#giant evil mean woman..? beating people up?

[chialattea]

It’s them….. the girls…

[velvetvexations]

People so often are like "we need tme/tma for reasons" and then use them as direct substitutes for transfem vs non-transfem like why are you creating words that define identity by oppression (they'll say they don't do that but like, how often do they actually acknowledge other populations affected by transmisogyny (black women and many other people of colour, many nonbinary people, many intersex people, trans people of other genders/allignments who are routinely interpreted as trans women by outsiders, etc) the answer is almost never) when you can just say people who aren't transfem? It also makes it easier to see what's just an attack on other trans people vs what is a genuine grievance against intracommunity transmisogyny

Like, "tmes shouldn't be the main voice talking about transfeminine experience" vs "People who aren't transfem shouldn't be the main voice talking about transfeminine issues"

Arguably a similar meaning, doesn't define random people's relationship to systemic oppression, instead focuses on the reality of the situation. Way better than shit like "cis women and tmes use their afab privilage to speak over trans women" bullshit. If people want to talk about transfemme issues and lateral aggression it's actually very easy to do so without defining other people's lived experiences out of existence. Like there's the term nonblack to talk about people who aren't black; it's very possible to create terminology that helps to analyse group experiences without invoking a strict binary where people are told what they experience rather than acknowledging individual nuance

Signed: someone id say falls best into the category of "transmisogyny complicated" (genderfluid and can and does pass as a woman or a man in different situations, often assumed trans either way)

(putting this in the tag because I put in effort and hope it helps)

Theoretically one could say that transfems need a word that specifically refers to the impression they face in the way that we say 'cis" rather than "people who aren't trans" - if for brevity alone. "It "Transmisogyny" was originally coined to refer, I believe, less specific scenarios and more just a byword for when transfems face transphobia, which isn't terrible.

The issues as I see it, though, is that:

Transmascs are not allowed the word for what THEY go through, even when those issues are hyper-specific to them. Recently responded to me bringing up difficulties getting getting OB-GYNs with "transfems have a hard time getting prostate exams", and it's like, cool, that's possibly equivalent (I do not know enough to compare them at all) but that's not getting a fucking OB-GYN, is it? That, specifically, is still a transmasc issue that they have to just call generic transphobia. Yet, despite acknowledging healthcare is systemic oppression for transmascs as well, I'm 100% certain that these people would still call the transfem version transmisogyny despite the fact that, by that very logic logic, it should also be generic transphobia - or if it IS transmisogyny, either a sterling example of AFAB trans people also being systemically affected by it.

"Splash damage" is a horrifically dismissive and cruel way to refer to what, for instance, imane Khelif1has* been going through, not to mention all the people have been hurt even worse ways. Like, do you remember the trans man who was beat up because he was told to use the female bathroom? Do you remember the passing high school wrestler who got giant headlines with blown-up images of him a pinning a distressed girl because he he was forced to compete in the female division and people thought he was a trans woman? How the fuck evil can you possibly get. Tell them to their faces what they experienced was "splash damage". Seriously, LOOK THEM IN THE FUCKING EYE AND TELL THEM THAT.

If transmascs WERE allowed a word, it would go both ways! I keep saying that even though I don't personally associate my struggles with transandrophobia, a lot of transmisogyny is tied up in animus towards men, perceived or otherwise. Trans rad fems deny this obvious reality because God made their souls female and that's just an objective hard reality coded into the very fabric of reality like thermodynamics and relativity. It's this bizarrely masochistic thing where self-ID'd TMA/Es want to emulate every last hyper specific detail of the previously understood definition of wo/manhood, including an exact carbon copy of how they are or are not oppressed, rather than recognizing that it's not diminishing for it to just be different.

They're completely and utterly obsessed with being the biggest victim in the room 24/7. It's so obviously the exact same brain poison TERFs have, but if you try telling them that they go "how dare you compare us to our oppressors". And it's like, either (a) stop fucking acting exactly like them then, or (b) stop equating trans men with cis men.

It leads to so much fucking pedestalling that makes me sick. The way some self-ID'd TMEs act is massively cringe at best and at worst signs they desperately need therapy to work out the self-esteem issues they've been indoctrinated into.

I've never seen a single explanation of what "TMA" or "TME" is supposed to accomplish beyond labeling people's oppression as inherently lesser. Not one single time have I seen anyone articulate why it's such a vital component of "talking about our issues" beyond elevating it above the issues of others. Sure, it can serve as a shorter substitute for "trans women/non-trans women", but why are people putting that shit in their bios? And once again, it comes down to like, hey, why are trans women why do you not constantly declare yourself free of exorsexism or intersexism? It's so resounding clear it has no other point.

Finally, a lot of them are just...genuinely atrocious people with atrocious beliefs that fall far outside just the limited scope of intercommunity trans discourse. Many might believe it in good faith, but the biggest ringleaders of the cult are malicious people who actively want the world to be a worse place through things like refusing to vote and cheering on genocide of Ukranians and Uyghurs. It's no surprise they're lapping up rhetoric that gives them both authority and feeds a victim complex.

What I'm trying to say is, I guess, I don't like TMA/TME either.

*these things would be what I want to avoid talking about but I already know about them so blows party favor dejectedly

[kneelingshadowsalome]

hope you don’t hate angst in ur mailbox but what about when Fee gets pregnant (just a matter of time lol) and when she’s in labor they keep him out of the tent :( and she’s screaming and in pain but he can’t go in there lest he angers the gods :( would he force himself in anyway??? curious to hear ur thoughts <3 ily

I love angst when it ends in fluff! 💕

Imagine König being in the most horrible, distressful situation in his life, hearing her cry and suffer and he can’t do a thing about it.

There are a lot of women inside their beautiful, sturdy little hut, and an evil looking elderly lady at the doorway. She’s guarding the entrance so he can’t get in, not without using force. And he can’t use force because the old crone croaks at him and starts to beat him with a thin rod every time he approaches. Bad luck! Bad for the baby if he goes in! His woman could die too; why is he being so ignorant and foolish?! Bad man! Go away!

He’s just nonplussed. He understands, somewhat, that a man should never be present at birthing lest he wants to anger the gods, but he’s about to crawl out of his skin soon! He turns away, only to hurl back when he hears another scream that turns into an inhuman wail. He would rip all these people apart with his bare hands if it meant he’d get to be with her, but that would surely anger the gods too :( He’s the biggest, strongest male in the area, but he can do nothing to help his little fairy who has to suffer so much when giving birth to his child.

For a moment he spirals into deep, hellish thoughts of whether he has done a terrible thing, taking a fairy woman for his wife.

What if she dies in childbirth because the baby is too big? What has he done!?

When the crying ends, he’s sure he has lost her forever, and finally pushes the hissing old woman aside – she even tries to bite him, the cursed, mean old crone – ready to meet the horrible sight of his little Fee, bloody on her deathbed.

And there’s blood, alright, but everybody’s silent only because they’re looking at a wondrous sight.

Every woman, including his beloved Fee, is staring at a breathing, living miracle: the child of a giant and a sprite. It’s the smallest, chubbiest little thing he has ever seen, and it’s looking up at the mother who just gave birth to her – or him, König doesn’t care, as long as they’re both alive.

“Little one…” he stutters, completely taken aback by the amazing sight of his smiling wife and their newborn child. She only now notices him, an idiot who broke the rules because he thought he had lost her forever. Her face is flushed and puffy and tired and so incredibly beautiful when she breaks into a beaming smile.

“You silly brute, you shouldn’t be in here yet. But now that you are… Come look what a beautiful girl we made!”

[brainyrot]

Stuff from the comics I like and if they were canon to the inky mystery I would explode from joy part 2

Bacon soup has Bendy's face on it, it's really funny really, just having the soup you like the most have your own face on it for no real reason.

Alice is seen float a lot, it's really fun.

Boris growls.

Alice halo becomes smaller and her horns gets longer whenever she gets mad, along with fire.

Bendy just doesn't dress up for Halloween because he's a demon, but if he has to scare Boris, he gets a ghost costume (implying that Boris is not scared of bendy. At all. Which is very cute.) < from the cartoons

Charley just hates bendy lmao

love how whenever something happens, it has to be Bendy's fault. he's just a troublemaker, but his friends are ready to forgive him anytime.

Boris says "good golly gosh" a lot, actually.

"we're the first people to land in the moon, and it's YOUR FAULT!" love this from Alice actually.

Also in the bendy universe apparently the moon's made of cheese and there are aliens living there. Or whatever those turkeys were.

Alice is never up Bendy's bullshit.

according to Alice, bendy needs to get better at his "people's skills"

Bendy just has lots of pranks things, like the little joy buzzer (the thing where you shake the hand of someone and the someone gets shocked n stuff)

Also bendy has a pet fish. (Love how when he turned bubbles into a monster fish bendy still called him bubbles, like. Hey guys check my giant pet monster!!! His name his bubbles!!!)

bendy is just..not evil, even when he has literally something that can give him everything he wants (the pitchfork, even though in the end it was a scam) he just says "I shouldn't keep this to myself, but have everyone else have it too!!!" And immediately goes to give his friends their wishes.

Like, even if he calls Boris "his servant" he just treats him way too good.

also "bubbles you destroyed the whole town! Good work of course, but that's where I live!!" Awesome.

Despite bendy being a demon (demons are often described as filthy and greedy) he enjoys being clean.

Best description of bendy I saw "mischievous selfish bitch who steals pies from old ladies" (because in the comics he does steal pies. From one specific lady too.)

The first thing bendy does when the pitchfork turns out to be a curse casting pitchfork is say "oh no! Alice and Boris!" He truly cares man.

"think bendy! Put your devilshness to good use!!"

Alice openly says to bendy "bendy I will beat your ass once this is over", icon.

"there's only one devil who can menace alice and Boris and that's me!" Like when the older sibling says "only I can bully my younger sibling" beautiful. I want this canon in inky mystery.

Alice dosen't even question why bendy pet fish is now a giant flying monster, meaning he pulls out shit like this everyday.

"to think that dosen't recognize all the good naps we had together!" Boris has a favorite spot to sleep and it's that specific tree. (The dancing evil tree.)

BENDY SAVING BUBBLES WHEN HE FALLS😭🙏

bendy: "i've learned my lesson!!" Does the same mistake again.

Alice is really just a good independent woman, I love her. She's smart and she got charm.

I love how Alice can fool bendy and Boris pretty easily, she's the smart one of the group.

All of the stories with bendy, Boris and Alice being like characters like in devil's treasure, yukon bendy and such it makes me think they dress up and play pretend.

Bendy saying "I love that guy" to Charley like😭🙏 this man has no enemies !!!

"we've been here for fifteen minutes!! Time to go home." Boris is still a mood. (He's talking about working, btw.)

Bendy is casually a conductor. (Even more reasons why he loves trains, AND HE PLAYS WITH A TOY TRAIN IN THE GAME.)

Bendy does not like potato corn.

Boris gets offended if he gets called a dog, he will specifically tell you he is a WOLF, not a dog!

"boo bendy!! We love you Alice!!!" LMAOO

"see people of new York!" Either he went to New York to perform, or sillyvision is around there.

Also apparently bendy can lift things and make 'em float. He lifted Alice in the air and let her float around for a magic trick (or it was Alice floating for him but I doubt, since later he spins her and she doesn't like that.)

"whoops! That was my good tomato" 😭🙏 I LOVE THE BACKGROUND CHARACTERS

Let me appreciate the pizza guy saying "another, signore?" Which translate to "another, sir?"

Bendy can cook! Or at least, he can make chili.

Bendy does his bath with his rubber duck!!

Boris and Alice casually fishing where it says "no fishing"

They also just, casually look at bendy sleeping in his washtub being pulled away by the water.

Edgar is such a cutie patooie. He even asks politely "just don't tell the gang I saved you btw, thanks."

[fancyfade]

What are your thoughts on Batman: Black Mirror? I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with that story mostly because I adore its characterisation of Dick and how the story depicts legacy and history, but Synder's ableism is so apparent.

If it's alright for me to share my two cents: I enjoy that a lot of the arc (particularly the first 3 issues) revolves around the theme of "history repeating; first as tragedy, then as farce" which was typical for Bat titles of the time. The Dealer and James Jr. trying to intellectualise "might is right" despite resorting to same old greed-fuelled murder. Dick Grayson coming into his own as a not-Bruce-Wayne Batman, who's standing on the shoulders of giants and reckoning with the ghost of the Batman's (and his) past. Barbara and Jim Gordon having to deal with Jim's biggest mistakes of all in the form of James Jr resurfacing. I also loved Dick and Babs' moments and their relationship draws on this theme: they have so much history together, they loved each other, they get each other like no one else does, they've been there from almost the beginning, they've been allies, partners, friends, lovers, exes, fiancés, and now they're something pretty un-labellable if you ask me. (Thesis-antithesis-synthesis in a sense :P)

But shit. The ableism is problematic. I think it's two main things, though I might be missing something. First is Dick's nightmare vision where his worst fear is him losing his legs. And second is James Jr being written as a "psychopath" as oppose to, I dunno, the literal embodiment of toxic masculinity (fucking wasted opportunity) to be a foil to our favourite flamboyant, pun-slinging, back-flipping, hoping-inspiring boy scout Dick Grayson.

What do you think of this arc?

I’ll confess that I am the odd one out in that I just. Do not get the appeal of black mirror. Even excluding the ableism (and it is VERY ableist). Like people say it’s great Dick characterization, and it’s fine, but it’s not like it stands out especially among other comics of the time IMO.

Like, Dick and Babs’s moments in this comic are not notable for me, because she is reduced and written as lesser to make her someone Dick has to protect, she is damselled and written as less competent – hwo does James get past her security so effortlessly? Why does she not finish him off when she has the advantage after beating him up initially? Like the whole reason I like Dick and Babs’ dynamic is because they are written as equals in the initial version of their relationship, Black Mirror just made it a stereotypical ‘scared woman (b/c she is treated as scared of James, even tho she does try to break out), strong man saves her’ thing. James Jr would not be a threat to Babs in her own solo title. That means I think it fails in being respectful of the depiction of her history, so I would say that Snyder does not succeed there.

I also would disagree that we see Babs and Jim having to deal with Jim’s greatest mistake, when like I said Babs doesn’t really do much.

I do agree that they had a lot of opportunity to parallel James and Dick as toxic masculinity vs healthy masculinity, but it’s wasn’t the authorial intention at all, so I don’t give it any credit for that. The authorial intention was “Good, neurotypical dick* vs Evil, neurodivergent James”. I would honestly consider the way they diminished Babs capabilities to prop Dick up more ableism in the story as well, in addition to sexism.

I think that critique of the Might is Right mindset is done much better in many 80s/90s Batman comics, including Batman: Venom. The text was much more overt there, and less hidden behind ableism.

Anyway, so sorry :P but basically Batman: Black Mirror is one of those “everyone talks it up” but I’m just like the *insert her GIF*. It’s a pretty stereotypical batman story. In terms of Dickbats stories, I consider it one of the more mid ones. I genuinely don’t know how it is so popular :P

*ignoring headcanons or readings of earlier texts…. The way Snyder writes him is intended to be read as neurotypical

[himboskywalker]

hi tag! i hope things are going well for you and you’re getting the mental rest you deserve <3

i just wanted to say that i absolutely adore your writing and am inspired by your literary style. i’ve been itching to write my own fics/books/short stories what have you, but i tend get overwhelmed trying to start.

i wanted to ask you what brings you inspiration for your works and do you have any suggestions for a new writer on getting started?? thanks for all you do and sending much love <33

Hello dear thank you so so much ❤️and I’m so happy you want to write too! I’ve been writing for a very long time,since I was in elementary school,and the inspiration I take and how I write and go about it has changed and evolved so incredibly much through the years. When I was younger often what I was inspired by and then wrote was a storyline.Tolkien has and will always be my favorite author so I replicated a lot of hero’s journey epic quests and good against evil type of narratives.I wanted to tell stories of fantasy and escape and the prevailing fight of light against dark,often with a young woman at the center of it all,because that is what I looked to,and what I wanted from the world.

As I got a bit older I was incredibly inspired by writing stories of what my family and how I grew up told me was wrong and evil and shouldn’t be talked or thought about. I was inspired by queerness and outsiders and that constant feeling of I’m different and I don’t belong and I don’t agree. That was a huge focal point of what inspired me and the stories I wanted to tell for years,and it’s still a huge part of my writing!

I think the biggest transitional point in my writing was when I started wanting to write stories,based not primarily just on narrative arcs,but revolving around themes and emotional arcs.Often what inspires me now is a nugget of a narrative idea and then centering that on what emotional story I want to tell and the thematic beats I want to take my characters and/or my readers through. My advice to new writers or writers new to plotting out larger pieces of writing is to when you sit down to make yourself an outline here’s what you do-

And I don’t mean an outline in the traditional sense, you don’t have to have all of your plot planned out or every chapter,I don’t even do that. But here’s what I do. We’ll use Conceal Me What I Am as an example. When I plotted out cmwia I had a couple narrative plot points I knew I was going to weave the story through A-Sidious in order to turn the public against the Jedi orchestrates an arranged marriage between a knight and senator,purposefully planning for it to be Obi-Wan and Anakin because he thinks it’ll be an alpha alpha paring. B-Obi-Wan and friends realize there’s a mole in the senate & Anakin somehow gets info from Maul about the Sith C-There’s a giant star destroyer battle and Anakin’s implant gets crunched in a duel D-There’s a duel with Obikin and Sidious. That was my general idea of the entire plot for it. But what I then did was sit down and say,right,but what is the developments in their relationship and the emotional developments of both Anakin and Obi-Wan in each chapter? What is the character development that needs to take place to get us to the next plot point,what is the emotional arc that is going to weave all of this together?

Even if you don’t have the plot ironed out or the full idea of your narrative,what you do want is a clear idea or what you want to convey to your readers. What is the point of the story you’re writing? What are its themes,what is the meaning of it,what is the message your want people to walk away with? It can be as simple as I’m going to write a love story,I want the core ideals of my book to be perseverance and that true love is simply recognition,the archetype of “I see you”. Write that down! And in every chapter,reread that and remind yourself of what the driving narrative and themes are,do your characters’ actions and thoughts propagate this or evolve to support the theme? Do the emotional beats you try to have in each chapter slowly reveal this revelation to your protagonist? You can go about it in any way you like of course but no matter what you write and how you do it, you always want to have a clear and developed understanding of what it is you’re wanting to convey to your audience!

[night-gay]

Into the Anthill pt 28 - Onslaught

The Avengers have faced their fair share of insane odds over the years, but this is the first time since Korvac that Hank found himself face-to-face with truly unwinnable odds. This crisis would take everything Earth’s heroes had and more, leaving only the X-Men in its wake.

🐜🐜🐜

Sensational Spider-Man vol 1 #3

Spider-Man (Ben Reilly) and Peter Parker came to see Giant-Man at the Avengers’ temporary HQ at Jan’s estate to see if they could borrow some of his equipment. Hank agreed, running a lengthy series of tests on the skeleton they brought in for identification. He confirmed that it was indeed a match to Spider-Man’s DNA, meaning that this was yet another clone of Peter.

Iron Man vol 1 #327

Foggy Nelson gathered Tony’s chosen few for the reading of his will. Jarvis would receive an annual stipend to make sure neither he nor his mother would ever face financial difficulties again. A joint grant was set up in Hank and Jan’s names to allow him to continue their shared research and her to fund the Avengers in perpetuity. He named Rhodey and Pepper as the executor’s of his estate and set a few of his most trusted employees onto the board of directors for Stark International.

Avengers vol 1 #400, Onslaught: X-Men

A man named Tyfon arrived from the future with a warning: this is the day the Avengers die. He and Jarvis ran through his memories of their battles in the hopes of discovering which villain was causing this while the Avengers fought shadowy duplicates of the Masters of Evil, Squadron Supreme, and more in a glorified boss-rush. When Jarvis got back to his memories of their very first battle, Tyfon revealed himself to be Loki; he’d been using Jarvis’ memoires to conjure these enemies. The Avengers were able to beat him once they knew who they were fighting. At the end of the battle Nate Grey arrived with another dire warning: Charles Xavier had gone insane.

Avengers vol 1 #401-402, Fantastic Four vol 1 #415, X-Men vol 2 #55-56, Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #336, Incredible Hulk vol 1 #445, Iron Man vol 1 #332, Onslaught: Marvel Universe

Hank was given access to Cerebro’s scanners to locate Magneto, who they believed may be controlling Onslaught.

While he sent the Avengers to locate Magneto (actually his younger self Joseph), Hank dispatched another team to meet with the Fantastic Four. Onslaught had beaten them there, hoping to claim Franklin Richards for himself by force if necessary. Completely undeterred by the combined X-Men, Avengers, and Fantastic Four working against him, Onslaught achieved his goal and took Franklin.

As the heroes regrouped, Onslaught unleashed Sentinels against the people of NYC to force their hand. While most set out to protect the masses, Reed took Giant-Man, Iron Man, and Bishop to his lab to start working on weapons that could hurt Onslaught’s psionic body. When Onslaught’s citadel appeared from nothing in Central Park, Onslaught unleashed a psychic-emp wave that knocked out all of the machines in the city and put the already-scattered heroes on the defensive. A combined attack from Thor, Joseph, Cable, and Invisible Woman was finally able to extract Charles’s body from Onslaught’s core, but even that did not stop him. The heroes were forced to accept the loss and fall back.

While Hulk led a team to keep Onslaught occupied, Iron Man, Quicksilver, Giant-Man, attempted to reach the Wakandan consulate to access vibranium for their psi-armor plans. Black Panther arrived to escort them to his labs, but Giant-Man was forced to stay behind to distract the Sentinels alone. Quicksilver saved him the split-second before he was overwhelmed by their number and met with Tony at Four Freedoms Plaza to begin distributing the psi-shields. Meanwhile, Onslaught’s power increased exponentially when he absorbed Nate Grey.

Out of time and out of options, the heroes waged their last battle against Onslaught. Dr. Doom arrived to coordinate a plan with Rogue, Vision, Namor, and Giant-Man to pierce Onslaught’s barriers while Jean disabled Bruce’s hold over Hulk to unleash his pure rage. Hulk’s frenzy broke through Onslaught’s final physical resistances, leaving him a purely psionic form that could spread across the Earth unhindered. As the non-mutant heroes threw themselves into the psionic field to dampen his power, Cable, Joseph, and Professor X rescued Nate and Franklin from within his mind. Once they were clear, the combined might of the X-Men was finally enough to destroy Onslaught. 

In the wake of the battle, it became clear that only the mutant heroes remained standing. The Avengers and Fantastic Four were gone.

Minor/Cameo appearances from this period:

Incredible Hulk vol 1 #440, 445

Avengers vol 1 #397

Marvel Vision vol 1 #2, 4

Avengers Unplugged vol 1 #4

Avengers vol 1 #399

Professor Xavier and the X-Men vol 1 #10

Spider-Man Team-up vol 1 #4

[rocksrntpeople]

MCU Rewatch - Thor

In medias res has legitimately gotta be the best way to start a movie, right? I mean, is that a fact yet?

While Thor begins in the silent darkness of night, it picks up speed in no time and you’re left wondering where the hell the Marvel movie went. But of course, there are signature justMCUthings that grounds everything in the ever-expanding Marvel world. 

Overall, Thor was pretty good, 

but my main takeaway from the movie is just what a good job it does at seamlessly expanding the MCU to include the surrounding universe, and gathering various threads to begin pulling them all together. I mean,

AHHHH!!! THEY’RE MAKING AN AVENGERS MOVIE?!

(This is what your heart screams when you see this.)

.

But really, it’s a hype movie. The main goal of this movie is to hype up the audience for what’s next, and it was a super fun ride! Like when the DJ won’t drop the beat; non-stop fun! So let’s get into it.

Obviously, I have to start with the intro. What a solemn affair that was! Holy hell, are we about to watch this woman get fired? lol rip?

And then wham, bam, thank you ma’am; get this norse god in my van!

BUT! Before that…

.

EXPOSITION!

Yay! We finally meet Thor!

Good god, he could kill with that look…literally! I actually can’t decide whether Odin is a good dad or not, but I liked how he recognized the sourness in Thor and wanted to fix him rather than just let him continue on.

Now let’s get to a lot of people’s favorite: Loki. 

God damn, this man is so young!! I feel older just looking at him, like he’s related to Dorian Gray or something. Not that Tom Hiddleston has aged poorly, more that he just looks like a fresh daisy here!

Loki the character was also doing better than I remembered; he’s so cunning! No wonder he’s the god of tricks! I mean, of course I knew he was good, but he had this whole plan to square away everything and I was a little impressed…Too bad he’s also kind of a Hitler?! 

Like, “Ooo, Loki you were so close to becoming King but you forgot to not attempt to commit genocide! Better luck next time, pal.”

I do love that he fucking sticks by it and doesn’t even seem to understand why what he did was wrong. It adds a depth to the character that not a lot of villains get: he’s not a totally evil guy, but he’ll do evil things to make his life better. Truth be told though, we don’t get to see a lot of that depth until after he gets beat by the Avengers, and in Thor there aren’t a ton of reasons given for why Loki is taking a shot at the throne now of all times. Ostensibly, we’re just seeing the tail end of him getting fed up with Thor being the star all the time combined with finding out that he was actually a frost giant.

And it was implied multiple times that Thor’s friends didn’t really like Loki and just hung out with him because he’s their friend’s brother. I wish I could say more about that, but we get almost no information about these people or about life in Asgard at all. It looks beautiful and mysterious though!

It’s so funny to me that there are four extremely colorful and distinct characters in the background of Thor. I really, truly wish we could see more of them in movies, but it still cracks me up that they’re so criminally underused.

I really don’t get it, and I love when we get to see more of them later (although, still hardly anything at all). I guess Thor is so mighty that they don’t even really matter…at least they know they’re true friends of Thor? (Supposing he doesn’t like them for their power?)

So then we’re finally reunited with Jane Foster and friends! And Coulson…is it just this movie that he acts like a departmental son of a bitch? I think not because before his TV show I remember not really caring for the character. 

I did enjoy how Jane doesn’t automatically take to Thor, and it seems like that’s going to be a thing throughout the Earth plotline…until he takes a shower. (God, what do incels even complain about?!) And of course it’s fun to see Thor act like a weird dumbass on Earth.

But since the meat of the movie already happened, most of the Earth stuff was just there for fun. Oh, and showing off this thing again. It’s fucking awesome.

One last thing I noticed in this movie is that the stones are starting to appear in concept. Since my last rewatch a few years ago, I’d heard that the themes of the stones appear super early on in the series and that you can see the planning for the whole shebang right from the start. While Thor isn’t exactly "right from the start", it definitely does things a little more in-your-face than previously, though still with perfect subtlety for those who aren't looking for easter eggs.

So Tony Stark has been working with expanding his mind to create new things, and we know eventually he uses the mind stone to create Vision. Thor introduces us to space, the tesseract, and the space stone, then he and the humans start working on expanding their reach of space through wormhole tech, which will definitely open us up to the whole universe.

I won’t look ahead, but we’ll see if this trend continues or if I’ll have to stretch it more and more as I go…

All in all, Thor was good and gets a solid 7.5/10. I’m not in a rush to watch it again, but if someone asked me to join them I’d have a good time!

With the first four movies down, we’re hitting a significant turning point: Mr. Business is here to get this superhero world in ship-shape! At least, that’s how I felt when Captain America: The First Avenger was announced. I knew nothing about him and was pleasantly surprised; this time I know everything, so there’s a chance for a repeat performance!

[the-firebird69]

Stephanie You can have the pie 🤣 #shorts

They're doing this because the rock used to beat them all the time and they're not massive assholes now they're Max and she got hit with a pie it was yelling and cleaned off a little and it's kind of threw It on The floor and left tried to hit him with it now and they're expecting her to get angry at both of them and the guy could have gotten beat up if she started hitting him it's a woman but it's very risky because the female might have been there with him these are gorilla from the planet of the apes and they took what he was doing seriously and didn't know why is there doing it and they left a very unhappy and said he's kind of like you a little he says we don't like we know that guy he's running a bunch of matches winning and these are the ones you know about them too so you said thanks for straightening out that was in hell that must have been hell and they said yeah it's kind of like so the smile that says you're right about something what are they doing to us and I just want to beat someone up and it's a friend of the rock it's okay if you lose it it's okay but I think they're going okay cuz I told her she left and it says wow and he knows Kong. They reported it and got it in from captivity and they got it back and Khan said don't worry about it if it's okay but why are they doing it with you and they expected to do more of it and have you do stuff since so they sent back they have several movies and they want to make them real and he says that's not good SSA they have a technique and it's very very evil and there's a real sad and said what do you do I try to make friends and he says okay so okay cousin talk to us so they got permission and he says he's talking to his machine over and over and he said it's good and he and The Rock has been in talk to them and he said I know what's going on they're watching and I will say this for me too they want to put me back together when they're in power and they want to take over my nephew's Giants to work on what and they said really have us do and instead of trying to get them the movie the movies and he goes there and he knows about the movies he's showing them parts of it it is a oil just like the movie and he hurt his little he's attracted checking if I'm human and all sudden they got mad and said you don't sound humans and no yes we don't look cute you don't look cute scan your brain a lot. They almost fell down and said what are they looking for it's a different shape is it okay but really they're looking for oh yeah like that and they said this that's weird that's what we're thinking of

Is the huge deal and it's a big meeting and people are wondering what's going on and they're here yet and they don't believe it and I think the empire might be trying to do it I'm playing everybody else blaming everybody else is going on now

Thor Freya

We have this feeling that they're hurt and angry I said these people are going through it and they have enemies we need to know they are and I said one is that guy but usually they have those things behind them and they're parked around in with the place most of the time and they said wow this is terrible. The laughing and chuckling cuz I said is making noises and laughing and they said this he seems to be a fun guy fun loving and Justice and fella. It makes fun of us a little but really so they understand what you're saying you have to do it and there's things they do all the time

Thg show him picking his nose and his wife's picking on him is fun

There's going to be a reckoning and because this means something about the Cajun and they want to take them over and smack it in the rocks girls face and really kids of his he said to them yeah you can't stop the max so I know what you're doing that and it said oh they're down there and they put it out there and it's telling people

It's time for the rest with an annoumce

tomorrow morning

Thor Freya

Olympus

[samhadjblog2]

>This is true. I was trying to say that the general DEI push leads to shit games nobody wants, but upon re-reading my post it seems I forgot to clarify that. My bad.

DEI has been a thing that existed since the 60s. Its not this new thing in the industry. Not to say that its good or bad just that this just been a thing longer the 2010.

>One game that's led to serious layoffs at Rocksteady, including in their QA department that, according to them themselves, is gonna lead to a decrease in quality. And with how much triple a games cost nowadays, not to mention the opportunity cost of 8 friggin' years of developments, the amount of millions this lost Warner Bros doesn't bear thinking about.

From what I've gathered Suicide squad was shifted to a studio that didn't have experience with Multi-person shooters before. Which was something a lot of people were getting tired of. Hence why Concord failed.

>The actual story itself was almost if not completely untouched by them, as can be seen in how women are shown as flawed(Freya, Sif and Thrud) or outright evil(the three Valkyries Odin still has working for him while fatherhood is explored in ways that don't involve copious amounts of bitching about the evils of masculinity. Hell, even the obligatory black Norsewoman Angrboda is shown as having normal human flaws(yes she's a giant, you know what I mean) and goes through an arc involving something other than learning that she was already perfect all along. And Kratos himself even breaks the cardinal sin of modern storytelling by being a man who saves a woman(Freya could not have freed herself from Odin's last curse without his help both in general and specifically fighting Niddhog, which would've just eaten her while she tried to break the curse had he not been beating the shit out of it).

O.k this seems a bit much to assume that SBI weren't involve with the main story. The claim that "Modern stories" have female characters as people with "No flaws" is such weak statement. Because a lot of the time the story "do's" say they are flawed. Now this isn't a defense for poor quality writing just that a lot of stories even the one's "I" don't like make it clear that the female character being presented is seen as a "Flawed person".

This is why I made this post, because to claim that "All stories today put women up while they put men down" is ridiculous. Because a person often isn't intentionally making a bad story and a lot of times they "are" trying to make a good story.And so even with stories "I" don't like. This isn't me telling you that "you are a bigot for disliking this piece of media" no one is. I just don't think righting off a story for having certain elements

I like to think more about a story and try my best to get read of a person's and not just right it off as if its something mindless (Unless its something that's "not" suppose to be deep like smiling friends).

Now bare I'm not saying I solely have an issue with people who berate "Woke" media I also share the same scrutiny towards more progressive voices dismissing pieces .For example I think its ridiculous to call "Batman" a bigot because's he's a rich-guy because that misses the intrigue of who Bruce Banner is as character. As well as his empathy for others.

I think the statement that Attack on Titans is fascist propaganda is also a dumb take this misses the political intrigue as well as its story of the cycle of violence.

I also tired of people who mistake Persona 4's character Kanji as "Gay when he's a more sensitive guy. And Naoto as trans when her story is about conforming to a male work-place.

So note that when I make this statement is a politically neutral

>I wasn't. I was saying that in a more general sense.

My bad then. Sorry

>identify key points within the video rather than saying "just watch all this

Very well then.

At 12:56 he talks about where the SBI controversy began. He go's into how before the SBI list controversy there was already antagonism towards The company. And said that it was wrong the call out the list (Even when the list was still inaccurate)

33:59 He go's over tweets that has a lot of the developers who "did" work with SBI claim that the company didn't force them to include diversity into their games.

45:55 He say's that he is also someone who has made videos critiquing games with woke-political messages that were pushed too-far as well. However that doesn't mean that he buy's into the narrative of SBI influencing the gaming industry

48:16 He then go's over how "Black-rock" isn't play favorites with SBI mainly because the stock market regulations wouldn't allow for this to happen. On top of that a lot of the companies they work with aren't even on the stock-market and so they don't have an ESG score. And even then ESG its such a tiny part of investing, that doesn't even measure ESG scores in any way. And the cherry on top of all of this "Diversity is such a minuscule part of ESG score.

54:12 He go's over the real reason why games today are more progressive with the simply answer being a vast majority of artist are left-leaning and that's it.

[miredinmiddleearth]

Rings of Power, Ep. 6 Review - All Sense of Sanity Has Departed

I swear I wasn’t going to watch another episode. I even planned a hangout with friends so I’d have a reason not to. What I hadn’t accounted for was the fact they knew about my reviews, and they wanted to watch the next episode with me, specifically to laugh at my misery. My friends are so cruel. 

So here are my thoughts on episode six:

1. There are so many speeches to crowds in this series meant to get people riled up. One, they’re kind of boring and forgettable. Two, even the orcs get one? Goody.

2. The group of humans magically transport far from the watchtower to safety without being attacked by orcs. And they don’t keep running away?! Oh no. They want to defend their village. Fine. 

But then Arondir says, “Our position gives us an advantage,” meaning the village is the advantage. I’m sorry, what? Tiny village in the middle of an open valley? Amazing tactical advantage. These villagers are idiots.

3. I’m so tired of the writers taking pieces of lines from Tolkien and twisting them into something that just doesn’t hit the same. That’s not paying homage. They’re stealing and mutilating. 

4. Oh yes. I care so much about a romance between two people who combined have as much personality and character motivation as a carrot. 

5. Dang! This episode went full-on gore.

6. They did the Galadriel beating the guards thing all over again. Start a battle with impossible odds, cut away to something else (in this case, Arondir and giant orc), cut back when it’s all over, because showing the actual fighting would be too unbelievable. And yeah, I STILL don’t buy their initial victory. 

7. Man I was so disappointed Bronwyn didn’t die. On another note, their method of saving her is to remove the arrow, shove some seeds into the wound, then cauterize it? I have absolutely no clue why the seeds are necessary. What am I missing?

8. So the Numenorean cavalry has arrived in the Southlands and is rushing at full speed toward tiny village. Let me ask one more time, HOW DO THEY KNOW THE VILLAGE NEEDS HELP?!

Seriously, I want to know! Let’s recap. Galadriel gets sent away when all is calm and the elves are literally about to leave the south because it is so peaceful. She gets taken to Numenor and convinces them evil is returning without proof. Without sending a single scout or having ANY communication with the mainland (that I remember), they just take their whole cavalry to save the people who must surely be dying. All 30 of them in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere. 

9. Galadriel looks less and less like an elf every episode.

10. Adar IS something of an orc! Sweet!

11. So they’re making Galadriel out to be pretty much evil (straight up murderous and maybe genocidal?!). I understand the want for character arcs and growth, but this feels a bit extreme. You can start a character from a dark place without turning them into a full-on villain.

12. Celeborn, come save your love from whatever is happening between Galadriel and Halbrand!! Like, I get it. I could fall for Halbrand’s face. But if this is Sauron, the implications are AWFUL. Galadriel goes from being a strong, heroic woman who chooses to fight for good for its own sake to a spurned girlfriend who has a beef with her ex.

13. More impressive than Bronwyn’s recovery is the fact that Arondir leads her around by holding her injured arm. Excellent nursing, dude.

14. Ohhhhhhhhh nooooooooooo. THE ENDING. The moment of ultimate idiocy. Are you ready?

MOUNT DOOM HAS AN ON SWITCH.

Oh but wait. It doesn’t just have an on switch. Mount Doom gets activated by WATER.

Insanity of all of that aside, at no point is the moment foreshadowed, which is such a shame! No lingering shots of a mountain in the distance or panning away to the mountain with a sense of foreboding. Nothing. Mountain just explodes because some water fell in the lava.

Sorry, I can’t believe Mount Doom has an on switch. 

15. If the end isn’t a vision, I have so many problems with what’s happening. If the ending is a vision, I have so many problems with what’s happening. A sign of truly great writing.

Final thought: Something finally happened! Stupid something, but something! It took, what, six hours?

[sirthisisa-wendys]

The General (part 3): Geto Suguru x Fem!Reader

synopsis: Things are explained, and you’re taken by surprise more than once. 

wc: 2.7k

tw: none

masterlist

Moonlight streams into the tent from a gash in the fabric above, illuminating your captor as he sleeps in the massive bed built for a giant or two. You, however, lay on the ground beside the bed, eyes glued to the sleeping general in spite.

Geto had yet again embarrassed you at dinner, making you kneel on the floor next to his chair instead of taking your place at the table. His kinsmen had laughed at you under their breath, and when he began to feed you from his plate by handing you pieces of food from his hand, that had completely annihilated any piece of pride you had left. Gojo made a joke about you being a beautiful, albeit begrudgingly obedient puppy which earned him a round of riotous laughter. It took all you had not to burst into tears right there.

And when the General got tipsy and began to pet your hair with a fondness you could only describe as possession, you felt even more defeated. 

But now it was all over. You were alone with him once more, trapped - even on the ground - and unable to leave. You were physically unrestrained - because where could you go when the camp stretched on for miles? - but the entrapment was mental. Nothing like this had ever crossed your mind when you considered your future. It all rested on Yuko’s shoulders not two da--

Yuko. 

What had that one soldier mentioned? 

“Is she really as beautiful as Yuko said?” 

Yuko. 

The idea that he had anything to do with this encounter would have been absurd to you, except… now, it wasn’t. 

When you gasp and sit up abruptly, Geto cracks open an eye and his hand shoots out to grab the neck of your kimono. “Easy there, little one.” But when he sees your tears, his features go from scrutiny to a softer gaze, and his hand releases from your kimono and flops to the side of the bed. 

“Why am I here?” you whisper, wiping your nose. “What am I to you?” 

“You’re here because I want you here,” Geto replies, sitting up fully and letting the sheets slide down his perfect frame.

“Why me?” 

“You were headed to the Imperial Court. Like I said, it’s a hellish life there. You should thank me, really. If we hadn’t gotten to you befo--” 

“What does Yuko have to do with any of this?” As soon as you mention Yuko, the atmosphere in the room changes from careful and concerned to an inquisition. Geto places his feet on the floor, eyes glued to your tear-stained face as he stands and then crouches in front of you. His hand drifts to your cheek, rubbing away a fresh tear before a thumb is smoothed over your dry lips.

“I almost forgot… you were close to him, weren’t you?” You neither confirm nor deny the accusations by remaining dreadfully still, eyes locked with the man in front of you. “Your silence confirms this.” Geto stands again, moving past you before lighting a few lanterns and then walking around you much like the previous night. 

“I have eyes everywhere, little one. When I heard that the Imperial Matchmaker was headed around the country, I made sure of two things: one, that she would conveniently look for a common girl to wed to a Prince, and two, that she would be from one of the towns where my eyes were.” 

‘My eyes’… Yuko is a… traitor?

“You see,” Geto leans down to brush his lips against your ear as his hair tickles your shoulder. “I’ve been waiting for a moment like this ever since I was denied my rightful place in line for the throne, and I’ve tried everything to get it back.” A shiver runs down your spine at his admission, and you crane your head up to look at him in shock, fearing the next words out of his mouth. His onyx eyes are crazed, almost feral with ambition. “Well, that is… except start a war. And what better way to begin one than over a stolen princess-to-be?” 

_______________________________________________________________________

When Kaori enters the tent later on that morning, you’ve made up your mind. The eater of curses made it very clear that you were a pawn in his bid to usurp the Imperial Throne, and he also reiterated that escape was absolutely impossible. You were being watched by eyes you couldn’t see, listened to by ears you couldn’t deafen, and talked about by mouths you couldn’t shut. 

But there was one thing you could do. 

As the woman tends to your bruised knees, you examine her tools. 

“Do you have something that I could use to mend my old gown? And do you know where it went?” Kaori looks up at you, her brown hair falling behind her ears as her face contorts into a confused expression.

“Your old dress is gone, my Lady.” 

“It is?” 

“Sent downriver to the nearest village and made to look like you had been killed.” The news of your faked death is alarming, to say the least. 

“You mean I’m--” 

“Like most captives, you will no longer be searched for.” How many others had this happened to? 

“I-” 

“And I know what you’re thinking, Lady y/n. I am not permitted any sharp tools aside from what I am allowed to use in the hot springs with the other ladies, but they are not sharp enough to take a life. I am sure Master Geto will allow you to join us one day, though.” 

“H-how many women has he had before me?” Kaori looks up at you again; her eyes cold and unforgiving. 

“Only one, and she almost ruined him.” Her hands return to your calf, massaging the muscle carefully. “But that will never happen again. That we will all make sure of.” 

Another blue kimono, another morning spent alone until lunch had been brought to you. You now roam around the camp, followed closely by Kaori and another young woman you don’t know yet. As you bite into the pear in your hand, you try to catch bits and pieces of their chatter, but you lose the noise as soon as you encounter something new - which is every three seconds. Out of all of the women you see - most young women probably not above the age of twenty-nine - none of them wear blue kimonos. They’re either in red or green, perhaps signifying rank or job. But in all of the days you’ve seen Kaori, she’s dressed in multiple different colors, all except blue. 

You wonder what that means for a moment before you chance upon a large, open field full of men practicing their swordsmanship and hand-to-hand combat. You’re standing on a high part of a hill just before it slopes downward to where they are sparring. As your eyes scan the crowd from above, you look for your long-haired captor, and you cannot find him until a hand points over your shoulder. 

“You see that ring there?” The other woman speaks, and your eyes instantly hone in on a ring of men huddled around two figures fighting. “Master Geto and Master Gojo fight there all the time.” 

“Who wins?” you wonder, looking back at the giggling maid. 

“Which way will the wind blow tomorrow?” she answers, and at your confused expression, Kaori steps in.

“Some days it is Master Geto. Other days it is Master Gojo. We can never tell until the spar has ended and the dust has settled.” Your eyes turn back to the men in the circle, and you see a long stream of jet black hair and then long white hair, but they’re moving much too fast for you to be able to discern their movements. 

“They won’t be done for a while,” The other maid adds, and places a hand on your shoulder. “I’m sure Master Geto will come find you when he’s ready to… unwind.” The giggles at this comment do nothing for your nerves. 

_______________________________________________________________________

The General returns to the tent after a few hours, cuts and bruises dotting his half-clothed physique. You eye him carefully as he stalks past you on the bed, followed by a male attendant who rushes to help him undress and take a bath on the other side of the curtain. 

He’s silent as the water sloshes around, and you can barely make out any other noises besides the occasional hiss of pain or deep exhale. It’s obvious that the man who attends to his wounds did his job properly when Geto emerges with only a bandage on his right side, blood dotting the cloth taped to his ribs. 

“Scoot over,” Geto waves his hand at you, flopping onto the space you’ve made with barely so much as a ‘thank you’.

“Did you win?” you inquire and Geto looks over at you before touching his arms behind his head and giving you a toothy grin. 

“Of course I did.” You both lapse into another silence before Geto clears his throat and slides a hand from under his head and onto your back. “You went to see us train… I’m surprised you’d be interested in that.” 

“I was walking around and happened to observe the melee.” 

“Kaori told you about how our fights end, then.” 

“She and her companion didn’t add much to the already obvious; you two spar well.” 

“Do you fight, little one?” he asks innocently. You give him a look and that’s all he needs to see to know that the answer is ‘no’. “I should teach you to fight, then.”

“Why, so I can fight you and then run away after I win against you?” you retort, and Geto laughs suddenly, clutching at his injured side. 

“I didn’t say I would teach you how to beat me, I just said ‘to fight’,” he chokes out, wiping away the tears that dot his bottom eyelid. “You have a very interesting sense of humor.”

“It keeps me alive,” you mumble and you feel the hand on your back run up and down your spine. While the comforting gesture is kind in nature, it makes your skin crawl that someone so evil could touch anyone in an affectionate way. 

“Did Yuko ever touch you like this?” At this question, you look over at the man who spoke, eyes blazing. 

“He would never,” you snarl.  

“Smart man,” Geto grumbles, sitting up; now placing his hand on your leg. “I told him not to touch my things. He learned that lesson as a child and it seems it has carried over well.” 

“I’m your thing, now?” You snatch your body away from his grip and climb off the bed, shuffling to the far side of the tent to be alone. “You know, when people get pets, they at least give them something to play with and keep them busy during the day.”

“You want something to play with?” Geto moves off of the bed and raises a brow, fingering the waistband of his pants thoughtfully. “That can be arranged.” Fear leaps into your throat even though the man doesn’t move a single inch closer to you. You swallow hard, then Geto speaks, running his hands through his hair exasperatedly. “When I imagined taking a woman, it did not seem as hard as it actually is. Besides the frustrating part, you vex me entirely in areas I have never been tried in. I’m trying to keep you pure, so when this is over and I can release you to your hometown and you’ll be free to do as you please… but little one, you make it hard for me to control myself when you act this way.”

“It is obvious that you are a patient man and tha-” 

“It is not enough when that very vexation causes me to be kinder than I’ve ever been toward someone who repeatedly disrespects my existence.” 

“Kind? To me?” You scoff, turning away and crossing your arms. 

“I have been far kinder to you than anyone else I have held captive.” He’s advancing on you, but you can’t do much except back up against the tent side with fear. 

“All for some war so you can take the throne?” 

“All for my rightful place as Emperor.” 

“As a bastard son of the current Emperor, really.” Your cheeks are squeezed between fingers, and you taste the tang of iron in your mouth. You try to yank your face out of his grip, but it’s too strong, and you find that you’re held quite close to him as a result. He brings your face closer to his, eyes running wild over your features for a moment as he holds you captive. 

“Watch your tongue,” Geto warns, then lets you go, inhaling deeply before shaking out an exhale. You rub at your cheeks and now bitten tongue mournfully, giving the General a nasty look. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“I would if you told me everything,” you mumble, looking away from the way his muscles were illuminated and painted perfectly and to the ground. “If I’m to be a pawn in your game, at least let me in on your plan.” 

Geto looks over his shoulder at you, a small smile lifting the corners of his lips up. It’s something you can’t look away from, and your mouth dries up at the gesture of familiarity. “You would like that, wouldn’t you? I’ll tell you my secrets and then you’ll go and tell your kinsmen the plan, right? Somehow get that information to them… then plan your escape.” The smile falls, and the General turns back to you, his face now utterly serious. “I’m not a fool, little one. Foolishness did not get me this far, and I won’t begin to act like one now.” 

At this, he stalks out of the tent and leaves you alone again, stuck with your thoughts and your increasing desire to run away and never look back.

_______________________________________________________________________

Dinner. 

You’d come to dread the most decadent meal of the day where you would be sitting on the floor next to the General. You were not permitted to speak, but only eat from his hand and drink from his cup when allowed, and anyone could make fun of you behind hands or openly, as you were nothing more than an object. 

As you contemplate your fate yet again, you feel the familiar tap of something warm at your lips. 

“Eat.” Geto urges you, and you reluctantly open your mouth to accept the piece of meat. When you look around the table, you can just barely see the eyes of Gojo and Haibara following the motions of Geto’s hands as they converse about military strategy, but you can definitely see the eyes of the one they called Nanami following your movements with precision. 

Another piece of meat is presented for you to consume, and you do so mindlessly, observing the others at the table with less interest. That is, until you catch the little eyes of a child who sits at the other end of the table. He’s mid-chew with his little hands in the food, perhaps just now seeing you sitting on the floor like an obedient dog. 

You hadn’t seen children here before now, and it seems that the “little one” here was actually him, with his pink hair and brown eyes observing you curiously. It isn’t until he hops down from the table - his little hands plucking a piece of fish off of his plate - and disappears that your head eagerly follows his movements. 

Geto notices that you’re distracted and puts a hand on your shoulder, directing your attention back to him.

“If you--”

“Eat.” The voice of the child and the sliver of fish pressed to your mouth shocks both you and Geto, and the whole table is silenced by the interaction. “Eat.” The child encourages you again, and you accept the fish, his little fingers placing it in your mouth with care. As expected, the laughter begins anew, but you feel like laughing too as the child climbs back up to his seat and continues his own meal, unaware of the spectacle he’d just created. 

“It appears you have an effect on little Yuji, Geto,” Gojo howls at the end of the table, holding his stomach as he and Haibara roar with laughter. “Soon he’ll be feeding his own lady just like you!” 

And Geto laughs as well, tossing his head back and letting the sound carry into the night.

[reginaldqueribundus]

This has probably been said but being a regular, average person in the MCU has got to be so creepy and weird and scary. And I don’t just mean the Blip. Like. Just. Can you imagine if Elon Musk was the US military’s primary defense contractor, but one day he gets abducted by the Taliban, and when he comes back he announces he isn’t going to make weapons anymore but he builds himself a flying tank and starts calling himself “Iron Man”?? That is basically the first Iron Man movie. Then he tries to race in the Monaco Grand Prix but a shirtless Russian guy chops his racecar in half with laser whips, and he also throws a big tech expo and a bunch of military robots go crazy and shoot up the place. It’s insane.

Pre-Iron Man the MCU isn’t even all that different from the real world. Yeah there’s a weirder version of the CIA called S.H.I.E.L.D. and nobody really knows what they do (but the internet is full of conspiracy theories about aliens and mind control) and maybe in history class you read about this Nazi death cult from the 1940s or an American soldier who briefly became the country’s mascot after he got turned into a superman by a science experiment no one’s been able to duplicate. But those are probably the strangest things you’re aware of.

Then Iron Man happens and it’s like a huge signal flare telling everything to get weird. You see a viral video of something that looks like Shrek on steroids fighting the army in the middle of a community college, and 3 days later another monster appears in the middle of Harlem ripping people’s cars in half until Evil Shrek shows up and beats the crap out of it and disappears. Some hot guy pops up in Germany and says he’s God and starts killing people with a spear, and then a GIANT HOLE opens in the SKY over New York City and a shit ton of aliens and flying Godzillas come out and start destroying everything in sight. And the billionaire and Shrek and the freaking guy from World War 2 are there fighting them, along with a woman in leather pants, a guy with a bow and arrows) and a big blonde man who turns out to be a space alien and the Old Norse god of thunder, somehow?

They close the sky hole (though you’re pretty sure someone fired a nuke at it) and start a team that’s basically called “Revenge Club” and then here’s the next six years:

a terrorist with a man bun bombs a bunch of cities while popping up on TV to repeatedly threaten the President, and the billionaire challenges him to a fight on camera and gets his mansion blown up and everyone thinks he’s dead for awhile, and later you find out man bun did kidnap the President, but was also just an actor

An alien spaceship lands in London and a bunch of things that look like elves run out and start shooting everybody and there’s holes in the sky again, and you think “where are the Avengers?” but only the Viking guy shows up

SHIELD HQ blows up and a bunch of crazy top secret shit gets leaked online about how they were secretly run by that Nazi death cult who were gonna use giant gunships to kill millions of civilians based on their internet search history? And they also turned some WW2 veteran into a cyborg and made him assassinate people for 70 years??

a random town in Missouri gets eaten by a big blue blob and nobody knows what it is or where it came from

You see the Hulk destroying buildings in Johannesburg and getting dragged away by his own teammates and then like two days later the Avengers are fighting robots in Slovakia and the entire capital city gets turned into a hole in the ground. Suddenly the Avengers have a robot on their team (plus two more military vets and a Slovakian chick with psychic powers) and you hear the billionaire built the robot that killed all those people but he’s not getting arrested or anything (well that part is pretty realistic I guess)

the company that made your smartphone disappears overnight — as in the entire building literally disappears in front of a hundred witnesses with no explanation

the king of some African country you’ve barely heard of rolls up to the UN in his hovercar and announces his “third world country” is actually super rich and has like, forcefields and shit

also his dad got assassinated by that cyborg dude and half the Avengers are wanted criminals now

It gets to the point where you go on YouTube and see a 40-foot-tall man running around San Francisco or some guy swinging through NYC calling himself “Spider-Man” and shooting spiderwebs at bank robbers, and you go “wow, must be Tuesday.”

And then the big one. Right after a spaceship shaped like a giant hula hoop shows up in Manhattan and you see Iron Man and Spider-Man fighting aliens in the streets alongside a guy you later learn is a wizard, yes magic is real and wizards exist, deal with it one of two things happens:

You suddenly wake up five years in the future with no idea what’s going on, until eventually someone sits you down and explains a purple alien called Thanos killed you along with half the human race and the Avengers just brought you all back to life, or

You get to watch billions of people suddenly crumble into little piles of dust with no warning or explanation, maybe one of the Avengers does a press conference at some point explaining “hey, there was this guy, he did a thing with some magic rocks that control the universe, but uhhhhhhhhh the rocks are gone now, sorry” but after five years you begin to think maybe you can get used to this and then it all gets turned upside down again when the dead people all reappear out of thin air

Oh, and an even bigger spaceship appears on the east coast and blows up the Avengers’ clubhouse and a bunch of them are dead. Also remember the Viking aliens? Well they live in Norway now.

Your life is pretty chaotic for awhile, though things kind of slowly settle into a routine. But the weird shit don’t stop just because Thanos is gone:

you hear the psychic chick was controlling an entire town in New Jersey for like two weeks

the government announces there’s a new Captain America but a month after that you see a video on Twitter of him decapitating a guy in Latvia, then the bird guy from the Avengers saves a bunch of politicians from Antifa and he’s Captain America now

a huge water monster shows up in Venice, followed by an even bigger monster trying to rip London Bridge in half, and there’s a new superhero who looks like Jake Gyllenhaal here to help! But a week later there’s a video of him on every news channel saying Spider-Man (who is a teenager btw) murdered him and has a fleet of Predator drones

right after a global earthquake a gigantic statue appears in the Indian Ocean and then an even bigger thing that looks like the statue appears in the sky yelling about the fate of the human race

I just hope they have good therapists in the MCU is all I’m saying

[phis-corner]

I recently read your platonic brucinette post, it was amazing, i couldn't stop laughing. What if she invites herself over to the Manor or something and the boys have no idea who she is (cause I feel like he wouldn't mention her cause she would probably ruin his reputation even more since his kids would probably spread the stories to their own friends) but I feel like maybe Tim already know her since he was in Paris looking for Bruce (when he got "killed" by Darkseid), he would probably see her as a mom or fun aunt that he could vent to

Ask and you shall recieve! again, any grammar mistakes are because I did not bother proofreading. whoops.

Masterlist ◈ Original

Dick Grayson had seen a lot of unexpected things throughout his lifetime, but he really did not expect to come downstairs for a nice bowl of cereal for breakfast and find a woman who looked eerily like the late Martha Wayne sitting at the table and eating his Bat Puffs.

Wait.

“Those are my Bat Puffs!” Dick shrieks, because he has priorities. That’s the last of his cereal, okay? And it’s going to be two days before Alfred goes on his next grocery run and he’s really bad at shopping for food on his own. Sue him.

Not-Or-Maybe-Possibly-If-You-Believe-Conspiracy-Theories-Martha-Wayne simply laughs, and easily dances out of the way of his grab for the bowl, moving out of his reach with an elegance and grace that can only mean she spends part of her day dressed in a different costume. Whether or not she was a good guy still remained to be seen, considering she had somehow broken into the Manor without setting a single alarm off and was currently eating the last of his Bat Puffs. 

A truly despicable act, indeed.

“Grayson?” Damian chooses that exact moment to come down the stairs. “I heard you scream. What’s-” He snarls the moment he catches sight of Not-Martha-Wayne, pulling out a knife from somewhere in the folds of his pajamas and hurling it at her head with impressive speed and accuracy.

Not-Martha-Wayne simply ducks, letting the knife thud into the wall behind her, making Dick wince. Alfred was not going to be happy.

“Identify yourself, woman!” Damian screeches, pulling out another knife. “Who are you, and how did you get in here?”

Not-Martha-Wayne tilts her head, blue eyes sparkling with mirth. “Really? I’m not even allowed to eat cereal in my own home now?”

Dick is slowly growing more and more convinced that Not-Martha-Wayne is actually Zombie-Martha-Wayne.

Damian freezes, eyeing her suspiciously. “Your home?”

“Wh’s goin’ on?” Tim slurs, stumbling down the stairs. “Why ‘re you all screamin’?”

Maybe-Zombie-Martha-Wayne brightens when she sees Tim. “Timber! How’s it going?”

Tim rubs his eyes, once, twice, and then his face splits into a grin when he finally registers Maybe-Zombie-Martha-Wayne’s presence. “Marinette! It’s so good to see you!”

And okay, what.

Tim hurries down the stairs (meaning only marginally faster than before, he hasn’t had his morning coffee yet,) and ignores the coffee machine in favor of hugging Possibly-Undead-Martha-Wayne, who laughs and puts down the bowl of Bat Puffs in favor of hugging him back. Dick takes the opportunity to snatch the bowl away from her, mourning the fact that there’s only a bit of milk left at the bottom of the bowl.

“Good to see you too, Tim,” Not-Martha-Wayne, whose name is apparently Marinette (why does that sound familiar?) ruffles Tim’s hair. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Tim,” Dick says, at the same time Damian demands “Drake.”

“How do you know this woman?” They say at the same time (Dick stubbornly ignores that Damian replaced ‘woman’ with ‘harlot’).

“You mean you don’t?” Tim asks, frowning. “She’s-”

“Marinette,” Bruce cuts Tim off, having appeared at the foot of the stairs in his usual dramatic fashion. 

Not-Martha-Wayne-But-Still-Really-Looks-Like-Her-Whose-Name-Is-Apparently-Marinette beams and waves cheerfully at Bruce, who looks done with life. “Hey, little brother! I see you haven’t gotten tired of dressing up as a giant bat to beat people up yet!”

Well, that was a lot to unpack. Dick decided he’d start with the easiest thing.

“Little brother?” He looks from Marinette to Bruce, Bruce to Marinette, noting the resemblance in both of them to Thomas and Martha Wayne. “You mean- she’s your older sister?” Dick shrieks, turning to Bruce. “Why have we never heard about her?”

“Really, Bruce?” Marinette gasps, mockingly placing a hand over her heart. “I’m devastated. How could you, after everything we’ve been through, not even tell your hundred thousand children that I even exist?”

Bruce doesn’t reply, instead letting out one long sigh through his nose. Huh. Sixteen whole seconds. Impressive.

“Just kidding,” Marinette grins once Bruce has finally stopped sighing. “He’s never told you because I travel the world a lot, my job is super dangerous, and because I’d expose all his deepest, darkest secrets.”

“Like his greatest fears?” Damian asks. Cass, who had silently entered the kitchen at some point or another, stood behind him, ready just in case he pulled out another knife.

Marinette tilts her head. “What? No!” Like how he wiped off one of the eyebrows on Sylvia McCartney’s face when he was four-”

She doesn’t get to finish that sentence because Bruce has made a mad dash across the kitchen, evidently aiming to get her to stay quiet. Marinette dances out of his hold with a giggle and continues speaking even as Bruce chases her all around the kitchen.

“-anyway, he declared that ‘she had something on her face’, wiped off one of her drawn-on eyebrows-” She ducks underneath a plate, which Cass deftly catches before it hits the wall. “-and then went ‘There. I got it for you!’”

A shoe flies at her head. Marinette bats it away with one hand. 

Dick tries valiantly to stifle his snickers, but judging by the evil eye Bruce is giving him, it’s not quite working.

“And there was that time we were at that four-star restaurant in Star City and he ate too much and-” Marinette raises an eyebrow as she catches a toaster in her hands. “Really now, Bruce? A toaster? You know it’ll take more than that to stop me. So he ate too much and got a stomach ache, then started holding his torso and very loudly declaring that he was starting his period.”

Dick doesn’t even bother holding in the laughter this time, and neither do any of his siblings. If only Jason was here to see this, but alas, he was at his own apartment and had no clue that this was going on. Neither did Steph, for that matter, and Duke was already out on patrol since he was somehow a morning person. What a travesty.

“And then there was that time when-” Marinette is cut off by another one of Bruce’s long, very drawn-out sighs. 

“Look, Mari, I think they get the point,” He groans (well - as close to groaning as the Batman ever got), pinching the bridge of his nose. “You can stop now.”

“Oh, you’re just annoyed that you couldn’t stop me,” Marinette retorts with yet another smile, and Dick is once again struck by how similar she looks to the lady in the portrait that hangs over the fireplace in the largest of the Manor’s three living rooms. “I suppose you’re right, however. Despite the abundance of embarrassing stories, they do run out at some point, and I’d prefer not to use them all up in one go, ya know? I have to be the cool aunt. Kate can keep wine aunt, but I’m the cool one now.”

“I think Miss Katherine might disagree with that,” Alfred says mildly. “However, I do believe you can win the children over if you tell them about the time your father brought Master Bruce to his board meeting.”

The look of utter betrayal Bruce gives Alfred makes them crack up all over again.

--o0o--

“Man, I am so glad you got it all on camera,” Duke grins, placing two bowls of popcorn on the coffee table before flopping back down onto the couch. “This is going to be great.”

Tim waves a hand dismissively. “I just hacked the cameras in the Manor. Bruce’s paranoia backfired this time.”

Steph cheers and immediately makes a grab for the popcorn as Cass hits the play button on the remote, and Dick can’t help but crack a smile at his own face when he sees the last of his cereal being eaten.

“Richard, I find it concerning that your first thought was of your cereal and not the intruder,” Damian observes.

Dick ruffles his hair, drawing out a squawk of protest. “Well, what can I say? I really like Bat Puffs.”

The Wayne siblings settle down for a movie night that is definitely going to be filled with lots of laughter.

permanent tags

@wannajointhecrabcult @miraculous-simmer7 @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @fantasyislive @chocolateherringtacofan @junarvion @susiej1118 @aestheticnpoetic @toodaloo-kangaroo @ladybug-182 @itsmeevie01 @g-arya @souleateralicestein @nightstarblue @i-is-mysterious @moonystars14 @vixen-uchiha @flapdoodle-noodle @labschaos @nathleigh @jalaluvsu @kaithehero @iamablinkmarvelarmy @luveverything12 @technicallyburninggarden 

unspecified

@momothefemur @indecisive-mess-named-me @laurcad123 @ilovefluffbutsmutisalsogreat @sassakitty @fusser90

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Creation”

Happy Saturday, everyone! Oh man, oh man, oh man. I think I'll need to steer clear of the general RWBY tags this week, simply because I know the sort of responses I'll see to this episode. From smug celebration at Ironwood's downfall, to bad takes about what makes us human, this episode is a petri dish of sensitive material handled insensitively.

Let’s unpack it, shall we? 

We open on an action that feels like a summery of the last three volumes: a grimm attacks an airship from the front, no doubt killing its pilot, while the other grimm conveniently ignore our heroes, no masking in sight. The group looks a little sad at the destruction around them, but ultimately ignore it because they have bigger, heroic things to do. I could write a whole, additional essay on how the huntsmen code — to protect the people — has been warped and abandoned by our protagonists in their effort to do what they think is right. It's a tale that might have been compelling if only RT knew they were writing it.

We get a shot of Atlas drones unloading the bomb before one is taken out, presumably by Qrow and Robyn. Segueing to Ironwood and the Ace Ops, they're waiting for Penny to arrive, the former carrying a massive gun presumably capable of capturing her. Despite the horror we saw on their faces last episode at the realization that Ironwood would kill Marrow for speaking up, it seems that now the Ace Ops are entirely in agreement with these measures. A week ago the implication was that they fell back in line out of fear, but now Harriet talks passionately about "putting down" the group if they were stupid enough to accompany Penny. "The General gave his terms." Vine sighs at this, but doesn't actively disagree. He's just "retracing the steps that led us here."

So, congratulations on introducing four new characters, not bothering to develop any of them, killing one off while ignoring Qrow's hand in that, and having the other three become all, "Yeah! Mass murder is a perfect solution!" off screen. Marrow is the only one with something resembling development and, as covered in these recaps, that's been pretty badly executed too.

Ironwood sends them to deal with Robyn and Qrow after Winter reappears to "assist" him. That gets quotation marks because most viewers at this point have realized that she's who our two birbs spotted in the elevator. Winter isn't on Ironwood's side anymore, she's just skillfully clearing the field for the final attack. Indeed, we get a moment where she hesitantly brings up the bomb and Ironwood responds that he hopes she's not going to try and talk him out of it. No. Winter doesn't think that's possible. This was her final attempt at peace.

One of the reasons why I think I'll stick to my own blog for a while is because the fandom has a tendency to paint broad personality traits as evil when applied to some characters, yet simultaneously heroic when applied to others, when really it's about how that those traits are used. What I mean is, I've seen a lot of Ironwood critical posts that emphasize how stubborn he is. He thinks he's right and he won't back down. He wont listen to others. He's going through with this plan and if anyone tries to stop him? That's their mistake. Totally evil, right? Except, this is the exact same behavior Ruby displays, particularly in Volumes 6 and 7. She was stubborn about stealing from Argus and continuing the fight to the point where it endangered her and her teammates, to say nothing of the rest of the city. She refused to listen to Qrow, or Ironwood, or the Ace Ops, loudly announcing that she was right about, well, everything. If they didn't agree with her, the options were to leave the group entirely, or fight her. The actual difference here is that the writers have taken Ironwood to an extreme, one that's incredibly easy to understand as bad because it is bad: bombing Mantle has no defense. Ruby pulls the exact same nonsense, it's just not to that same extreme and her actions are followed by scenes that are meant to make us forgive her: a sad look because she didn't mean to get a city attacked by a leviathan grimm, a cry on the staircase because she didn't mean to risk the lives of an entire kingdom... even though she did. Ironwood is the bad guy because he's been written to take specific, OOC actions like shooting unarmed kids. He's not the bad guy because when other characters go, "Don't do this" his response is, "I have to." Because that's been Ruby's motto ever since she "had" to use the Lamp to rip Ozpin’s life story away. RWBY introduced those extreme actions of shooting the youngest in the group (for no reason) and threatening to bomb a city (for no reason) or shooting a councilman (for no reason) because when you remove those you've got a man who looks exactly like our hero. Ironwood's arc has been peppered with these confusing, unpersuasive actions because if you just keep the story as him stubbornly keeping to a plan he thinks will save the world, you're left with the reminder that all Ruby has done lately is stubbornly keep to plans she thinks will save the world. This moment with Winter just highlights how ill thought out Ironwood's descent has been because he does everything Ruby does... with a few, tacked on, “and randomly shoots people!” moments to ensure we understand that he’s definitely evil. No comparison to our heroes here, folks! 

Ironwood is a bad guy now. That’s certain, but he was made that way so the story never had to grapple with the question of what that means for Ruby if we really start condemning things like lying, secrets, stubbornness, or endangering others for the greater good. Well then damn, if we strip away the hypocrisy then she might not be a good person after all. Or the people she’s simplistically labeled as bad might not be the devils Ruby claims they are. 

But that’s a level of nuance RWBY would rather pretend doesn’t exist. 

All of which is highlighted by Ironwood’s reaction to "Penny." He sighs and sags over the gun, immediately putting it aside. With his hand on her shoulder, Ironwood tells her she's "done the right thing." Precisely the same way Ruby would lower Crescent Rose and give someone a smile when they decided to fall in line with her.

Which, of course, is the moment when Emerald reveals herself, dispelling the Penny illusion and revealing Team JNPR The Second behind her. She gives a quip about it feeling "weird" to do the right thing before disappearing.

From there the action picks up fast. I really enjoyed this battle simply from a choreography and energy standpoint. It gets the blood pumping, Ironwood's hand-to-hand is spectacular — especially that moment against Ren — and the group actually displays teamwork for the first time in what feels like forever, all of them needed to land a hit on Ironwood. As always, out of the context of the rest of the show it feels and looks great. My primary issue is that we get this fantastic fight against Ironwood. Not Salem, not Cinder, not Watts (like last volume when Ironwood was still a hero), not even Emerald as a means of transitioning from murderous villain to the group's best bud. No, what's arguably the best action sequence in the volume thus far goes to beating up the guy they betrayed from the start. There's no catharsis for me here, only frustration as we watch Ironwood stand in shock as Winter powers up Nora — who's fine now, I guess — and she slams her hammer into his face. 

It never should have come to this and when a good character is done so dirty, their downfall doesn't evoke the emotions the writers are looking for. Watching Ironwood fall doesn't generate feelings of victory, or even tragedy at a course of events others were powerless to stop. It's just frustration at watching years worth of bad writing, sprinkled with fantastic ideas that never go anywhere.

Oscar gets a few hits in, Ironwood snatches his cane, and just as he's about to throw a punch, Winter arrives with the most dramatic sword slash I've ever seen.

Ironwood's aura breaks and he falls, unconscious. We cut to an image of a droid's head separated from its body, one of Robyn's arrows through its skull. That doesn't have meaning or anything.

I suppose I should be grateful they didn't rip Ironwood's arm away during the fight, or outright kill him, though I'm still expecting him to die before the end of the volume.

Hmm. Wouldn't that be something? If after Salem's arrival, freezing cold, a Hound attack, grimm soup, a giant whale, a massive army, and a hack ending in self-destruction, the one character who actually dies is Ironwood. 

It's looking more and more likely.

Honestly, beyond all the obvious, what's so frustrating about this fight is that characters are only now using their impressive abilities to their fullest. Emerald creates an entire fantasy of what's happening and then straight up disappears, but she only does a half-assed version of that when fighting against Penny. (And really, she put more effort into helping the heroes she just joined over Cinder, the woman she's been obsessed with since the start?) Marrow refuses to use "Stay" against a group they wanted to peacefully arrest because that's just too horrible an act, I guess, but he'll do it on his own teammates the second Qrow and Robyn don’t want to fight.  

This is what I mean when I say the rules of the world bend to assist the protagonists in absurd ways. It's not nearly as egregious as Amity suddenly being up and running, but the fact that characters become substantially more powerful while fighting for the protagonists than they do against them is still a significant problem.

So Ironwood is down and out. As much as I hated watching that and didn't necessarily want more, am I the only one who felt like it was... a bit lackluster? I mean, the action was great, yes, but relatively short. There was no dialogue, such as another delve into the moral questions that led to this fight in the first place. There certainly wasn’t any hesitance against fighting a former ally. (Again, we’re meant to believe that the Ace Ops won because they just couldn’t bear to fight the group seriously, but every former ally here is capable of wailing on Ironwood without a single pause or pained look?) Ironwood just skillfully blocks for a while, is blindsided by Winter's betrayal, and then falls unconscious. Given that we learn he and Jacques will be evacuated after the rest of the kingdom, it's possible he'll escape somehow and we'll get a fight 2.0, but if not that feels like a rather tame end to the guy forced into the antagonist seat. Plus, what was the point of having Qrow frothing at the mouth to kill him this whole volume? I never wanted that to happen, I'm glad it hasn't, but I'm nevertheless left to ask why we bothered with that eleven episode side plot if we were going to erase it with one sentence from Robyn about Qrow being better than this. If that's all it took, let them work through Qrow's irrational anger while sitting around in a cell.

Winter tells the group to move onto "phase two" which is when we're treated to a flashback. We return to the ending of the last episode, with Ruby realizing that opening the vault is an option. Jaune, all smiles, goes, "We never considered using what's inside!"

This is what I mean about no consequences! This is what I mean about it all being a meaningless circle that ends with undeserved praise for the group! We started this horror show with Ironwood going, "We don't have a plan to protect the people, so I'm going to take what people we do have to safety" and the group going, "We don't have a plan either, but we're going to stop you implementing your plan because it's not perfect, risking a kingdom's worth of lives in the process." Now, the group has used two plans, one of which two characters knew about at the start and another they could have devised with the information they had. Oscar and Ozpin's, "We have an all powerful magical blast in our cane" and the group's "What if we used the Staff for something other than raising Atlas?" are both things that could have come up in the office debate. These were both always on the table! Instead, Ruby grew furious over the mere thought of cutting their losses, betrayed Ironwood again, attacked his people, denounced him to the world, and then two days later goes, "Oh wait! We could do something now that we could have easily done before if we hadn't made a needless enemy!" 

Everyone realizes how much worse they made things, right? Turning against Ironwood, bringing everyone left in Mantle directly under Atlas, sitting around while an army was devoured, drawing it out until Penny was hacked... all of it would have been avoided if the group had thought and discussed things for a few minutes, not jumping straight to violently resisting what Ironwood came up with first. "We never considered..." Ruby says. Yeah, you didn't, except that's not something to smile about. The group made the situation a thousand times worse with their reaction when they could have just magically evacuated the kingdom from the start. “Maybe we could use it to save Penny and get everyone in Atlas and Mantle back to safety." Nothing has changed! They had this ability the whole time! Nothing about the last twelve episodes led them here, they just randomly thought of it after RT had padded the volume with needless drama. Considering that they're heading to Vacuo now, we could have just made this the finale of Volume 7 instead: big fight with Ironwood, revelation, get everyone  evacuated while Salem attacks, leave her behind, then Volume 8 begins in Vacuo with the group knowing Salem is out there looking for them. This entire volume has been pointless. What did they accomplish?

Oscar got kidnapped and beat up, Nora was scarred, Ruby and Yang realized horrible things about Summer, and the whole world is panicking about a witch. Good things are... Ren and Ruby unlocked some semblance stuff? Weiss loves her brother again after he proved himself useful to her? Great work, team.

So this one moment makes everything they've done up to this point useless and, of course, once thought up the plan goes off without a hitch. Note that the summary of this episode says, "It's risky, dangerous, and nearly impossible — but it's the only plan they've got." Nearly impossible? That's a whole lot of talk for a plan that was implemented perfectly.

There is, admittedly, one snag, but one that is likewise made meaningless just seconds later. We'll get to that.

We see Winter call Weiss who also smiles at hearing from her sister. Obviously interactions like the group's with Emerald are the bigger concern, but it's still an issue that no one reacts as they should to people reappearing in their lives. Rather, RWBY continually confuses audience knowledge with character knowledge. We know Winter is on their side now, but Weiss hasn't a clue. Last she saw, she and Winter were agreeing to head down different paths. She has no reason to think her sister isn't loyal to Ironwood, so why isn't the group treating this call with suspicion? What if it's Ironwood trying to mess with them through a presumably safe party? I swear to god, with any consistency in the story this group would be dead ten times over because their decisions are so stupid. Oscar decides to believe in the guy currently beating him to a pulp, the group decides to trust a villain over a flawed ally, and now they see Ironwood’s second calling and are like, “Great, big sister Winter is checking in!” There’s a difference between a hopeful story filled with second chances and characters whose reliance on the narrative bending to assist them makes them come across as insanely naive. 

None of which even touches on characters forgetting that other characters are presumably dead. Ironwood shot Oscar off the edge of Atlas, but doesn't react to learning he was kidnapped, or when he shows up to the fight. Thanks to Marrow's comment, Winter thinks YJOR have perished in the whale, but also has no reaction to them appearing to help with this plan. Absolutely nothing is followed up on.

We then get a flashback within the flashback (fun) of Winter — shock — not arresting Marrow. It's precisely as I assumed, with Marrow angrily asking why she hit him and Winter responding with, “Because you were about to get killed if I didn’t do something!” As I said last recap, I feel like I should let the marginalized groups lead this discussion, but I do want to add that no matter how well intentioned — or strategic, as I mentioned last time — the imagery itself is still harmful. No matter the context, we were still left with white woman Winter putting her knee on black man Marrow's back to arrest him, and it’s an image that everyone in the U.S. should be familiar with the horror of. Far more of a problem than the (presumed) ignorance of this scene is, I think, the choice to make Winter entirely unrepentant. I think some of this discomfort could have been alleviated if RT had written Winter as apologetic, contrite that it came to that and asking Marrow to understand that she only did it as a means of assisting him. Asking his forgiveness. Instead, we get this

So what, the only emotion we have room for is gratitude that Winter beat him up? Yikes.

As a lighter side note, I find the animation here unintentionally hilarious. Winter's assistive device makes her shoulders look too high, making this gesture more, "Woman exaggeratedly pouts about not getting ice cream for dinner" and less, "Woman sternly closes off during a disagreement about saving lives and betraying their general." Gotta find our humor where we can, right?

What's intentional, but far less funny, is the needless animation to show us that, yes, Marrow is peering at Winter calling Weiss. Oh, the shenanigans. 

The elevator opens where Qrow and Robyn spot them. "Speaking of help," Winter says, as if she has any reason to believe Qrow didn't kill Clover. He and Robyn lower their weapons a bit, as if they have any reason to believe Winter and Marrow aren't still loyal to Ironwood. Would it really be so hard to have Winter immediately throw up her hands in the face of their almost-attack, blurting that she's not their enemy and needs their help, please listen? Again, RWBY can't remember which characters know what, let alone what their motivations and reactions should be.

We then enter the third part of the flashback where everyone piles into the Schnee dining room and discusses doing the things they could have done from the start. I'm metaphorically banging my head against that table. In RWBY's favor though, we also get a long shot of Jaune continuing to boost Penny’s aura.

Though it's only one of many issues, just the other day I asked, "Hey, why has Jaune always needed to hold onto the person he's assisting, but now suddenly he can touch Penny once and the boost remains?" It still doesn't explain why he was letting go before/why him needing to boost her continuously didn't put a hard time limit on their plan — not that Mantle's hour limit meant a thing — but at least they're showing more of that here.

Oscar notes that Atlas has enough gravity dust that it won't fall immediately when they use the Relic, but they will have to move fast to ensure no one is underneath. Yeah, like all the civilians you put there. He also cautions that the Staff isn't a "magic wand" that they can just wave to make all their problems go away... even though that's precisely what they're going to do. Ozpin gets some lines that aren't apologies or followed by attacks — hallelujah! — about how the Staff's spirit is a "character" and requires that you be able to precisely explain anything you want him to make. Blueprints, examples, a firm knowledge of how this will be accomplished — all of it is required to actually get what you're after. That's a cool limitation. It's just too bad we didn't know about it episodes ago, forcing our heroes to find ways to meet those requirements. Instead, they already have everything ready to go the moment they learn about it: Penny has her own schematics and Whitley apparently has knowledge of the entire kingdom after sending some ships out. Normally I'd go, "Really?" but I'm still just struck by how much good he's done compared to everyone else in this room. Your show is seriously broken when the side character the writers didn't even want the audience to like until a few episodes ago is more active, mature, and sensible than the heroes.

From there we see the group implementing the plan. They fly up through the hole Oscar left, straight to the vault. Penny opens it without any trouble and Ruby uses her speed to grab the Relic and stop time, halting her self-termination. I do like that combination of skill and their knowledge of how this magic works. That felt like a smart move. What's interesting though is that the Relic appears to stop time in the entire kingdom. We see people in Mantle and Atlas slowing to a halt too. I assume no one remembers that happening after time restarts, otherwise people would be freaked out by suddenly being frozen in place.

Wouldn't that have been cool though? The group often takes a while to use the Relics, either deciding what they need, or watching Jinn's information, so what if you had a population that blinks and suddenly, from their perspective, half an hour has passed? How long might Ozpin have sat on his knees after Jinn told him he wasn't able to defeat Salem? How long was that space frozen? We could have had a world built around rumors and fairy tales. Not the random stories Ozpin brings up to make a point and that we never hear about again, but tiny details that foreshadow these revelations. A Beacon where the kids tell each other spooky stories of people suddenly losing time, once a whole day. The wives, sisters, daughters, and nieces who disappear, or wake up one day with horrifying, unnatural powers. We see magic influence the world around it, but we've seen very little of the world reacting to that influence. The one time I can think of is Blake reading a book about "a man with two souls," the fiction clearly inspired by knowledge of Ozpin. And indeed, it felt great to recognize that as a significant detail and then be proven right years later as the lore was revealed. We could have gotten so much more of that if RWBY was better planned out.

I'm getting off track though. As time stops we see a series of images: Ironwood being led to a cell with Jacques, Penny succumbing to her hack, Team JNPR The Second preparing to contact the kingdom about what's going on. Then everyone is distracted by the giant, blue, buff Ambrosius who comes out of the Staff.

...there's a lot of innuendo in that last statement lol. At least RWBY is committed to the crazy design they chose? I was never particularly comfortable with the image of characters gaping up at a giant, naked woman in chains, so it's nice to balance that a bit with an equally giant, naked dude in chains.

From here things get confusing. In all honesty, I'm not sure if this is another moment where RWBY is trying to pass off a retcon as the group being brilliant, or if I, as an individual, simply didn't follow the logic. I won't bother to rehash the slow, meandering way that Ruby reveals their plan — that certainly didn't help with the clarity. Not in an episode where we didn’t even know these rules ahead of time — but it boils down to this:

The moment they have Ambrosius create something new Atlas will start to fall. Two of his creations can't exist at the same time.

He needs clear instructions about what he's making in order to create it.

The group has brought him Penny's schematics so that he understands how she's built.

They want, specifically, "a new version of her... using her exact robot parts."  

They can't just create an exact duplicate of Penny because that would carry the virus with it.

They can't create an exact duplicate without the virus because that Penny would cease to exist as soon as they used Ambrosius to make an evacuation plan instead.

So they essentially want Ambrosius to create a new Penny by removing all the robot parts from the Penny that currently exists, carrying the virus with them, and leaving only the human parts of Penny behind: her aura/soul. Then, the purely robot version is destroyed when Ambrosius creates something new.

Except... this new Penny, this human Penny, still needed a human body. That's what Ambrosius created and that's the snag I don't understand. They want a version of Penny that's just her aura, just her soul, but that soul still needs something to be housed in. Ambrosius himself notes that. At first I thought the group would just have some wisp-like version of Penny they'd have to find a new body for — perhaps leading to a new one for Ozpin too — but she's just... given a human body when he takes the technology away, something she absolutely didn't have before. That is Ambrosius' creation. That is what should have disappeared along with the removed parts of Penny, leaving only her soul — what Ambrosius didn't touch — behind. Instead, the plot oh so conveniently has Penny get a new body for free and it's untouched as they move onto the next task.

Ruby drops a casual line about Ambrosius not being able to kill, or destroy, or something, which I think is meant to be the justification here. The rule (which, again, we JUST learned) about not killing anyone supersedes the rule of two creations not allowed to exist, allowing Penny to stick around. But even if that’s true, it’s a load of bull. What, does the magic think no one in an entire city might die if the floating mechanism is removed and it plummets to the ground? Ambrosius didn’t say, “Sorry, can’t stop floating Atlas because thousands of people are still here and they’ll die if I create something new,” but we’re supposed to believe the group skated by on, “Sorry, can’t destroy the last creation like everything else because there’s a single person still using that body and she’ll die if I create something new”? 

Seriously, did I miss something? Or is this another, "Amity is ready because the group needs it" situation? The rule of creations ceasing to exist is bent because the group needs to have their friend around. Ambrosius is certainly enthusiastically complimentary, saying how "smart" the group is and that they've "done their homework," but I'm not so sure. It feels like a moment where the show is (once again) insistent that the group is far more talented and brilliant than their actions actually imply. It's only the rules of the world twisting and turning that allows for their success. To say nothing of how the episode dropped all these rules on the viewer in a ten minute info dump, ensuring we didn’t have any time to think about them before the deed was done. 

It doesn't add up for me and honestly, even putting that aside? I hate this. I absolutely despise it. Look, if it turns out this really does make sense then props to the group for coming up with that plan. Our snag aside, the rest is a legitimately well thought out wish. I don't have a problem with the execution so much as the message. I've been saying since Volume 7 that RWBY has done Penny a disservice in terms of her "real girl" narrative. Whereas before we had a firm message that you don't need "squishy guts" to be human, to be real, Volume 8 continued to carry us further and further into the idea that it is necessary. That Penny's body is entirely inhuman, something to hate, but at least her soul is human and good. That's what the virus arc taught us: your terrible, technological body might be betraying you, but hold onto the parts of you that are really human. I hated that too, but I never thought RWBY would go this far. They made Penny fully human and went, “THIS is the version that always should have existed.”

And this isn't just me reading into the implications. It's right there in the text. Blake says that they're looking for “Penny, the girl who’s always been there underneath." Meaning, underneath the metal. The girl exists trapped in the robot body. Yang holds up her arm and says that the metal is only "extra," it's not really who you are. 

That gets into two perspectives on disability that RWBY just doesn't have the nuance for: what's an integral and celebratory part of one person's existence can be seen as something separate and discomforting to another. Though there are many people with disabilities who would happily cure themselves with a magic Staff if given the chance, there are just as many who say no, this is a part of my identity. I don't want to change, I just want the world to accommodate my existence. However, RWBY takes a hard stance here, saying that any metal in your body is intrinsically bad. We didn’t use to have this take, but now the show has embraced it. Blake says the real Penny is trapped in there. Yang's words implies that she'd get rid of this "extra" bit of her if possible. Mercury with his metal legs is the enemy. Ironwood with half his metal body is the enemy. Whereas once difference was truly accepted, now it's shunned and fixed whenever possible. Those who can't be fixed, like Yang, must simply deal with the lot they've been dealt, reassuring themselves that the metal isn't really them. But Penny? Penny they can fix.

So they do and the very first thing Penny does is hug Ruby, exclaiming, “Do hugs always make you feel this warm inside? Wow. More!” and proceeds to hug all the others. 

What's the underlying message there? Penny didn't understand hugs before this moment. She never experienced the "warmth" of them while an android, despite the fact that here warmth is entirely metaphorical and has nothing to do with a literally cold body. RWBY really went and said that the "real girl” android was never actually real at all — not as real as she could be — because it's only when she's given "squishy guts" that she understands the true happiness of a hug.

Wow.

I mean seriously, wow. 

Never-mind that, you know, we've seen that happiness and warmth since she was first introduced.

RWBY is really rewriting all the core themes introduced in Volumes 1-3 and it sucks. The show is absolutely the worse for it.

To say nothing of all the other disservices to Penny's character here. There's all this buildup about whether she'll still be the same Penny once the wish is complete, but of course she is. We wouldn't want to have Penny struggle when she becomes something other than what she's always been, would we? After all, it took Yang an entire volume to work through the shock of a metal arm, but taking away a metal body for a human one is in no way traumatic. Having a normal, human body is intrinsically a good thing! Of course Penny accepts it with nothing but smiles. Becoming human is celebratory, but becoming more machine is a horror.

She gets to watch her body self-destruct, glitching out and collapsing in front of her. But again, nothing to unpack there that can't be covered with a hand over her mouth.

There's no discussion of whether Penny still has the Maiden powers, or whether a wish like that would mess with the transfer in any way. How did the group know this action wouldn't register as a clear-cut death, forcing the power out of her and into someone new? Obviously they couldn’t know, but no one even thought to bring it up? 

And the entire time they're formulating their evacuation plan, there's no talk of whether these portals will appear before everyone currently alive in the kingdom. I mean, if they do then Ironwood and Jacques can just waltz through and escape into Vacuo. If they don’t, then Maria and Pietro don't necessarily have a way out. We still don't know if they're stuck floating in Amity, or if Amity crashed, or if they made their way back to Mantle or Atlas. More importantly, the characters don't know. I have no problem with RWBY keeping that a surprise until the finale, but I absolutely take issue with Pietro's daughter walking through a portal, seemingly not to care whether her father is going to make it out too.

It's been the same with Qrow and his nieces' relationships. The show is good at insisting that these families love each other because they hug and smile while on screen together, but when shit is actually going down, none of them care about pesky things like disappearances, arrests, or “The last time I saw you, you were with an old woman on a damaged station after a villain attack, potentially stranded in deadly cold if life support failed.” 

So yeah, this entire arc with Penny has been a disaster. From throwing away her framing subplot, to giving her a virus that did absolutely nothing, to giving her the Maiden powers which she's also done nothing with, to erasing her android status for a “She's really human now” message, Penny has been done dirty by the show these last two volumes. Not nearly to the extent Ironwood has, but still. At this point I wish they'd just kept her dead dead. Why do I want her back when that resurrection produces no reaction, her conflicts lead nowhere, and one of the core things that made Penny Penny has now been magically erased?

I've been saying for weeks that killing Penny off and keeping Penny around each had serious downsides attached, yet I never expected RWBY to do BOTH.

Also, I'm warding off any, "But Pinocchio was made into a real boy too" defenses. RWBY is not Pinocchio. Penny is not Pinocchio. I thought the allusion was going to be the Pinocchio inspired girl heading into the whale, not the show forcing the exact plotline  —  down to a blue, magical creature — onto a character whose entire journey has been about accepting herself as an android. Congratulations, RT. You just obliterated years of work.

Again, if you'd like an example of how to do this far better:

As Penny's character falls apart, Atlas shakes, alerting Jaune and the other that a new wish has been granted. Jaune pecks at the screen and realizes "That did, uh, something…?” but doesn’t realize that there's a giant, red "LIVE" up in the corner.

Jaune tries to warn the entire kingdom about their plan, but what he actually says is

“Atlas is falling, but — !”

And then the communications cut out. 

Watts, perhaps?

Our heroes are really good at saying things that make large populaces panic, huh? This is the one (1) snag in their "impossible" plan, but as said above, it doesn't amount to anything. We get a shot of Nora, horrified at the thought of kingdom-wide communications being down, but literally seconds later Team RWBY has made portals appear that everyone can walk through. So... why do we care about communications? More importantly, why does the show try to make us care? So much time is spent getting the viewer invested in problems that never come to mean anything. 

Including the problem of Salem herself.

Because the group successfully creates that evacuation plan. This is it. Everyone is leaving while Salem still reforms. 

Yang asks if they can use the vaults themselves as a single point for everyone to go to and Ambrosius agrees. So everyone is going to pile into the Vacuo vault that can only be opened by an unknown Maiden? They're going to put an entire kingdom's worth of people, including their enemies, into the vault where the Relic of Destruction is? Yeah, that's great. Prior to this — like if this had been the plan at the end of Volume 7 — I would have 100% agreed that these risks are better than death by Salem/grimm/cold. Now though, Oscar as axed Salem for an unknown length of time, the cold is having no impact on the civilians outside, and the grimm only attack background military personnel that supposedly no one cares about. They couldn't have spent another few minutes (especially with time stopped!) to figure out a means of getting to Vacuo that doesn't involve revealing and providing access to the location of a super secret vault? To say nothing of what they're going to do if Salem wakes up and snags one of those portals for herself. Two kingdoms for the price of one!

But that's what they're going with. Weiss gives Ambrosius a schematic of the kingdom, I guess, and he makes branching pathways appear with numerous portals for everyone to step through. They'll enter through one and, when they exit another, will be in Vacuo. Easy peasy, right? Especially since Ambrosius doesn't seem to have any limitations about how often his power is used. Is it three creations every 100 years like Jinn? We're not told, at least not to my recollection. However, I was expecting there to be a waiting period, that they'd fix Penny, go to evacuate the kingdom, and learn that sorry, I can't make another creation just yet. It feels like the sort of shit move these beings would pull — "Don't cry to me when it's not what you wanted" —  it would have been another commentary on the group's insistence on putting friends over the people's safety (like demanding the Ace Ops not bomb the whale because of Oscar), and crucially, would have kept the action in Atlas. Isn't that what this volume is? The battle for and potential destruction of the Kingdom of Atlas? We have two episodes left and, unless something unexpected happens, we're moving that action to Vacuo. Why? 

Meanwhile, Penny's corpse is just chilling in the background 😬

While all this is going on, Winter reassures Jacques that he and Ironwood will be evacuated too, though she makes it clear saving him was Weiss' idea. It checks out, considering Weiss is the one who turned her father's arrest into a joke last volume. Winter still takes his abuse seriously.

The group prepares to leave with a celebratory, "We did it!" from Weiss. I'm still banging my head against that dining room table. Before they can pass through the portal though, Ambrosius leaves them with one, dire warning: "Do not fall." 

In any other story a line like that is a neon sign announcing to the audience that someone will absolutely fall, and maybe they will, but RWBY has dodged consequences so often I wouldn't be surprised if this was merely another way to string us along. Remember all the hype surrounding Salem? The cold combined with her army and magic? How she was going to decimate Atlas and leave our group broken in a Fall 2.0?

I mean, we still have two episodes left. Forty minutes of content. Salem might still decimate them, especially since something has to happen in the finale. But god, it's a problem that we've come this far without a payoff. Salem randomly decided not to attack anyone, was stopped by a weapon added in solely for this purpose, and now the whole kingdom is being evacuated with a plan the group could have used at the start. This volume really is meaningless. 

“We go to vacuo and hope we’ve thought of everything” they say as the camera zooms in on Cinder's smiling face. For the second week in a row.

Bingo time!

Winter betrayed Ironwood, the group used the Staff of Creation, and I'm axing Maria on behalf of Pietro. You can't have the guy's daughter become human — after he was killing himself to give her his aura?? — and magically walk to Vacuo, not knowing if he's even survived since she last saw him, and expect me to think he hasn't been forgotten. Same with Maria. Has the group mentioned her since Amity cut out, notably for reasons they couldn’t explain? Of course not. Did they care to find out what happened? Of course not. I have no doubt they'll both re-appear in the next two episodes, Pietro crying over how perfect his girl is now and Maria congratulating the group on their actions, but we're still marking it.

This is the ugliest thing I’ve ever created, I hope you all are enjoying it :D

Another week, another couple feet added to the hole we’re digging. I know I keep saying I have no idea what's going to happen next... but I have no idea what's going to happen next. A Vacuo ending was not in the cards, not outside of them miraculously showing up in ships. Maybe they have been on their way to Atlas (somehow...) and will arrive precisely when everyone has left! Anything is possible at this point.

See you next Saturday, everyone. Hold on until then lol. 💜

[swanpyart]

The Short Lived Adventures of RAPH and Casey Jones

This is an old pic that was made for a zine that was never published. So I’ll leave it here. It might not ever be finished, but I think the story is decent enough on its own.

Part 1:

Casey was completely fine by herself.

Sure, her parents never really paid her any mind, but she never needed them to; Casey was a fast learner, and was able to cook, clean, and do pretty much anything the adults could do.

“Look!” Ten-year-old Casey held up an English vocabulary test, with an “100%” written in the corner in cursive. “I passed!”

“Honey,” her mother barely looked at her from her seat at her desk, “One hundred percent is the bare minimum. Anything less means you practically failed.”

There was always an empty space in the bleachers whenever Casey had a hockey game. She would cross her arms as she waited for her parents to pick her up and watched as the people in the audience rushed down and hugged their own children after a game, regardless of whether they won or lost. When her parents finally showed up, she sat in the car quietly as they drove.

Casey spent almost everyday after school at her Granny’s while her parents were at work. The old woman’s house was always warm, mostly because she was always baking; cakes, cookies, and especially her famous brownies - made with a special ingredient.

At twelve years old, Casey had failed a math test for the first time, and burst into tears as she walked through her Granny’s front door. “I’m a failure!”

“Sweetie, everyone fails every now and then,” her Granny wiped a tear from Casey’s cheek and got out an antique mixing bowl, “but I can tell you tried really hard. That’s what matters; that you don’t stop trying your best.”

Afterwards, Casey and her Granny spent the afternoon baking brownies, and that was when she was granted the knowledge of the secret ingredient. She swore her secrecy and never told anyone.

Of course, that was a while ago; her grandmother had passed away sometime afterwards. Her parents reacted with more emotion when Casey had shaved her head than when they attended the funeral.

They also seemed only mildly surprised when, at thirteen years old, Casey was accepted into the Foot Clan and never came back home.

There, Casey promised to herself to show the world just how much of a not-failure she really is! Even if she had to work with the most vile Clan in all the world to achieve it and release the Shredder, the ultimate evil, unto the world. She had worked above and beyond to get where she is, and no one could stop her!

At least, that’s what she thought before the Shredder disappeared, and with him, the Clan’s purpose. And way before those strange, overgrown turtles with no sense of honor or discipline showed up and destroyed their chances, time and time again.

Suddenly, the group she had worked with since she was a preteen, and the closest thing she had to any family, were dragged away by outside obligations she never understood.

Foot Brute and Lieutenant were better parents than her own, but, in the end, they were her bosses and coworkers, and no replacement for a family.

Sure, everyone else may have given up, but she would stay committed to the Clan’s ultimate vision, even if she had to use her dear Granny’s recipe for evil. Grandma CJ’s Brownies were an absolute bust, but she had to try something.

Then, she met this weird, giant, smelly rat with a Japanese accent dressed like a teenager who somehow turned out to be the father of those overgrown turtles.

And, as weird as it was, despite not even being human, he sat next to her and heard what she had to say; and, for those few minutes, it was almost like being next to her Granny again.

“Just because you failed doesn’t make you a failure.”

If she had been smarter, maybe she should have listened a bit harder to what he was saying. If she had been smarter, maybe she would have calmed down and talked to the girl that was beating up the Girl Scouts. There were so many opportunities to just talk.

But then the Shredder was restored, and she really thought it would be the return of her Clan’s glory. Even as she looked at the beaten down forms of her previous bosses. Even as she saw Splinter and his family struggling for their lives. Even as she realized winning would mean the end of everything, including her.

There was no more Clan. She was still alone. She was just alone with a giant evil suit of demon armor.

But, now, she wasn’t.

Even after everything, Splinter offered her an invitation into their...

Family.

------------------------------------------------------

He had invited her to the lair a few weeks after the fight with Shredder.

“I’m working at the Foot Shack. After my former clan disbanded, they got bought out by another company, Splinter, sir.” She squeezed the mug of tea in her hands.

“Just ‘Splinter’ is fine,” Splinter had opened a bag of chips, and was reclining in his seat. The turtles were out with April at the arcade, taking a break from repairing the lair. “Where are you staying? Do you have a place to live?”

“Yes, I actually have my own apartment.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. Splinter sighed. “Listen, Casey, I know that it’s probably hard having to... uh, sort things out by yourself-”

“What?! No, I’m fine!” She flapped her hand dismissively. “My life is fantastic! It’s definitely not in complete shambles after losing everything I know.” She blinked, realizing that she overshared, and collected herself. “I’m doing great.”

“I-I never said it was in shambles,” He massaged his temple with two clawed fingers, his beady eyes squinting in frustration. “Look, all I am saying is that, if you ever need help, or if you ever get lonely and just want to talk, I am here. And my sons would probably say the same thing. You’re a Hamato now, at least in spirit.”

Casey’s eyes widened, then she looked down. “Thank you, but I’m a very independent person. I’ll be sure to not bug you unless it’s an emergency.”

Splinter nodded, but he’d dealt with enough children to see that Casey was a bit lonely. Still, he said nothing.

For a good while, Casey stuck to what she said; she didn’t really come by the lair unless she really felt the need to or if they needed an extra set of hands with repairing.

But… occasionally, she found herself asking questions. She found out Michelangelo loved cooking, and somehow he got her to agree to bake her Granny’s brownies together. She realized that Leonardo wasn’t just annoying in battle, but all the time, and that she started getting more and more used to it, even occasionally laughing along. She found out while playing video games with them, that Donnatello was just as vicious as her, and that April was equally as competitive.

And Raph, well… they didn’t talk very much. But he seemed nice every time they spoke.

But she kept her distance. After all, it was better if she didn’t get too attached.

She occasionally goes down to the local hockey rink and plays a few rounds with total strangers, and usually gets kicked out due to a combo of delinquent children and complaining parents.

So, here she is, lying on her bed, staring blankly at her phone, with a half eaten sandwich laying on her chest, and old sweatpants that she’s been wearing for a week because her clothes are in the laundromat. For a ninja-slash-ex-cult-member, her life had fallen into a fairly mundane pattern.

Everything could always be worse. So why did she still feel like such a failure?

And for some reason, Casey found herself at the sewer grate. She didn’t even know why she came here, really.

She was about to turn back when a feminine voice spoke from behind her. “Hey, CJ, what’s up?”

She spun around. It was April.

“I was just coming to visit.” Casey tensed up. She hadn’t expected to run into someone else.

“Oh, me too!” She opened up the grate, and started climbing down the ladder. “You coming or what?”

Casey gulped. She couldn’t back out now.

------------------------------------------------------

Raph paced the lair, quietly groaning as he tapped his chin.

It had been about six months since the fight with Shredder, but another challenge had presented itself; cleaning up the lair after it had been almost completely demolished. Thankfully, with Draxum’s help and Donnie being able to scavenge some old tech that didn’t get destroyed and whip up some devices for reconstruction, the place was finally fixed up after about a month and a half.

Now what? Well, in Leo’s words, it was the time for “rest and relaxation.”

That was pretty easy for the rest of his family to do.

Leo’s entire existence hinged on “rest and relaxation”; Mikey has an assortment of hobbies to keep him busy; Donnie had a tight schedule trying to repair all of his broken inventions; April was trying to adjust to all of the changes at school due to all of New York recovering from the recent Battle Nexus catastrophe; and Splinter, of course, was parked in front of the TV, finally at peace after the Shredder was defeated, and helping himself to milk and cake.

Raph should be relaxing, or at least recovering from all that’s happened to them. The fight with the Shredder was the most stressful and terrifying time of their lives. They lost their Gram-Gram, and even if she was now able to rest with their ancestors and her father, it still stung.

But it’s been such a long time since he’s been in a real fight, and he can tell he’s going a little bit stir-crazy.

Of course, the turtles would spend a lot of time out of the lair; but whenever Raph gets a call on the phone, he finds himself hoping it’s some kind of an emergency, only to turn out to be Todd calling them about the puppy farm, or Leo pestering Senior Hueso with an order for pick-up. It seemed like even their strongest enemies have gone on hiatus as well; there was no word of Big Mama as of late, and every other major bad guy they fought recently seemed to have been exhausted by the Shredder ordeal as well.

Raph’s usual sparring partner, Frankenfoot, is absolutely wonderful, but fighting him wasn’t exactly what Raph had in mind; it was fun, but couldn’t really be compared to the thrill of a real fight.

“Come on, guys,” Raph stood in front of the screen, blocking Leo and Mikey’s view of a Jupiter Jim rerun while Pops was passed out on the couch, snoring, a bag of chips lying open on his stomach. “We’ve been cooped up in the lair for a million years. Who wants to go wreck some bad guys?” He pounded his fist in his opposite hand for emphasis.

“Raph, I can’t see!” Mikey waved his hand in a dismissive way as he said it, and leaned to peek around his older brother and continue watching the screen.

“Ugh, we’ve been over this,” Leo exasperated from his spot on the ground, on his stomach and his head resting on his propped arms. “No crime fighting while we’re on vacation! This is the time to chillax, my guy.”

“How long are we gonna be chillaxing, exactly?” Raph put his hands on his hips, an inquisitive look on his face, even if, deep down, he knew what response he’d get.

“I don’t know, until some other crazy evil mutant guy tries to take over the city? There’s bound to be another one of those eventually.”

“What, so we just wait until some evil mastermind has some evil plan and gets all of New York in their evil clutches? It’s our job to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Raph tried to summon the energy he usually exudes when he attempts to make a rousing speech, but the rolling eyes and groans from his youngest brothers quickly made its effect futile.

“You know,” Donnie said from the back of the room, the other three having not noticed him walk in, “We did, oh, I don’t know, save all of New York City, take down Big Mama’s Battle Nexus scheme, and, most importantly, defeat our bloodline’s greatest enemy?!”

Raph furrowed his brow, his sharp fang digging into his lower lip.

“We deserve an indefinite break, and I need it, because I actually refuse to do any fighting until I have all my stuff back online. I’d love to fight with only my impeccable mind, but let’s be realistic.” The sandwich in his hand was brought to his face and he swallowed it whole. Donnie knew he had made an excellent point.

“Don’t worry,” Mikey beamed, tucking his arms and legs into his shell, “We’ll get back into the groove of things before you know it!”

“Yeah,” Leo agreed, “Think of it as, like, you know, self-care. Sometimes, you need a break from what you’re used to. Now, can you move out of the way?”

Raph sulked out of his siblings’ view of the screen and sunk into a beanbag, next to the couch their father was snoring in.

------------------------------------------------------

“Hey, guys!” The turtles turn around to see April and... Foot Recruit walk in.

Raph didn’t really know what to think of Foot Recruit, or Casey, as she preferred to be called. Pops insisted that she wasn’t dangerous anymore, but it was hard for him not to be a little wary; I mean, come on, she used to work with the Shredder!

 She’d been over only a handful of times over the past few months, usually to speak with Splinter and Mikey.

“Casey! April!” Mikey stuck his hands out of his shell in joy. He ran over and hugged them both. “It’s been a while.”

“Hey, Apes. And, hi to you too, Casey.” Leo kicked his legs up behind him.

“Above ground has been pretty hectic,” April leaned on Donnie’s shoulder as she spoke, “Everyone has been freaking out about disappearing from New York for a few days. Relaxing on a yacht sure beats coming back to the city in shambles. And finding another job is so hard when everyone’s paranoid we’re gonna all disappear again. Ugh, I wish we did, then I’d get another break!”

“Well, if you want a job, you can help me repair what’s left of my s- I mean, S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. The Shredder tore him apart.” Donnie put his hands on his hips and relaxed his posture to cover his slip-up.

“Aw, your cute robot son isn’t repaired yet?” April teased.

As the two bickered while walking towards the lab, Raph looked back at Casey, who was standing by the entrance, visibly tense. 

“Hey, Casey. Um, why are you here?” Raph asked innocently, not realizing how rude he sounded.

“Smooth,” Leo chimed in unhelpfully.

Before he could take it back, Casey spoke, with a glare on her face. “I’m here for the orange one.”

Raph blinked. “Huh?”

“We’re gonna bake brownies!” Mikey clarified, his chest puffed out with pride. “Casey decided that I’m worthy of learning an old family recipe.”

“Yes!” Casey grinned, in a way that was far too menacing for someone talking about brownies. “I decided that, as a new member of your- um…” clan? Group? Committee?

“...Family?” Raph assisted.

“Uh, yes, that,” she turned shy for a few brief seconds, only to return to her previous bravado, pumping her fist in the air, “I will honor you with the knowledge of my grandmother’s most nefarious secret!”

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Raph peeked into the kitchen as Mikey and Casey got to work. Of course, he trusted Mikey; but he had a hunch that Casey might be up to something.

Or maybe the boredom was just making him a bit more paranoid than usual.

Dirty dishes, half-full cups and brownie mix were strewn about the kitchen counter. Whatever this recipe pertained, it must be pretty intense.

“And, now, for the final ingredient. This one was given to me by my grandmother.” Casey pulled a canister of brown powder. She leaned over and whispered close to Mikey’s head. Whatever she was saying, Raph couldn’t hear.

Mikey gasped. “PUMPKIN SPICE?!”

Casey shushed him, then yelled herself. “It’s a secret, remember?!” She poured a generous amount into the mixing bowl full of batter.

The two of them looked so happy baking together, and Raph felt a pit of guilt in his stomach for assuming the worst. He really needed to chill out.

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“Wait, so let me get this straight,” Leo sunk into the bean bag chair, “You’re a fan of Lou Jitsu, right?”

“That is correct.” Casey was sitting stiffly in her seat. Her expressions were intense, like she was about to strangle someone, but Raph had realized pretty quickly that this was just her default.

“You have all of the movies memorized?”

“Of course! I used his guidelines for self improvement in my schemes to take over the world! I mean, that’s not really relevant now, but-”

“And you said you spend almost all of your available money on Lou Jitsu merch?”

“I hide them all so my guests don’t see.”

“And, yet, you’ve never watched a Jupiter Jim film? The Jupiter Jim, his longtime franchise rival and co-star in Jupiter Jim Vs Lou Jitsu?” Leo clutched at his chest, as he held up the DVD case of the movie he was talking about for emphasis.

“Leo,” Raph warned, looking up from his phone, “don’t make her feel bad-”

Leo chuckled. “Oh ho ho, trust me I won’t. I’m definitely putting on a Jupiter Jim Vs. The Galaxy Riders Part 1 and Part 2, and you are going to love it!”

Casey cackled ominously. “You really think this ‘Jupiter Jim-’” She made quotation marks with her fingers for emphasis, “-can measure up to the greatness that is Lou Jitsu? Fine, I guess we’ll just have to see.”

Raph ended up dozing off after the fifth film, and woke up to see Casey and his brother still openly debating whether Lou Jitsu would beat Jupiter Jim if they were both in a desert completely unarmed and at full strength.

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“I’m not scared of much,” Donnie mentions offhandedly one day, while Raph was doing a bicep curl, “but she -”

He points to Casey eating a sandwich like a hyena, while April sat next to her, texting.

“She terrifies me to no end.”

Donnie’s strange relationship with their new friend took Raph a while to comprehend. Then it became clear as day. If anyone could match Casey in moral ambiguity, it was his immediate younger brother.

“I made you a little gift,” the softshell grinned smugly, as he handed Casey what looked like a metal hockey stick.

“Oh, um,” Casey's eyes were wide, and a little watery, and her lips were in a warbly smile. “Thank you… no one’s ever given me something so nice.”

Donnie grinned. “Press the button on the side.”

When she did, the widest end of the hockey stick flipped open like a lighter, and a stream of fire shot out of the tip. Casey’s tears of joy gave way to maniacal laughter. “Those kids at the hockey rink won’t know what hit ‘em!”

Donnie joined her in glee, his eyes and teeth shining menacingly in the light of the flames. Raph watched in mild horror (He was plenty used to Donnie’s antics), at least until the fire alarm sounded and they were all drenched from the sprinklers.

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Another month had passed since Casey started coming around, and Raph seemed like the only one in the lair who hadn’t quite jived with her yet. Sure, his suspicion had pretty much subsided, and he liked her company plenty, but the two of them hadn’t really clicked.

However, he noticed some slight changes over time. Casey’s eyes had bags under them which were more obvious in brighter lights, and sometimes she fell asleep on April’s shoulder (and snored louder than his Pops, somehow). Sometimes, there were hints of sadness on her face, even when she was laughing along with everyone.

Raph didn’t mention it for fear of being rude, but he couldn’t help his concern. After all, if she was upset, she probably wouldn’t mention to him all of the people.

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Hockey wasn’t a sport Raph and his brothers knew much about, but he couldn’t help but get excited as Casey gushed about it, holding tightly onto the treasured tech-hockey stick Donnie had gifted her, wearing a huge grin on her face.

The two humans and four turtles (disguised as humans, of course) were just entering the hockey rink. The hall to the auditorium was cold and echoey.

“I come here every other Friday. The regulars here know my face, and they fear it. It’s ‘cause they know I’ll decimate everyone in my path!” She pumped her fist as she spoke, a sinister grin on her face, before she caught herself and straightened out. “Well, I do until the rink’s supervisors kick me out for making a scene and being mean to children.”

“Don’t sweat it, Casey,” Donnie spoke up, “You’re not the only one whose been kicked out of establishments for scaring kids.”

“Uh huh, exactly!” April agreed a bit too eagerly, and Raph looked back to see the distant, traumatized look in her eyes, and he could tell she was remembering the screams of children and the  sinister laughter of animatronics at a certain pizza joint.

The six teens got to the rink’s auditorium, and put their bags down on the bleachers. There weren’t too many people around.

Mikey whistled. “This place is massive!”

As Raph put on a maroon hoodie and pulled on his skates, Casey rolled onto the rink, over to a huddle of teenagers wearing hockey gear. “Hey!”

One of the teenagers - a boy with messy brown hair covering his eyes - responded. “Oh, you again. Guys, look, it’s that crazy girl from last week.”

“The name is Cassandra Jones!” Casey pulled down the hockey mask she was wearing and held up her stick. “I’m challenging you to another round! Did you really think you’d escape my wrath?!”

The kids started laughing. “You challenge us every time we’re here, and you always lose. What makes today so different?”

Casey laughed. “Well, for one thing, I’ve got my own team now, so you better get ready to go crying to your mommy!”

The group hadn’t stopped laughing, even as Casey walked back to the bleachers. Raph raised a brow. “Uh, what was all of that?”

She looked down. “Those are my enemies,” She clenched her fists, “A group of jerks who manage to beat me every time I come here.”

Raph paused for a second. The look on her face was determined, but had a hint of sadness to it. Raph understood how she felt; wanting to fight, but getting beaten down time and time again. He’d realized a while ago that he didn’t have to do it alone; and neither did she.

Raph put an arm around Casey’s shoulders, and cupped a hand to his mouth, shouting to the teenagers from across the rink. “Hey, knuckleheads! You get ready for a match; you’re not just dealing with Cassandra Jones anymore! you’re dealing with the Mad Dogs, now!”

“Yeah, right!” One of the kids, a girl with a ponytail, shouts back.

He turned to face his brothers and April, who were sitting on the bleachers, their attention already on Raph from his shouting. “Hey, those guys over there are saying we’re gonna lose! What do we say to that?!”

“Oh ho ho, I like this energy!” Leo stood up on the bleachers, joining in the hype. April and Mikey stood up beside him.

“Yeah, you chumps aren’t even at our level!”

“Ya’ll ain’t seen nothing yet!”

Donnie stood up slowly, his arms crossed from the cold. “Yeah, we’ll definitely beat you! But-” He switched to his normal volume, “let’s not make promises we can’t keep.”

Raph dismissed him, and looked at Casey, who was smiling. Together, they were able to beat the Shredder. This would be a piece of cake.

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“Are we done? My mom is here to pick me up,” One of the kids, a girl with pigtails, mentioned as she walked towards her belongings on the bleachers.

Raph was gasping for air from his spot on the cold ground. Hockey was hard. Like, really, really hard.

In hindsight, their loss made sense; this was the turtles and April’s first time playing hockey, and even Casey, who’d been playing since she was a kid, wasn’t able to beat these kids. They really were just that good.

“Is that all you’ve got?!” Leo had fallen in front of the goal, two huge purple bruises visible on his face; one on his forehead, and the other under his eye, popping out from his green skin and red birthmarks.  

Mikey was crying on his knees, while April patted his shell, cussing out one of the kids who she felt pushed him too hard. Even as the kid was walking away. “And another thing-”

Donnie lay flat nearby, looking like a purple stain on the white shiny floor. He was never good at sports, but he tried. Geez, it was almost more embarrassing, with just how hard he tried.

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They found a vending machine, and after Raph gave Leo a cold soda can to hold over his bruises, he walked past Casey, sitting with her head in her hands.

“Hey,” He placed a hand on her shoulder, and looked around to see if the others were watching. April, Mikey and Donnie were going off about losing the match, while Leo sat dejectedly in the corner, nursing his injuries. “Are you alright?”

She looked up, tears in her eyes, and her lower lip wobbling. She hastily rubbed at her face with her sleeve, her eyeliner smearing. “I’m...I’m fine.”

“Is this about us losing?”

“No, no, it’s not that,” She sighed. “It’s a lot of different things- It’s just…”

She trailed off, and Raph sat down next to her on the bleacher. He realized this had definitely been bubbling up for a while. If only he’d talked to her sooner.

“Ugh, all I’ve ever wanted was to be a success. Taking over the world was everything for me- helping the Foot, working for the Shredder, making that whole brownie pyramid-scheme. But now? I don’t have anything. I’ve hit rock bottom. Now, I’m stuck in a stupid rivalry with a bunch of kids in a hockey rink.”

She began to cry again. “What am I going to do? Am I just doomed to be a failure?”

“Just ‘cause you’re not taking over the world doesn’t make you a failure. Most people just stick to regular, everyday stuff and they turn out fine.”

“It’s not just about taking over the world,” Casey sighed. “I don’t have a purpose. No Clan, no commitments, no future. It’s like everything I do is a failure. I’m a failure.”

Raph felt himself start to tear up, too. What she was saying felt way too familiar. “You’re not the only one whose failed.”

“Huh?”

“My Pops told us we were supposed to die in order to protect the Dark Armor. We failed to do that, but we realized how messed up that was, and we decided to do our own thing. And it totally worked out for us, ‘cause we ended up destroying Shred-face once and for all.”

He stood, wiping the small tears from the corners of his eyes. “Think about it. So what that you don’t got a purpose? I get it, but your ‘purpose’ was handed to you by those Foot-faces. What do you wanna do? What do you wanna succeed at?”

Casey sat quietly for a few moments, thinking, and Raph feared that he might have said something hurtful. He was never as savvy with people as Leo or Mikey.

Then she spoke. “I spent all of my life trying to be the best, even if it meant being the biggest bad guy in the world. Now, I want to be the best good guy!”

Her expression softened. “I guess what I really want - I want to stop people who were like me once. I want to stop evil people who want to control others. But...how?”

Raph thought. Then, an idea struck him. “You and me can team up!”

“For what?”

“I was a vigilante for a little while. I mean, I used to be, but I guess since I was already part of a team, and with the whole Shredder thing, I just sort of stopped. But, since my bros are on hiatus, you and me could fight crime undercover!”

Casey was looking at her lap, her head bowed. Raph cleared his throat. “I mean, only if you wanna, it’s just a suggestion-”

“That sounds amazing.” Casey looked up at him in awe, her dark eyes glossy with unshed tears. Suddenly, she stands up, and pumps a fist into the air. “Raph and Casey, the most feared vigilante duo in all of New York!”

“Yeah, Go big or go home!”  Raph pounded his fist into his other hand in excitement.

“Oh me gosh, stop yelling!” The two look behind them to Leo, still holding the can to his face. He turned in the direction of his twin. “Donnie, get me another can! This one’s warm!”

Casey was giving him a big smile, a far cry from her previous mood. Raph smiled back. Finally, he’d be able to go out and fight crime again; and this time, he wouldn’t be at it alone.