhat above them, so I didn't pay much attention.

Then somebody finally pressured me into watching it (I believe I was fifteen or something back then) and I loved it. The first two episodes of the first season, I mean. I watched those, texted my friend something like "consider me a Whovian now!" and abandoned the show completely only to return to it maybe several years later.

I loved it. This time, for real.

Doctor Who has been with me ever since that time, it has a big soft spot reserved for each and every Doctor ever in my heart, and for each and every companion. I know full well it's cheesy, and it's stupid, and it's technobabble-y, and it's glorious in all of its cheesy technobabble-y stupidity.

And I hate this finale.

Part Two: Doctor, Why

I hate this finale – because I hate Chris Chibnall. Mind you, not the gentleman himself (I don't even know what he looks like, and I can't be bothered to Google), I hate what he did to Doctor Who.

Now, when it was revealed that the would replace Steven Moffat I felt... nothing. What did you expect? I had no idea who the man was. I know now he's made Broadchurch, and I know he wrote a bunch of stuff for Torchwood back in the day, including Cyberwoman. I had to drop Broadchurch because of how well-handled the depressing atmosphere was, and I love the flawed, dumb, sexy-cyber-bikinied, almost-fifteen-minutes-of-Ianto's-whining-including (I know because some time ago I literally cut almost every single moment of Gareth David-Lloyd whimpering, moaning, groaning, screaming, and mugging at the camera out of the episode and made those bits and pieces into a beautiful clip show called "I HATE THIS" to explain exactly why his face was and still is so punchable) mindless fun that is Cyberwoman (this is also one of the two episodes in which they actually do something fun with the pterodactyl living inside Torchwood's underground base). The latter also led to the creation of one amazing in how it develops Ianto's character audio drama entitled "Broken". I love Broken. I am now forcing you to look at its cover because of how much I love it.

Here we go. Now, back to the point of me rambling pointlessly

In his video "Sherlock Is Garbage, and Here's Why", a well-known YouTuber hbomberguy pointed out how Steven Moffat's problem is that he is more than capable of writing a good one-off episodes, but ultimately fails at managing multiple complex, overarching stories, as visible when you look at the difference between Moffat's individual episodes and his run on the show.

Now, I believe that Chris Chibnall suffers from the same affliction: he's a good screenwriter but a terrible, terrible showrunner. Sure, he's made Broadchurch, but Broadchurch, in its essence, was a complete singular story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There were no bigger, incomplete arcs expanding at the expense of other episodes, and the show did exactly what it was originally designed to do: it told an uninterrupted story.

Here comes Chris Chibnall's run on Doctor Who.

Now, while Steven Moffat was ultimately not very good at managing overarching stories, he tried to do so nonetheless, and the fans seemed to like his attempts. And while I can't be sure as to whether it was Chris' original vision for the show or he and his co-writers were merely trying to emulate Moffat, he attempted the same. A friend of mine has even pointed out how, to her, it was painfully obvious how the writers of the finale were desperately trying to copy Moffat's style (to give you some context, she grasped it from a 30-second clip of the CyberMasters' reveal, and that clip basically consisted of me filming my laptop's screen and laughing at their design, making the video wobbly and the audio distorted). At the time of writing this post this friend hasn't seen a single episode of Chibnall's era and, as far as I know, has no wish to do so – mainly because of two reasons that both have something to do with the finale:

Somebody's already spoiled it for her, so who cares;

I ranted to her about how shit this finale is and now she hates everything about Chibnall era.

I am very sorry for the latter, since I genuinely believe there are some nice episodes in these seasons, and I especially like the "historical" ones, they really are quite a lot of fun, I like Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison fighting badly CG-ed alien scorpions, I love Lord Byron and Mary Shelley running around a haunted house trying to escape from a Cyberman (even though it's all too similar to the Agatha Christie episode from Russel T Davies' run), I adore that episode about Rosa P–– oh, wait, no, that one was crap and ripped off Blake's 7... Anyway, I love Jodie Whittaker's Doctor, I am a big fan of Graham, I like Ryan just fine, and I can put up with Yaz, even though it's been two seasons and I've still got no idea what's her personality supposed to be, and I absolutely love the new Master (he reminds me of a cute little pug with a big Tommy gun). There is plenty of good stuff in these two seasons, they are lots of fun to watch, but this finale... Oh god, this finale.

Part Three: We Had All of Time and Space at Our Fingertips and We Ended Up with This

We are getting to the point of this whole thing. I would love to begin with the obvious, the twist, but there's so much wrong with this who-cares-how-many-parter than this one big thing.

It is inept. It is impotent. It is incompetent. It is bad at almost everything except its okay camera work, somewhat good (for a British TV show, I mean) effects, and its really solid performances.

Its editing is tone-deaf to the extreme. There is a moment in the final episode where Ko Sharmas asks who will be the first to cross the Boundary and step into the unknown, and immediately it cuts to Yaz walking towards it, all fast and silent. I would love to show you a clip of it, but I don't have one and I can't force myself to download the episode and sit through this shitshow again just to present you with a ten-second clip. Nonetheless, that part is not edited like a dramatic moment. You edit comedies this way. Bad comedies. Bad editors edit bad comedies this way.

Its plot is incoherent. There are several plot threads in this finale, and they're managed in a way that doesn't make the viewer care about all of them at the same time, rather the viewer goes "oh, I've completely forgotten this was happening" and then, before they can even begin to care, the show cuts to something else. It's all over the place and oh so annoying.

The plot armour is painfully obvious despite every attempt to disguise it. There wasn't a single, solitary second when I believed the Doctor was really going to sacrifice herself and, lo and behold, here comes the old guy ex machina to do it for her. The only questions I was asking at that moment were "How are the writers going to prevent the Doctor's death now that they've seemingly created themselves a way to go on forever?" and "How can Whittaker care so much about her performance in this scene she's literally almost crying?". I wholeheartedly related to the Master asking "So why are we still here?" and shout–– hiss–– mumbl–– whatever-ing "Come on, come on, come on!" – at that point I've suffered through at least forty-five minutes of utter nonsense, people going preachy, religious Cybermen with Dalek motivations, that absolutely ludicrous scene in the previous episode when the show was trying its worst to make me perceive autonomous flying Cyber-heads with laser eyes as a serious threat, a shit twist and... Oh.

I've got to finally touch on the shit twist, haven't I?

It doesn't make sense. No, I mean it. I guess it makes sense from the show's writers' standpoint to retcon everything in a way that would allow them to go on forever without having to come up with a way to circumvent limited regenerations, yes. And I won't be touching upon all the lore people say this twist has ruined. No. It doesn't make sense as it is.

The twist is revealed to us by a madman that claims to have hacked into a database, claims to possess control over the Doctor's mind, and gives the Doctor and the audience no actual solid proof that the Timeless Child is, indeed, the Doctor. We have Ruth, sure, and she's nice enough (damn, I want that vest), and she's a Timelord that happens to own a TARDIS that looks like a blue police telephone box, and she calls herself the Doctor. Here's Ruth:

I really like Ruth. She also makes no sense from the show's timeline standpoint, since the Doctor's Type 40 TARDIS only got stuck looking like a police box in 1963, so there's no reason for the Doctor to not remember being her.

We also know that the Judoon have identified Ruth as "the Fugitive"... except in one of their previous appearances in the show they weren't able to identify their targets exactly and thus were seeking out non-humans. There is a possibility that they were only looking for a Time Lord on Earth.

You know what? It's possible that Ruth is actually the Master messing with the Doctor. I have just as much proof of this as I have of the fact that the Doctor is some kind of an endlessly regenerating superbeing.

But this is not the most maddening thing here. I loathe it, but I don't loathe the twist itself: I loathe its lifelessness, I loathe how empty, how unemotional, almost robotic it feels. When somebody'd spoiled the finale for me, I got angry, and I started asking questions, and when later I saw the actual thing...

This gif. I can't even explain how accurate it is. I stood there, in the middle of my kitchen, episode paused, holding a cup of cold tea and desperately looking around as if in my surroundings I could somehow find that emotional reaction that this show failed to evoke. I was ready to burst into tears of how empty it felt, and how empty I felt, and how the same show that has Christopher Eccleston go from literally foaming at the mouth with pure hatred to shocked silence in a matter of second because of one sentence that you, a viewer, can't help but be astonished by failed to make me feel the tiniest speck of literally any emotion. And slowly, I felt that vast void in my chest fill with sheer, pure, flaming hatred for the person who made me feel nothing, for the story that left me not bored – but empty.

And the next moment, in its own unique way of being absolutely tone-deaf, the show introduces the CyberMasters, looking ridiculous, being asinine in concept, making me burst into laughter with their dumb design. Wow.

So.

Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who is no longer a show. Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who isn't even, as somebody on Stardust said, a fan fiction. It's a rollercoaster. A lackluster rollercoaster that lifts you from the vast caverns of frozen hell, devoid of any life whatsoever, soulless and abandoned, to the heavenly torture of being so bad, so utterly awful and ridiculous, that you can't help but laugh as you watch something you used to love be distorted and deformed to the point where you can't recognise it anymore nor really care. This is what Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who has become. And I'm going to continue my ride on that grotesque rollercoaster. I'm going to pirate that ride and get on it again. Because I'm a masochist. Because I want to feel something, even if it's hatred towards those that make me feel nothing.

Because some time ago my fifteen-year-old self watched the first season and learned a lesson that I hold dear after all these years – that I can't abandon hope, and that someday, somehow, things are going to get better. That the future is being written right now. That the future can change.

[lost-n-stereo]

draw back your bow (let your arrow go)

Summary: Clarke Griffin doesn’t want to join Cupid’s Arrow, Los Angeles’ newest online dating site but her mother insists she at least give it a try. Enter “Fake Blake”, a man claiming to be Bellamy Blake, TV’s hottest new up and coming actor. With a profile photo that can’t be found on the internet, to stories only the man himself could tell, Clarke starts to wonder if her online crush could be her celebrity crush too. Modern Romantic Comedy AU

Part 1 - [Tumblr] [AO3]

Part 2 - Bellamy

Bellamy is always surprised when people stop him and ask for autographs.

He’s currently stopped in the middle of Target, a group of teenage girls surrounding him, but he loves it. The fact that people care enough about him to want a photo or his signature on some random scrap of paper is humbling.

“Can you sign my pop figure?” A girl no older than twelve or thirteen hands over a Robert Moore boxed figurine that Bellamy has at home, sitting next to a framed copy of the pilot script.

“Yeah, of course,” he grins and signs his name over the plastic sheeting on the front of the box. “This thing is pretty cool, I have one too.” The girl blushes when he smiles at her.

Her mother thanks him after they take a couple of selfies and then he’s making his way around the circle until everyone has gotten a photo with him.

When he’s alone again, and he hates to think finally because he loves his fans but yeah, sometimes it’s a little overwhelming.

Eight years ago he was auditioning for anything and everything, working as a waiter to make the rent. Six months after moving to Los Angeles he auditioned for The Ark, a new CW show that had high hopes of being the next Battlestar Galactica. He won the role of Robert Moore, a young but determined Ark guard, and almost a year to the day after he moved here the first episode premiered.

Seven years later and he can honestly say he never thought any of this would be happening.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he grins when he sees a text from Clarke.

Clarke: Morning Fake Blake. How goes the “entertainment business” on this fine Friday afternoon?

This girl, he thinks as he thumbs in a response. She’s so quick to assume that he’s not being truthful with her but she still makes a point to text him. It doesn’t make any sense but he loves it.

Bellamy: I just got cornered in the cereal aisle by fifteen teenage girls.

Clarke: Ooh. And what kind of cereal did you decide on?

Bellamy: Chex .

Clarke: Gross! What are you, 50 years old?

Bellamy: I’m 26, brat.

He laughs at her response, a series of side eye emojis, and pushes his cart to the checkout. His phone buzzes again but this time it’s a call from his ex that he immediately silences. Why she would be calling him when they have been broken up for weeks is beyond him.

There’s another text from Clarke waiting for him when he’s done packing his groceries up in the back of his Jeep.

Clarke: So tell me the truth…when are you going to give up this Bellamy Blake thing?

Bellamy: Uhh…when I’m dead, I guess?

Clarke: …….

Clarke: I wish you could just be real with me.

Bellamy sighs and rests his head on his seat. He really likes this girl but he doesn’t know how to make her take him seriously. They have been texting back and forth for a week, after she agreed to give him her phone number so they didn’t have to use the Cupid’s Arrow app anymore. He saved her profile photo so it pops up whenever she texts him. He even asked his little sister Octavia the best way to go about this. Her advice was to man up and ask her to meet which he’s starting to think might be his only option.

Bellamy: Have you stopped to think, even once, that maybe I’m telling you the truth? Honestly, Clarke. What do I have to gain by lying to you?

Clarke: I really don’t know.

His phone rings, his manager this time, and he rolls his eyes as he takes the call.

“Blake, do I have news for you!”

Bellamy switches from his phone to Bluetooth and starts the drive back to his place.

“What’s up, Tom?”

“How do you feel about starring in a romantic comedy?”

Bellamy groans as he gets on the 101. “Is it a lame romantic comedy?”

His agent laughs. “No! It’s going to be hilarious. Written by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.  This could be great for your career, Bell. The audition is next Thursday but it’s just a formality. They want you, so think about it!”

Tom hangs up without saying goodbye, which seems to be the L.A. way, and Bellamy does think about what a movie of this caliber could do for his career. So far he’s only starred in a few features, low budget horror films or indie stuff he did with friends. This could be his chance to break into mainstream movies, even if it’s not necessarily in his wheelhouse.

When he’s stuck in traffic, he looks around to make sure no cops are in the general vicinity before pulling his phone into his lap.

Bellamy: Do you think I could pull off a romantic lead?

Clarke: If you’re asking if I think Bellamy Blake could be a romantic lead, then sure. I don’t see why not.

Bellamy rolls his eyes. There she goes again with the distrust.

Bellamy: Thanks. I think.

She sends a string of laughing emojis, so he calls her a brat again and tosses his phone in the passenger seat so he doesn’t get a ticket.

***

“That’s a wrap for today! See you all tomorrow, bright and early at 8 am.”

Bellamy sags against the prop couch he’s sitting on and pulls his phone out of his pocket. There are no less than thirty new notifications since the last time he checked but none are from Clarke.

His best friend Monty drops down onto the couch next to him and sighs. “These seventeen hour days are fucking killing me.”

Bellamy nods and puts his phone back into his pocket. “Yeah, they suck. I just want to go home and crash.”

Monty grins and nudges him with his elbow. “Don’t lie to me. You want to go home and message the hot girl from that dating app.”

Fuck, he never should have told Monty about Clarke. The only reason he did was because Monty caught him sending her a text in the middle of a scene when the camera wasn’t on him.

“She doesn’t believe that I’m me,” Bellamy tells him. “Basically all of our messages so far are me telling her that I’m being real with her and then her telling me that I’m some crazy guy trying to lie to get girls.”

“So, send her a picture. Won’t that prove it?”

Bellamy thinks it over and then shrugs. “Maybe but anything can be photoshopped these days. I doubt anything I send would be real enough for her.”

He’s not really sure why he even cares. Yeah, Clarke is gorgeous. The photo she posted on Cupid’s Arrow, with her windblown blonde curls and shy smile made him instantly want to get to know her.  There was something about how free and calm she looked that made him wonder if she could be different than most of the women that he knows in this town.

Women like his ex, Echo.

The complete train wreck that was their relationship is the exact reason he stepped away from the Hollywood dating scene in the first place. They got along great at first, having met when Echo played a character on his show before moving on to the spinoff. It was the long hours on set that bonded them quickly and they went from coworkers to lovers in a very short span of time. He thinks not truly knowing the other person was the reason for their breakup. She took it harder than he thought she would when he ended things, and he’s still dealing with the repercussions today.

He tells Monty he’ll see him tomorrow as he pushes himself off the couch and calls for a car to drive him back to his house. It’s nearing one am and there’s no way he trusts himself to drive even though it’s barely a fifteen minute trip.

To say he’s surprised when he gets a message from Clarke on the ride home would be an understatement.

Clarke: Let’s pretend for a minute that you ARE Bellamy Blake. Tell me something only he would know.

He laughs out loud and thumbs in a response.

Bellamy: And how would you know something that I would say when you don’t know me? Also, why are you up so late?

Her message comes back right away.

Clarke: I don’t know, figure something out. And I’m studying for a test. Why are you up so late?

Bellamy: Pushing 12+ hour days this week filming. Today ended up being almost 17. I’m just now heading home.

There’s no response for awhile so he pockets his phone and rests his head back with his eyes closed until he reaches his place. It’s not a huge mansion or anything, just a decent sized house that he purchased when The Ark went into its third season. The network had basically promised them at least six seasons so he figured it was a good time to put down some roots. Now they are in their seventh season with no end in sight so he’s happy to have a real home to come back to every night and not some shitty apartment in the city.

Clarke still hasn’t responded by the time he’s getting into bed almost an hour later. After he showered and washed off the past seventeen hours of work, he practically fell into bed. He lies there for awhile, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what he could tell her to make her believe him. A thought pops into his head and he smiles, reaching for his phone to send her a message.

Bellamy: Are you a fan of the show?

He doesn’t have to wait long before her reply comes through.

Clarke: If I’m being honest, it’s my favorite. Why?

He mentally pumps his fist in the air because this? This he can work with. His sister was right. The only way she’s going to believe him is if she meets him.

Bellamy: Come by the set and visit me. I can get you and a friend day passes to come meet the cast.

Her response is immediate.

Clarke: There is no way this is real. I can’t give you my address to send some imaginary passes to my doorstep.

Bellamy: I’ll send you an address. Give them your name and they will let you in. Next Wednesday?

It’s less than a week away and he hopes that she’ll give him a chance to prove he’s telling the truth. He doesn’t know why he wants her to believe him so badly, maybe because he really thinks there could be a connection there.

Clarke: Fine. But if I show up at some abandoned warehouse, I’m out.

Bellamy laughs and types in the address of the studio, tells her to be there Wednesday at noon.

Maybe, just maybe, when she sees her name on the approved guest list, she’ll finally see that he’s been telling her the truth all along.

[arse-blathanna]

Evening Report - 28/30

Chapter 28: ending an era

[Ao3] [FFN] [Fic Tag]

Fic Summary: Blake Belladonna has one job in her life, and its to provide accurate information in a timely manner. A relatively mundane story is all that it takes to throw her into direct contact with Weiss Schnee, whose family secrets could make or break Blake's career as a journalist.

Word Count: 3,793

Chapter Summary: Verdicts are made about Weiss and Blake's futures.

Author's Notes: I’m hoping to post the last 2 chapters of this sometime over the next couple days. Thank you all for reading!

"You’ve really gotten yourself into a world of shit, Blake." Ilia said the words over the phone, sounding very annoyed. The fact that the two of them were up at three of the morning on the phone had a lot to do with it. The fact that Ilia was suddenly juggling the story and the fallout of Adam’s arrest had more to do with it.

[Read it on Ao3] [Read it on FFN]

Blake was sitting by the river where she and Weiss had gone a few times in the past, still in the clothes that she'd gone to the Schnee Fundraiser in. She wished that she had a chance to change into something which was more suited to sitting outdoors, but she hadn’t felt like going straight home. She still felt like there was adrenaline in her veins.

"I know." Blake sighed. "I did what I needed to do."

"They're firing you." Ilia bit the words out, very angry. "I'd be expecting a call from Sienna any moment, but— " She let out a noise of annoyance. "You know that she's going to have to pay Adam's bail, right? And that she knows you left? And that Adam’s definitely going to tell her what happened?"

"Adam committed an assault." Blake said calmly. She looked back over her shoulder, almost afraid that someone was going to show up and try to bother her. "That doesn't have anything to do with me. He can tell her what happened. I’m not worried about what will happen." The wind blew her hair out of the bun it had been pinned up into. It’d been falling loose for hours. “Not really.”

Ilia went silent, clearly unhappy with the way that things were going. At the end of the day, Blake knew that she had probably only managed to cause a massive headache for Ilia. Asking for the story that she'd written to be put out when it was, putting herself into a position to be fired, actively sabotaging Adam—

Whatever she ended up getting was probably going to end up being something that she deserved. Blake understood that, and she was willing to pay for what she did.

That didn't mean that she had to like it, or that she wasn't going to be making plans on the side to make sure that she was going to have a way out of trouble.

"Blake, that isn't what this is about. You chose to go on that story with him, and it seems like you were intending for it to be trouble." Ilia grumbled. "What was your endgame in all of this?"

"That doesn't matter." Blake mumbled back to Ilia. "Look, if Sienna calls... tell her that I'm gone."

"You're quitting?"

"I'm going to be fired anyways." Blake explained calmly. "Nothing that I do will be enough to change that, and you and I both know it."

Ilia was silent. Blake closed her eyes and waited for her to say anything else that could do something to spur things along.

“I can’t tell you how angry I am at you, Blake.” Ilia hissed through the phone. “But I’ll pass the message along. Don’t think that I’m happy about it. If she comes calling for you, I’m not going to keep her from getting through to you.”

“I understand.”

“Good.” Ilia snapped. In the few seconds after, Ilia hanged up, and Blake listened to the tone that came after for a moment too long. She couldn’t pretend like everything was okay for her. She couldn’t act like she was going to be alright for sure, since she still had so much that she was going to need to look into. Blake knew for a fact that she could go home, but there was too much else going on.

She didn’t even know if Weiss was okay. That alone was likely to keep her in Atlas, at least until she had a more clear picture of what was going to happen to her. If she was truly going to leave, then she was going to need to talk to Yang about that before she left. The two of them were going to need a plan for what was to come after everything. Yang was still going to need for her to help out with the rent, and how long that would take Blake didn’t know. She could pay bills from afar if she needed to. Online payments were always a thing.

Blake dropped her phone into the space beside her on the bench and stared out across the river. Without Weiss there to join her, it was a much less beautiful sight. Too quiet and too cold.

In the end, she didn't go back to her apartment until dawn was just beginning to break over the city.

After nearly a full day of time in the hospital, Weiss was released back to the world. She hadn’t had many chances to change out of what she wore to the fundraiser. The main difference was that she now had a jacket that Klein had brought her. She could hide her face behind the hood and hide her injuries along with it.

Even still, Klein made a point to stay close by her side where nobody could harm her. He was protective in a way that Weiss wasn’t always used to seeing.

Surprisingly, Weiss didn't really feel like she wasn't in any danger. Not anymore, at least.

The mansion was empty come time for her arrival in the morning. Weiss slipped inside as quietly as she could and made her way up towards her bedroom. When she opened the door, Weiss cast a quick glance around to double check that nothing had changed there since she'd left.

Her things were undisturbed, presumably aside from the package of clothing that Klein had decided to bring her.

For now, she didn't have to worry. Weiss crawled into bed and reached for her phone. She sent a quick text to Blake just to ensure that she knew that Weiss was alright, and pulled the warm blankets up over her. Over breakfast, Weiss knew that she was going to have to face her father. The option to not attend was there, of course, but that wasn't what Weiss really wanted to do. She just needed some space.

What she needed was time to process what had happened, like Klein would say.

Her father wasn't going to be happy with her at all. He wasn't going to be happy about anything that she'd done, or that she'd gotten involved in. He was going to look at the injury on her face and only feel concerned for how he thought his reputation had been hurt overnight when news would inevitably get out that one of The Fang's writers had been arrested for an assault at a Schnee party.

Weiss was definitely prepared for what was going to happen, she just didn't know where she would go after. Calling Neptune or Coco was of course an option, but Weiss wasn’t sure how good of an option it really was. She could just ask them and make sure that she had a way out when she needed it.

She could talk to Blake as well, but Blake was probably worrying about the same things herself. Probably much more, since Weiss had serious doubts Blake would be able to keep her job.

For two or three hours, Weiss laid awake, staring up at the ceiling of her bedroom and feeling completely lost in her own head.

Eventually the time would come where she needed to get up and join everyone else in her family’s home. That didn’t mean that she was going to enjoy it or that she would relish in the opportunity. Weiss nearly had to force herself to get dressed before leaving her bedroom and walking down the empty halls and too-large staircases.

Her father sat at the table, alone. In his hands there was a copy of a magazine that he’d been brought, along with a tablet sitting on the table like it too held some article that he’d been reading.

Like Blake’s article, Weiss thought.

The sound of her heel clicking against the tile floor aleterted her father to her presence though. He looked up at her with as severe of an expression as always and carefully folded the magazine he’d been reading shut. “Weiss.” He greeted her, perpetually frowning. “I see that you’re home.”

“I am, father.” Weiss replied, falling into place at the end of the room like she’d been trained, holding her head up high, and folding her hands together behind her back. “I’m sorry that I didn’t let you know.”

“But of course you are.” He muttered, not sounding convinced at all. “Though I suppose that you have other reasons for staying away. Not just whatever ugly scar you have there.”

Weiss swallowed. Her brother had definitely told him at this point, she was sure of it. Her father knew what she had been up to, and this was it. She was going to be run out of her family’s home and left to fend for herself. It was time for everything that she had been preparing for to finally fall into place.

"I'm sorry." Weiss said, swallowing hard and continuing to stand up tall. "I didn't mean for it to happen."

"That would run contrary to everything that I have uncovered with regards to your... assault last night." Jacques explained. "Your brother was happy to share the story with me."

Just like that, Weiss felt her stomach sink because she knew where this was going to end. All she could hope was that he'd kept the one thing that she'd needed kept secret quiet.

"Oh." Weiss' eyes flicked down to her feet rather than her father. She wasn't going to be able to actually look him in the eye anymore. "I'm sorry, father"

Jacques grunted. "I'm sure that you understand that I can't have another family embarrassment on my hands. Your mother and Winter are bad enough, but you Weiss?"

Her face began to burn as it flushed red in shame.

"I thought that you would have been better than this. I thought that as my eldest legitimate child, you would understand that you need to keep appearances." Jacques stood up and walked over towards her. "And since you have disappointed and embarrassed me, I must take action."

No chance for her to explain herself. No chance for her to defend her position or offer another explanation.

This was what she needed to be ready for.

"Of course, father." Weiss' voice came out too meek and quiet. She felt terrible enough as things were. "I understand."

"I must recommend that you leave the manor immediately. In the future you are not to show your face around our family events. You are not to contact myself, your brother, or your mother. You are not to contact any of the members of my staff. Are I clear?"

"Yes, sir." Weiss whispered. This was better than what she could have faced. "Is that all?"

Jacques rolled his eyes and walked to the table again, picking up the tablet and turning it on. He looked down at the information that was on it. Weiss couldn't crane her neck enough to see what it was.

"I should do more." Jacques muttered, his anger obvious. "Seeing as you have chosen to air our family's dirty laundry to the world." He looked back at her out of the corner of his eye, anger written clearly across his face. "I would recommend leaving before my mood worsens."

And that was something that Weiss could understand, something that she could read into easily enough.

She gave a tiny bow and left the room as quickly as she could before hurrying up to her bedroom. Weiss gave herself four minutes to pack everything that she'd brought with her to Atlas into a bag before adding  other things that were in the room to it. Once she was sure that she had everything that she could have needed, Weiss reached for her phone and made a phone call.

"Blake?" Weiss asked, as soon as the other end picked up.

"Weiss." Blake greeted her, sounding both groggy and relieved. "Are you okay?"

"I am." Weiss confirmed, taking a deep breath. "But I need a place to stay until I figure out where I'm going to go after this. I can explain when I see you."

"Yeah," Blake sighed. "Sure. Just come over and we can figure this out."

"Thank you." Weiss whispered. "I'll be over shortly."

"Right. I'll see you." Blake hanged up like that, and Weiss took a breath before doing the same. That was as good as it was going to get.

Weiss allowed herself to make one more call for a cab since getting Klein's help probably wouldn't work, but before it could go through, there was a knock on the door. Weiss hung up.

"Who is it?"

"Klein, miss Schnee. I believe that there are some things that you and I must discuss."

"Come in."

The door opened. Weiss felt a terrible, terrible weight in her chest. This was going to be her last time seeing Klein in person most likely. "You know," Weiss started. "I was told not to talk to you anymore."

"I believe that is an order which will likely start once you leave the premises." Klein said, holding his head up high, closing the door behind him. "I was going to extend the offer to drive you away."

Weiss let out a breath. "Thank you." She turned to face him now, tears already beading in her eyes. "I'm going to be going to Blake's now that I... can't be here anymore."

"You did the right thing, Weiss." Klein told her. "I am sorry that this is how it'll end up. Are you feeling quite all right?"

"No." Weiss whispered. "Not at all. I'm hurt, and being run off. I know what I'm supposed to feel."

"Of course." Klein stood tall and opened his arms, the invitation more than obvious. Weiss rushed at him and wrapped her arms around his neck, tilting her head to cry into Klein's shoulder. "I understand, Weiss."

"I don't want to lose you." Weiss whispered into Klein's shoulder. "But I have to."

"This won't be the end, Weiss." Klein tried to comfort her, gently rubbing her back. "I promise you that. He can’t control everything.”

Weiss wanted to feel convinced, she really did, but it wasn't that easy. She took a deep breath and nodded before following Klein out to the car. He helped her to carry her luggage on the way out, and when Weiss climbed in, Klein treated her the exact same way that he would have in any other circumstance.

Her having just been disowned wasn't what mattered.

Klein took his spot behind the wheel and adjusted the mirror. Weiss caught a glimpse of herself in it, and while she wanted to think that she looked wrong, she couldn't make herself feel that way. It was just a scar.

"Are you ready?"

"I am." Weiss confirmed.

Klein began the drive across the city, and the two of them stayed mostly silent. If the two of them weren't going to be able to be in contact for some time, then Weiss had an idea as to what she could do. It wouldn't have been that hard for her to get a new number to call Klein with it. He wasn't going to just cut her off like her father wanted. Klein cared about her.

"I do hope that you'll be well, Weiss." Klein said, pulling up in front of Blake's apartment. He parked there and turned, looking back to face Weiss head on. "Is there anything else that you think you need?"

"No." Weiss sighed, rallying herself. She turned and reached for the door. Klein saw and got out just the same though, walking around the side of the car and pulling it open for Weiss. She stepped out and looked up at the building. It was just as unassuming as always. Blake's bike was probably parked in her spot in the back. "I think that I'll be well."

Klein stepped in and hugged Weiss. "If you ever think that you may need me, just call."

"Of course." Weiss whispered back to Klein.

He pulled back and Weiss nodded, going to let herself in because Blake was going to be waiting for her anyways. She pushed the button on the buzzer and was let in immediately. Weiss smiled slightly, adjusting her bags and followed the same path inside that she always would have.

When she got to the apartment, Blake was the only one there, and the door was unlocked. Weiss let herself in and slipped out of her shoes by the door.

"Hey." Weiss greeted Blake.

Blake looked over at her, and the immediate look of relief that crossed over her face was enough to help Weiss relax slightly. She set down the knife that she'd been chopping something with and walked over to the door, probably expecting to help Weiss with her bags.

But instead of reaching for the bags, Blake went for Weiss' face. Her hands cupped Weiss' cheeks gently, and they were warm and soft, just like Weiss had thought they would be. "Hello." Weiss whispered back to Blake. "I'm okay."

"Yeah." Blake sighed, squeezing her eyes shut in a pained way for just a moment. She rushed in and wrapped her arms around Weiss. It was done slowly enough that Weiss had plenty of time to brace herself for it. "I'm so sorry about what happened."

"You did fine." Weiss whispered into Blake's ear, tilting her head and letting it rest on Blake's shoulder. "I'm glad you were there."

"Good." Blake pulled away and gestured to the living room. "You can just... find a place to put your things. It'll be fine."

Weiss picked up her bags and walked over to a corner, setting her things back down in a neat pile. "Thank you for letting me come over."

"I don't mind it." Blake replied, sighing. "The last day's been pretty... hectic."

"It has." Weiss replied. "I was disowned this morning."

"I'm sorry." Blake mumbled, and Weiss wanted to feel comforted but that wasn't what happened. Instead, it was just exactly what she'd been expecting and exactly what she'd prepared for. "I got fired this morning. For what it’s worth."

"I'm sorry."

It was quiet for a moment, neither of them knowing what to say. Weiss took a breath and walked over to join Blake in the kitchen. Now that she could see it, Blake was chopping an eggplant into slices.

"I think that I was preparing for it." Blake mumbled. "The good thing is that Adam hasn't been bailed out yet, as far as I know. But once he gets out I'm probably going to skip town."

Weiss nodded. "And then what?"

"My family are going to be happy to have me home." Blake shrugged, looking away from Weiss. "I figured that I would be able to go back and figure out where to go from there. Were you planning to go back to Vale?"

Weiss shook her head, looking down at her hand where it rested on the counter. "I haven't gotten a chance to figure it out with Neptune or Coco just yet. I'll leave when I know, but right now I don't know."

Blake nodded. "I'm sure you'll figure it out."

"I will." Weiss sighed. "I'm going to miss you, though."

That was the truth of it all, in far too many ways and Weiss knew it. She was going to miss Blake. Now that she's done her part with Blake, and Blake has gotten her story, Weiss doesn't actually know what she has left that she can offer the other woman.

Blake losing her job gave her a little bit more security in her situation, but it still wasn't enough.

Across the counter, Blake picked up the cutting board and pushed the chopped vegetables on it off and into a pot of something. Whatever she was making, Weiss didn't know. "It doesn't have to be that way."

"What?" Weiss paused, completely lost suddenly. There wasn't a way that she was going to be able to get that much out of Blake, was there? How was she going to be able to keep contact with Blake beyond phones. "What do you mean?"

"Well, we have options." Blake said nonchalantly. "We can try to do a long distance relationship."

"I like you a lot, Blake, but I don't know that's something that I want to do." Weiss sighed. "It'd be a lot of work."

"Yeah." Blake mumbled. "It would be."

Weiss took a deep breath. She had to figure out what she was going to do in Vale once this was over with. Without knowing whether she was going to be able to continue her life there, Weiss couldn't feel secure making any choices. Blake was going to be a part of her life stuck in limbo, it seemed.

Blake smiled at her though, and it almost made her feel more confident. "We can make this all work." Blake reassured Weiss. "I'm going to go back to Kuo Kuana, but I don't know how long that will last."

"You'll be with your family, though?"

"I will be." Blake shrugged. "But I don't think that's going to be a permanent arrangement."

She paused and her eyes went wide. Weiss watched silently as Blake lunged for her phone and picked it up. She locked eyes with Weiss. "Watch the pot so it doesn't boil over. I'll be right back."

"What are you doing?" Weiss got up and walked around the other side of the counter.

Whatever Blake was doing, Weiss couldn't be sure and Blake didn't give an answer to the question.

That was far from encouraging, and Weiss really didn't know how she was supposed to feel.

She watched the pot, but from the kitchen she could hear Blake on the phone in another room, obviously talking to someone hurriedly and almost excitedly.

Weiss watched the pot, trying too hard not to think about it. It probably wasn't going to be anything important, not for her.

Fifteen minutes later, Blake came into the room and smiled at Weiss. She crossed the room and stepped in close to Weiss before pressing her lips to Weiss'.

Weiss smiled into the touch, and when she began to open her mouth to ask what exactly was going on, Blake only cut her off.

The news made Weiss' heart jump in her chest and it felt like she couldn't really breathe.

She loved Blake. So so much.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 6 “Our Way” (The Finale!)

We made it, folks. Volume 6 is finally over and my god what a disappointment it turned out to be. 

I’ve danced my whole life and I had an instructor once who gave a lecture on choreography, cautioning us that the order you put your pieces in is just as important as the pieces themselves. Though each comes together to create a whole, your audience is more likely to remember the first and the last piece—so make those two count. Volume 6 began strong with the relic and the lore, and then ended on a flat, uninspiring, illogical note. Sadly I know what part of the performance I’ll be remembering from here on out.

However, first let’s tackle what we didn’t get this episode. There was no flashback to Oscar at Argus, re-characterizing his outing as something significant that might actually impact his growth as a character. Rooster Teeth really just… did that. They gave us an exact repeat of episode four, had Jaune physically assault Oscar, no one stepped in, no one bothered to check if Oscar was okay, we set him up staring morosely at the door, a two week cliffhanger, and then we really got an episode all about Jaune’s emotions while Oscar bought new clothes and made these people a casserole. He immediately accepted an incomplete apology, went so far as to speak like he thinks he’s going to die… and the group just smiled at him. Because remember, right now they only care about outsiders—which Oscar still very much is—when they’re helping and not getting in the way. Which Oscar has now promised to do. The finale gives us a brief moment where Ruby tries to praise Oscar for his efforts and it just rang as incredibly hollow to me. It’s easy to be kind to people when everything is going your way. You show your true colors when things get tough. RWBYJNR has repeatedly demonstrated this volume that when push comes to shove they’re willing to throw Oscar (and Ozpin) under the bus.

I’d need an entire, separate recap to detail exactly how horrible their treatment of him has been and how worrying it is that the story continues to frame this behavior as not just acceptable, but the actions of heroes. Suffice to say, if you have friends who seem nice on the daily but use you as a punching bag whenever they need an outlet? Do me a favor and get far, far away from them.

In the interests of moving on, another thing we didn’t get was any mention of Raven. A few friends theorized that last volume’s end credits scene (where Tai spots Raven using his portal) might finally come into play, but no such luck. More importantly to my mind, Yang still hasn’t said anything about Raven being the Spring Maiden, so that continues to be a secret she keeps while heaping more judgement on Ozpin. We’ll get to that later.

We didn’t see that true reconciliation teased in the last shot of the opening. Ruby never fought grimm with arms like those, let alone in a sewer tunnel… even though one was right there at the farm. I’m honestly starting to believe what others are saying about whole episodes being cut to make time for GenLock. Something happened this volume because the writing took one hell of a nosedive. It’s not just that I don’t agree with the messages the show is expressing, it’s that we have dangling threads, confusing “twists,” and what honestly feels like half-assed storytelling. Like they knew they had to complete the volume but just weren’t feeling motivated, so they chucked together something shoddy and left it at that.

(We also didn’t get to hear what Ruby bought them all at the gift shop. I realize this is a comparatively tiny thing, but to my mind it was a missed opportunity. They could have bookended the premiere and the finale, revealed that tiny mystery, told us something about Ruby based on the gifts she chose—the fandom keeps complaining that she’s one-dimensional—and if she’d picked up something for Ozpin at the time, that would have been an easy moment to have the group start reflecting on their behavior, a reminder that just a few days ago he was an important member of their team. Obviously I doubt the gifts survived the train crash, but there’s no reason why Ruby couldn’t tell them about it; a quiet moment before they reach Atlas. Like the shorter season length though, this episode was short for a finale. We were barely given enough time for the plot, let alone any reflection.)

For now though, let’s dive into the actual episode. We open on a field where an airship lands, Neo transforming as she steps out. That really is a powerful semblance. She can create copies of herself, disguise herself, and (as we’ll see in just a moment), disguise a whole freaking airship too. Granted, that last one seems to take some effort, but as this finale will inform us later, it doesn’t really matter how tired you are. If the plot needs you to do a thing with your semblance, you’ll manage it. Somehow. 

Cinder arrives in a new outfit as well and, like Neo’s, it’s pretty damn skimpy? I haven’t bothered to bring this up before because on the whole RT writes it’s mostly female cast very well, but considering how many other criticisms I’ve got today, why not chuck out one more. Meaning, why do these designs continually have to promote sexiness over practicality? Weiss, Nora, and Ruby all fight in skirts—hastily justified as “combat skirts”—and at least half the women on this show fight in heels. Yang sports short-shorts. Both she and Blake have bare midriffs. Now Neo is in a top that looks like it’s held up by a prayer and Cinder is sporting lingerie-like knee highs. There’s just no reason to design characters like this, especially when a good chunk of your cast is made up of teens. Cinder says herself that Neo will soon need snow boots. Just dress her appropriately for the weather from the start. You know, like how we didn’t get with Team RWBY while traveling through a kingdom filled with snow. Apparently Weiss wearing a scarf is enough to combat hypothermia for the whole team.

And yes, I realize costume changes require new models to be made, but that’s precisely why you should design your fighters as fighters from the start. You’re battling giant monsters? No one would wear heels. Or skirts. Or expose their midriff. It seems pretty convenient that aura supposedly protects them, eliminating the need for armor, and yet now it’s only our most masculine character—Jaune—who still bothers to wear it. Neo and Cinder are just the most recent examples of, “Why the hell would you wear that to a fight?”

Well, maybe these two will freeze to death before they ever reach the group… They’re heading to Solitas too and though they didn’t do anything in this scene besides reveal new and impractical clothing, I was more interested in their brief discussion than I was in the entirety of RWBYJNR’s fight. At least I’m comfortable in how I feel about Neo and Cinder. They’re bad guys. They’re gonna do bad things that the story frames as bad. They’re usually fun to watch. I don’t get frustrated and confused whenever they come on screen nowadays.

Cinder says, “Someone once asked me if I believe in destiny…and I’m happy to say I still do” as we get a final shot of them planning their nefarious deeds. We’re getting a lot of references to Pyrrha this volume—this, the statue, Ruby’s memories later—and taken on its own that’s fantastic. In a season though where Pyrrha’s death is subtly ‘justifying’ the group’s awful behavior and acting as a reminder to the fandom for why they unjustly hate Ozpin? Ehh…

We close on the villains and open on our “heroes” with rousing music to signal the upcoming battle, which… isn’t really a battle at all. The Leviathan is steadily approaching Argus and the Atlas personnel are calling for Cordovin. She’s still stuck, yelling about how “This is your fault!”

And it is. However, once again Cordovin’s exaggerated attitude makes it easy to ignore the fact that she’s right. She’s racist! She’s arrogant! She’s screaming and sounds like a child! Clearly our group is the mature ones here. Look at how calmly Ruby faces her down in contrast… It reminds me of how people (particularly women) are told that they’re being “Too emotional” in this conversation and therefore all the points they’ve made are somehow invalid. Of course Cordovin is emotional. A group of kids just lied to her, stole from her, started a battle against her, and destroyed her mech right when her city is about to be overrun by grimm. I’d be screaming in frustration too.

Though of course, most don’t view it that way. I agree with what others have pointed out, that if we’d been given a calmer authority figure saying the exact same things—No you can’t go into Atlas. Why would I let anyone other than Weiss cross a closed border?—it would have been easier to see exactly how horrible the group’s actions are here. As it is, Cordovin’s personality acts as a distraction. One more way to present the group as heroic when they’re anything but.  

Yang and Blake arrive on the scene, wanting to know what the hell is going on. Yang asks, “Is that a giant grimm?” and Weiss responds, “Yes…and we just ruined the only thing capable of stopping it.”

That’s an admission of facts, not necessarily an admission of guilt. The group acknowledges that they ruined the one defense capable of taking out a grimm of that size, but as we’ll see, there’s no regret attached to doing that in the first place. It’s just summarizing the situation for Blake and Yang.  

Granted, we get a moment where Ruby looks worried/potentially sad as they fly away from Cordovin, but what does that mean here? Is she sad about what she’s done? Or just worried about this new situation? Their actions have been so extreme that the story can’t afford to be vague about the characters’ emotions here. Plenty of people will (and are free) to read this moment as Ruby experiencing fierce regret at her choices the last few hours… but it’s just as easy to attribute her expressions to fear about the coming battle. I’m not inclined to give these characters the benefit of the doubt here. They haven’t earned it.

Regardless, we cut to the airship where apparently Yang and Blake have already told everyone about Adam. That was not the sort of thing that should have happened off screen. By all means, be practical. There’s no time for a long-winded conversation with the Leviathan bearing down on Argus, so have Yang announce that they’re okay, yes something happened, we’ll explain things later. Now you’ve established that this very important information will be conveyed either on the airship later, or at the beginning of volume 7.

What a waste. This is the end of a villain we’ve had since the Black Trailer—the first time our protagonists have killed a fellow human being—and that admission is regulated to the 30 seconds it takes to fly from Cordovin to the middle of the fight. Ruby hugs Blake and tells her she’s safe, but that’s it. That’s currently the extent of the team’s reaction to this huge revelation and like JNR learning about Salem, the audience has no idea what sort of details they received. Do they just know Adam died in the fight or that they deliberately killed him? Did Weiss hear about the brand? We don’t know. Hopefully this conversation is given more weight in volume 7, but given what else we’ve seen lately, I’m not counting on it.

Maria then interrupts with one of the most jaw-dropping lines of the episode: “I suppose I have to be the bad guy and say it, but getting the lamp to Atlas is still our top priority.”

Are we for real right now? Where was this calm, level-headed, pragmatic Maria when she was pissing off Cordovin with cashews? Or cheering at Ruby rejecting all adults? Now she starts trying to think rationally? But of course, when she does stop her manic cackling it’s to suggest something horrific. Yes, Maria. It does make you a bad guy to want to abandon a city to the grimm you brought here. She realizes that everyone is dead if they leave, right? That without the mech or silver eyes Argus has no decent way of stopping that Leviathan? Maria is meant to be the Grimm Reaper, the greatest huntress of her generation, and the writers think it’s appropriate to not only have her encouraging a bunch of kids to recklessly commit treason, but then condemn a whole city to probable death for their mistakes?

No, the relic is not the top priority. The relic is a side mission. The top priority has always and will always be protecting humanity. At least Yang, Blake, and Weiss realize this. They say firmly that they’re not leaving and Ruby gives a little shrug like, ‘Guess we’re not leaving then.’

(They really like having Ruby treat her mistakes as jokes, don’t they?)

So Ruby announces she has an idea, the one the whole fandom saw coming a mile away, and the next second Qrow says, “Eyes up, everybody” because they’ve reached the Leviathan. Ha. Get it? Eyes up?

Okay. I’m done lol.

We get shots of the terrified Argus population, including Terra and Saphron. 

Ruby asks Ren and Jaune to mask the ship which, reminder, they shouldn’t be able to do. Ren maybe, but Jaune just used all his aura to protect himself and Nora from getting splattered by Cordovin’s arm. Then he was thrown into a boulder for good measure. Last episode he couldn’t even stand without hanging off of his teammates. Now we get exactly what I was afraid we would: the plot needs someone to Do A Thing so aura burnout is conveniently forgotten. Jaune gives a confident smile. Of course he can boost Ren’s semblance and cover an entire airship!

Keep in mind that we just saw Neo dropping in exhaustion after a second of using her semblance on a whole ship. Granted, her ship is bigger, but she’s also presumably at full strength right now. If we were bothering to follow the rules established by this world, I highly doubt Jaune would have been able to pull this off.

Meanwhile the Leviathan has easily taken out Argus’s first barrier. “It tore straight through…” Oscar whispers, reminding me that he hasn’t had many encounters with grimm. If I remember correctly he mentioned to Ruby that there was an occasional one on the farm (as expected), but they must have been pretty weak if an untrained kid can take them out with farm equipment. Oscar then goes straight to Haven, battles people at the Academy, gets on that train where he fought some manticores, but then he didn’t get to see the Apathy for himself. This seems to be one of the first times Oscar is seeing grimm at all, let alone one this deadly. No wonder he sounds shocked.

With the shield destroyed in an instant the Atlas personnel start giving the order to evacuate… when Ruby interrupts them. No worries, fine people. I have a plan! Wait, why should we trust you? “I’m a huntress.”

No you’re not, Ruby. Literally and symbolically, you are not currently a huntress. Ignoring for a moment all the stunts you just pulled, undermining everything a huntress is meant to uphold, that is a formal position. It’s a title that embodies great power in this world and you achieve that title by studying four years and graduating from an academy. You don’t get to call yourself a college graduate because you did one year and then studied on your own. Same with being a doctor, or a lawyer, or literally any titled position. Ruby (in continuing with the theme of this volume) is lying to that Atlesian soldier. She’s misrepresenting herself, claiming she’s something other than what she actually is: a half-trained teen with a current chip on her shoulder.

This is also another moment where she ignores Qrow when he yells for her to stop. The issue isn’t about who’s right here—whether Ruby should tell the others about her plan or not—but that Ruby is consistently ignoring everyone around her to charge forward with whatever plan she personally thinks is best. Qrow told her not to attack the Atlas military… look what happened. Qrow told her not to go stare down Cordovin’s missiles and try to make an impossible shot… look what happened. Qrow told her not to stubbornly stand her ground against a mech when the rest of her team is beaten and exhausted, and though Ruby survives, it’s only by the will of Plot Armor. She leapt into a freaking cannon. She knocked herself out. You’d think after all this Ruby would at least pause a moment to give Qrow the time of day.

It ultimately doesn’t matter though because their ship is still flagged as hostile. Atlas isn’t going to help them on what clearly looks like a suicide mission. We get a close up of Ruby daring to do what no one else can or will. “Fine… we’ll do it alone if we have to.”

…which is precisely the problem. Atlas backing off might feel like a consequence—Oh no! Their actions lost them their backup!—but all it does is get the extras out of the way (who just happen to be adults) so we can more easily focus on the protagonists (who just happen to be teens). It’s a reward. They don’t actually need the airships here, as the group is about to demonstrate, so this ‘consequence’ is absolutely meaningless. It would be something entirely different if, say, the story actually framed the soldiers as necessary to distract the Leviathan and Ruby had to admit her faults, begging them to help despite her mistakes; if the story made it clear that teamwork was a necessity. But there’s nothing like that. This is meant to read as the hero’s crowning moment.

Also, as an aside, why in the world would Ruby tell them to wait on the rest of their evacuation? What if—a wild thought here—something went wrong? Like literally every plan you’ve ever come up with? Isn’t it better to get people to safety while you try out your idea, just in case it all falls to pieces? This is just one more moment of Ruby’s overconfidence putting others at risk. She’s endangered her team, herself, and an entire city this volume… and has learned precisely nothing from it.

But we’ll come to that. Right now Ren masks the airship’s approach, conveniently keeping it up just long enough for them to reach the Leviathan, and then he’s out. They still didn’t make it in time though. The Leviathan sends out another stream of fire that takes out the second shield and hits the top of a tower in Argus. Needing to get closer, Yang and Nora distract the Leviathan while Ruby rides in on one of Weiss’ summoned lancers. I did appreciate Blake briefly supporting Weiss as she works to keep her semblance up. Whatever else, this volume has been good about brief, non-partner interactions. 

We hear Ruby encouraging herself as she flies in and then she chucks her communicator into the water to concentrate. I thought something would come of that? Why bother having Yang interrupt her if there wasn’t a serious issue (it takes another long moment for the Leviathan to turn on Ruby) and why full on get rid of the communicator if that choice wasn’t going to come into play later? Eh, whatever. Far from the first time we’ve had setups that go absolutely nowhere. This volume is full of them.

So Ruby does as Maria taught her: cycling through memories of her family and friends, trying to drum up that fierce desire to protect them. 

I did appreciate that Oscar, Qrow, and Maria get brief appearances… but again, the one team member who isn’t shown is Ozpin. Apparently Ruby now hates him to the point where he’s not even a part of her very generalized thoughts about who she wants to protect. I mean she met Maria three days ago and the woman now means more to her, apparently.

(For the record, I say this because Ruby knew Ozpin primarily in his headmaster form and is drawing largely from volume 1-3 material. We might have seen him in the new engine, easily. The shot of Oscar we’re given is also the one from the training room where Ozpin didn’t speak until Ruby left. Alongside Ozpin’s absence this volume, that’s the closest we’ve ever seen Oscar as only Oscar. That choice says a lot in my opinion.)

Eventually Ruby’s memories start to segue into darker thoughts and… okay. I’m confused now. Why is thinking about bad memories the thing that doesn’t let the silver eyes work? Not only were those moments where fierce protection would be at its strongest, but Ruby has only ever been in horrible situations when her eyes went off: Watching Pyrrha die, watching Jaune about to be killed, watching Blake about to kick it via Apathy. You’re telling me that during those times Ruby somehow thought about bright and happy things, not the horror of the fact that her friends were in the process of being murdered? If anything, those flashes of Yang without her arm or Penny cut into pieces should be the very thing that does set her eyes off.

Instead they fail. Ruby opens her eyes to find the Leviathan turning her way and then, as a friend of mine pointed out, she gasps out a “What?” and looks down at the relic.

No. That relic has very conveniently done nothing the entire time the group was trekking through the woods, staying at an abandoned farm, driving who knows how far, and running around a new city. You’re not going to tell me now that suddenly it’s the cause of the Leviathan turning away from people currently attacking it. Either the relic’s draw is strong enough that Oscar should have been in trouble on the train, or it’s not strong enough to act as a justification here. The relic is the new Qrow’s semblance: turning off and on when the story wills it.

In a panic Ruby yells for Jinn, which is less the “clever” choice Jinn says it is and more a potentially clever gamble. The last time they used Jinn every creature in her vicinity remained active. Granted, all those creatures were human or faunus then, but Ruby wouldn’t know if she would freeze the grimm as well. Regardless, her gamble pays off (because of course it does) and we get another example of how the protagonists are currently super special people who can never do any wrong.

Jinn: “You do not seek knowledge, but just this once I will give it freely…I will not allow you to use me without a question again.”

Why? That’s the question you have to ask for all your characters’ decision. Why are they doing this? What’s their motivation? Jinn provides none. She has no reason to let Ruby off the hook for summoning her without a question, especially since she frames that as another bad choice that she’ll (somehow?) punish Ruby for if she does it again. But this time, once again, our protagonist is let off the hook, purely because she’s the protagonist.

With this very generous second chance Ruby re-shuts her eyes, thinks only of the good times, including a memory of Summer Rose. The fandom has been waiting a long time to see her outside of a covered photograph.  

Ruby manages to activate her silver eyes. It works—mostly.

I mentioned previously how the show needs to introduce some downside to the silver eyes so that Ruby isn’t suddenly over powered against every grimm from here on out. This is a downside… but an odd one. The grimm turned to stone, but not all the way? Sort of just a stone encasing that it partly manages to break out of? Okay. I mean that works, but it’s a pretty easy downside to overcome. The grimm is still stopped in its tracks, giving the others plenty of time to take it out.

And, as always, pay attention to how it’s all framed. Despite not working exactly as she intended, this is meant to be a moment of victory for Ruby. She’s succeeded in her trial by fire. She’s single-handedly saved all of Argus. The music is rising, the people are cheering, people who have no idea what silver eyes are and will now start up legends about this girl. Who was the huntress with the magic-like power none of us understand? Ruby Rose. The girl who stood toe-to-toe against a Leviathan grimm and won.

This would indeed be a wonderful moment if it weren’t Ruby’s fault the grimm was there in the first place. Like her own claims of “I’m a huntress,” this moment misrepresents Ruby to the people. No one is going to learn that she’s the one who endangered them, only that she’s the one who came to the rescue. She’s fixing her own mistake and then allowing that to stand as a heroic act.

I was so looking forward to Ruby learning to wield her silver eyes. Not like this though.

Cordovin arrives with her pinned arm gone, ready to finish taking out the Leviathan, and she’s suddenly stupidly cheerful about it. Again, characters need motivations. If their outlook on a situation changes we need to see why that happened, especially when moving from such extremes. In a matter of minutes Cordovin went from shrieking at the group to not just sunnily helping them—which is a practical consideration. As she herself says, “I was sworn to protect the people”—but also letting them go.

….there is no reason to let them go. None. It goes against Cordovin’s entire characterization, the logic of the situation, and nothing has happened in the last few minutes to change her mind. This is the story at its laziest: “We don’t have a reason for Cordovin to let them go. She’s just gonna. Because they’re heroes.”

During this conversation we get an “I’m sorry” from Ruby and that’s admittedly something, but like Weiss’ comment about destroying the mech or Ruby’s worried looks, what is she apologizing for? Because she doesn’t seem very contrite right now. The framing isn’t telling us Ruby has anything to be ashamed of. She’s the star in this moment. So that ‘I’m sorry’ feels less like an admission of wrong doing and more, ‘I’m sorry I had to attack you and that it almost got everyone killed. But I absolutely had to. No doubt. So I guess I’m only sorry that fate screwed us over. It’s not like I had a hand in this mess or anything.’

All of which is to say: there are no consequences. None. Zip. Nada. No one in Argus died (despite the fact that all those flying grimm apparently bypassed the mass of terrified people to go battle with the airships on the opposite side of the Leviathan??), no one was arrested, no Ironwood or Winter, no Ozpin coming to their rescue, no problems with aura, the mech still manages to fight, the airship still manages to fly, no one was even reprimanded for their behavior. This volume we have seen the group betray a man they were demanding trust from, steal a secret they knew nothing about, force him to relive thousands of years of trauma while taking in the personal history that was never theirs to see, verbally and physically assault him to the point where he has to remove himself from their presence, they repeat that on an innocent kid days later, do absolutely nothing to make up for that, show no remorse for their actions, steal military property, plotted to mess with one of the few remaining relay towers the whole world depends on, beat up Atlas personnel, chucked them out of a plane, started and continued a fight with a special operative that endangered an entire city of people, destroyed a city’s primary defense, risked straining kingdom relations, nearly got friends killed with these foolish stunts ….and nothing. Not a single consequence, punishment, or reprimand. RT set up a situation where the group makes horrific mistakes and then had them learn nothing from them. Far from it. They’re rewarded, telling the audience that provided you have power—be it physical strength, access to resources, or the knowledge of a super secret mission—you can do whatever you want. There is no single stupid, illegal, dangerous, or callous thing you can do that isn’t ‘justified’ with, “Well I literally could do it, so I guess that means I’m allowed to do it, right?” Our title, “Our Way,” definitely embodies the morals we’re given this season.

I’m honestly disgusted with this volume. Just as a piece of media. This isn’t a story where we’re following anti-heroes and are well aware that they’re committing horrible deeds. This is a story about traditional heroes who are now using anti-hero means, something the story has just straight up ignored. I really didn’t think RT would take things this far… but here we are. This is apparently our group now and I personally think they’re awful.

And ugh, there’s still more of this episode. We cut to the group flying that night and Maria comments that “We should have just enough fuel to make it.” Wow you… literally didn’t think anything through, huh? No one even bothered to find out if they’d have enough fuel to not crash land in the ocean halfway there. Wonderful. 

We get another entirely illogical conversation between Qrow and Ruby. He tells her she, “Did good out there today, kid” despite the fact that Qrow was consistently (and correctly) trying to get her to not do the things she was doing. Is it too much to ask for Qrow to have a firm and honest conversation about her making reckless decisions instead of more unearned platitudes? And then Qrow lowers his bottle which… what? Alcoholism doesn’t work like that. Much more importantly, no one has tackled his drinking this season. Or the reasons he was drinking in the first place. Literally, Qrow’s semblance, his place in the war, Ozpin’s secret, none of it has been addressed. He has no reason to suddenly put aside his flask like he’s actually learned something. Does RT think we’re going to just imagine scenes that never actually happened?

(I mean, that’s what fic is for, but that’s… fic. The canon should at least be attempting to hit a higher bar. This is their job, not an unpaid hobby done late at night when you’re exhausted after your own full day of work.)

Qrow and Maria also have a conversation about how he was there to “Catch them when they fell. Literally, if I recall,” implying, again, something that didn’t happen. Yes, Qrow literally caught Ruby when she fell from the cannon, but that line is meant primarily in the metaphorical sense: You were there to support them, keep them from doing something stupid, steering them back to the right path, etc. That’s what Qrow tried to do, but Ruby consistently ignored him.

This is all such a mess. Though we do get some nice shots of Blake and Yang sitting together—lots of hand-holding now—and Weiss comments that she’s glad Yang was there for Blake. Yang corrects that they were there for each other, confirming the lesson they learned off screen at some point. 

A conversation starts up once again painting Ruby’s recklessness as awesome heroics. Among her clique she’s all bashful now, no more arrogance when there aren’t outsiders to push back against, and Ruby tries to foster attention off on Oscar. He corrects them about landing the airship… he didn’t actually do that himself.

Oscar: “I didn’t land the ship on my own.”

We get a flashback to him panicking as the ship crashes, but this time we hear Ozpin saying, “Stay calm. It’s going to be okay.” Back in the present Nora immediately freaks out, “He took control?!” and Oscar corrects her with no, he helped guide me.

Let’s unpack this a bit. First of all Ozpin would have been 100% justified in taking control, just like he was justified in taking control at Haven when Oscar was going to get them killed by stubbornly insisting that he fight Hazel. Like everything else in this volume, each situation has its own context. Just saying, “Ozpin took control of Oscar without permission” sounds bad, until you bother to acknowledge that dying is kinda worse. It’s like if I see a 14yo boy running towards a road an I yank him backwards. Technically I just took away his agency—I haven’t allowed him to keep running forward when he wanted to—but I did it so he wouldn’t get hit by that car. If Ozpin had taken control to keep three team members, including everyone’s precious leader, from dying a horrible death via airship crash… that’s a good thing.

But he didn’t. Even now, even after everything, Ozpin is so careful to give people as much choice as he can. He assessed the situation and decided that he could guide Oscar without taking away the use of his body, the sort of consideration most people wouldn’t even bother with during a time of crisis. And think about those lines. “Stay calm. It’s going to be okay.” The last time Oscar spoke to Ozpin he was forcefully stealing the means to allow the rest of the group to betray him. Now here Ozpin is, not angry, just endlessly reassuring. 

Then he leaves again. Everyone realizes Ozpin is still doing his best to give everyone what they supposedly want, right? I mentioned ages back that the group wants a contradiction, to have Ozpin fix their problems without having to deal with Ozpin as a person, and now he’s managed that. He comes in, saves their lives, then leaves so no one has to deal with the apparent horror of speaking to him. His level of selflessness is off the charts and it astounds me that anyone thinks this man is a cruel, manipulative puppet master.

…and then there’s Yang.

Yang: “Does that mean he’s been watching us this whole time?!”

Oh yeah. I don’t like Yang much nowadays. I forgot because the last couple of episodes the show isolated Yang with Blake. She’s good with Blake because she actually likes Blake and is probably in love with her. But put Yang with someone who isn’t willing to enable her misplaced anger (Maria, Ozpin) and suddenly she’s not a very kind person anymore. Like the rest of the group right now, Yang’s basic, human empathy doesn’t extend beyond the confines of their team.

Plus, what does that accusation even mean? She makes him sound like some sort of peeping tom and not the leader she was following three days ago. Yang realizes, right, that Ozpin isn’t allowed a body of his own? That he’s connected to Oscar? That anything Oscar sees Ozpin automatically sees too? There were admittedly questions about whether Ozpin was connected to the outside world while locked that deep in Oscar’s head, but Yang makes it sound like he physically left and then started stalking the group without their permission. She makes him sound like Adam.

I really can’t with this group right now. Man arrives to save the lives of the people who betrayed/assaulted him and their reaction is basically, “How dare you even look at us?” The worst part is, you know a huge chunk of the fandom is going to agree. No matter what Ozpin does, even literally saving our title character’s life, it’s somehow twisted into an act of manipulative cruelty.

Also gotta love that Qrow is sitting right there and apparently doesn’t care about this conversation. He only interrupts with a smile to tell them they’re in Atlas.

Which is, admittedly, gorgeous as hell. I do like these shots a great deal.

The only thing that ruins the view is the fleet of airships above, stationed like they’re expecting a battle. This seems to connect to the army we see Salem building in the post credits scene… but how in the world does Atlas know about something like that? Did Ironwood hear something and come up with an excuse to scramble the fighters? Or are they prepping for something else entirely? An attack from another kingdom?

Regardless, we end on one of the personnel telling the group, “Welcome home.”

After the credits we see Emerald and Mercury utterly horrified by something below. We pan down to see Salem creating grimm from the pool… and then making them grow wings. My first thought was, “That guerrilla is going to need a much bigger wingspan to accommodate his weight.” My second thought was, “Oh. Flying monkeys.” That should tell you something about what my brain considers a priority.

Hazel comes in and reminds Mercury and Emerald of an old saying: “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” That’s admittedly unexpected. Looks like after hearing that Ozpin reincarnated and ruined her plans for the Spring relic, Salem has decided to get her own hands dirty for once. I hope we get to hear more explanations for this because she’s apparently kept to the sidelines for generations and now, pretty randomly, decides to announce her presence to the world by leading an army? Who knows. It wouldn’t make less sense than anything else RWBY has given us lately.

And that’s it! We’re done! Hallelujah I need a break. Well, pseudo-break. I still intend to upload my other recaps to tumblr, dive back into our older episodes, and there are still asks to answer. So meta-ing is far from over, but it’ll be less intense than 4000+ words every Saturday lol.  

Thank you all so much for reading. I’d sill be writing these with an audience of one (me), but it’s way better when there are others as well. So kudos to you all—and happy hiatus!

Other Details of Note

Neo is fully wearing Roman’s hat now and Cinder canonically wears Louboutin heels lol.

A bit of an odd note, but Cordovin’s repetitive screams about “This is your fault” almost sound painful. Like she’s physically in pain. Obviously that’s not the case in any literal manner, but there’s something horrible about watching the group destroy a part of the mechanical body she’s currently inhabiting and then just abandoning her, watching as she tires and fails to move. I really can’t emphasize enough how callous this group has become to anyone not in Team RWBY or JNR.

I enjoyed the red of the Leviathan glowing under the water as it moved. Nice touch.

“Never get used to that view,” Maria says, once again framing her eyes only as a joke and never a legit issue when it presumably would be.

Yang has ditched the casing on her arm after Adam’s attack. Maybe she and Blake can go arm/weapon shopping together. 

[mewmewchann]

RWBY: Y.v.S - Crashing Tides

As one of their friends suddenly turns against them, the tension in the arena rises to breaking point. But will the sudden arrival of another team even the odds?

Blake, Weiss and Ren arrived at Beacon's courtyard to find it in chaos. Student huntsmen were fighting off hordes of Grimm and rogue Atlesian robots.

"What's going on?" Weiss asked. "The robots are supposed to be on OUR side!"

"Someone must've hacked into the Atlesian system." Ren replied, readying his weapons.

Blake sighed. "...Torchwick?"

"Obviously."

Jaune and Pyrrha approached them after taking down a pack of Ursai.

"Guys!" Jaune said. "You're here!"

"Are you okay?" Pyrrha asked.

"We're fine." Ren said, looking around for his teammate. "Where's Nora?"

"Right behind ya!" Nora exclaimed cheerily, while using her hammer to smash an Atlesian robot to pieces.

Jaune nodded. "Okay, team! Let's go!" He said, as team JNPR headed off to take down some more Grimm.

Weiss and Blake were about to follow, when Blake noticed an airship – a Bullhead, to be exact – with the White Fang's symbol on it.

"What!?" Blake gasped, her eyes widening in horror. "What are the White Fang doing here!?"

The Bullhead's door suddenly opened, and a pack of Beowolves leapt out.

"They're releasing Grimm into the school!" Weiss exclaimed, watching as the Beowolves attacked a group of trainee huntsmen.

She turned over to Blake. Blake had a determined expression on her face.

Weiss sighed.

"Well, if you insist. But hold on!"

Weiss took out what looked like some kind of card. It was a cartridge filled with different dust types, and was the perfect size for Blake's gun.

"If you're going to fight, you should at least be prepared." She gave her a smile. "Be safe, okay?"

Blake nodded and took the cartridge. "I will." She started running in the direction of the ship.

Weiss watched her go for a bit, then ran off to help her friends.

Ruby used her speed semblance to dodge another of Penny's high speed attacks.

"What do you mean, 'you both knew about it'!?" She asked.

Velvet shrugged. "It was pretty obvious!"

"Considering her mannerisms and behaviour," Fox added. "It was clear that she was a robot. Also, it's even more obvious now."

Ruby looked up.

Penny was once again using her swords to suspend herself in mid-air. She had more swords at the ready, and her eyes were bright red.

"But why?" Ruby asked. "Why would she suddenly turn against us!?"

"It must be a virus in the Atlesian system." Fox replied. “Someone must have hacked into it and is controlling all the robotic units.”

“Uh...” Ruby said uncertainly. “Translation?”

Fox sighed. “A bad guy is being bad and the robots are now evil.”

“That makes sense.”

Ruby took her scythe, Crescent Rose, and fired a few shots at Penny’s swords, in the hope of taking them down. Penny managed to block them, and started shooting lasers from the swords, which Ruby blocked with her scythe.

“What are we supposed to do!?”

“There’s only one thing to do...” Fox said, looking over to his teammate. “Vel? This is your cue.”

Velvet suddenly looked excited. “Really?”

Fox nodded. “Just make it count.”

Velvet also nodded and began to step forward.

“Ruby, get back.”

“What!?” Ruby replied, shocked at her friend’s sudden actions. “You’re going to get hurt!”

“No.” Fox said. “Just stand back and watch the show.”

Ruby was still confused, but eventually stood back as Velvet walked towards her opponent.

Penny took notice of her new challenger, and readied her swords, all of them pointed at her target.

Velvet activated her weapon, and as the others watched, it generated a hard-light copy of Coco’s gatling gun.

Yang had tried to run out of her dorm room as quickly as possible after hearing the news. After her mistake in the tournament, she wanted to help fight off the Grimm so the others would see her in a good light again.

It wasn’t long after leaving the academy building that someone had inevitably shoved her out of the way.

It was a girl. Yang had heard her telling other people to move out of the way, but didn’t know how close this stranger was until she had gotten in her way.

“Sorry!” The stranger said. “I’m just trying to get my team to the colosseum!”

Yang couldn’t make out all of her features, but she could tell that she was a faunus of some kind.

“Wha-?” Yang started. “But the fight is over-”

Another person approached the stranger. He appeared to have a long ponytail and was carrying what looked like a baseball bat.

“Are we close?” He asked the stranger.

“We’re pretty close, Luce.” She replied. “Just a bit more this way.”

The other person sighed. “I told you a million times not to call me that, Crimson...”

Two other young girls – one carrying a massive gourd on her back and the other with a huge hammer – also arrived.

“We need to get going!” The girl with the gourd said to the group. “We won’t make it to the arena in time if we don’t hurry!”

“I dunno, why don’t we just stay here for a while?” The girl with the hammer objected cheerily. “I kinda like this pla-”

“ROSE!”

“Okay! No need to get all angry about it!”

The faunus nodded. “Okay, if you two are finished arguing, then let’s go!”

The team left and started heading in the direction of Amity Colosseum.

Yang managed to get up and shout something to them.

“There are loads of Grimm in the colosseum! Are you INSANE!?”

The girl with the hammer turned around.

She shrugged. “We all are.” She replied nonchalantly, and continued running.

“SHE CAN MAKE COPIES OF EVERYONE ELSE’S WEAPONS!?”

Fox sighed. “What do you think all those pictures were for?”

“I- I- That’s-” Ruby stammered excitedly. “THAT’S SO COOL!”

Velvet was keeping up with Penny’s attacks using a hard-light copy of Pyrrha’s sword and shield.

“Thank you!” She replied happily, before deflecting a green laser with her shield. The shield and sword shifted into a copy of Ember Celica – Yang’s gauntlets.

Ruby looked a little uneasy when she saw her sister’s weapon.

Using the holographic weapons, Velvet punched a flurry of bullets toward her opponent’s weapons.

Penny managed to recover and glared down at Velvet angrily. Six more swords flew out of her backpack and she sent all of her active swords toward her target.

Velvet panicked and the pair of gauntlets shifted into a copy of Yatsuhashi’s sword; which she used to try and block the attacks, but it proved too much. The copy of the sword shattered into nothing and Velvet was sent backwards.

“VELVET!” Fox called out, grabbing his teammate before she was sent over the edge of the arena. “Are you okay?”

Velvet nodded. “I’m fine...”

“Well,” Ruby started. “What no-”

Her statement was immediately interrupted by a fog of steam suddenly clouding over the arena.

“What!?” Ruby exclaimed. “What the hell-!?”

Penny desperately looked around the arena for the three huntsmen, but the clouds of thick steam proved too much.

Suddenly, a burning slash – generated by fire dust – flew from the side of the arena and hit the robot directly in the back, sending her falling to the arena floor.

As if the sudden smokescreen didn’t confuse Ruby enough already, the metallic clunk on the arena floor confused her even more.

It wasn’t until the steam started to clear that she realised who had caused this.

“Hey! Ruby!” A cheery voice called out from one of the colosseum’s seating areas. “Fancy seeing YOU here!”

Ruby recognised the voice instantly.

“CRIMSON!?”

Ruby looked up. Crimson – who was carrying a small sword which had a v-shaped slot that was filled with fire dust – was in the audience seating area with three other huntsmen.

The first was dressed mostly in dark grey. He had dark hair with a light grey streak at the front, and had it in a long ponytail. He was wearing a dark grey outfit and boots. The boots had been somehow decorated with white bandages, and he was carrying what looked like a dark grey baseball bat.

The other two were girls. One – who looked only 12 – had short blue hair, a white top with a black cloth belt and was also carrying a massive gourd on her back. She also had a blue staff in her right hand.

The second had her hair in twin ponytails – One was red, the other was pink and the rest of her hair was dark and had a large pink bow on it. She wore a white vest-top and a blue miniskirt – the vest having a picture of a heart and a star, and the words “it’s okay to be insane” printed on it. The skin that she showed was adorned with various tattoos, and – for some convoluted reason – she was also wearing pink ice skates. She carried a large pink hammer in her right hand.

“Sorry about the sudden intervention!” Crimson said with a shrug.

“I’d barely call this an intervention...” The girl with the gourd objected.

“Fair point, Marina. ANYWAY...” Crimson continued. “Sorry I didn’t have the time to introduce you to my team.”

“Wait...” Ruby replied. “These guys are your team?”

“Sherlock Red gets it again!” The girl with the hammer answered chirpily.

“No need to be sarcastic, Rose.” The huntsman with the bat said.

“Yeah, this is my team!” Crimson explained nonchalantly. “Here are the names: Crimson Foxx, Lucifer Graye, Marina Aqua and Rose Petalle. You can pretty much deduce who we are from names alone.”

She was right. Ruby figured out that the huntsman with the bat was Lucifer, the huntress with the gourd was Marina and the huntress with the hammer was Rose.

“And together,” Crimson continued. “We form team CLMR!”

“Team Cal-what?” Ruby asked, confused.

“It’s pronounced: ‘Calmari’.” Crimson answered. “Anyway, introduction’s over. Who’s ass do we have to kick?”

“That one, apparently.” Rose replied, pointing her hammer towards the robot in the middle of the ring. Penny recovered from the attack and glared at her new adversaries.

“She’s behaving just like the Atlesian machines in the city...” Lucifer said, looking down at her.

“That can only mean that she’s a machine herself.” Marina replied.

Lucifer nodded. “That’s right.”

“Well, either way...” Crimson readied her sword. “Once we get back to Vacuo, we’re mounting a circuitboard on our wall.”

“Wait, wha-!?” Ruby started.

Penny sent four swords directly towards Crimson’s team.

While she was preparing the swords, Lucifer readied his bat, which folded into a miniature sniper rifle; which he fired at his opponent.

Since he was using electricity dust, it did a lot of damage.

After recovering, Penny directed all four swords towards him.

“Big mistake.” He said nonchalantly, his sniper rifle shifting back into a bat. When the swords got close enough, he hit them straight back at her with a swing of his weapon.

Penny got hit by them, and sent them straight back.

Instead of hitting them back, Lucifer jumped forwards to dodge them and landed on the wall. He then started running around the arena wall like it was nothing.

Ruby was in awe. “How is he doing that? Is that his sembla-”

“No.” Crimson answered. “He might use his semblance in a bit.”

Lucifer continued sprinting across the arena wall, occasionally slowing down to shoot at Penny with his sniper rifle. Penny suddenly aimed all of her swords at him and sent them forward.

“Uh, Marina!?” He called out to his teammate. “A little help here!”

Marina nodded. “Got it.”

Something suddenly shot out of the gourd Marina carried on her back to grab the swords. After a while, Ruby realised that it was water.

Marina subtly moved her hand upwards, and the water lifted the swords up. Since they were still connected to her, it lifted Penny up too.

Penny desperately sent a sword towards her, but Marina’s staff jumped out of her hand on it’s own and swung in mid air to block the attack.

“What!? How is your weapon moving on it’s own!?” Velvet asked.

“It’s called hydrokinesis.”

“But how-”

“It’s loaded with water dust. Since it’s still technically water, I can control it.” The staff elegantly flew back into her hand.

“Oh.”

“Exactly.” She nodded towards Rose. “She’s pinned. Now.”

“You got it~!” Rose replied with a cheerful salute, before jumping into the arena herself.

Except, she didn’t land on the arena. A pillar of ice projected out of nowhere to catch her. She ran – or, more accurately, skated – forwards, more ice appearing underneath her ice skates.

“That’s actually pretty clever.” Fox stated, watching her circle around Penny. “Those ice skates combined with your semblance put you at a tactical advantage. But does that mean-”

“Yup! I use my semblance whenever I walk!” Rose replied. “Honestly, I prefer skating over walking.”

Her hammer suddenly retracted into a shape similar to that of a handbag. The front of her weapon opened, and an ice dust crystal shot out.

“AN ICE CANNON!?” Ruby exclaimed.

The ice dust hit Penny’s swords directly, partly freezing them, but leaving enough water behind.

“She must be using her cryokinesis to control how it freezes...” Velvet stated.

“It’s ready~!” Rose exclaimed.

Marina nodded, and subtly flicked her hand downwards.

The water jerked the swords downward, and slammed penny into the arena floor. The water around the swords retracted back into Marina’s gourd, letting them hit the arena floor, too. The ice around the swords shattered, encasing the arena in an icy mist.

Ruby tried to wave the mist out of her face, and managed to see what was going on.

Penny had managed to get up, and couldn’t find anyone anywhere.

Suddenly, Crimson appeared behind her. Her sword was raised and the fire dust inside it was causing it to catch fire a little.

Ruby immediately realised what she was going to do.

“STOP!”

Crimson stopped in mid air and fell to the arena floor.

Penny heard this and dodged forwards. The mist was clearing from the arena.

“Gah...” Crimson struggled to get up. “What the hell’s that about!? I had a perfect shot!”

“You can’t kill her!” Ruby pleaded, tears forming in her eyes. “She’s my friend!”

Crimson noticed this and kept quiet. Ruby continued.

“She was fine earlier. But something happened to the Atlesian system and-”

“I think I know what’s going on.” Lucifer said. He was still standing on the side of the arena.

“What are you-”

“Someone must have found a back door into the Atlesian system and turned their robots against us. Unfortunately...” He sighed. “Ironwood made the mistake of having all his androids connected to the same cloud.”

“Uh, cloud?”

“It’s a programming thing.” Marina answered.

“Uh, guys?” Rose said, getting their attention. “I think the robot girl’s trying to leave!”

Ruby suddenly turned her attention towards the centre of the arena.

Two jet-like wings shot out of Penny’s backpack and she flew up and out of the arena.

“Dammit!” Ruby exclaimed. “Get back here!”

Rose, Lucifer and Marina jumped back into the arena.

“What should we do!?” Crimson asked.

“You guys have to go to the city and help the others.” Ruby answered. “I have to find a way after her.”

“Unfortunately, last time I checked, sniper shots from a gun-scythe can’t catch up to a flying robot.” Fox retorted.

“Exactly!” Ruby exclaimed. “What should I-”

“Ruby, is it?” Marina got Ruby’s attention.

“Uh, yeah?”

There was a small, thin cylinder of water hovering just above the arena floor.

Marina smiled. “Maybe I could be of some assistance?”

Ruby nodded. “Thank you!”

She stepped onto the circle of water.

“Keep your arms in the vehicle at all times.” Marina said jokingly.

“Okay- wait, what?”

The water suddenly shot upwards, carrying Ruby into the sky.

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

I saw:

Wonder Woman- I admit I was almost nervous about seeing this film.

 Wonder Woman was a key figure in my childhood. I had the Ms Magazine book reprinting golden age Wonder Woman comics, held together with packing tape from my carrying it everywhere, that I read and reread. My best friend and I got in the sort of heated debates only five or six get in over what Wonder Woman’s starting pose for “bullets and bracelets” should be. My best friend going with the then running tv show’s crossed wrists seemed silly when you gotta be ready to move, and it wasn’t like that in the original story. We played at being Wonder Woman and made up stories usung our dolls. The only Halloween costume I still have is the Wonder Woman one from back then, an object I take great care of. ** Heck, I still have my dolls, pencil sharpener, puzzle book and the rest of the Amazon Princess gear I gobbled up...

My Mom, whose father never approved of comics, had secretly read them as a little girl back in the 1940s, so approved whole heartedly. In fact Wonder Woman related objects have been a sort of running theke for gifts between us (me giving her a Wonder Woman plush bunny at Easter and her giving me a mug at Christmas being the most recent). 

So if both my mother and I have waited most if our lives and through scores of Batman and Superman movies for a Wonder Woman feature film, why the anxiety?

Well, because despite my love of the concept of Wonder Woman, I have really disliked some of the takes on the character over the years. As a little girl adoring the ‘40s comics and the ‘70s tv show (though the Superfriends take was fine for something so “childish”...I was a mature little tyke! LOL), , I’d tried the comics at the newstand and went “This is stupid!”. I ended up for some years buying it just for the Huntress back up stories. At my first comic store trip at 14 I tried some very cheap battered old copies from like around 1960 and....Ick! NO! But then along came the George Perez run, and here was MY Wonder Woman. I loved the comic during his years, but unfortuantely it wasn’t forever. The new creators had a vision of the character, both in personality and increasingly over appearance, that was dramatically different than me. Over the years tales of her have been a roller coaster...here feminist, there sexist, here a figure of peace, there a snarling war monger. 

So here is the thing, I admit my image of Wonder Woman has been rather specific. I saw her as someone that can kick your ass, but would rather not if she doesn’t have to. Her first interest is peace, despite being prepared before. If talk fails, she will use force out of a need to protect, but that force will be the minimal necessary for the job. As in she would prefer to restrain you than beat you to a bloody pulp. My Wonder Woman would kill as a last resort, shows compassion and kindness and has a sense of humor. She smiles as often as she glowers. I realize this is a reflection of my basic moral code. Did Wonder Woman shape my world view, or did I take to depictions of Wonder Woman that reflected what I believed? 

Which ever, my anxiety came from all those other Wonder Woman versions. The ones that were grim and brutal concerned me more than the old fashioned sexist ones simply because in the modern age the idea of “strength” seems to involve the ability to kill. The recent DC films hadn’t filled me with much hope. Bystanders should matter to a hero (Looking at you “Man of Steel” city smasher, when you could have taken your fight with Zod to a cornfield or the moon or...). A “gritty” Wonder Woman wasn’t something I wanted. 

Luckily it looks like I wasn’t the only one. Not that there isn’t plenty of violence  and our heroine does rack up a body count.

It begins by telling us of Wonder Woman AKA Princess Diana’s childhood, with the only little girl on the island if Amazon’s running off wanting to learn to fight. And OMG! Isn’t the woman chasing after her trying to catch the little scamp Dayna from Blake’s 7?????? Wow! Yep it really was Josette Simon!*** We get to see the child’s over protective mother reluctantly allow her demigod of a daughter get trained. We also see Diana embrace whole completely the legends and ideals of her people. These things always turn out to be a lot more complicated when you grow up...

And grow up she does. A WWI pilot crashes lands at the island, followed by pursued by Germans, leading to bloodshed and a corpse strewn beach in paradise. Finding out about the World War in progress, Diana wants to take the pilot (Steve Trevor, of course) back into the world, partly because he’s gotten a hold of info about a new a deadlier than ever before gas cooked up by a German scientist, a woman with an interesting bit of mask work covering her experimentation damage. Her main reason is the belief that such a war could only be the result of Ares, god of war, and that as an Amazon she is duty bound to stop him. Naturally, her first step in growing up us to defy he parent and go off to do what she believes is right.

Once out in our world Diana is a fish out of water, coping with a world where women don’t even yet have the right to vote and fashions are most definiately not conducive to battle. She is also incredibly innocent, with a sort of adolecent passionate belief in the world as a simply place. Just go to the battle front, kill Ares, and the world will be at peace. And so, through the story, she comes to learn the world is more complicated, but comes through quickly from the dark disillusionment that brings to find again the hope deep within, only now with a more mature understanding behind it.

Or, you know, lots of fighting and CGI work as Wonder Woman leaps over tall buildings in a single bound...oh wait, that’s the guy in blue tights...But she does leap, off the charts strong. There is a detour for brief romance, much to my mother’s annoyance. (My mother grimiced and muttered as the kissing started.) ****And there is the pyrotechnic superbeing versus superbeing ending, plus the emotional blow of a tragic sacrifice.  That sort if thing.

I liked the choice of WWI, not simply because WWII has been done by superhero films already and we are in the anniversary period for that war, but because it was a particularly messy, large and ugly war. It works thematically, both for Diana to assume Ares is behind all of it and to realize humans really are capable of such horrors, without the more simple good guy/ bad guy  dichotomy of WWII. 

On the other hand, I was a bit uncomfortable with how once Steve showed up he became more of the driving force in the story. In a way it makes sense. He has the experience in our world and knows how it works. He would seem the adult to her not yet fully mature personality in this sort of coming of age story. Yet, a few times I was a bit bothered and had a fleeting “SHE is supposed to be the hero of this story!” moments.

Over all I really enjoyed it. It can’t live up to the hype, but that’s okay because nothing ever does. My mother, who is notoriously hard to please when she has an idea of a character, gave this Wonder Woman her endorsement, saying that this one got the kindness as well a strength. But really, I don’t know if I can give a proper verdict when I have so much emotions tied up with the very existance of the film. Watching the first few minutes of the film I noticed I had tears on my cheeks. After 76 years there was FINALLY a Wonder Woman movie, so for now my feeling is just ....“YES!!!!”

**There are no photos of my wearing it. On fact there are no photos of me wearing ANY Halloween costume! What’s up with that? I dunno, but it just sort of happened. Talking about the costume with Mom she said there should be photos and was shocked when I pointed out the only Halloween pics I have are with jack o’lanterns, and many of them. My folks just didn’t even realize they weren’t thinking to take pictures of us growing up......

***I have a story about my best friend in high school reacting to a pic of her...but that’s for another time...

**** Since this week was my parents’ anniversary and Pop was called “Steve” I think it was reminding her of her grief too. 

[texanredrose]

"Is this a bad time to tell you I'm allergic to bees ?" Monochrome

I couldn’t resist. It’s all in good fun, y'all. It’s all in good fun.

Weiss kept her head down, pretending to focus on the script in her hands while surreptitiously glancing around the set over the lid of her espresso. As always, people were bustling to and fro, setting up for the next scene while the actors took a break, the noise of shouted directions and moving pieces covering the conversations all around her. Most of her co-stars were getting ready for filming to resume, some reading over their lines just like her while others joked around in character.

She shouldn’t say ‘others’ like there was more than one. Although a talented actor in her own right, Yang Xiao Long threw herself into roles a bit too vigorously for Weiss’ tastes, constantly keeping up a loud, boisterous, and downright grating attitude even when the cameras weren’t rolling. The blonde mellowed out considerably once they were away from the set but, even with all the requisite noise for installing a secret lair where an office space was a few minutes prior, she could still hear Yang’s voice rising above the din. Dealing with it on set was easy enough considering they didn’t share many scenes one-on-one and the presence of other characters kept the characters from holding the spotlight but the longer filming went on, the more it bothered her for… other reasons.

Finally, when blue eyes quickly lifted to scan around, Weiss found her co-stars suitably distracted, the director engrossed in yet another argument with the producer, and everyone else too busy with their own tasks to notice if she slipped away. By her estimates, she had ten minutes before she’d be needed on set, and she was going to take them. Leaving her copy of the script and her coffee behind, the woman quickly left the set, ducking behind a scaled down version of the city’s skyline to reach the backlot. Although today’s filming involved most of the major players in the show, a few were notably absent and waiting in their trailers to see if they would be able to get around to other scenes. Which was perfectly fine, Weiss thought with a little smile on her lips as she took another glance around before sneaking into the trailer marked ‘Blake Belladonna’ and locking the door behind her. Her sister would probably scoff at the lengths she took to ensure their relationship remained a secret but Weiss firmly believed their private lives should remain just that.

However… there were some notable downsides.

“Blake, what are you doing?” A frown curled her lips as the mischievous intentions she’d had dried up in the blink of an eye.

Her girlfriend of nearly three years- whom she’d started dating before they were cast in their respective roles- perked up, leaning away from her laptop to twist in her chair and look at her. “Nothing?”

“You’re looking at fanart again,” she said, the accusation holding only a little of the venom she could feel building behind her tongue, stepping up to peer over her girlfriend’s shoulder. Sure enough, the entire screen was filled with depictions of Blake’s character, both in and out of costume. Considering the show itself revolved around the lives of masked superheroes with mundane day jobs, there was a fair mixture of leisurely pictures with varying wardrobes alongside action scenes with the character’s alter ego. Now, normally, she would be completely fine with a little indulgence in vanity- she liked scrolling through fanart of her own character, after all- but this particular search turned up only one specific subset of pictures involving Blake’s character: ones that also featured Yang’s character.

Apparently, fans of the show- as fans often did- placed nearly every character in some romantic relationship or other, regardless if it was depicted in the show or not. And the ones who enjoyed 'shipping’ Blake with Yang? They were certainly… prolific.

“Aw, you’re pouting.” Blake pointed out, getting out of her chair to approach the other woman.

Not that Weiss was making it easy, of course; crossing her arms over her chest, she turned away slightly, tearing her gaze away from the screen. “I am not pouting.”

“Lying doesn’t suit you, Love.” Her girlfriend chuckled, wrapping her arms around the woman’s smaller form. Not only was Blake taller, now she was acting smug as she continued to tease. “Does it really bother you that much?”

“What? Is this a bad time to tell you I’m allergic to 'bees’?” She returned, sparing another short glare at the computer screen. Normally, she’d admit using such a clever term to refer to the fictional relationship between Blake’s and Yang’s characters nothing short of amusing, but years of being confronted with enthusiastic fans gushing over the 'ship’ had soured her perspective.

“Now you’re just being ridiculous.” Blake chuckled, pulling her into a hug despite her reluctance and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “You know I only have eyes for you.”

“I know,” she replied, relaxing into her girlfriend’s embrace. It was rather silly, wasn’t it? Getting worked up over other’s perceptions of fictional characters? The frustration was just an irrational response compounded by the discreet nature of their relationship. Perhaps she should just take Winter’s advice and stop trying so hard to keep the paparazzi out of her personal life. It certainly wasn’t doing her any favors. “Maybe we should just go public. Let the tabloids have more than just speculation- something concrete.”

“We could do that, but it won’t stop the fans.” Blake gave her a rueful grin. “We could shout it from the rooftops, put it in the show, and invite everyone to the wedding. Some people will still want to see Yang’s character and mine together in a relationship. That’s their fantasy.” She shrugged. “Why worry about it? I prefer my reality, so let them have their fun. It makes them happy.”

“You’re right.” She conceded with a soft sigh. The woman had a point; the legitimacy of their relationship wouldn’t matter to many. She’d, perhaps, on a few nights when she’d had one too few things to do and one too many drinks in her, dove down the rabbit hole to understand what other people saw in the 'ship’, and many of them had legitimate, positive reasoning behind their support. Who was she to begrudge them that?

“But do you know why I like looking at fanarts like these? The ones with Yang and I together?”

Weiss tilted her head back, looking up into her girlfriend’s smiling face. “No, actually. You’ve never explained your fascination with those other 'ships’.”

“It’s easier to appreciate the artist’s work when I’m not distracted,” Blake replied, leaning down to steal a kiss from her lips, a theft she was only too happy to allow. “If you are in the picture, though. Well, it’s hard to look anywhere else.”

“Now who’s being ridiculous?” She ducked her head, hiding the silly smile that came to her at hearing those words. Somehow, despite all the fawning praise over the years from being on various TV shows and movies, every compliment her girlfriend said seemed absolutely genuine and sincere.

Blake was probably the only person who could truly make her feel special and she loved the woman for it.

“I do like looking at fanart of us, though.” She continued, ignoring the charge laid against her in favor of nodding towards her laptop. “Hit the back button.”

This had all the markings of a trap. A prime opportunity to tease her about something or other but Weiss was willing to play along. Maybe, if she got it all out of her system now, they could enjoy the night once filming finished up for the day.

Reluctantly leaving her girlfriend’s embrace, Weiss stepped over to the laptop and did as requested, expecting the screen to fill with a similar array of pictures, except with her own character taking the place of Yang’s.

She was wrong.

She was very wrong.

“Sometimes, I like to play 'spot the difference’,” Blake said, sliding up behind her as she gawked at the images being displayed. True, this search turned up only the ones including her character and Blake’s, and she didn’t miss the little star icon in the corner identifying the page as a bookmarked favorite. However, they were decidedly… not safe for work, to borrow a phrase, and she’d intentionally avoided searches of this sort for fear of what she might find. Her girlfriend, apparently, had no such reservations. “They can only guess at things I know, and I find it a little… amusing.”

Weiss shivered as the words were whispered into her ear, Blake’s hands resting on her hips for a moment while she pressed into the smaller woman’s back. Blue eyes fluttered shut when a kiss landed just below her ear, prompting another shudder.

“Other times? Well, I have to admit.” She chuckled, fingertips teasing along the hem of her skirt while the other hand slipped under Weiss’ blouse. “They’re rather creative and it gives me… ideas.”

The last word, practically purred out and punctuated with a nip at her ear, destroyed what self restraint she might’ve been capable of dredging up. Weiss turned, hands burying into waves of midnight as she brought their lips together, backing her girlfriend up until they collapsed on the small couch set against the wall of the trailer.

Needless to say, she was late getting back to the set.

Okay, I’m going to admit I’m probably a little bit of an asshole for this, but it’s honestly what occurred to me first and I thought it was just too funny. A little meta commentary on how actors might view the… *ahem* content their fans create is just too tempting to pass up. My mind works in curious ways. Hope you enjoyed!

[recentanimenews]

INTERVIEW: Roland Kelts On Fantasy Worlds And The Impact of Streaming

  Roland Kelts, half-Japanese author of JAPANAMERICA: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S., has made a name for himself covering the unique nuances of American and Japanese cultural-exchange. Kelts recently presented a talk titled "Anime and Race" with Arthell Isom for this year's Virtual Crunchyroll Expo. We had the opportunity to ask Kelts a few questions about the impact of streaming, adapting international webcomics, the appeal of isekai, and of course, Twitter.

  English-language and Japanese-language editions of JAPANAMERICA

  With Crunchyroll hitting three million paid subscribers as of July, it’s evident that anime streaming is thriving, especially with young adults. Simulcasts now allow essentially anyone access to the latest hours after airing in Japan. How have you seen this constant finger on anime’s pulse change how fans engage with Japanese pop culture, versus the heavily curated experience of exclusively watching whatever made it to American television networks?

  Everything’s faster. Fans I meet from Boston to Kansas to Los Angeles now ask me about shows that were just released months or even weeks ago on my TV in Tokyo. And simulcasts have also made the US fans hungrier, more demanding, sometimes even whiny. (“Why don’t we have this yet? When’s this coming out? Where’s that title?”)

  At the same time, it creates a zone of delusion, a kind of third universe between the US and Japan where fans think they know everything that’s happening in Japan and what’s right and wrong about the anime industry and how it works just because streaming media delivers the entertainment they want when they want it. 

  I still call that third universe JAPANAMERICA, neither here (Japan) nor there (US) but some kind of hybrid space, and in some ways streaming has only expanded its borders. 

  Image via Netflix

  Anime produced and released for streaming services have seen major cultural impact lately. In 2018, Netflix released Devilman Crybaby to critical acclaim, and more recently Crunchyroll has begun streaming its own originals shows like Tower of God in 2020. In previous interviews, you’ve described younger animators butting heads against the old guards in Japan’s traditional anime industry, compared to other industries like games or design. Nowadays, you have younger studios such as Studio Trigger and Science Saru signing streaming deals to distribute their shows to a wider demographic. Do you see this pivot to web-original anime as a way for younger animators, producers, and even veterans to exercise new ideas they may otherwise not be able to explore?

  Definitely. Masaaki Yuasa told me that if it weren’t for streaming services, Devilman Crybaby would be an old-school OAD collecting dust in the adult video corner of Tsutaya that may have aired once in wee-hour programming on domestic Japanese TV. 

  Two years ago, Go Nagai, the manga artist who created the original Devilman in 1972, told me backstage at Anime Expo in Los Angeles that streaming was the only reason he’d been invited to Los Angeles. “Hey, I’m an old man,” he said, laughing.

  There were always innovative upstart studios like Trigger. The difference is that web-original anime and streaming platforms get Trigger’s works screened in major American cinemas by national distributors like GKIDS, and around the world online, and gets Trigger artists and people like Yuasa and Nagai the VIP treatment at overseas anime cons.

  Emilia and Subaru from Re:Zero

  One of the biggest trends in anime recently is the boom of a genre called “isekai,” i.e “another world” stories where average protagonists get transported into fantastical worlds. In the last ten years, isekai has already explored virtual reality MMO worlds like Sword Art Online to self-aware “Groundhog Day” stories like Re: Zero. Although portal fantasies have always been present in traditional Japanese folklore and a staple of global speculative fiction, why do you think this particular narrative may have gained so much traction with young adults recently?

  One of the trends I write about in JAPANAMERICA is how the constant presence of the internet in our lives can diminish our satisfaction with the real worlds we inhabit. 

  You’re right, of course: portal fantasies have long been a part of Japanese literature, folklore, fantasy, and spirituality. 

  But the world-within-the-world of the internet has arguably overtaken our realities. It’s not only ever-present, it’s superior: brighter, freer (we can click on anything and almost immediately see and hear what we want), and faster. It’s also portable and ubiquitous. 

  Many of us greet the morning not as sunlight through our blinds or the sound of birdsong, but as the OLED or LCD light from our smartphone screen. Our sense of “home” is the emails we recognize, the apps we check, our news, our weather, our sports updates. It ain’t called an “I” phone for nothing. Online, everything’s for me.

  So it makes a kind of sense to me that young adults might be kind of bored with stories that don’t feature immediate and easy access to virtual realities and other worlds and role-playing lives. Stories without isekai-type narratives might feel outdated, boring, even irrelevant to the way we all live now.

    Original creator comics, such as Webtoon series like God of High School, have recently been adapted into series exclusively streamed on Crunchyroll. Series like God of High School feature diverse characters from all across the world in a tournament set in Seoul, a setting we rarely see in television anime. Although many Japanese web novels and amateur projects have since been adapted into professionally produced shows, such treatment is less common for non-Japanese properties. In terms of broadening the horizons for intellectual property, did you ever anticipate the world of Japanese animation and international webcomics to cross paths? 

  I wrote about it in JAPANAMERICA and thought it would happen sooner, actually. On book tours at anime cons, fan artists and amateur comics artists ask me to sign JAPANAMERICA and hand me a copy of their own work in return. I’d read their work on the plane to the next city and sometimes I’d think, this might make a great anime series or feature. 

  But I couldn’t generate much enthusiasm when I got back to Japan. Part of the problem was obvious: language and culture barriers. 

  But also, the Japanese industry is sitting on piles of great intellectual property from decades of manga about every imaginable type of topic and character, plus all the great doujin fan-art that powers the record crowds at the biannual Comiket and fills the floors at Mandarake. Why would they reach overseas to work with someone who doesn’t speak the language and/or understand the codes of cultural and business behavior to take a risk on a property from a foreign land?

  Obviously, the increased involvement of non-Japanese producers like Crunchyroll and others are changing that. Also, newer generations of artists from outside Japan have an even greater sense of how Japanese-made anime works, how it gets made, and how to behave in Japanese business transactions. Plus, I do think online translators, as bad as they may be, have helped ease the transition between languages on both sides, Japanese and non-Japanese.

  Tokyo Big Sight during Comiket 96 last year (photo by Daryl Harding)

  Fourteen years ago, there was no such thing as Twitter. It goes without saying it’s huge now, especially among anime fans. With major events like Comiket canceled this year, alongside dozens of conventions in the states, more fans than ever are converging online. Nowadays, it’s not only incredibly easy to find anime, but also discover a whole community buzzing with activity regardless of what language you speak. How much of a role do you think social media has played in pushing anime from niche to ubiquitous, and what do you hope to come out of this zealous digital convergence for fans everywhere?

  I write about the importance of fan forums and chatrooms in JAPANAMERICA. Anime fans were one of the key drivers of Usenet groups and BBS sites back in the day. In a chapter I called DIY (“do it yourself”), I explain how anime fandom is a bottom-up phenomenon, fired by shared communal passion and the sharing of that passion. 

  But I didn’t know how massive social media platforms would become, or how crucial they would be for Japanese pop culture fandom.

  What sucks is that the discourse on social media is so coarse. When you go back and read exchanges between diehard anime fans on Usenet and old chatrooms and forums from the mid-2000s, they read like middlebrow literature compared to what you see on Twitter, Reddit, and Discord. So many social media posts are made just to get hits, not to communicate or share ideas, and the most provocative, cruel, or just plain daft stuff gets liked and retweeted a thousand times. 

  An ex-friend of mine once told me he was going to market his book entirely on Twitter. I said, well then you’ll get a bunch of responses from people who don’t read a lot of books. But he said he just wanted to sell a lot of copies. He didn’t care about the quality of the people who read them or followed him.

  But I guess that’s the state of most things in America right now, politics in particular. Mass appeal is all that matters.

    Roland Kelts' blog can be found here. Follow him on Twitter at @rolandkelts!

More information on JAPANAMERICA can be found here. A Japanese-language edition is also available from Kodansha.

      Blake P. is a weekly columnist for Crunchyroll Features. He is still thinking about Hellshake Yano. His twitter is @_dispossessed. His bylines include Fanbyte, VRV, Unwinnable, and more.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[luxrestate60518]

HUFFPOST HILL - Better Angels Of Our Nature Totally Cuck House GOP

Joe Biden reminded everyone why he might be the closest thing humanity has to a walking, talking “tfw” joke. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are moving two blocks from the Obamas’ future home, though nobody is discussing their proximity to a nearby Islamic center for some reason. And a bunch of Hillary Clinton staffers have been recruited to run rapid response at the DNC, because what the opposition really needs are more black-and-white videos of Jonah Hill in a heather gray sweater solemnly telling us how much we need the individual mandate. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017:

GOP IN GISARRAY - The real loser in all of this is Rep. Blake Farenthold, who will now have that picture of himself dressed in duckling PJs re-broadcast to the world (see below!). Matt Fuller and Paige Lavender: “After a torrent of bad headlines, countless phone calls to member offices, and two tweets from President-elect Donald Trump, House Republicans dropped their plans to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics Tuesday, just minutes before the House was set to gavel in for the 115th Congress and adopt their rules package for the next two years. The amendment ― authored by Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) ― would have placed the independent congressional ethics office under the oversight of the House Ethics Committee, changed the OCE’s name and barred the office from releasing reports to the public. In effect, it would have neutered Congress’ most aggressive watchdog. The decision to strip the Goodlatte amendment came just before noon on Tuesday as Republicans planned to begin the 115th Congress. Earlier in the day, responding to numerous news reports about Republicans gutting the OCE, Trump asked in a tweet whether Republicans really had to make the ‘weakening’ of the ethics office their first order of business, though he also didn’t necessarily come out against the idea of eventually overhauling the OCE.” [HuffPost]

Read HuffPost’s Ryan Grim on what made this whole snafu truly important: It proved that Congress will still react to public outrage.

We just want to see Sandy Levin in Snapchat Spectacles: “Several Democrats took pictures on the House floor as the chamber held a quorum call to kick off the 115th Congress — a violation of House rules that Republicans want to start punishing with a fine of up to $2,500…. Taking photos or recording video on the House floor has been a longstanding violation of House rules, but the fine is something new Republicans are proposing this year as a delayed reaction to Democrats’ June sit-in on the House floor protesting gun violence. During the sit-in, Democrats used their cell phones to record video of their speeches and chants and took photos of themselves and their colleagues after Republicans turned off the CSPAN cameras that provide live access to the floor.” [Roll Call’s Lindsey McPherson]

Watch this video of our HuffPost DC colleagues reading mean tweets.

HERE’S SOME SWEET, SWEET CUD FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES DEMOCRATS TO CHEW ON - Ben Carson’s confirmation hearing before Senate Banking is quickly becoming our second-most anticipated confirmation hearing. David Dayen: “OneWest Bank, which Donald Trump’s treasury secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin ran from 2009 to 2015, repeatedly broke California’s foreclosure laws during that period, according to a previously undisclosed 2013 memo from top prosecutors in the state attorney general’s office. The memo obtained by The Intercept alleges that OneWest rushed delinquent homeowners out of their homes by violating notice and waiting period statutes, illegally backdated key documents, and effectively gamed foreclosure auctions. In the memo, the leaders of the state attorney general’s Consumer Law Section said they had ‘uncovered evidence suggestive of widespread misconduct’ in a yearlong investigation. In a detailed 22-page request, they identified over a thousand legal violations in the small subsection of OneWest loans they were able to examine, and they recommended that Attorney General Kamala Harris file a civil enforcement action against the Pasadena-based bank. They even wrote up a sample legal complaint, seeking injunctive relief and millions of dollars in penalties.” [The Intercept]

BLACK PEOPLE WORRIED ABOUT JEFF SESSIONS FOR SOME REASON - But some of his best friends are ― oh, they aren’t? Lilly Workneh: “The NAACP is staging a sit-in protest at the office of U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions in Mobile, Alabama to speak out against his nomination by President-elect Donald Trump for attorney general. Several leaders of the civil rights organization have thus far participated in the protest, which kicked off Tuesday morning, including NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, and Alabama state NAACP President Benard Simelton. Brooks posted a tweet Tuesday morning declaring that he will continue to occupy the office until the protest results in either Sessions’ withdrawal or their arrest.” [HuffPost]

Like HuffPost Hill? Then order Eliot’s new book, The Beltway Bible: A Totally Serious A-Z Guide To Our No-Good, Corrupt, Incompetent, Terrible, Depressing, and Sometimes Hilarious Government

Does somebody keep forwarding you this newsletter? Get your own copy. It’s free! Sign up here. Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to eliot@huffingtonpost.com. Follow us on Twitter - @HuffPostHill

THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU ‘DANGEROUS DONALD’ SOMEHOW GIVEN JOB - Listen closely to the wind and you can hear the anguished typing of a million Bernie Bros. Philip Rucker: “The Democratic National Committee is building a ‘war room’ to battle President-elect Donald Trump, pressure the new Republican administration on a variety of policy matters and train a spotlight on Russia’s alleged cyberattacks to influence the 2016 election…. The DNC’s new communications and research operation, to be staffed by former aides to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, will be one of several efforts from across the Democratic firmament to take on Trump, including the office of Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Center for American Progress and American Bridge.” [WaPo]

TRUMP DUBAI HOTEL OPENING TO PROVIDE FRESH CONFLICT OF INTEREST - It’s been a whole five minutes since the last ethical challenge. Jon Gambrell: “The Trump International Golf Club in Dubai — the sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates home to a futuristic skyline crowned by the world’s tallest building — is due to open in February and be managed by Trump Organization employees. It is set inside Akoya, a massive housing development of 2,600 villas and 7,000 apartments developed by Dubai-based luxury real estate DAMAC Properties. Another Trump-managed golf course is planned for another even larger DAMAC project under development further down the road. Billionaire Hussain Sajwani, who founded DAMAC Properties in 2002, met Trump some 10 years ago and the two men hit it off over their real estate experiences, said Niall McLoughlin, a senior vice president for communications and marketing at the firm…. Sajwani and his family also attended a New Year’s Eve party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, with the incoming president describing them from on stage as ‘the most beautiful people from Dubai.’” [AP]

‘JOEY NO SOCKS’ - Such good swamp-draining news today. Chris Sommerfeldt: “President-elect Donald Trump rang in the new year together with Joseph ‘Joey No Socks’ Cinque — a convicted felon with ties to notorious Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, a recently released video has revealed. Cinque can be seen in a video obtained by the Palm Beach Daily News, cheering loudly as a tuxedo-clad Trump runs through a number of campaign promises before the hundreds of guests attending the New Year’s Eve bash the President-elect threw at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Saturday. ‘The taxes are coming down, regulations are coming off, we’re going to get rid of Obamacare,’ Trump can be heard saying as an exuberant Cinque stands next to him, pumping his fists into the air.” [Daily News]

‘WHAT ABOUT CHICAGO?’ TROLLING NOW FEDERAL POLICY - “President-elect Donald Trump said Monday that if Mayor Rahm Emanuel can’t turn the tide on Chicago’s soaring murder rate, Washington may need to step in. Trump, who frequently cited Chicago’s violence during the presidential campaign, tweeted about The Windy City a day after the Chicago Police Department released year-end crime stats showing homicide numbers that dwarfed those of New York and Los Angeles combined. “Chicago murder rate is record setting - 4,331 shooting victims with 762 murders in 2016. If Mayor can’t do it he must ask for Federal help!” Trump tweeted.” [Fox News]

MEGYN KELLY HEADING TO NBC NEWS - We suppose it would be too much to ask for Shep Smith to get Kelly’s spot…. Michael Calderone: “Fox News host Megyn Kelly is leaving the cable news network for NBC News, the network announced Tuesday. Kelly will take on multiple roles at NBC. She’ll host a one-hour daytime talk show airing Monday through Friday and a Sunday evening news magazine show, and will contribute on breaking news stories and NBC’s coverage of major political and special events. ‘Megyn is an exceptional journalist and news anchor, who has had an extraordinary career,’ Andrew Lack, chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group, said in a release. ‘She’s demonstrated tremendous skill and poise, and we’re lucky to have her.’ The departure is a major blow to Fox News, where Kelly hosted a top-rated 9 p.m. show and was considered a key part of the network’s future. In a Facebook post, Kelly said she was ‘incredibly enriched for the experiences’ she had in a dozen years at Fox News.” [HuffPost]

Can you even begin to imagine this neighborhood listserv: “[M]ultiple real-estate sources say [Ivanka] Trump and husband Jared Kushner will move into 2449 Tracy Pl. NW, in Kalorama. That will put the couple less than two blocks from the Obamas, who will reportedly move here post-White House.” [Washingtonian’s Marisa Kashino]

THINGS STAY THE SAME - Once again, Heath Shuler was denied his place in history. John Bresnahan and Kyle Cheney: “House Republicans overwhelmingly reelected Paul Ryan on Tuesday to another term as speaker of the House. Only one — Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — voted against him…. On the other side of the aisle, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi saw four defections in her own caucus: Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) voted for fellow Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan, and Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wisc.) voted for Cooper. Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-New York) also voted for Tim Ryan, and Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) voted for Rep. John Lewis.” [Politico]

*Insert Illuminati joke here* “Former President Bill Clinton and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration later this month, aides to both Clintons told CNN on Tuesday. Former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush will also attend, the 43rd president’s office said in a statement Tuesday.” [CNN’S Dan Merica and Theodore Schleifer]

THE GOP’S OBAMACARE CLOWN SHOW HAS BEGUN - Congress officially took the first procedural step Tuesday to unravel the health law, and Republicans still have no clue what the final step will be. Noam Levey: “Congressional Republicans, despite pledging to quickly repeal the Affordable Care Act, are struggling with what parts of the law to roll back and how to lock up the votes they will need, particularly in the Senate, to push their ambitious plans. Settling these questions may delay any major repeal vote for months. Just as importantly, a protracted debate could force President-elect Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers to preserve parts of the healthcare law they once swore to eliminate. And this all must be resolved before they even turn to the question of how to replace the law.” [LA Times]

TRUMP CAMP PROMISES PRESS CONFERENCE FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME - He totally won’t back out again, you guys. Callum Borchers: “Donald Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway told CNN on Monday that the president-elect will probably hold a news conference Jan. 11. ‘I know that’s the current plan,’ Conway said, sounding less than certain. Let’s not forget that a September event originally billed as a news conference turned out to be an infomercial for Trump’s new D.C. hotel — capped by a brief concession that President Obama was, in fact, born in the United States. And last month’s long-planned news conference was scrapped just days beforehand. So plans can change. Assuming Trump does follow through next week, his news conference drought will end at 168 days — a staggeringly long stretch for a man who once constantly held court with reporters and seemed to view the interactions as a kind of sport.” [WaPo]

CONGRESS LOVES JESUS MORE THAN AMERICA DOES - Science says so. Eliza Collins: “Lawmakers in Congress are overwhelmingly Christian, more even than the America they represent. Nine out of 10 members the new House and Senate (91%) sworn in Tuesday describe themselves as members of the Christian faith, according to a survey released by Pew Research Center Tuesday. The number of Christians in Congress is higher than the number of Americans who identify as Christian. That number has been declining in recent decades. Between the early 1970s and 90s the number hovered around 90% but by early 2000 it had dropped to around 80%. According to a spokeswoman from Pew, that number continues to decrease.” [USA Today]

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here is a dog being shamed about its snoring.

BREAKING RICHARD NIXON NEWS - Peter Baker: “Richard M. Nixon told an aide that they should find a way to secretly ‘monkey wrench’ peace talks in Vietnam in the waning days of the 1968 campaign for fear that progress toward ending the war would hurt his chances for the presidency, according to newly discovered notes. In a telephone conversation with H. R. Haldeman, who would go on to become White House chief of staff, Nixon gave instructions that a friendly intermediary should keep ‘working on’ South Vietnamese leaders to persuade them not to agree to a deal before the election, according to the notes, taken by Mr. Haldeman.” [NYT]

COMFORT FOOD

- Auctioneers set over rap beats.

- Tsunamis are terrifying.

-  The worst (best?) moments of the English-to-Mandarin-to-English translation of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith”

TWITTERAMA

@mattyglesias: Web traffic is back! Vacation and family togetherness are fine, but clicks are what matters most.

@MEPFuller: Hey but remember when House Republicans were all Let’s-make-sure-the-public-has-a-chance-to-read-and-weigh-in-on-congressional-action?

lol

@jonlovett: Maybe a moratorium

A moratorium

On videos of celebrities with serious faces

Serious faces

Not saying forever

But

But just for now

For now

Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffingtonpost.com)

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2i7BZVA

[realestate63141]

HUFFPOST HILL - Better Angels Of Our Nature Totally Cuck House GOP

Joe Biden reminded everyone why he might be the closest thing humanity has to a walking, talking “tfw” joke. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are moving two blocks from the Obamas’ future home, though nobody is discussing their proximity to a nearby Islamic center for some reason. And a bunch of Hillary Clinton staffers have been recruited to run rapid response at the DNC, because what the opposition really needs are more black-and-white videos of Jonah Hill in a heather gray sweater solemnly telling us how much we need the individual mandate. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017:

GOP IN GISARRAY - The real loser in all of this is Rep. Blake Farenthold, who will now have that picture of himself dressed in duckling PJs re-broadcast to the world (see below!). Matt Fuller and Paige Lavender: “After a torrent of bad headlines, countless phone calls to member offices, and two tweets from President-elect Donald Trump, House Republicans dropped their plans to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics Tuesday, just minutes before the House was set to gavel in for the 115th Congress and adopt their rules package for the next two years. The amendment ― authored by Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) ― would have placed the independent congressional ethics office under the oversight of the House Ethics Committee, changed the OCE’s name and barred the office from releasing reports to the public. In effect, it would have neutered Congress’ most aggressive watchdog. The decision to strip the Goodlatte amendment came just before noon on Tuesday as Republicans planned to begin the 115th Congress. Earlier in the day, responding to numerous news reports about Republicans gutting the OCE, Trump asked in a tweet whether Republicans really had to make the ‘weakening’ of the ethics office their first order of business, though he also didn’t necessarily come out against the idea of eventually overhauling the OCE.” [HuffPost]

Read HuffPost’s Ryan Grim on what made this whole snafu truly important: It proved that Congress will still react to public outrage.

We just want to see Sandy Levin in Snapchat Spectacles: “Several Democrats took pictures on the House floor as the chamber held a quorum call to kick off the 115th Congress — a violation of House rules that Republicans want to start punishing with a fine of up to $2,500…. Taking photos or recording video on the House floor has been a longstanding violation of House rules, but the fine is something new Republicans are proposing this year as a delayed reaction to Democrats’ June sit-in on the House floor protesting gun violence. During the sit-in, Democrats used their cell phones to record video of their speeches and chants and took photos of themselves and their colleagues after Republicans turned off the CSPAN cameras that provide live access to the floor.” [Roll Call’s Lindsey McPherson]

Watch this video of our HuffPost DC colleagues reading mean tweets.

HERE’S SOME SWEET, SWEET CUD FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES DEMOCRATS TO CHEW ON - Ben Carson’s confirmation hearing before Senate Banking is quickly becoming our second-most anticipated confirmation hearing. David Dayen: “OneWest Bank, which Donald Trump’s treasury secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin ran from 2009 to 2015, repeatedly broke California’s foreclosure laws during that period, according to a previously undisclosed 2013 memo from top prosecutors in the state attorney general’s office. The memo obtained by The Intercept alleges that OneWest rushed delinquent homeowners out of their homes by violating notice and waiting period statutes, illegally backdated key documents, and effectively gamed foreclosure auctions. In the memo, the leaders of the state attorney general’s Consumer Law Section said they had ‘uncovered evidence suggestive of widespread misconduct’ in a yearlong investigation. In a detailed 22-page request, they identified over a thousand legal violations in the small subsection of OneWest loans they were able to examine, and they recommended that Attorney General Kamala Harris file a civil enforcement action against the Pasadena-based bank. They even wrote up a sample legal complaint, seeking injunctive relief and millions of dollars in penalties.” [The Intercept]

BLACK PEOPLE WORRIED ABOUT JEFF SESSIONS FOR SOME REASON - But some of his best friends are ― oh, they aren’t? Lilly Workneh: “The NAACP is staging a sit-in protest at the office of U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions in Mobile, Alabama to speak out against his nomination by President-elect Donald Trump for attorney general. Several leaders of the civil rights organization have thus far participated in the protest, which kicked off Tuesday morning, including NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, and Alabama state NAACP President Benard Simelton. Brooks posted a tweet Tuesday morning declaring that he will continue to occupy the office until the protest results in either Sessions’ withdrawal or their arrest.” [HuffPost]

Like HuffPost Hill? Then order Eliot’s new book, The Beltway Bible: A Totally Serious A-Z Guide To Our No-Good, Corrupt, Incompetent, Terrible, Depressing, and Sometimes Hilarious Government

Does somebody keep forwarding you this newsletter? Get your own copy. It’s free! Sign up here. Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to eliot@huffingtonpost.com. Follow us on Twitter - @HuffPostHill

THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU ‘DANGEROUS DONALD’ SOMEHOW GIVEN JOB - Listen closely to the wind and you can hear the anguished typing of a million Bernie Bros. Philip Rucker: “The Democratic National Committee is building a ‘war room’ to battle President-elect Donald Trump, pressure the new Republican administration on a variety of policy matters and train a spotlight on Russia’s alleged cyberattacks to influence the 2016 election…. The DNC’s new communications and research operation, to be staffed by former aides to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, will be one of several efforts from across the Democratic firmament to take on Trump, including the office of Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Center for American Progress and American Bridge.” [WaPo]

TRUMP DUBAI HOTEL OPENING TO PROVIDE FRESH CONFLICT OF INTEREST - It’s been a whole five minutes since the last ethical challenge. Jon Gambrell: “The Trump International Golf Club in Dubai — the sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates home to a futuristic skyline crowned by the world’s tallest building — is due to open in February and be managed by Trump Organization employees. It is set inside Akoya, a massive housing development of 2,600 villas and 7,000 apartments developed by Dubai-based luxury real estate DAMAC Properties. Another Trump-managed golf course is planned for another even larger DAMAC project under development further down the road. Billionaire Hussain Sajwani, who founded DAMAC Properties in 2002, met Trump some 10 years ago and the two men hit it off over their real estate experiences, said Niall McLoughlin, a senior vice president for communications and marketing at the firm…. Sajwani and his family also attended a New Year’s Eve party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, with the incoming president describing them from on stage as ‘the most beautiful people from Dubai.’” [AP]

‘JOEY NO SOCKS’ - Such good swamp-draining news today. Chris Sommerfeldt: “President-elect Donald Trump rang in the new year together with Joseph ‘Joey No Socks’ Cinque — a convicted felon with ties to notorious Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, a recently released video has revealed. Cinque can be seen in a video obtained by the Palm Beach Daily News, cheering loudly as a tuxedo-clad Trump runs through a number of campaign promises before the hundreds of guests attending the New Year’s Eve bash the President-elect threw at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Saturday. ‘The taxes are coming down, regulations are coming off, we’re going to get rid of Obamacare,’ Trump can be heard saying as an exuberant Cinque stands next to him, pumping his fists into the air.” [Daily News]

‘WHAT ABOUT CHICAGO?’ TROLLING NOW FEDERAL POLICY - “President-elect Donald Trump said Monday that if Mayor Rahm Emanuel can’t turn the tide on Chicago’s soaring murder rate, Washington may need to step in. Trump, who frequently cited Chicago’s violence during the presidential campaign, tweeted about The Windy City a day after the Chicago Police Department released year-end crime stats showing homicide numbers that dwarfed those of New York and Los Angeles combined. “Chicago murder rate is record setting - 4,331 shooting victims with 762 murders in 2016. If Mayor can’t do it he must ask for Federal help!” Trump tweeted.” [Fox News]

MEGYN KELLY HEADING TO NBC NEWS - We suppose it would be too much to ask for Shep Smith to get Kelly’s spot…. Michael Calderone: “Fox News host Megyn Kelly is leaving the cable news network for NBC News, the network announced Tuesday. Kelly will take on multiple roles at NBC. She’ll host a one-hour daytime talk show airing Monday through Friday and a Sunday evening news magazine show, and will contribute on breaking news stories and NBC’s coverage of major political and special events. ‘Megyn is an exceptional journalist and news anchor, who has had an extraordinary career,’ Andrew Lack, chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group, said in a release. ‘She’s demonstrated tremendous skill and poise, and we’re lucky to have her.’ The departure is a major blow to Fox News, where Kelly hosted a top-rated 9 p.m. show and was considered a key part of the network’s future. In a Facebook post, Kelly said she was ‘incredibly enriched for the experiences’ she had in a dozen years at Fox News.” [HuffPost]

Can you even begin to imagine this neighborhood listserv: “[M]ultiple real-estate sources say [Ivanka] Trump and husband Jared Kushner will move into 2449 Tracy Pl. NW, in Kalorama. That will put the couple less than two blocks from the Obamas, who will reportedly move here post-White House.” [Washingtonian’s Marisa Kashino]

THINGS STAY THE SAME - Once again, Heath Shuler was denied his place in history. John Bresnahan and Kyle Cheney: “House Republicans overwhelmingly reelected Paul Ryan on Tuesday to another term as speaker of the House. Only one — Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — voted against him…. On the other side of the aisle, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi saw four defections in her own caucus: Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) voted for fellow Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan, and Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wisc.) voted for Cooper. Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-New York) also voted for Tim Ryan, and Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) voted for Rep. John Lewis.” [Politico]

*Insert Illuminati joke here* “Former President Bill Clinton and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration later this month, aides to both Clintons told CNN on Tuesday. Former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush will also attend, the 43rd president’s office said in a statement Tuesday.” [CNN’S Dan Merica and Theodore Schleifer]

THE GOP’S OBAMACARE CLOWN SHOW HAS BEGUN - Congress officially took the first procedural step Tuesday to unravel the health law, and Republicans still have no clue what the final step will be. Noam Levey: “Congressional Republicans, despite pledging to quickly repeal the Affordable Care Act, are struggling with what parts of the law to roll back and how to lock up the votes they will need, particularly in the Senate, to push their ambitious plans. Settling these questions may delay any major repeal vote for months. Just as importantly, a protracted debate could force President-elect Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers to preserve parts of the healthcare law they once swore to eliminate. And this all must be resolved before they even turn to the question of how to replace the law.” [LA Times]

TRUMP CAMP PROMISES PRESS CONFERENCE FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME - He totally won’t back out again, you guys. Callum Borchers: “Donald Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway told CNN on Monday that the president-elect will probably hold a news conference Jan. 11. ‘I know that’s the current plan,’ Conway said, sounding less than certain. Let’s not forget that a September event originally billed as a news conference turned out to be an infomercial for Trump’s new D.C. hotel — capped by a brief concession that President Obama was, in fact, born in the United States. And last month’s long-planned news conference was scrapped just days beforehand. So plans can change. Assuming Trump does follow through next week, his news conference drought will end at 168 days — a staggeringly long stretch for a man who once constantly held court with reporters and seemed to view the interactions as a kind of sport.” [WaPo]

CONGRESS LOVES JESUS MORE THAN AMERICA DOES - Science says so. Eliza Collins: “Lawmakers in Congress are overwhelmingly Christian, more even than the America they represent. Nine out of 10 members the new House and Senate (91%) sworn in Tuesday describe themselves as members of the Christian faith, according to a survey released by Pew Research Center Tuesday. The number of Christians in Congress is higher than the number of Americans who identify as Christian. That number has been declining in recent decades. Between the early 1970s and 90s the number hovered around 90% but by early 2000 it had dropped to around 80%. According to a spokeswoman from Pew, that number continues to decrease.” [USA Today]

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here is a dog being shamed about its snoring.

BREAKING RICHARD NIXON NEWS - Peter Baker: “Richard M. Nixon told an aide that they should find a way to secretly ‘monkey wrench’ peace talks in Vietnam in the waning days of the 1968 campaign for fear that progress toward ending the war would hurt his chances for the presidency, according to newly discovered notes. In a telephone conversation with H. R. Haldeman, who would go on to become White House chief of staff, Nixon gave instructions that a friendly intermediary should keep ‘working on’ South Vietnamese leaders to persuade them not to agree to a deal before the election, according to the notes, taken by Mr. Haldeman.” [NYT]

COMFORT FOOD

- Auctioneers set over rap beats.

- Tsunamis are terrifying.

-  The worst (best?) moments of the English-to-Mandarin-to-English translation of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith”

TWITTERAMA

@mattyglesias: Web traffic is back! Vacation and family togetherness are fine, but clicks are what matters most.

@MEPFuller: Hey but remember when House Republicans were all Let’s-make-sure-the-public-has-a-chance-to-read-and-weigh-in-on-congressional-action?

lol

@jonlovett: Maybe a moratorium

A moratorium

On videos of celebrities with serious faces

Serious faces

Not saying forever

But

But just for now

For now

Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffingtonpost.com)

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2i7BZVA