#i like these things a disproportionate amount wow

[devotioncrater]

ed/stede + edizzy + edward's bipolar

oh man the first three episodes of season 2 are. wow. okay. much to unpack. more fuel for my Edward Has Bipolar Theory.

DISCLAIMER: i am not a clinician, nor do i hold any degree in the psychology field. this meta is purely drawn from my own experience with diagnosed bipolar i, alongside what i've learnt in years of therapy as well as reading bipolar books/articles and peer-reviewed research papers. above all, this meta is for fun; please do not use this as a self-diagnostic.

this meta is broken up into sections:

the intro section

the bipolar section

the codependency section

the season 2 speculation section

The Intro Section

right away, the admittance of edward hating himself & feeling unloveable recontextualizes everything. his dynamic with stede & the crew, his dynamic with his own crew, his dynamic with izzy.

because like. hi hello?? when izzy says "you know me better than anyone else, and i daresay the same is true for me to you" it's just. a nail in the coffin. one of many nails. here's why.

it took an insane amount of vulnerability for edward to open himself up to stede in season 1. it took a lot out of him to even accept stede's love, and then believe it to be real. he believed that just for one moment in his scarred life, he was someone worth loving, baggage and all. as he himself was. for who he was. stede saw him and loved him and accepted him. if edward had been there to hear when lucius said to stede that the time edward spent with stede was the best it'll ever be for him, edward probably would've agreed.

which is. oh man. it would be a bit of a thin ice situation, wouldn't it? that's fucking bleak.

before we get into that, we need to dissect the dysfunction in the edizzy dynamic. i mean it's all tragic, all toxicated, especially with the downward spiral edward's on. so why examine it? what is there to examine?

the downward spiral began in season 1, became abated by stede & the crew, only to jumpstart at the end thanks in part to izzy. so we need to examine why, because edizzy's dysfunction plays a role in all of this mess.

it's undeniable izzy triggered edward, yes, but look a little further. edward's irritability, his emptiness, his substance abuse, the sudden shift in gears between his erratic moods. the crew walk on eggshells around him, because his behavior in season 2 so far is reckless, dangerous, and suicidal. there's pressurized speech patterns and racing thoughts present and they intermingle alongside low-energetic periods when he isolates. above all, he feels hopeless. overwhelmed by a sea of loneliness. fang starts the season off being unable to recognize him.

on the flipside, in season 1, he's on the tail-end of a low when we meet him. listless, bored, passively suicidal before he swings the other way. with stede & the crew he's up in the clouds. he's affable, he's happy, he's social. there's hope for change. he tries new things, laughs, even falls in love. he imagines a life for himself outside of piracy. there's impulsive actions such as the act of grace and impulsive thoughts like sailing to china. even when stede leaves him, edward grieves at a healthy-looking level. in episode 5, when edward's mood first shifts, fang doesn't recognize him in the elevated state.

the point is, edward feels things in the extreme. he lacks emotional regulation. "uncharacteristic" high highs and low lows.

how he reacted to izzy's trigger — "this is blackbeard" — is disproportionate until you piece together two puzzle pieces:

edward likely has bipolar + his core beliefs (self-loathing/feeling unloveable) throw oxygen into the flame of his relationships.

The Bipolar Section

to get on the same page here, let me provide a few Basic Oversimplified Definitions (here is a pdf of the DSM-5 for a scientific understanding, scroll to page 168. please do not use this PDF or meta as a self-diagnostic. contact a clinician/psychiatrist if you have questions or feel you need an evaluation):

bipolar disorder: a chronic, lifelong mood disorder characterized by manic highs and depressive lows. fluctuations in moods are extreme and, depending on subtype, can inhibit functionality. it can be managed today with medication and psychotherapy.

manic episode: lasting one week or more, this is the high highs. the mood is elevated or irritable. if severe, it can include psychosis/psychotic features such as hallucinations, paranoia, and/or delusions. mania belongs to subtype Bipolar I.

hypomanic episode: lasting at minimum four days straight, this is a lesser high than manic. it does not include psychosis/psychotic features, nor does it inhibit functionality. hypomania belongs to subtypes Bipolar I and Bipolar II.

depressive episode: lasting two weeks or more, this is the low lows. anhedonia and major depression are hallmarks of a depressive episode. depression belongs to all three subtypes of bipolar (the third subtype being cyclothymia).

mixed episode: best of both worlds. a person experiencing one may possess high levels of energy — such as pressurized speech — while simultaneously feeling overwhelmingly low and suicidal. a mood may flip from elated to hopeless on a dime.

euthymia: a mood state that is stable, without (hypo)mania or depression. it is a neutral baseline which occurs between episodes.

IMPORTANT NOTE: bipolar disorder is more complex than "just a mood swing". mood swings are situational, while bipolar presents even without situational factors. think about how, in season 2, edward has got his hair in a messy updo, cleans his cabin, swears off drinking & drugs, and is smiling. he explains to frenchie that he's decided to change after a rough night. then it cuts to a flashback of him the night before lying on the floor bawling his eyes out. the scene is played for laughs, however that is a textbook bipolar mood fluctuation. you go to bed hopeless and you wake up on top of the world, or vice versa. edward's situation hadn't changed in the hours between him crying and his conversation with frenchie.

(it can be argued that he thought izzy had died, but i don't think he believed frenchie had truly finished the job. why else had he grilled frenchie? he was sweating frenchie out, testing frenchie's loyalty. "you don't think i know the smell of my rotting former first mate?" edward knew izzy was alive the entire time).

like with almost every disorder, bipolar disorder presents itself differently in different people. in my experience, when i am in either a depressive or manic episode, two different outlooks may occur:

it becomes hard to remember what life was like on the other emotional end. (i.e. when manic, i tend to downplay my prior depressive episode).

i become hyperaware of the other emotional end, so i try to either get it to happen or prevent it from happening. (i.e. not wanting to become depressed, so i'll do XYZ).

i mention these outlooks because they're common. when you're in it, you're in it; when you're out, you're out. the first outlook is something edward's actions point to him experiencing, too, as evidenced in season 2 with his extreme suicidal behavior. he's in it in it.

the ups and downs in bipolar are difficult for the person struggling with the disorder. often, it feels uncontrollable. the symptoms — especially the ones which risk becoming severe like hopelessness or distractibility — are a challenge to cope with. during the high highs, your brain feels like it's frying. during the low lows, your brain feels like dense fog. therefore it's common for people to turn to substances to help alleviate what they're experiencing, and/or they partake on an impulsive whim. drastic life changes also may occur in an attempt to "fix" or "control" the disorder. severe episodes, when left untreated, may ruin or end people's lives. people with bipolar disorder are 15x more likely to commit suicide than the general population.

people who do not have bipolar themselves yet are close to someone with bipolar may also experience related difficulty. it may feel overwhelming to witness episodes occur with little to no understanding or tools on how to help. it may also feel stressful to try and gauge what state the other person is in. "walking on eggshells" is a common descriptor for the experience when the bipolar is unmanaged. that does not mean the person with bipolar disorder is automatically bad/abusive/harmful, it just means the disorder is a disorder. it interferes with daily functioning, causes distress, and impacts interpersonal relationships.

at the end of season 1, izzy hit edward where it hurts (edward's self-loathing, intertwined with the role of blackbeard) while edward was in what i believe to be a euthymic state (calm). now with their recontextualized relationship, we also see the underlying message of: "i serve blackbeard, he is my captain." -> "edward isn't good enough for my love".

izzy loves edward, but he's made it clear in season 1 it was for edward's blackbeard persona. or was it? you see, i don't believe that claim to be entirely true anymore, not after the first three episodes of season 2.

i believe a more accurate reading would be that in season 1, izzy was concerned, jealous, and vindictive. all in that order. the above underlying message weaponizes edward's separation of Edward and Blackbeard against edward. more on this later.

in season 2, izzy is just plain concerned ("we're worried for you"). he tries a different approach at managing edward's unstable mood. he goes for a softer attempt ("i have...love for you") because maybe, maybe it could work. it worked with stede. when it backfires, he ditches it and goes right back to bluntness ("the atmosphere's fucked!"). he also refuses to kill edward despite everything edward's put him through.

both seasons' motives were not for blackbeard, but for edward.

when we meet them in season 1, their relationship is dysfunctional at best. their baseline dynamic before stede is best depicted during episode 4.

in the model ship scene, edward's excited about stede's stuff, restlessly moving, unable to focus, appearing happy even though he's a hair-trigger away from irritability. he purposefully avoids or dismisses izzy's concerns about dying. he feels bored and trapped ("is this all there is?"), then feels frustration over feeling trapped, citing that he's blackbeard and blackbeard shouldn't feel trapped.

later in the episode, izzy frustratingly points out that edward's moods are "increasingly erratic" and something that izzy himself has had to manage. izzy also states that he's followed edward's every whim for years, and smoothed over their crew for him. edward, again dismissive, says "sounds stressful, izzy". izzy says it is but he felt honored to do it all for blackbeard, who is the greatest sailor he's ever known. this ties into their codependency, which i'll go over later on.

at this point in time, "edward" and "blackbeard" are synonymous, the names are just different titles reserved for different settings. edward himself doesn't see a distinction until stede — a person he respects — consistently treats him like Edward and not like Blackbeard. edward's identity to Blackbeard separates because he opens himself up to the possibility that Edward is someone worth knowing. Blackbeard, once a healthy coping mechanism created to survive in the pirating world, had soured somewhere along the way into an unhealthy coping mechanism. it became more of a cage than a home.

but to izzy, "blackbeard" is a good thing to be because it's an accomplishment of edward's. they built their whole careers and lives around it. when izzy says he's honored to sail with blackbeard, the greatest sailor out there, he says it to try and bring edward back to himself. it's his botched attempt at grounding/helping edward. if edward can be reminded of how great he is, reinforced by his accomplishments under the name blackbeard, maybe he'll snap out of his funk. if edward values izzy, loves izzy how izzy thinks edward does, he'd see the weight behind the compliment. izzy doesn't sail for just anybody.

it's botched entirely because any time edward tries to voice how "blackbeard" really makes him feel, izzy dismisses/minimizes/mocks it. he isn't supportive to edward because he feels threatened in two parts: that edward finds stede fascinating, and that edward is making a drastic life change for both of them based on yet another mood whim.

to izzy, edward becoming Edward and ditching Blackbeard would mean izzy's lost control of the situation, which means izzy's lost control of edward, which means no one will have control of edward. not even edward himself. this is yet another facet of izzy's codependency.

side note: speaking of names, in the calico jack episode, we know "ed" is a nickname edward doesn't allow people to call him. the only two people who call him "ed" are stede and izzy.

so that begs the question: why did izzy call edward "eddy" in season 2? where the hell does that nickname come from? why does edward use it on himself when he was struggling in purgatory?

based on these two conversations in episode 4, we can glean both sides of the situation. on one side is edward, who is struggling mentally and whose work is deteriorating because of it. on the other side is izzy, who is equal parts concerned about edward and frustrated at him because he isn't functioning as well as he used to, leaving izzy to clean up his messes. since this has been a years-long tension point, they are both at the end of their ropes. about to snap.

that is how we meet them.

from then on, edward begins falling for stede, and his mood shifts. he begins functioning better. stede is genuinely good for him. stede, with his different view on life, provides emotional balance and radical acceptance and a general softness that edward's been missing. he is supportive, he is kind, and he treats edward like edward isn't broken.

but stede is not accustomed to pirate life or its reality. he's naive to the point of foolish. foolish to the point of fatality. and izzy sees those flaw points right away. it's a red flag to him because how can edward — passively suicidal edward — be trusted to not take advantage of stede's naivety and steer them all into a doomed situation?

edward's relationship with stede is also where izzy's jealousy kicks into gear, clouds his judgement.

i mean, shit, wouldn't anyone feel slighted? if you devote your life to a man, stick with him through thick & thin, feel responsible for both of your lives, go above and beyond, worry over his wellbeing, put him before yourself....just for him to run off with a wannabe pirate.

a wannabe pirate who has only known your man for a fraction of the time you and your man have been together. his weeks compared to your years. yet somehow he gets your man's good side, gets the love you desperately want.

of course izzy's seething. wouldn't anyone?

it makes sense for izzy to sell edward and stede out to the british navy. he's spiteful, vindictive. bet there's a bit of hurt pride to it, too. it's fucked! it's a terrible thing to do!

his motive here boils down to, once again, keeping edward alive. cleaning up what he perceives to be another mess. sell stede out, keep edward where he can see him. izzy hates spanish jackie's, he hates the navy, he doesn't enjoy any of it. this is his hail mary, his last ditch effort.

of course it backfires. royally. no one expected edward to call for an act of grace. to sign away his life. izzy tries to stop him, but edward goes where stede goes. and soon after that, edward returns without stede.

and soon after that, the situation deteriorates. edward's launched into a severe mixed episode, triggered by the compounded stress of stede leaving and izzy's rejection of Edward. pressurized speech, emptiness, irritability, suicidal behavior, increased goal-directed activity...he ping-pongs between mania and severe depression. this is more than a break-up.

edward struggles with emotional impermanence. when stede's right in front of him, kissing him, edward feels secure that stede loves him. but when stede doesn't meet him at the dock? Stede Never Loved Me.

another example: izzy. when izzy obeys edward's orders, edward feels secure that izzy loves him. but when izzy speaks up or disagrees? Izzy Never Loved Me.

"he was your friend," jim tells edward, in reference to edward's awful treatment of izzy. but edward, at this intersection of a severe mixed episode + emotional impermanence, can't see that.

he burns his bridges left and right. destroys everything because he's lashing out in pain and he doesn't think he deserves anything good. Blackbeard? sure, he'll be Blackbeard. Blackbeard is all he'll ever be anyways. a killer, a pirate, a crazy captain who does too much rhino horn.

edward hates himself so fiercely that he only finds relief during the storm, right before he believes he's going to die. "finally."

The Codependency Section

edward's relationship with izzy was always going to end in destruction.

they both love each other, we have canon confirmation of this. "i have...love for you" and "i loved you best i could".

edward's confession is critical here, because he did love izzy as best as he could. there exist moments between them that shine light into possible happier times. the way edward talks to izzy to placate him in season 1 when izzy packs a dinghy, even if manipulative at the time, requires intimate knowledge on what izzy would be receptive to. david jenkins mentioned that it was izzy who helped doll edward up for the season 1 ball, an offscreen act of intimacy. edward tries unsuccessfully to connect with izzy over stede's model ship and the clouds. the casual way edward says "i had a dream about you last night."

"best i could." if edward hated himself less, he could have loved izzy more. if he believed he was deserving of love, he could have accepted the fact izzy loves him.

so they both love each other, but love is not enough to combat self-hate. it just isn't. the only opponent to self-hate is self-compassion.

self-compassion is a process you have to choose for yourself. you must work on it yourself, hopefully with the aid of an external support system. self-compassion is separate from self-love and other forms of love because, oftentimes, people who operate under the core belief of Being Unloveable also operate under an assumption that love is conditional. "i'm not enough" / "i'll never be enough" / "i don't deserve love" / "i'm too much". it's unrealistic for someone to jump headfirst into healing when that healing is programmed with restrictions. we are our own worst critic. so to practice self-compassion is to soothe that inner, hater critic until we heal ourselves enough to get to a place where we can practice unconditional love on the neglected self.

the conditional love aspect is one that is modeled. edward grew up in an abusive household. abusers hold their victims out on a string of conditions. furthermore, his mother rejected his interest in fine things by saying that it's not "for people like us". it makes sense for edward to internalize an "i'm not [rich/nice/good/etc] enough" message, thereby shutting himself out.

he continues to shut himself out in the aftermath of killing his alcoholic father. he doesn't tell anyone about the traumatic event — an oscillation into "i'm too much" — until he opens up to stede.

so here you have an unloveable boy, the victim of domestic violence and the killer of his own father, going into the chaotic world of pirating. a world — put so eloquently by calico jack in season 1 — where everyone fucks each other over. where trust is a prized, rare currency.

and somewhere along the way, he and izzy find each other. and they stick together for years.

both edward and izzy bottle their emotions up and then blow up on each other. it's so completely different to how stede & the revenge crew operate. it's years of miscommunication and mutual resentment between them, caused in part due to their pirate enviornment. their pattern is hot and cold. reactive.

izzy smooths over things with the crew -> edward is dismissive of izzy -> izzy blows up on edward and resigns -> edward convinces izzy to stay -> edward begins falling for stede -> izzy and stede fight over edward's heart -> izzy gets exiled for losing, edward says nothing -> izzy goes vindictive mode and sells edward/stede out to the navy -> edward hates izzy's guts -> edward comes back without stede, depressed -> izzy smooths over things with the crew -> edward is dismissive of izzy -> izzy blows up on edward and triggers him -> edward convinces izzy to stay through violence

it's that one friend who keeps returning to their shitty partner — on again/off again —, only here they both are the shitty partner.

the thing about unhealthy relationships is that they provide a layer of comfort. it's known territory. which is why, when an unhealthy relationship morphs into a codependent one, it is incredibly difficult to break out of them.

codependency definition: excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner, typically one who requires support on account of an illness or addiction.

like conditional love, codependency is learned/modeled inside of a dysfunctional family setting.

it works a bit like an ouroboros in that it's an infinite loop. the codependent partner compulsively takes care of their struggling partner in the hopes they get better. this role of "caretaker" makes them feel needed/wanted, ergo filling their own low self-esteem void. however, all the rescuing does is enable the struggling partner further into self-destruction.

sound familiar?

izzy is edward's caretaker. izzy is codependent.

important note: no one feels good inside of a codependent relationship. there may be positive periods, yes, but codependency is primarily stressful for both parties involved.

in order to blossom, codependency relies on low self-esteem.

we know edward oscillates with his self-esteem, but we don't talk about how low izzy's self-esteem is.

izzy doesn't have an identity outside of edward, with the exception of being one of the best swordsmen in the pirating world. of course, this exception is taken from him when edward cuts his toes off.

izzy is high-strung with a compulsive need for control. things must be done when he orders them to, to the high standards he creates. do not question his authority. this compulsion is exasperated by edward's uncontrollable mood shifts.

izzy rolls with the punches, metaphorically and literally. he shuts down attempts at comfort, evidenced by his knee jerk reaction when fang hugs him in season 2. "i'm fine. unhand me. unhand me!" he doesn't allow himself to fully break down and cry. the tears only appear in this scene, and when edward attempts to get izzy to kill him.

loyal to a fault, izzy threatens to leave, goes to leave, but never leaves. he gets casted out, so he devises a plan to return instead of, i don't know, creating a new life for himself. even when edward maims him, he stays.

so is this loyalty? or is this a belief that this is what he deserves? or maybe it's loyalty born from the belief that this is all he's deserving of.

a hit dog will holler, and boy does izzy holler when questioned. about his role, about himself, about who he is to edward.

so who is izzy without edward?

"you know me better than anyone else and i daresay the same applies with me to you." is an insane thing to say because izzy does know edward, but only the version of edward he stitched his skin to. the unstable, erratic version that needs help, and who he subconsciously sabotages with enablement.

and edward does know izzy better than anyone else because izzy's consumed by him.

if edward could not accept izzy's love in a direct form, then the roles izzy inhabits are his only outlet. Caretaker, Punching Bag, First Mate. 50 ways to say I Love You and none of them are healthy.

they both are violent with each other, drag each other down, but can't quit even when they know that they function better separated. codependency is an addiction, and like an addiction, the only way for this to end was in rockbottom or death.

The S2 Speculation Section

going back to the very top, here's why i say this thing with ed/stede is on thin ice right now: without edward working on his self-compassion, their relationship runs the risk of devolving into yet another unhealthy dynamic.

stede has decent self-esteem, an identity outside of edward, so i don't think they'll ever become codependent. stede also doesn't try to fix or enable edward. again, stede is genuinely good for edward.

i think the Mer!Stede scene was amazing, vital in balancing the heavy topic of suicide/death with the overarching comedy genre of the show. love saves lives, without love the world is bleak. who are we as humans without connection?

that being said, i personally want to see edward heal before jumping into a full-blown romantic/sexual relationship with stede. he deserves to choose himself, nurture Edward, and figure out how to manage his moods. especially since his last relationship with izzy was so tumultuous.

speaking of izzy, i also want to see izzy find himself and heal, too. he needs to learn how to let go. i'm hoping he'll build up his self-esteem in his own way, doing something he's good at (maybe as a sword-fighting instructor?).

either way, i trust the direction this show will go in. they've done well so far in their depictions of mental health and the impact of mental health. it'll be interesting to see the rest unfold.

[waheelawhisperer]

Slogged through V9E6, thoughts are under the cut

As always, I am worried that Jaune’s arrival means he’s going to start sucking focus away from the other characters again. Here’s hoping the writers remember he’s best used as a supporting character.

Jaune why did you grab the weird thing that looks like a clock what did you think was going to happen

Don't touch weird shit you idiot it's like rule #1

I hate the Ever After so much

So did he just sit there for years until he got DILFed? Lmao.

I'm sure this change will have long-lasting ramifications for both Jaune's characterization and the narrative as a whole.

Well, this was a wonderful, touching moment until it was immediately ruined by Weiss’s daddy kink

Like seriously who the fuck thought it was a good idea to have Jaune admit that he’d gone through a horribly traumatic experience and been incredibly lonely for what’s indicated to be literally decades based on his physical changes and then have Weiss immediately start thirsting for him like we literally see his eyes watering and then not seven seconds later Weiss is looking at him with do-me eyes

These writers genuinely have zero understanding of tone or how to set and maintain it effectively it’s amazing it's like they watched the MCU and the only lesson they took away from it was that every moment that might possibly have any kind of emotional impact needs to be undermined by a snappy quip as quickly as possible because otherwise someone might make the mistake of assuming your show is sincere about anything

Anyway girliepop’s showing her whole ass right now way to keep your fetish under wraps Weiss

Yang’s looking at her like “I know what you are”

Nice try Yang like I didn’t see you eyeing up Jaune too feast on the crumbs my fellow pan Yang truthers

Miles is genuinely never beating the “Jaune is a self-insert” allegations holy shit

Like if you want people to believe that the character you voice, who's received a disproportionate amount of narrative focus throughout the series already and has received repeated criticism for it, who's already been presented as attractive on at least one occasion, isn't a self-insert, maybe don't have one of the mains openly thirsting after him once you've written an excuse for him to be aged up so that he's both closer to your age and significantly older than she is after you've already posed for a picture with a body pillow of an underage girl from the show you write for and your coworker has posted that picture online with the caption "She's still only 16, don't get too comfortable". Like maybe consider the optics for 5 seconds. It'd be 5 seconds longer than you typically think through your writing choices, at any rate.

Wow, finally someone is engaging with the fall of Atlas, Team RWBY’s part in it, and the ramifications of both the previous things. Only took half the fucking Volume.

I actually like the pretty distinct perspectives and the conflict between Weiss and Blow. Weiss is the one who has the most reason to be attached with Atlas and Blow has the most reason to feel negatively about that Kingdom, so having them be the ones arguing here is a good choice.

Yeah, Weiss, you did fail, but it wasn’t just you. Most of the blame rests on the shoulders of Ironwood and these dumbass fucking writers.

That said, you guys didn’t exactly pass your trials with flying colors.

Good point, Ruby.

Yang is the first one to engage with Ruby’s distress again, even if she’s not exactly on the money here either in terms of her actual position on Ironwood or how to help Ruby.

I feel like this is one of the few moments of actual substance we've gotten this Volume and I really wish we'd spent more time digging into it. Unfortunately, He-Jaune, Master of the Universe, cuts it short. Not a fan of that choice unless we pick this up again at a later date.

He-Man’s a little bit of a jerk. Interesting. I kinda want to see where this goes.

He also doesn’t seem to like the Cat. He gets points for that.

He-Man, Master of the Jauniverse, does not want them going to the Tree. Given what apparently happened to the Herbalist, this implies something sinister about the Tree and Ascension.

You read my mind, Weiss.

Jaune has a very different perspective on Ascension than the Cat. On the one hand, the Cat is a denizen of the Ever After and probably knows more about how it works than Jaune does. On the other hand, Jaune is far more inherently trustworthy as a character we’ve known for 8+ Volumes, whereas the Cat is sinister as fuck. They've been creeping me out since their introduction.

Once again, Ascension is equated with death – you lose your memories, lose who you are. Whatever you used to be is gone.

Good pun, Yang.

Who the fuck is Lewis?

Oh, wonderful, Alyx had a brother. An irrelevant character had another irrelevant character to hang out with. Can we please stop expanding the cast?

Go off, Weiss (and Yang)

What the fuck did the Cat just do

I love you Weiss. There really is just no end to the Ever After’s bullshit, is there?

Where the hell are Blow and Yang?

You walked right into that one, Weiss.

Love how He-Man’s just done with everything. I am too, buddy, I am too.

Here it comes, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Maybe we’ll get something decent out of this Volume after all.

YOU GUYS CAN LITERALLY DOUBLE JUMP WHY DOES EVERY SCENE IN THIS VOLUME THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE COMBAT INSIST ON FORGETTING THAT THE CHARACTERS HAVE MOBILITY TOOLS

I could cross that shit and I don’t even have superpowers

You have perfectly good ropes right there

Yes I get that it’s a metaphor for taking the next step in their relationship blah blah blah but the metaphor is shit

This Volume really likes presenting challenges as insurmountable when Team RWBY has regularly handled far more difficult ones it keeps breaking my willing suspension of disbelief

I'm normally pretty willing to buy into what a show is going for but I just can't do it for this Volume

Was that Summer in the reflection?

Looks like the reflections show everyone’s issues – Summer for Ruby, Penny for Jaune, Atlas for Weiss

Oh, so Alyx was a little shitter, huh? I’m sure there’s nothing negative about the choice to portray a (female) character of color this way, especially in a show known for being racist produced by a company known for being racist.

Okay yeah Jaune you probably fucked up here trying to railroad her into the book’s storyline. Somebody’s never played D&D before and it shows

Poor guy’s really hurting though, can’t blame him for feeling like a failure

I’d like the show to unpack all this but I don’t even trust it to handle Team RWBY’s issues (or even address them in a meaningful way) so we’ll see

I feel like we have to take everything Jaune says about the Cat and the Tree and the Ever After with a grain of salt, but the Cat is genuinely creepy as shit, so I feel like there’s some validity to this, at least.

So Jaune thinks the Cat fed Lewis to the Tree. Is he right? Who the fuck knows?

But it does set up some sinister implications about the Tree, the Cat, and the nature of the Ever After. If the Tree’s not an option, how does the gang get home?

I get the feeling that Jaune is at least partially wrong about how the Tree works, but what he's saying makes sense based on what he knows.

Yang you fucking dork

Anyway if Blow has a really good brain it’d be nice to see more examples of it beyond “she’s the bookworm”, I’m sure setting her own house on fire was a great demonstration of intelligence. I feel like this is another indication that I’m right when I say that RWBY would’ve really benefited from another Beacon Volume to really build the relationships between the core cast that the show tries to convince us exist.

Also, Yang is smart even if Blow makes her brain turn to mush. She seems to have figured out the trick here. She sounds so sweet and sincere when she mentions liking Blow’s ears, though I feel like this is another instance where the show isn’t taking Blow’s status as a minority seriously, what with the potential elements of fetishization here. Still, I’ll try to go with the writing’s intent here.

Honestly it probably wouldn’t even bother me if this Volume hadn’t insisted on continually comparing Blow to a cat

You did, in fact, nail it, Yang. Such a fucking dork I love her

Okay, Blow, maybe you do have a really good brain after all. Again, would’ve been nice to establish this a bit earlier, but oh well.

Yang you fucking dork lmao

Damn, Blake went hard here. Yang went with the surface-level stuff and was probably expecting the same in return and Blake just started pouring her heart out. I love the way Yang’s eyes and face just softened the moment Blake said she was an extraordinary person. Girlie was not expecting that at all.

“I like that you’ve never been intimidated by me” BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Yang she fucking flinches like a dog expecting to be beaten every time you raise your voice around her she’s the only one in your friend group who’s ever been intimidated by you even Jaune is fine around you and that boy’s afraid of his own shadow

Jk I lied the other abuse victim on your team also has negative reactions when you act aggressive

Anyway I guess we know why we got that line about Yang not being scary (even though she could be if she wants to) back in Episode 1.

Yang how are you missing with every line Blow gave up on Adam and the White Fang and that was a good thing because it let her escape his abuse hello?

Oh and she sure as hell gave up on Qrow and Ironwood when Qrow crawled into a bottle and Ironwood decided to raise Atlas, and she was literally the only person on her team who didn’t believe in Yang’s innocence when Cinder framed Yang during the Vytal Festival (guess who was ride or die for Yang in that moment? I'll give you a hint: her name starts with a W), and she ran away from her entire team when Weiss was racist for two episodes. Finding her was the whole fucking plot of the V1 finale. Like I’m not even arguing that she was wrong or unjustified for any of that but if you want her to be the one who never gives up on anyone then maybe fucking show her never giving up on anyone

Does Blake really know what matters to her, Yang? It sure as hell wasn’t Faunus rights during the Atlas Volumes.

That fucking lighting lmao

Just spit it out you idiots lets get this over with my expectations are dropping with every line

God Yang is such a fucking dork I genuinely love this for her it would’ve been so easy to make her the cocky flirty one all the time and they didn’t

For all my frustrations with this show I do genuinely like that.

I like how Yang hesitated a bit and didn’t quite commit but Blake went full-bore.

Oh my God it’s so sappy and cheesy and romantic

I can understand why people love it even if for me it crosses the line to narm like honestly this scene just feels ridiculous but that's just a personal taste thing, it feels too over-the-top for me but there's some charm to it as well

I feel a little bad for the Cat but honestly they strike me as manipulative more than anything

Every scene just gives me bad vibes

Damn, they were makin out, hands changed positions and everything

Nice little leg pop Blow

You and the fandom both, Jaune.

Kinda wonder when you figured it out though because you were not picking up on it in Volume 8 ("Ruby?" "Yeah... Ruby.")

Good to know the Bees thought confessing their feelings was more important than getting home or stopping Salem. I like both characters less every time they treat the Ever After as a vacation.

The little hand touch is cute though.

Okay, Ruby is not reacting well to the return of Crimson Rose, probably because it represents the burden of being a leader and a Huntress.

She's pushing her insecurities down again. That's gonna burst out sooner or later.

Jaune thinks Alyx traded Lewis to the Tree in order to leave. My guess is that either Jaune or Ruby tries to trade themselves to the Tree so the others can go home.

Damn, Ruby’s rejecting Crescent Rose pretty emphatically there.

Music is still forgettable I don’t think there’s been a single song that I’ve remembered a not of when it’s not actually playing for 6 whole episodes

Miles gave a solid performance here and so did whoever voices the Cat.

Okay, so, here it is: the scene we’ve all been waiting for since Volume 2 at the latest. The Bees are an item now, and it’s really obvious that it meant a lot to CRWBY. They put a lot of love into that scene, and it shows. Visually, it’s gorgeous, the voice actresses clearly put their hearts and souls into it, the music is meant to scream romance...

Unfortunately, I don’t like it. Perhaps this is just a nitpick on my end because I’m a stubborn ornery cantankerous bastard who hates being told what to do, but this confession doesn’t feel organic. It feels like they were forced into it by outside factors (the stupid fucking punderstorm that wouldn’t let them leave until they told each other their feelings. If I'd been in their place, I would've sat my stubborn Texan ass down and told that fucking weather condition that it could let me out right now or move along on its own time, but I'm staying right here until it does. Ain't no fuckin rain clouds gonna tell me what to do).

I don’t like that in and of itself, but it gets worse when you consider that both characters are A) queer and B) were only coded and not explicitly confirmed as queer within the show prior to this scene. It feels like two queer characters are being forced out of the closet, which would be bad enough on its own, but gets infinitely worse when the company behind the show named itself after a homophobic slur and then built a company culture around bullying and bigotry and the lead writer on the show has been openly biphobic and fetishized bi women in the past. Good job, morons, you managed to take a ship I’ve supported since the characters involved met in the Emerald Forest and make it feel gross to me. Between this and Blake’s jokes about Yang’s arm in Episode 2, I’m officially not a Bumbleby shipper anymore. You’ve fumbled the bag that badly. Please never hold a job in any creative industry again.

Overall rating: Horrendously Bad And Specifically Disappointing On Top Of That/10

Amazed that I can't definitively declare this a bottom three episode of the Volume because 3 of the 5 others I've watched so far were also this fucking bad. Truly an accomplishment.

Everything that wasn't Weiss's thirst for DILFs and the Bumbleby confession was okay (not amazing), but the writers fucked up so badly with the parts that sucked that they accomplished something incredible: they executed a scene I've been waiting for for ages so incompetently that I don't ship Bumbleby anymore.

[baratrongirl]

Hi! I wanted to know if you had any tips on writing fanfictions, especially hurt/comfort. I have so many ideas and I wrote down what I want to do but have no idea how :/

I've been thinking about this ask for weeks now, and I'm still not sure how to go about structuring the reply. So I'm afraid that this isn't going to be the most coherent response, because it's actually a much bigger question than it looks.

Who?

The first thing to consider is who you want to get Hurt, and who you want to do the Comforting. This might be simple (your comfort character is the one who gets Hurt and the one you like to ship with them is the Comforter), but it doesn't have to be. A story with two principal characters is obviously easiest to write, but you can have multiple characters Comforting. (I would only recommend this if you have a group of close people, e.g. the Wright Anything Agency in Ace Attorney fic.) Part of a good Hurt/Comfort is that it increases the relationship level between the characters. So you can write about an existing Romantic Relationship, or a close friendship, or acquaintances, or even strangers if you wish - knowing that they're going to be closer at the end. Having a character who Comforts the Hurt character in the way that they need can be a way of boosting a friendship to a romantic relationship, since the Comforter's responsiveness can be a way for them to show their love for the Hurt one.

Wow this post will be long.

What?

The nature of the Hurt will determine the length of the story. A small Hurt, like receiving homophobic or transphobic abuse from one stranger on one occasion, will not need a great deal of Comforting. A big Hurt, like being kidnapped or abused over a period of time, will need a large amount of Comforting.

There could also be a situation where one small Hurt reminds the Hurt person of other times they have been Hurt in the past, and they have an emotional breakdown that is disproportionate to the size of the current Hurt. (e.g. Klavier's history with his brother Kristoph, or Apollo's history with being in foster care)

Think about what you feel like writing. Emotional abuse? Physical abuse? An injury? Sickfic? etc. And also whether you need to vent about anything in your life. Give your own chronic illness or disability to your favourite character, so it gets written about authentically. Or write about an injustice that is bothering you, with as much understanding as you can muster.

What do you Enjoy? What do you Need?

Is there something that you really like to read about in fic? I personally like it when a usually strong character breaks down emotionally or faints. I'd hate it if one of my actual friends fainted in front of me in real life, but the whole point of fiction is that you can explore "what if"s.

If you're writing about your own illness or disability, is there a way that people can help you that they never seem to think of? Can you write the Comforter doing the exact thing that you yourself want people to do?

Do you want to write something really extreme, like having a Bad Person point a gun at your favourite character? And have their Comforter come in to scream at the Bad Person and karate-chop them? Do you want to have your Hurt person get Hurt by jumping in front of a bullet aimed at the Comforter? Go for it! It's fiction, no one is really getting hurt, but you can explore real feelings through the writing.

Balancing the Story

I always feel that the amount of time/number of words spent on the Hurt and the Comfort need to be relatively balanced. It isn't usually half and half, but maybe more like one third to two thirds? Two fifths to three fifths? Hard to say until you start writing, of course.

I've definitely read stories where the Comfort part turns into a Budding Romance, and it's left the story feeling unbalanced, because that Romance part would have been much better as a sequel. I've also read other stories where the Hurt/Comfort has only been one or two chapters in the entire thing, and it's worked fine that way.

Comforting

I always feel that the Hurt is easy to write but the Comfort less so. It's easy to write a factual account of Klavier breaking his fingernail on a guitar string and how it's the last straw on a shitty day. It's harder to figure out how Apollo is going to help him feel better.

So here are some things that the Comforter needs to do. Listen - The Hurt person may well know what they need. They might need physical affection like a hug. They might need to be left alone. They might need the other to be present in the room but not touching them so that they can breathe. Or they might not know what will help, in which case the Comforter needs to guess at things.

Help - Things which might help in various situations include physical touch, a blanket/pillow/plushie, a drink of water, ice cubes, etc. The Hurt person might also need to scream or yell for a while about the situation until they can calm down. Are they unconscious? Do they need medical attention or to be taken to hospital? Are they sick or injured enough to need an ambulance?

Talk before Doing - Consent is INCREDIBLY important when a person has been Hurt. "Would you like a hug?"-type language if the people are not so close. Ask whether they want to be held loosely or squeezed tightly. If the Comforter has to leave the Hurt person, e.g. to get a first aid kit or some water, have them explain verbally what they are doing.

If the Hurt person is having a panic attack or something similar, then have your Comforter talk them through it. Have the Comforter ask the Hurt person to put their hand on the Comforter's chest, to feel their breathing, and to try to match their breathing. Lots of talking from the Comforter is especially important if the Hurt person is incoherent or unable to speak at all.

Alternate Communication - Some neurodivergent people may go mute in extremely stressful situations and they may have a card which says that it's hard to communicate right now, or multiple cue cards, or a workaround like typing on their phone. Think about how your characters will communicate when Hurt and when well. If the two people in the story are incredibly close, then they might use body language rather than verbal communication. The Hurt person might drop their head onto the Comforter's shoulder, signalling that that they need to be held. Consent CAN be non-verbal and it can seem clunky if an established couple are still expressly asking for consent verbally. (Some smut stories make this mistake, having the couple ask for everything with words, making it seem like they're having their first time together rather than being two people who know each other extremely well.)

Stay Calm - Even if your Comforter is absolutely freaking out inside, have them attempt to stay as calm as possible. If you write from their point of view, you can show the internal freakout as well as the attempt to stay calm. It's often easier to write from the Comforter's point of view especially if the Hurt person is going through something like a faint or a panic attack, because their mind will be blank.

Anything Special that ONLY that Comforter can Do? - Here's an idea you can have for free. I've seen a fair number of authors write Apollo's Perceive as an actual medical condition, that it gives him a headache or migraine or makes him overload. What I've never seen anyone do is have Klavier give him a pair of sunglasses! Migraines make a person sensitive to light, Klavier is a rock star and carries sunglasses everywhere. It would make total sense for him to put his rockstar shades on Apollo's sore eyes.

Try Not to Write in Therapy Speak. Unless your character talks about having been in therapy in the fic, or is known to have been in therapy in the canon, try to avoid overly psychological language. It sounds clunky and unrealistic to have a character analysing themselves - unless they are a person who would authentically do that! (e.g. Miles Edgeworth post-"death") This is triply important if you are writing in the past (e.g. Victorian times, before most therapy was even invented).

Dealing With Commenters

So you've written your story and published it, and now you have people commenting on it. Hopefully they will be polite, enthusiastic and encouraging you to write more.

Sometimes they will be flipping weirdos, coming into your nice Klapollo sickfic and asking you to write a story where Athena is pregnant and having morning sickness, and not only do you have any particular interest in Athena, you are squicked like mad by pregnancy! YOU CAN SAY NO! "No." is a complete sentence, but you can also say "Sorry, that idea isn't for me, I hope you find someone else who can write it for you."

Okay, I think that is literally everything I can think of for now. Some other people might be along to comment on this post, see if they have anything interesting to add. Good luck with your writing! Sorry it took so long to answer you but honestly, it's a hard question :D

[unpopularly-opinionated]

So to prep myself a little before I start the Fairy Tail: 100 Year Quest show, I rewatched the final season of Fairy Tail. And uh… wow nostalgia sure is rose colored because while I knew there was fan service it didn’t really click with me just how much before rewatching that season. Mind you, I went in fully remembering the guy whose power is literally just making you cum to death, but I’m actually just talking about all the little things. The close ups on panties, the insanely disproportionate boob-to-head ratios, but most importantly the fact that quite a few of the Spriggan 12 were just straight up sexual deviants/predators. Guy who makes you cum, guy who turns you into a mindless obedient slave, girl who tears your clothes off, girl who can fulfill inflation kink fantasies, etc. I was just like wow, and here I thought the cum guy would be the gist of it.

Anyways, I still enjoy it for whatever reason so I’m kinda hyped to watch 100 Year Quest now. I won’t hold my breath on this, but here’s hoping the fan service is cut down a fair amount.

[notasapleasure]

Sneak peek: Brassian (Andor) saga AU

Soooo. I thought I'd post the first three chapters here and let everyone just have a say, if they want? I will answer questions on whatever you like, no really, you want an essay, I can give you an essay.

I think probably the key thing is like...in this setting the essential community aspect of Ferrix can't be the Icelandic community as a whole, because to make it a story just about the Norwegian 'empire' coming in would mean either making it the usual 'noble viking pagan vs. xian creep missionaries' story (YAWN) or setting it later, like, several centuries later, which takes it away from the genre I'm playing with most, which can still include monsters and zombies and far-flung adventures at foreign courts. So Brasso and Cassian are outsiders in the Icelandic farming community, as are all the people you'd associate with them in terms of the good guys on Ferrix - Salman and his family (smiths), Bix and her family (wise-women), Maarva and Clem (well. you'll see.). The Ferrix community is the group of weirdos who don't quite fit in. <3

In terms of the kinds of weirdos they are, well, I'm building a lot of it on specific examples from the sagas and tweaking details here and there. Ask me about any of it that piques your curiosity, please!

Thanks to @notfromcold for tagging me in the last sentence meme. This is somewhat more than a last sentence, but hey!

Also - it's first person, because Brasso decided it was going to be first person. And probably needs CW for period/setting typical bigotry and abusive parenting at the least - the trope of the coal-biter (a lazy son who disappoints his good viking parents before growing into a hero in his teens) is a common saga trope, but I've combined it with the 'son of the slave woman' trope (in a way that isn't 'wow I'm secretly a prince'), so Brasso's family isn't the nicest. It's emerged from various collective fanons I think, around his dad maybe/probably being a jerk and him having approximately a million sisters. Also from the saga stuff you can ask about if you want.

The Saga of the Coal-biter and the Skraeling

1. Coal-Biter

I was born the year they discovered Vinland the Good. My father was pleased - at long last he had a son to take his name. He had such high hopes for trade with the new land, and for me. His wife would have liked me more if I'd been hers, but she agreed to raise me alongside her brood of daughters nonetheless, and she was not unkind.

My sisters doted on me and scolded me by turns like the seething flock of geese in the yard - I would be their beloved plaything one moment and a hassle, a cuckoo to be resented, the next. Of course, I didn't know what a cuckoo was as a child, and my mother grew up far beyond the lands where they are found, so I only learned about these birds whose oversized young take over a nest and transplant the sitting chicks when I first travelled to Norway. But it was the same for me, nonetheless - I was disproportionate in that little house filled with fine, willowy people. I grew strong and broad, tall and dark, and my step-mother said I was of the people of Thrall, not like her children, born to the line of Snoer and Erna. Bearing that in mind, I could have done worse than be named as I am - Brastr, from my size and manner, became the more familiar Brasso.

At least, this is what my sisters liked to call me - my father found it babyish and inappropriate. I was still too young to know when his pride turned into scorn, but as I grew and grew, and remained perplexed by his obsession with 'going viking' or great deeds of a 'manly' ilk, he began to curse me and say I would never amount to anything. He would have disowned me, I'm sure, only he had paid handsomely for Sigurd, the priest of Thor, to confirm I was his when I was born, and then he had shown me off to all his peers at the public assembly, as my step-mother later told me. It would have been embarrassing for him to have gone back on such a confident announcement, I suppose.

So he called me Coal-biter. He came in from the yard one morning and, with frost-cold hands, claimed he was trying to wipe the dirt off my cheeks.

"I asked you to sharpen those knives for me boy, and you've spent the morning rolling about in the ash instead!"

I was sitting by the central hearth, away from the draught of the door, close to the good light so I could see what I was doing as I worked. He was right, I had not sharpened his knives. Truth be told, I did one and then realised how good it would be for whittling the small piece of driftwood I'd salvaged from the beach. I used the beautifully clean new blade to follow the contours of the wood, feeling the layers of it soften when I peeled then back as the callus on my thumb hardened. I still didn't know what shape lay within the salvage - something twisty and cunning. A fox, maybe? - but my father stopped me from finding out. He slapped it from my hands into the fire, and the knife landed in amongst the embers too - its bone handle was engulfed by clean new flames.

My cheeks burning - from the cold of his fingers, from the shame I felt whenever he wiped my face like that, from the anger at losing my project - I glared into the features of this old man who had once been a fearsome pirate and warrior. He didn't scare me, not even then, and I think that's why he came to hate me so much.

"Ash-boy! Coal-biter!" he barked, pinching my cheek and slapping my forehead. "You sit here in the dust all day with the women, getting under their feet while they do the work they need to do. Your skin is filthy with it, your hair is black as soot!"

I made some meagre complaint - "That's just its colour. You liked my mother's black hair!"

Naturally it got me another slap to the face.

"Pick it up," my father seethed, pointing to the metal blade glowing among the flames.

I shook my head and set my jaw. He loved to make impossible demands and I had learned to just ignore them.

He repeated himself, his green eyes bulging, his beard yellow from fire smoke, his mouth stinking from his rotten teeth.

"I already sharpened that one," I told him, reaching for the next knife and the whetstone.

I don't know how the stalemate might have ended - with him forcing my hand into the flames, with me stabbing him with the blunt old blade? - had my eldest sister not stepped in with the tongs and plucked the blade from the fire. She said nothing to either of us, but dropped the ember-red knife onto one of the flat stones they used for kneading bread and walked back to her weaving with a sigh.

Oh, our father would bawl and hollar at her too, but he wouldn't lay a hand on her, not when he hoped to find her a husband at the next local assembly. He left me to sharpen the knives, but he only ever called me Coal-biter after that.

A nickname like that spreads - he didn't spread it himself, that would be too shameful as well, but the serving men and women knew that gossip like that could get them an extra measure of cheese or milk or meat when they were on an errand to the nearby farms.

Have you heard about old Ásbjörn's son? He's a Coal-biter they say, yes - slow to speak, disobedient, spends his whole time lazing about the hearth, never does the jobs he's asked to do. No doubt it's down to his mother - what did Ásbjörn expect from such a creature? He might as well have fucked his horse.

I've heard them say it - I've pointed out that it takes a certain kind of imagination to come up with fucking a horse as an alternative to a serving woman, and asked them how they came to know so much about it. There's not much point picking on the servants though - I can let them take their entertainment where they find it.

So what if I was called Coal-biter? I preferred working at the fire to working out in the fields with Ásbjörn - the fire transforms things, it takes matter and makes it something else, turning wood to charcoal and rock to metal. In the fields it's damp and windy. You have to ride to get there, and I outgrew these little horses before I reached my teens. I feel top heavy on them, exposed and awkward.

I started spending time at Pakkur's forge whenever possible - he taught me how the fire worked, but I didn't really want its mysteries explaining. Instead I made myself useful scavenging old iron for Pakkur to reforge: I pulled the clinkers from wrecked boats and scoured the assembly grounds for lost items. It's amazing what the great and good leave behind after their courts are done and the silver has been exchanged - I've found brooches and pins, coins and buckles. Even a sword knop once - it had a little gold on it, Pakkur said, so we pierced it and looped a thong of leather through the back and I gave it to my step-mother to wear around her neck.

Maybe I should have given it to my birth mother, but I didn't think she'd be allowed to keep it. We don't have slaves anymore in Iceland - you hear that a lot. But when, like my mother, that's what you were before you were brought here, the freedom doesn't mean much. She's a servant, she could maybe be a servant in another household, but even now she doesn't like to speak the language - unless it's to complain about the cold - and she doesn't socialise with the others. I know so little about her - only that she was brought to this place that is so far from her home and so different to it, and the anger she holds in her heart about this isn't dimmed even when we exchange brief, shy smiles across the yard.

What could I do? It's my step-mother who was equipped to deflect my father's attention away from my work at Pakkur's, it's my step-mother who made sure I was dressed well and fed well. I knew she would appreciate the necklace, too - she learned that her position was in no way threatened by me or my mother now, and it meant she felt able to pity me somewhat. So when my father threatened to hand the farm over to his son-in-law she persuaded him to wait.

It was a kind gesture, though I didn't want the farm - I didn't really want any of it. I dreamed of worlds beyond my homeland where there were other things to do, things that weren't farming or feuding. Where I could go to the places called towns and see new faces on every turn, not the same old cast of petty smallholders.

2. Skraeling

Speaking of new faces, I was a teen when Maarva and Clem returned from Greenland with their curious cargo. It gave the whole island something new to talk about.

How should I describe Maarva and Clem? I hadn't known them terribly well before, they left Iceland first when I was young, excited by the prospects of the new land Leif Eiríksson had discovered.

As a kid I heard the rumour that Maarva had been a chieftain's daughter - somewhere remote and peculiar and filled with giants, like Gotland - and she'd certainly been married before Clem, but I imagine she'd have been terribly young. She'd travelled, so probably her first husband had been a trader in the east. At the summer assembly she used to tell us stories of elephants and lions, giant gold-hoarding ants and men with dogs' heads. She said she'd seen it all.

At some point she must have been widowed and left reliant on the mercy of a Norse colony far away, east and south, down near the centre of the known world. It was here she'd met Clem.

With his deep black skin, Clem was an enigma to most of us - he spoke Norse well, but saved his words for Maarva by and large. He was handy with the law, which he memorised as soon as he got here, and a fast friend of Pakkur's. He valued the old and the new equally, because in our society all was novel to him. He found our gods quaint and never tried to explain his own. He wasn't quick to violence, but the first guy who called him blámaðr to his face lost his leg below the knee in the duel that followed. After that, everyone was just happy to call him Clem.

Clem didn't tell stories of exotic animals or ferocious gladiators, but sometimes, in a wistful moment, he would describe stranger wonders: great round buildings shining inside beneath gold ceilings, like each one had a sun captured in the rafters. Lands where sweet fruit grew to the size of your fist, not like the fingernail-sized blueberries we foraged for, and where the air was as warm as our hot springs but scented with exotic flowers and perfumes rather than sulphur. Regular days and nights, good weather and plentiful food - it all sounded as absurd as Maarva's cynocephali and Blemmyes. I don't know that any of us believed Clem and Maarva's stories - few of the adults took this odd couple entirely seriously, and we tacitly picked up on that. But I've since seen those things Clem described, and I've ridden an elephant just as Maarva told me was possible. There was more of the world on their little farm, it turned out, than on the whole of my island home.

And there was even more of it when they came back from Greenland.

The stories had been coming back about skraelings for years, and we all knew them and repeated them and embellished them:

Don't play at the harbour, I heard a skraeling stowed away and it lives in the rocks and eats children!

They have one giant foot and they hop from stone to stone! They use them to crush grapes as big as your head and make wine that doesn't give you a hangover!

Their eyes are big and black like a seal's and if you look into them you'll fall under their spell!

Well. That last one might have been true.

Maarva and Clem brought back a skraeling child, or so we all supposed. When he finally chose to tell his story it went beyond the borders of even our knowledge of the world and our imaginative capacities. But for the first while, he was a skraeling to us, a boy rescued from his own land following some kind of disagreement at a trading meet.

Maarva's version of the story was all breeze and bluster; Clem's was cagey and lacking in detail. But what I first heard from our servants when they came back with timber bought and cut from Maarva's woodland, was this:

Our settlers had travelled from Greenland to Leif's trading outpost in Vinland. The skraelingar came with cloth, hide and food to swap for iron. On the occasion Maarva and Clem went with a party to trade, someone had resolved to swindle someone and soon blows were exchanged - no two people agreed on which side started it. The locals used flying rocks and sharp stone arrows with deadly precision, but they had no swords, and even those who weren't proud of it didn't deny that the Norse colonists had the upper hand.

In the telling, our servants claimed it was a blood-bath - the children who heard the story had nightmares for weeks. With relish, the servants described a boy abandoned amidst the carnage, sitting bewildered among dead bodies, too astonished to flee or fight back. Maarva had taken pity on him and adopted the child rather than leave him to starve in the forests of Vinland.

Later, when I was cynical enough to reconsider the context for Maarva's pity, I also heard a version where she single-handedly drove the skraelingar out of the camp. Something about beating a sword against her bare breasts, advancing upon the enemy and nearly tripping over the boy who had been knocked unconscious by one of the flying weapons. I was never brave enough to ask her about that take on events.

They called the boy Andar, claiming he stopped breathing when they found him and that Clem returned his breath, andar, to him. The boy soon made it clear he already had a name and it was Cassian. The nickname Kass - locked box - was a compromise he made with reluctant Norse tongues, but Clem was careful always to articulate the full word, and Maarva did try, when she remembered.

Cassian brought trouble to the Norse settlement in Greenland. He had not asked to be adopted or rescued, and presumably saw his new situation in a rather different light to how it was intended. Apparently, he made such a noise with his screaming and fighting that livestock miscarried and milk turned. The other colonists said he was a curse and he was the source of skraeling magic that was going to bring about their ruin. Maarva and Clem stood by him, but when, in an inarticulate fury, the boy smashed up a boat and an outhouse, they had no choice but to move away - or face the harsh vengeance of their neighbours.

So Maarva, Clem and Kass the skraeling came back to Iceland, and the unwary among us fell under a spell.

3. Tern

As a teen I'd grown tall, but hadn't yet fully broadened out, and I felt like there was nowhere on the island I could hide - I towered over most of the scrubby birch trees and spindly rowans, and no matter how poor the summer weather was, my skin darkened like roasted rye under the long hours of daylight. I was still a Coal-biter to the other boys, to my father and his friends, but when my sisters had visitors the women would gather behind their looms and giggle at me, whispering things behind their long white fingers. It made me uneasy, and I didn't know why, so despite the weather I resigned myself to staying in the outfields with the sheep, or I combed the rocky river beds for lost fish hooks I could take to Pakkur.

Pakkur was dark, maybe like me, though he claimed not to know where his family came from before settling in Iceland. He preferred to say that black was the colour of the forge: it was fitting that his hair and beard should be charcoal black and steely silver, and of course his skin tanned like leather in the blast of the furnace. He said it was a sign I should learn the craft too, but I never did respond well to anyone suggesting a path for me.

I was capable of all I had been tasked with, but it all somehow felt hopeless. I didn't understand where it was meant to lead. Wandering the riverbeds took me away from future concerns - farms and families and all sorts of distasteful responsibilities - where all I did was let my eyes comb over the different coloured rocks, seeking a tell-tale anomaly in the texture or tone that would bring my attention to a lost twist of iron.

During one such meditation I had wandered far from my father's lands, meandering inland through the lava-fields that ringed Clem and Maarva's farm. Maarva Kerski had a great big wolfhound called Bí, and when I heard barking I flinched, assuming I was about to be scolded for trespassing.

I knew Bí couldn't outrun me anymore - he'd been an old dog when they'd left for Greenland with him, and no one had expected him to return with them. But he still had a bark that could cause landslides - and maybe I had finally learned a guilty conscience from my father's strict lessons. I stood still as a tree in the middle of the stony beach and scanned the grey, craggy landscape for a grey, craggy dog.

When I finally spotted him, Bí wasn't even looking at me. I saw his long tail wag urgently by his shaky legs. He was poised at the edge of the lava field, facing into the uneven terrain with single-minded intent. Again he barked, and I saw when he did that a bird rose up from the rocks with a scream. It hovered momentarily and Bí barked again, and then the bird dove with fury and the small yell that followed was muffled by the breeze.

Without hesitation, I struck out towards Bí, eyeing up the furious bird as cautiously as he did. It was summer, and the terns had been nesting along the river. I knew the spots they used and I knew how to deflect their attention when I was egg-hunting. I also knew when it was better to avoid these areas because the eggs had hatched and the adults would defend their chicks like a hail of spearheads.

Someone in the lava field had not known about this, apparently. The tern dived again, and again I heard a miserable cry.

By now I think I'd guessed who it was, and I pitied the stranger who had come to this land full of murderous birds and abrasive, treacherous rocks. Until then I hadn't seen the boy. I'd heard all the stories and listened with weary exasperation - at least they'd found someone more peculiar than me or my mother to gossip about. I wasn't introspective enough to draw a deliberate parallel between this abducted boy and my mother's own past, but maybe I linked them subconsciously.

"Where is he, Bí?" I stumbled over the crumbly boulders until I could see what Bí could see. Curled  in a crevasse, arms over his head, was the boy I had heard called Kass. It was too far to see if he was injured or trapped, but the tern attacked him so relentlessly I could see he wasn't going to get up even if he could.

I pulled my sheepskin vest up over my head and shoulders, thinking of Maarva's story about the Blemmyes whose faces were in the middle of their chests. Had she told the story to the boy? Is that what he'd make of this tall, brown-skinned stranger stumbling headlessly towards him?

Slowly, carefully, I picked my way over the rocks, taking care not to step on fresh moss that would slip away under my weight, or to rely on thin, brittle spires of lava that would disintegrate if touched. No one in their right mind came out in a lava field, ever - where had Kass even been going?

As I drew near, I proved a more alarming prospect for the tern, and it changed tack to dive at me. I cursed as I felt its weight on my vest, its beak plucking at the sheep's wool, wings battering my hands and head. I shook it off and it came again, catching the skin of my hands with its claws or its beak.

"Bugger off!" I snarled, and when I was next able to concentrate I saw the boy Kass staring up at me with those dangerous big eyes the stories had warned us about. He was a handful of years younger than me I guessed, with sallow skin like mine and round, deep irises of a brown so dark it seemed black when I first looked. There was blood on his face, but the cuts were on his arms. His trousers had torn and his knees and palms were grazed, but he still looked like he might run rather than go anywhere I told him to. One small hand tightened on a fistful of gravel and stones and I stood still and shrugged beneath my ridiculous shield. Getting a handful of grit in the face for my heroics wasn't exactly what I'd bargained on. The tern battered me again, and again I flapped around to drive it off.

To my surprise, the boy's distant, fearful expression shifted slightly - like a glacier in the weeks before it calves, when something is about to slip. His lips twitched and he laughed. He pointed to his neck and said something in a strange, melodious language and laughed again.

"No, I don't have a neck," I said, with less good humour than I should have. "The terns pecked it away. Are you coming, or not?"

His eyes narrowed mistrustfully again, and to my surprise he repeated some of my words: "Coming? Not with you." He shook his head.

"Back to your home," I said in exasperation, expecting another collision with an angry bird at any moment. "To Maarva and Clem." There was a bark from behind, and I belatedly added, "To Bí!"

He winced, and I knew to expect the tern again, so I mostly deflected its blow this time. Kass studied me with more seriousness than I think anyone in my life had shown me to that point.

"Home," he said gloomily, and then reeled off a list of words that might have been synonyms - or curses. "Coming to Bí, ok," he finally stood up and brushed the dirt from his clothes, and I slipped off my vest and held it out to him, squinting up at the sky nervously as I did.

"Wear it - it's thick, their beak doesn't go through the leather."

His skinny arm dipped with the weight of it when he took it, but he held on and looked up at me piercingly. "Me..." he swung it over his head as I'd worn it. "But you?"

I shrugged again and waved my arms for good measure as the tern circled. It gave an angry shriek and swooped close to my hand, but not close enough for me to knock it away.

Kass watched and then beckoned me down to his level with a gesture.

I didn't follow at first, but when I finally crouched down, trying to explain that the bird would attack anyway, he put his foot on my leg without asking and scaled me like I was one of my father's horses, wrapping his wiry limbs about my neck and chest and making sure the sheepskin covered both our heads.

"Hup!" he laughed in my ear, and I had to laugh too as I got to my feet. He didn't weigh much back then and I was already strong, so I hooked my arms under his knees and hoisted him to a more comfortable position before beginning to pick a way back to Bí at the edge of the lava field.

That was my first lesson in how he got away with so much - he'd do what he wanted without asking, and be so utterly charming (not to mention right) that you couldn't be mad about it after the fact.

When we reached Bí the boy made no effort to get down but laughed delightedly as the old dog barked and bounced stiffly about my feet. He shouted "Hup!" again and I had to indulge him like I indulged my nieces and nephews - I broke into a lumbering run across the riverbed, moving quickly enough to make Kass shriek with happiness but not so quickly that Bí was left behind. We staggered and giggled our way like that back to Maarva and Clem's homefield, and I set him down to check the cuts the tern had given him. Bí circled around and then flopped in a dusty patch of earth in the doorway, his pink tongue lolling and his tail patting happily against the ground.

A house-keeper came out with a paste to clean the scratches and grazes Kass had suffered, and he turned sullen and wooden-faced until I took the stuff from her and she went inside with a sigh. He was a stoic patient, watching me flick grit out of the frayed skin of his knees and palms and not flinching at all (I noticed his eyes well up, but pretended not have seen it). By way of distraction, I gestured to myself with the rag. "Brasso. That's me. I live over there," I flailed an arm in an unhelpful manner. "Ásbjörn's farm," I added, out of grudging, cultivated habit.

His eyes flicked to the horizon and then he tried the word out: "Brasso." It was refreshing to hear my name spoken without reprimand or warning, and the pronunciation gave him no trouble.

I wasn't as cosmopolitan as this young thing, though. He pulled his grazed hand from my grip and pointed firmly at his sternum, holding my eyes with determination. "Cassian," he said.

It had an unfamiliar cadence, and it took me a few tries - "Kass-een. Kassa-en. Kass. Í. An. Cassian."

It was worth the embarrassment of getting my tongue tangled when he beamed and nodded at my eventual success.

Clem rode into the homefield while the boy was still laughing at my pronunciation, and the first I knew of this was the way Cassian's face stilled again and he turned silent and watchful. It didn't have the same sullenness as when the house-keeper had come out, though, rather it seemed a silence of waiting, of respectful curiosity.

"Hullo, made a friend have you, Cassian?" Clem dismounted and wandered over to us, his horse trailing after. He was tall, but he nevertheless always looked regal on the little horses. "You're Ásbjörn's son, aren't you?"

I stood and blurted out, "That's what he paid the priest to say, yes sir." I wasn't always so good at keeping my mouth shut in my teenage years - I was too accustomed to winding up my father, because it was so easy to do.

Clem just blinked politely. "Brastr, isn't it?"

To both our surprise, Cassian got up and stood between us. "Brasso," he corrected Clem.

Before I could explain that it was just a nickname, Clem opened his palms in apology. "Brasso. Of Harkastadur."

I nodded, wary of Clem's gentle expression and his scrupulously polite accent. I supposed he expected me to explain myself, so I shuffled and glanced at Cassian. "The terns were attacking him. I heard Bí barking and went to help."

Clem did not ask me how I came to be on his land, he just looked at Cassian and sighed. "Did you try to run away across the lava field again?"

The boy dipped his chin and scowled. Something possessed me to intervene, and I said quickly: "He was just by the river. The nests are well hidden this year. I guess...they don't have terns in Vinland?"

Clem smiled generously at my clumsy attempt to cover for a boy who probably didn't even realise that's what was happening. "They do have terns in Vinland. Leif's 'lucky' camp was plagued with them in the first year. Some artisan made a bunting of their corpses and we had to endure the smell of wind-dried sea-bird all summer."

I did what I did with my father and doubled down on a stubborn expression that defied the reality presenting itself to me. Unlike my father, it made Clem laugh and shake his head ruefully. "Look, as you're here and you helped Cassian out, I have some scrap iron you can take for Pakkur."

I glanced at Cassian, who studied me with renewed curiosity, perhaps wondering how I had managed to deflect a scolding he figured he was due.

"At least I know if he makes it across the lava field next time he'll find someone who'll take care of him," Clem said softly, noticing some frisson of hesitation.

I nodded dumbly, offered Cassian a little wave and followed Clem to the back of the longhouse. I was halfway home before I realised I'd left my sheepskin vest behind.

[lizalfosrise]

Rise who are your favorite AK antagonists? Personality, aesthetics, story, gameplay, whatever metric you want to use.

Ahh, there's so many!

Most Reunion commanders of course but especially:

Crownslayer - seeing that artwork of Crownslayer on the hill of Chernobog rubble as a promo near launch then in that intro in-game was instantly 'wow i hope we get them that outfit is stylish- wait what do you mean she's an antagonist AHHH THAT'S NOT GONNA WORK OUT FOR HER! STOP!' (Lo and behold, clownslayer bullying) She just keeps getting fucked over progressively worse as things go on... W - The Character Of All Time. Starting off like 'oh sick ch1 boss design- hang on she SMOKEBOMBED AWAY!? NO DEATH ANIMATION ALLOWED HAHAHA HOW FUNKY! "KILL YOU LATER" alrighty!' and then uh yeah, Chapters 2&3 happened. Boy was that fucked up. But then we got to see her plans unfurl prior to Darknights Memoir which solidified her as Fucking Incredible. I finally understood the Hype about her banner on CN. Character I simply resonated with so strongly at that point. Phenomenal major player in the main story. Is she bound to meet a violent end? I feel like it'd be a neat and tragic mirror to the end of Arc 1 if there was an Amiya/W face-off eventually. FrostNova - Yelenaaaaaa....... Perish in Frost is gonna end me all over again honestly. Very important bnuyu. Listening to Lullabye repeatedly lately; in memoriam, and an attempt to memorise the lyrics in anticipation. Personally it's kind of amusing that she gets the True Rng attacks with her Black Icicles. Genuine, authentic russian roulette gameplay. Crisp design, that pale ice-blue is a nice touch.

Non-Reunion:

Mandragora - my wonderful soggiest poor little meow meow dripping mud n dirt n blood everywhere <3 Ain't she great! Now that Yato can go visorless, a Masked slot is available! Make it so, Hypergryph. Sometimes self-care is skewering Victorians to instil fear as catharsis for trauma-inducing abuse that more-or-less ended one of her lives that she crawled out of like a more bedraggled version of Kill Bill's The Bride. Unhinged, justifiably-founded but now-disproportionate revenge is just fun. Wear your wrath like a mantle. Anyhow it's as gutting as intended that she's the one that most cared for her troops and the Taran peoples; for overturning the Victorian nobility and their policies. So it'd be nice to see an actual return after they let her vanish in Londinium. Also HornDragora excellent dynamics Ya - Ohohohohoho. Hypergryph really love making characters just for me~ They deserve to burn Yan to ashes, absolutely. Not the traitor bitch-in-chief Sui. Oh, you're mad that you got betrayed by the insects whom you taught to kill gods? Really now? That bastard pulled a Zaaro and wants to be the last one standing, to curse Yan with his rebirth and outlive those He betrayed. Fuck that. Ya is essentially bleeding out after being woken from stasis by the shitforbrain Shanhaizhong idiots yet doing all the cool wuxia villain shit in a heartbroken rampage to bring Sui back simply for Them to burn the world and die together as kin once more. Wonderful! And though I don't recall if Fire Emblem: Awakening did have that same exact dynamic between Grima and the Grimleal, I adore that scenario of 'hey you fucked me over in order to have the end of the world summoned for you BUT guess what? You die too, bitch. No world domination for you filth either!' (Heroes recently gave us the true Laser-Guided Karma moment with that) They carved away specific slivers of time for Their pocket dimension home to keep Their cherished moments away from humanity and got woken up by nobodies, for little of purpose. YA01, what a legendary codex tag. The boss gimmick was an interesting way of doing the clone tactic but damn those additional spawns if you let Them move too far forward. Overall I like Them a normal amount, see. Pancho Salas - This guy was ridiculous, what a goofy Bond villain parody. Lovely action film setpiece of a map fending off his armoured missile boat and those waverider casters from a chewed-up luxury yacht in an artificial sea. Taking his boat down only to face the absolute brick wall of an anchor-wielding seadog with a metal arm, damn. Dossoles Holiday was much more fun than expected even with its Deep Water/Tides mechanics. Kaschey - Not exactly a favourite, but. They made a very good punching bag of an Actual Evil Bastard. That scummy method of self-propagation allowing him to be all "Ursus is MY plaything and I shall continue to grease its wheels with the blood of all those my Glorious Empire shall oppress!" was one hell of a reveal to throw into that interlude, huh? And that colour palette he maintains across his victims - the austere, harsh grays and black against white with dashes of crimson: it's the bloodstains amidst the Ursus Tundra echoing his presence. That's a sublime and careful coordination, yet more of Hypergryph's mindful consideration and planning behind characters, behind lore themes & motifs. Zumama, during Great Chief Returns - I CAN BEAT GAVIAL'S STRENGTH WITH MY ENGINEERING I PROMMY, GODDAMMIT (can't, lmao) Tomimi, during Great Chief Returns - I CAN KEEP GAVIAL WITH ME IN ACAHUALLA FOREVER I PROMMY, GODDAMMIT (can't, lmao. Gets tail-spanked, lmao) Jetpack Thief/Jetman from IS2 simply because the Arts Drones are more of a threat than his dumb arse. Stall, he hops into flight when we're given Anti-Air Defense tiles boosting ranged atk, and when he lands you should have a burst dps melee ready to grind him. One of the safest Floor 3 bosses if rngesus has allowed it. IS3's Pathshaper gets a shout here too for being a hilariously-deletable non-event of a Floor 3 boss.

On the more passive antagonism side of things would be ones like:

Degenbrecher (all sides knew it's just a stalling game where Enciodes is far more antagonistic towards the Very Shitty Clan Leaders & Great Elder, yet Sharp actually held out sparring with her) The Last Steam Knight (a warping of conviction and duty beyond death that defends a final bastion "You are not permitted to stain MY Victoria! Trespasser!") Dusk ("Hey what the fuck are you looking for me for? Get in the painting idiots. Wait, you lot have too much trauma to deal with that? Lame. Why's my annoying big sister here too?!") Ho'olheyak (she's not evil, and not the arc's villain, just as she said; but her manipulation of various parties during Dorothy's Vision/Lonetrail and taunting of both Saria and Muelsyse was enough for us to find delightful)

[vilixpran]

my shadow and bone s2 running thoughts

"there's only one bed!" speedrun

sometimes hot people can't act

this is actually.... not good

wow being incognito lasted three minutes

no hesitation to blow your cover

what a kind northern Irish village gentleman

the bitch is back, long live the bitch

show me a 40 year old! not every person alive is 25 and hot

genya's wig... ain't it

all he is is dumb and hot

let the fake Scandinavians mispronounce jail, show me realism

ah yes, we do cool nods at the wall of weapons

the ears are the sign of a good tracker, and mal sure does have two ears

Sea Whip, That Was Easy™️

all tell, no show, that's the way that we go

god inej is fit

total stranger, for now xx

they're just putting their faces close together on purpose

daaaamn these bitches dead and deading others

ah yes, ignite the bombs while you're in the room

pirate ship cult

Nikolai is a dork

how small is this ocean....

kazs PTSD, a running gag

baby girl, you won't "finally eradicate it for good" right now, it's episode three

aah so they fucked

TINY ROLLINS WEE SCOTTISH BAB

"hey babe, expose your knife wound while i trauma dump plot info"

god inej is fit

nina knows

god nina is fit too

*saoirse ronan* "women"

how many times can this man get stabbed in the shoulder? we're up to three

murder is good, murder is chill, i've got no qualms with murder

too many characters, too many plots, disproportionate amount of time spent on the crows and god bless them for that

"hey bro can i propose to your girlfriend bro"

the mood lighting in this plague cemetery, vibes

HORRIBLE FAKE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGE, HORRIBLE -10000/10

girlie pop, youve got to lose the signature fancy hat, you are the most recognisable

dat ass

my man is here to be petty and he's bringing friends along for the ride

no plot! only flirting! as we deserve

let them all be lesbians

SPEEDRUN WESPER

episode four and they're already fucking thank Christ

good good wylan and Jesper are off shagging, I can brood in peace

"no"

time isn't real! geography is a myth! our boats will get there when it's convenient for the plot!

we are criminals, rats of the barrel, and occasionally help foreign royals when they ask nicely

"warm, and wet" the crows in Shu han, the gift that keeps on giving

can't believe I have to watch some reylo shit all over again

Dominik Dominik I sense an ex friend with benefits with our man Nikolai

good let the twink talk to butterflies and ignore the suffering of his friends

deforest station

happy to have a himbo in tolya

not so much a slow death by poisoning as a chance for nice life affirming trips to remotivate our heroes in the ninth hour

"throwing up or hallucinations" the only two possible outcomes of poisoning

she's the avatar!

one night stand to soulmates pipeline

ah yes, continue to make out in the background for everyones big character revelations

"you're a part of me mal, I can't loose you" well murder him and eat his bones and he'll be with you forever

boyfriend to organ donor pipeline

star wars levels of hand amputation, now featuring Mother's Good Finger Bones

"and there was only one set!"

yeah like, they definitely used to fuck, surely

twenty minutes of this episode and no crows, for shame

the crows aka Deus ex machina but make it fun flirty and bisexual

more finger amputations, moooooreeeeee

woohoo C plot lesbians

queue the fire benders

little viking boy, drawing crosses in the sand

Matthias villian origin story set up for season three

fun fact, I don't actually want to see another finger amputation

blue skies and sunny yet these bitches can't see a thing

the location scout must have been so proud of themselves for finding this fort, so proud that they spent two episodes having two identical groups chasing each other around three walls

you know what this big battle scene needs? some music

unecessarily squishy icicle stab sound effects

FIVE MORE FINGERS CUT OFF JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

oh damn she actually did it

slaaaayyyy

"series regular" shows up every two episodes for a single scene unrelated to the main plot

why aren't they lighting the kindling from multiple places and especially from lower down?

good for inej

again with the tiny ocean and instantly finding exactly what you were looking for, ofmd logic

uh oh hehe

gross

[kittyandco]

for the picture thing, pick 3 of them for Hans :3c off you go~ @goldenworldsabound

@goldenworldsabound I'm gonna start BITING!!!!!!

🏃 Post a screenshot of your f/o on the move.

this is also from a book; i believe it's one of the little golden books. i just love this image... it's so pretty (and i love the part when he bends down to tend to anna after elsa leaves... i mean i love Everything. All The Parts. but you know. 🥺)

🗣 Post a screenshot of your f/o in profile/side view!

y'all know why i picked this one... his nose... is so cute and. I REALLY LOVE HOW IT'S SHAPED. why is it shaped. i want to kiss him so bad

👔 Post a screenshot of your f/o in a different outfit than usual.

the blue coat doesn't get enough love, i think. it's so hot to me. i have no idea why. it just is. 🥴 tho i feel like he spends a disproportionate amount of time in it than his other outfits? especially when including OUAT, where he only wears the blue coat. but in the movie he spends about an equal-ish amount of time (in his nearly 13 minute screentime) in each of the 3 fits and WOW of course i'd be the only one to care about this very small detail

anyway. disney star smash screenshot be upon ye because 😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳 (also it works here because slightly obscure)

📸 Self-Ship Photo Scavenger Hunt! 🎞

[pastj-futurej]

Why is the Umbrella Corporation so Disproportionately Idolized?

In media fandom (a fun play on in media res?), you will always find people saying that "Actually the villains are the good guys 🤓", whether it be Star Wars fans saying the Empire did nothing wrong, or Marvel fans saying that Thanos did nothing wrong, or Kartate Kid fans saying that Kobra Kai did nothing wrong (Wow, all of these movements have "did nothing wrong" prominently featured in them, I wonder if there's a real world movement that these things are parodying, but at some point they lost that?).

But seemingly more than any other fandom, proportional to it's size, I see people idolizing The Umbrella Corporation from the Resident Evil games. It seems like every day I see another car with it's logo on the side, another piece of merch for it at my local game store, another person with their logo as a profile picture, and I've just got to ask, they're the villains, right?

I'd like to follow that question up with, no, I haven't played the games or seen the movies, my interaction with the Resident Evil series extends to reviews of those; but like, my awareness of these is that Umbrella Corp. created the Zombie Virus in all of these, and constantly tries to cover it up, something that judging by how many games there are, was a bad idea.

But like, proportional to how big The Resident Evil Franchise is, there are a shocking number of people who celebrate Umbrella Corp, compared to the amount that celebrate Thanos, or The Empire.

Anyways, all of this is to say that I'm going to try and keep track of the Umbrella Corp logos that I see. Like, the one on the car in my workplace's parking lot. Or the one I keep seeing in Claremore.

July 15th, 2022

[theprophet359]

Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/ AP  Julia Collins' passion for food led her to co-found a technology-enabled food company in Silicon Valley called Zume Pizza. While using robotics and artificial intelligence to speed up the pizza making process, the company that she founded along with Alex Garden in 2015, has reached a valuation of $2.25 billion after a recent $375 million investment.  As USA Today reports that 'Collins is the first Black woman to co-found a company valued at $1 billion or more by investors,' Collins, who received a BA from Harvard and an MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, doesn't want to be the only Black woman to do so.  'Although I recognize that I am the first, the thing that I spend the most time thinking about is how to make sure I am not the last or the only one,' Collins said.  And she's not doing it alone. Other Black women are challenging the disproportionate amount of venture capital funding that goes to white men in comparison to Black women, who are considered the less likely group to receive it at all. How are they challenging it? With something we like to call Black girl magic.  According to USA Today, Kathryn Finney's (a Yale trained epidemiologist who funded a research initiative called ProjectDiane) 'first report in 2016 found that just 12 startups led by Black women had raised more than $1 million in funding. Two years later, nearly triple the n...

[the-sky-lights-up-with-you]

Extremely aggressively microwaving Ichika Hoshino with my mind. I've never had a character I'm this confused about my relation towards. It's a bit of a feat in my mind that, regarding the character people probably think is boring, I don't know whether I like her, love her, kin her, want to be her, or am her. I can understand wanting to be her but I don't fully understand kinning/"be"ing her because her deal is that her friend group was crumbling but she took initiative and used the power of talking things out to get things back together and now she kisses all of them daily while my deal is that my friend groups crumble and I TRY to take initiative and use the power of talking things out but ultimately I'm too cringefail + too toxic as it stands + too mentally ill so it falls through every time.

Ichika's course is ostensibly "what the good ending for me would've been every single time if I had a better personality and better luck" rather than "something I think is similar to my actual experiences" yet every time I see her I make autistic squeals and tear up and think "OH MY GOD IT'S ME". I don't even remember ever putting much thought into anything about Ichika, let alone relating to her much, but I literally can't look at images of her without losing my mind over her and L/n all of a sudden. My guess is that, with the help of tons of things I THOUGHT weren't affecting me whatsoever but might subconsciously be stressors, I am on the path to "being" her in a "introjecting traits or details my head thinks will help me solve future issues like these, mend the current issues, and process/overcome/reframe things that have already happened" way.

I CAN'T relate to Ichika as she's everything I'm not, but contrary to my initial expectations, that's probably exactly what's up. All our life, friendships would fall apart by the seams and despite our (especially my) attempts to make amends nothing would truly stay together. It's kind of like there's a puzzle piece I've been missing all this time and I subconsciously/unconsciously believe myself to have finally found it within the story of Ichika. It's quite silly to me, but I think it's starting to make me feel ever so slightly more whole and less directionless. It admittedly motivates me more to get better than anything else does. So I guess I friendless-behavior cringefail'd my way backwards into becoming Ichika or something.

As an addendum, being a fan of Ichika is really funny. I think Leo/need line distribution is as much of a shitpost as the next person does, but when I see Ichika get a disproportionate amount of lines to sing/songs starring her/covers as she usually does I just think "wow! women are winning" rather than be any caliber of upset about it.

[mnoonthego]

Day 7- Off to Amboseli (Dec 15)

(please remember the blog is also my travel diary so I’m not offended if you don’t read it and just look at the pictures 😊)

At 9 am on the dot, our truck and driver arrived at the house we are staying at so we could start our journey. We quickly filled up the land cruiser safari vehicle with our tents, sleeping bags, luggage, food etc. eager to get on our way. Our driver/guide, Robinson, is Maasi and fills us in on all things about Kenya- wildlife, culture, politics etc. He is doing amazingly well handling all of my questions!

Kenya is quite large and due to size, traffic around Nairobi and not the greatest roads, it takes a long time to get anywhere.  The hive of activity as you go through a town are something I am not sure I can describe in words! There are long line ups of wooden stalls selling a variety of items; however, there seems to be a disproportionate amount of tomato and red onion sellers along side the papaya, avocado, watermelon, cabbage and other merchants. Another popular item- shoes; large bins of second hand shoes. When we hear about our donated clothing items coming oversees, you can see them here in the markets beside the road. Shirts advertising colleges and popular North American brands hang everywhere waiting for their new homes. Amongst the people at the road side markets there are also sure to be goats and cows wandering with their herder who is often unseen. The backdrop of these roadside markets is a secondary row of tin “shops” with more substantial items such as tires, bikes, or water, a hair salon and a safari com (cell phone company) stall. Even just driving by it is overstimulating!

We drove through a number of smaller towns as well where it seems like shipping containers have been repurposed into houses and stores. There are always a group of men sitting out front watching the world go by or fixing something and small children everywhere. If you see the women, which you often don’t, they seem to be doing laundry or walking to or from the water station.

The closer we got to Amboseli National Park, the more Maasi Villages we saw, recognizable by their circular shape, cow dung construction and thatched roofs.  They are typically encircled by thorny bushes that have been pulled into place around all of the structures to keep the wild animals out.  

Herds of goats and cattle can also be seen everywhere. I have been surprised by the young age of the herders. I would say the majority seem to be between 7-13 years old. Apparently, they leave in the morning and come back before dusk typically not taking any water or food with them for the day! When we turned off the main road on to a “highway” that looked like a decommissioned forestry road, the kids would run towards the truck yelling “sweet, sweet” as I understand the tourists often throw candy out the windows for them.

We got to Amboseli National Park just after 1pm to begin our game drive.  The lid of our Landcruiser was popped up and up we went in to enjoy the park! I think my favourite experience at the Park was watching a hippo “snarf” its way through a grassy, swampy bit (sorry I can’t remember the name of it). The guide books all say guaranteed elephant and giraffe sightings and they aren’t kidding. They are everywhere! Everyone seems to be busy munching away. That said, there were parts of this huge park, where there seemed to be nothing you could possibly eat! There was a hyena den where there didn’t seem to be any thing green for miles around which was fine for a hyena but those that it eats like green things?!!? The other odd thing was the the hyena den and the wart hog den were almost right beside each other. The wart hogs must have some special deal with its neighbour that they won’t eat them. Another memorable aspect of Amboseli, in not a good way, was the amount of carcasses. I had mentioned earlier about the on going drought and the seeing all of these carcasses really brought that home.

Our home tonight- Amboseli Bush Camp. Wow this is beautiful glamping! (I’ve already posted a ton of photos) We have the whole upper camp which includes a kitchen tent, a dining/living room tent, our tent and JD’s tent all with a view of the man made watering hole with a back drop of the snow peaked Mt. Kilimanjaro. Although self-catering, there are staff to do your dishes which I could really get used to!

Tomorrow, back to Amboseli and then off to Tsavo East National Park.

[madhyanas]

Tag 9 People You’d like to Get to Know Better

Tagged by @clydesducktape ily bitch 😤

Three Ships: i don’t think i could pick three from, like, everything. however, there are a few floating around in my head at the moment. i love me my paz vizla/ruusaan from hospitality, because i’m a narcissist. but i literally control them so i’m not sure if that counts LMAO. 

aaaaaand now i’ll try to stick to real characters: clarisse la rue/silena beauregard from the percy jackson series has been fucking me UP. i re-read the books recently and holy fuck the n o s t a l g i a. plus i found out there’s a whole parallel between the girls and achilles/patroclus???? which was poetic and Gay™️ to read so in conclusion i adore them. 

finally, dabi/hawks [takami keigo] from my hero academia is just... real fuckin’ nice. i think people call it hotwings, which is hilarious to me lmfao. haven’t caught up on the latest chapters yet — i’m really worried that they’re tragic — but the political intrigue?? enemies to lovers??? FLAWLESS.

Last Song: the cult of dionysus - the orion experience. i remember someone said that it was THE song for oberyn martell/ellaria sand and — from what i understand from their general vibe — damn, it really is.

Last Movie: dora (டோரா) - a tamil horror movie; basically, a possessed car ropes a woman into hunting down its spirit’s murderers. honestly wasn’t too bad; major ‘little shop of horror’ vibes. plus, i like hearing tamil, even if i don’t understand it.

Currently Reading: me talk pretty one day - david sedaris. i like it! funny in an off-beat kinda way, and strangely nostalgic. (also, of course, reading several fics.)

Currently Watching: fear city - a documentary about the mafia in 70′s new york. QUITE cool.

Currently Consuming: leftover blueberry cheesecake - >:]

Food I’m Currently Craving: pizza, with mushrooms and goat cheese - it slaps, ok?

no presh tags: @datmando @vercopaanir @dartheldur @shadylightbearherring @wickedlyemma @thegirlwiththebambooblade @stubbychaos @corrupt-fvcker @justrunamok

[sunshowersz]

i made ocs within the @nextsoundofthefuture universe! or like,, “made”, the concept for them has been floating around in my head before the story’s start date was retconned and “ocs” because i have like 24 other ones i think?? i just haven’t drawn their references yet… i’ll post them though i want other nsotf fans to see my funny guys. these were just the references i finished first.

more information about them under the cut :)

mellow and alt live together in an apartment with alt’s rock counterpart, punk. all three of them end up paying for it, as on the off occasion, mellow gets a singing job and both alt and punk, as kiyoteru, just have human jobs. mellow usually just sits around at home all day while the kiyoterus go do adult things, and this kinda gave her a strong desire to be human and not an android, like she can’t do anything, she can’t go to school. why is she around then? a lot to think about for a mentally 10 year old.

i don’t know what punk and alt do for jobs i just know they aren’t doing the same thing, that’s for sure. mellow calls alt dad and punk uncle (touchan and oji) but that’s like the most i’ve thought about it.

mellow is friends with a len i have named sunny, a piko my friend @starbound-tactician made and another yuki i have who was one of her classmates. mellow is wearing twinkle toes it’s so important to me that i clarify this.

sorry i think about mellow disproportionally to alt i just have thoughts and feelings

ryusei spawned from the livestream where rice made the vocaloid production rate chart thing and went “oh i didn’t account for the current amount of kizuna akari songs with the amount of akari’s there’d be at this time so every kizuna akari as a disproportionate amount of work per unit” and i went “wow that must be terrible for them” and the telltale games butterfly icon appeared in the corner of my vision or soemthing.

ryusei is no longer within the timeframe of nsotf im pretty sure but that’s ok. she’s one of the first akari units to be made and got an age mod to be 18/19 (perhaps the amount of work beat the 15 year old ai brain out of her) and without being her intentions this gave her More Work, being a more mature in mindset and appearance akari unit. she has so much to do all of the time and hates it, but she feels like she’d just burden the other akari units if she just quit idol work all together (she really wants to) that she just doesn’t. stop. she is one straw away from burnout. she is always 2% battery life away from emergency powering down.

she copes with this in very self destructive ways by not taking care of herself and not caring to, except when she has a job. the first non akari unit she knew was another piko owned by @starbound-tactician lovingly nicknamed cilantro who works at a convenience store. she got out of work late one night and essentially fainted in the chips aisle while he was on shift. he is the best thing to happen to her. ryusei has all these nice clothes for when she has to go to work and then when she doesn’t she only wears sweats and baggy shorts and tee shirts and hoodies because she deserves to care 0 about her appearance if she doesn’t want to. too tired to care.

[boiled-dennis]

i'm just so tired of people in fandom making art of fat characters, but not even bothering to try to properly draw fat people. people gush about these characters but then draw them having thin faces and defined jaws, double chin magically gone. not to mention limbs (most often arms) and hands being really disproportionate and looking like they belong to a thin person.

practice !! you don't have to post all things you ever draw. you can practice drawing fat people and it's okay if it looks bad at first. but it disgusts me so much to see people talking about loving a character so much, and then not even properly drawing them. consistently. it's disrespectful as hell.

and then with art that intends to portray the fat character in a sexy way, the waist is often narrowed for no reason at all. i've seen many people act like it's more 'tasteful' to draw fat people as "thicc" rather than just.... fat.... like do you actually care about the character? is the reality of the character something that is important to you? do you care about real human beings? it sends a message when you draw characters this way. other fat people will see the art and think "wow yet another person in this community who doesn't give a shit about fat people". not to mention how it disrespects the actual actors.

also using the word "chubby" is not as neutral and Kind as you seem to think it is. it feels infantilising and like you're too scared to admit you're attracted to -gasp- Fat people so you have to use a playful word that implies not a great amount of body fat., dont call people squishy. and there feels like a specific trend of saying fat people look kind and like they'd give nice hugs can i just say that feels very dehumanising and kinda objectifying .

[conscious-love]

What's the greatest lesson life has taught you?

(Kinda going through a hard time rn)

Oh wow 😄 So many things come to mind, it’s going to be hard to narrow it down. I’m sorry you’re going through a tough time. I don’t know how late I am in answering this but I hope you can benefit from my response.

I think the greatest lesson I’ve learned is that mindfulness is the key to solving almost every problem in existence, if not all of them.

Don’t fall into thinking traps — be mindful of your thoughts and question them.

Someone says something that upsets you? Stop and assess. Is it about you or them? Hint: it’s always about them. Are they having a bad day? Is there some truth to what they’re saying? Is there a lesson I can learn from what they said, or the fact that they said it? Why am I upset? Am I upset because what they said is true and I don’t like it? Am I upset because what they said is mean and made me feel like they don’t care? Is this person important to me, someone I want to keep in my life? If so, I want to approach this in a healthy way. How am I feeling and what am I thinking, and what do I want to say to them? What request do I want to make? What boundary do I need to set? How can I soothe myself in this moment?

Get fired from a job or someone breaks up with you? Stop and assess. How do you feel? What exactly happened? What was your role and what was outside of your control? Reframe so that you’re not shouldering a disproportionate amount of the blame. What changes can you make to avoid making those mistakes again? Is this the end of the world? What core wounds are being triggered by this? And how much of your current response is actually derived from the current situation, and how much is from those wounds? Focus on what you can do in this moment only.

Tempted to eat junk food? Stop and assess. Are you just hungry, therefore your body is seeking the easiest, most calorie, carb and sugar dense option for the quickest jolt of energy? Are you emotional? Why? What can you do instead?

Tempted to buy something impulsively? Tune in. What’s going on? What do you feel you’re lacking that would give you true sustenance, rather than the fleeting half-pleasure-half-anxiety you’d get from giving in to your vices?

Feeling depressed or anxious? Slow down and get into your body. Slow your breathing so your parasympathetic nervous system can take over and help you calm down. Elongate your exhale. How are your thoughts manifesting in your body? Where do you feel the anxiety? What does the depression feel like? Loneliness, sadness, hopelessness, fatigue, numbness? What beliefs are contributing? What’s making you feel ashamed instead of feeling compassion for yourself? Accept your current emotional, mental and physical state as the reality of this moment. Now that you’re not trying to fight it with shame and worrying and repression, you can figure out what you need to feel better (short-term and long-term). Your depression and anxiety might not go away, but with mindfulness, they cease to be a “problem.” They’re just a thing that’s happening, which won’t last (although it will likely return), and which we know how to cope with — so it’s not a problem, because we already have the solutions.

When we slow down and pay attention, problems get smaller because we realize we’ve blown them out of proportion. They become less overwhelming because we have more awareness, and in turn, we feel more competent and hopeful. We become less anxious because rather than repressing (which compounds the problem), we process what we’re feeling and thinking; we tune into our inner world and give our thoughts and emotions the attention they need.

We can’t cope with the past, and we can’t cope with the future. We can only cope in the present moment. When we think about the future, we do it now. When we think about the past, we do it now. Ruminating or worrying is a waste of time and it’s illogical. It’s hallucinating. It clouds our vision of the present and fills up our head with unhelpful thoughts which hinder our ability to make good decisions. It makes everything seem way more complicated than it is. All there is is now. What can I learn now? What can I do now? What can I accept now?

In 2016, I read The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle, and it brought about one of the most pivotal shifts of my life. When someone asks me to recommend a book, this is the first one I mention. For years, I used to carry a physical copy everywhere I went. Nowadays I have the e-book and audiobook if ever I want to read it on the go. I’ve read it so many times I don’t even really need to read it again, because what I learned cracked me wide open and reframed my world-view so dramatically it could never return to the way it was. I read it again every now and then because other than practicing mindfulness and formally meditating, reading his words anchor me into the present moment more deeply than anything else. And when I start to get into autopilot (like during a depressive episode), reading his words reminds me to pay attention. I recommend reading The Power Of Now first but he has other great ones as well. He also has Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify, and likely other socials. I’ll tag this #Eckhart Tolle and you can click that to see quotes of his I’ve shared. His work changed my life and I keep sharing it in hopes that others’ lives can be changed as well. There are countless other resources outside of Eckhart Tolle and I highly recommend those as well.

This is probably the greatest lesson I ever learned, and continue to learn more about every day. And mindfulness is something I try to practice as much as I can (which is as often as I can remember to remember ☺️).

Mindfulness is so, so, so crucial for our wellbeing as individuals, for humanity, animals, nature — for everything.

Thanks for the question! 😌 Feel free to reach out any time, and keep seeking knowledge and personal growth as you are now.

Take care 💙

~ Bella ✨