#if i lose the 50/50 i WILL push all the way to guaranteed do NOT test me

[electric-plants]

very excited for today’s star rail update because this patch has a dan heng il rerun and an aventurine rerun annnndddd actually idk anything else that is happening

[tyrantisterror]

A couple months ago, one of the kids at the daycare brought in a D&D starter set and asked me to DM a game for him and some of the other kids in my class. Now, I had considered doing this in the past, but written it off for a variety of reasons, mainly asusming it'd be a couple days of chaos before the kids get sick of all the math involved and lose interest. But if a kid broaches an idea and others seem on board, I feel it's kind of my duty to at least try it.

So far my assumptions have been... mostly correct? Like, 70% of my predictions have come true, it is chaos, ten-years olds are the most murder-happy murder hobo PCs you could possibly imagine, and they've really been pushing my improv skills to their absolute limits with the choices they've made (and the constrictions I have on me as a daycare teacher). But they haven't gotten bored with the math, and they absolutely love playing the game still, which is nice. I like it when my students are passionate about something.

Anyway, I bring this up because seeing how children play with D&D canon has made me realize one critical fact:

D&D needs a Mons Game spinoff.

Kids love monsters. This is not my bias, it is something that has been categorically proven to me in my four years of working at a daycare. Every kid loves the idea of weird, impossible creatures, and they love the idea of befriending a whole horde of those creatures even more so. One of my kids in the daycare D&D campaign is making it his goal to find and tame every monster he can find in the kid-friendly monster manuals I bought for the class. He wants a Tarasque and a Bullete and an Owlbear and on and on and on, and keeps proposing tactics for capturing them based on his time playing Ark: Survival Evolved, a game where you can tame dinosaurs and mythic beasts while trying to survive a wild world full of danger and obstacles.

And it turns out that, while the mechanics of D&D don't support this, the philosophy of how its settings are structured according to those mechanics does. D&D is filled with hundreds of wild and imaginative monsters, all with distinct appearances, habits, adaptations, and environmental needs. The need to make the "dungeons" part of D&D interesting has required it to build really interesting monster ecosystems, and, much like mons games, the need to keep players buying new content has resulted in them building a vast library of creatures, because selling $50 books containing a slew of new monsters is a pretty guaranteed way to get money. D&D may not be a mons game, but it's accidentally made its setting perfectly suited to be one.

And what a money-maker that would be! Skew it more towards a child audience in tone, use simpler mechanics so kids can hop into it without spending, say, three solid weeks of afterschool daycare time crafting character sheets more or less one on one, and you'd have a game that would easily hook a younger audience while planting seeds of interest into the bigger game.

Of course, there are already indie TTRPG mons games, and I imagine some of them are actually good, but unfortunately they're not exactly easily obtainable on a daycare teacher's budget. And, you know, they wouldn't let you make a team of a bulette, an otyugh, a gray render, and an owlbear.

But then again, Wizards of the Coast continues to be absolute bastards, so maybe this idea is too good for them. Which makes it a good thing they're never going to read this blog post.

[luck-and-larceny]

Def would go with Malika for a dating sim :D but same question! What would the paths look like on yours?

Oh, boy! Your post was so good for this that I'm feeling a bit worried mine will be a letdown. -rolls up sleeves- I'll see what I can do! This answer is also for @tendollarshoes who messaged me asking about the Saachi route. :D Thank you both! I'm going to write this as though this is an actual game... SAACHI

Pros:

-Romantic -Genuine and honest -Compassionate and caring -Will battle the gods themselves to protect you if she loves you -Is very easily impressed and touched by romantic gestures -Will reciprocate with cute, romantic gestures herself -When she is uncertain about something, she is very willing to listen to and take advice -It will be obvious when you have chosen the wrong answer. -RP adventure side-quests: On certain dates you could be presented with scenarios where there is a conflict that requires heroic intervention. These events will allow you to solve them in different, unique ways depending on what your high stats are. Cons: -Suffers from some pretty significant bouts of insecurity and indecision seemingly out of nowhere -Throws herself into danger over and over; not the option you want if you don't want to worry about the safety of your partner -Her compassion is not boundless; it can waver into frustrated, snarky sarcasm when she feels pushed too far. -Stubborn. When she's uncertain she listens and takes advice. When she's made up her mind, there's absolutely no chance of changing it. -The more wrong answers you choose on dates with her, the more unimpressed and surly she becomes on future dates.

Path: Regular difficulty Saachi isn't terribly difficult to romance assuming you are the heroic, active, big-hearted type who respects that she is the same. Taking actions in the game that keep up your activity level and your heroism meter will impress her. She develops crushes fairly easily, but it will take work to move her from just fantasizing about dating you to actually giving it a chance. Saachi values creativity, compassion, and heroism above all else, so it is important to keep the Creativity, Heroism, and Empathy meters above average. At a certain point in the game, Saachi will ask you to tell her a story. Choose the most dynamic, outlandish, fun responses during the story-telling segment and end with a heroic, happy ending. Wowing her with the Storytelling game will give you a major boost on her path. Choosing the short sentences with little to no description, having the 'hero' in the story act out of character, or ending the story poorly could undermine prior progress you made. She responds well to compliments and thoughtful gestures. Insulting her, lying to her, or showing a general lack of empathy for others will potentially make her path entertaining if you want to see her get angry, but will ultimately remove her as an option for end-game romance. MALIKA

Pros:

-Confident -Up for almost anything -Especially if it's illegal (your mileage on if this is a pro or a con may vary...) -Witty -Dates with Malika are unique; she will take you to places in the game that you would not be able to access by pursuing other paths (because you will be trespassing) -Disinterest in traditionalism means she does not care that she is in a dating sim; you can kiss her before you reach the ending -Prankster/trickster -No need to worry too much about getting your stats just right. Malika only watches the Luck stat. Cons: -Obsessed with fate/Gambling mini-game: When Malika appears in the game it will be at a random point after you have increased your Luck stat. She will suggest you gamble with her. If you say no she will not appear for the rest of the game, effectively disappearing as an option. If you say yes but lose, there is a 50/50 chance that she will not appear for the rest of the game. Winning the gamble is the only guaranteed way to start her path. -Unreliable -Lies for fun -Difficult to read -Will steal from your character. If your character has key items or presents in their inventory, there is a random chance that she will steal it and replace it with something different. Sometimes this could be a significantly better item that increases stats. Unfortunately, there is a chance it could also be a completely useless item.

Path: Deceptively difficult and frustrating Going on dates with Malika is extremely easy. Simply prove that you are the type who will take risks and you will not have trouble spending time with this chaotic thief. The problem is getting her to stay... While other characters are likely to give hints that your responses or actions displeased them, Malika is a con-artist and may seem entirely unbothered through the duration of the date, but after the date will disappear from the game forever. She actively makes the game more difficult and frustrating for the player as it may be difficult to tell when she is being honest about things she likes or when she is just fucking with you. Characters should not -ever- sympathize with the wealthy or attempt to convince her to not harass or steal from the wealthy. Taking any option that tells her "You should" or "You shouldn't" will remove her as an end-game option, as will taking the option to confess your feelings to her before end-game.

ADELAIDE

Pros:

-Ishgardian intrigue sub-plot -Slow burn path that simmers with intensity as the path progresses - A subtle, dry humor -A healthy disdain for nobility despite being part of the nobility herself -Ability to laugh at herself -Fun dueling mini-game -You will receive hand-written letters from Adelaide -She gives thoughtful, expensive gifts. This is a pro because these gifts include major stat boosts that would otherwise be difficult to come by in game. -The Azmerien Garden date location is one of the most beautiful locations in the game and only accessible in her path. Cons: -Despite it simmering with intensity as the path progresses, it is still VERY slow burn -Despite openly mocking nobility, she will be hesitant to break from tradition. It will take time for her to even hold your ungloved hand. -She pays very close attention to stats: they must all be well above average for her to appear at end-game -The Ishgardian intrigue sub-plot will make the game more actively more difficult; Adelaide's corrupt family will attempt to get in your way Path: Openly difficult Adelaide has very particular tastes and takes time to warm up to the player. She will be turned off by active, aggressive pursuing of her too early in the path. Any confessions early on will reset progress with her though, unlike Malika, it will not bar you from future dates with her. All stats need to be above average to win Adelaide, but Athleticism needs to be the highest. Winning fencing duels with Adelaide will increase your Athleticism score and will give you the same bonus as giving her a gift would. The duels become increasingly more difficult each time you select this option, but the bonus also increases to match. Adelaide's family will attempt to interfere. Random events in the game will include attempts at draining your money and spreading rumors that could negatively affect your stats if you do not deal with them quickly or could raise the prices at stores where you want to buy gifts.

WHEW. How did I do? That was fun!

[mdhwrites]

Is Honkai Star Rail Predatory?

Well, it's a gacha game. I'm not about to lie and say no but that's also because the vast majority of free to play games are predatory. Fortnite and Apex Legends are Predatory. Candy Crush is predatory. Sadly, free to play systems of monetization are centered around dark patterns and getting you to open up your wallet and if you find yourself particularly weak to those then please, PLEASE do not play these games.

However... In the hierarchy of things, or at least other gacha games I have played, I would not call Star Rail predatory by comparison.

The short of this is that Star Rail doesn't even have a new player package. That is how little extra bullshit there is to spend on or to make you spend. All of its stuff is essentially straightforward. Here are your options and my thoughts on them:

A 5 dollar, month long login bonus that is good for players who will log in every day with the Express Pass and gives almost 20 pulls worth of Jade/Oneiric shards in the process. (I buy this) It is genuinely a great deal once you're invested.

The 10 dollar Battlepass where you can view all you'll get from it ahead of time and don't need to buy ahead of time for it. (I also buy this) I buy this out of admittedly habit but also to show support for something that gives me so much joy but if you skip it you are not missing a lot. Materials are the main thing it gives and I have like ten times what I need to level a character right now, which is WAY beyond what the Battlepass gives, and that is despite having leveled and built an absurd amount of characters beyond what I need to have done.

Then you have resource bundles that are just bad deals. They are there for the whales, just like:

Topping up energy. Little will ever actually pressure you to buy this or the one before besides your own patience and there's only one part of the game that's a grind that this or the prior one would actually help much with. Neither are pushed in your face though as Star Rail does not pressure you to buy energy in any form besides by having an energy system.

Buying Pulls.

Saved this one for last because it is the big one. It's the gambling. I won't deny that that's what it is and it's COMPLICATED to put it mildly. This is from two sides of things. One is the raw cost to get something versus the fact that reasonably, if you are INTO one of these games, you are hopefully playing most days and playing most content, especially given how little time most things in Star Rail take besides the main story content. Star Rail respects your time for the most part.

So first: For 100 dollars, you can buy 50 pulls. That is not a great conversion and I won't deny that. Not when it takes 180 pulls to guarantee you get the limited thing you want. There are technically four brand new things to get each patch due to there being two characters on each banner and two signature lightcones. That is 720 pulls or 1500 dollars you would need to spend to GUARANTEE you get all four things every patch.

This is the worst case scenario where I wonder why you're playing the game. This isn't taking into account saying no to characters because they don't fit your playstyle or saying no to Lightcones because you don't need them. This also doesn't take into account the fact that the game itself offsets this cost some, not by any means all, by its own generosity if you just PLAY THE DAMN GAME. So how much does playing the damn game give you?

This is also worst case scenario. This requires truly astronomical bad luck. After all, you are guaranteed a five star at 90 pulls with a 50/50 chance to lose and get a standard five star instead. 75/25 for the LC, odds in favor of getting the limited 5 star. Apparently, the strict average it takes to get a limited 5 star character is roughly 94 pulls. 160 is much closer for what the worst case, lost your 50/50 and had to go to Hard Pity, amount is. Even with those alterations though, a patch thus ranges more honestly between 376 (800 USD) and 640 (1300 USD). And yes, I'm acting like you wouldn't buy smaller packages because this normalizes values.

Going entirely by free to play statistics, gotten from the community, here are how many limited pulls you get between the last three patches:

2.6: 111 pulls

2.5: 87 pulls

2.4: 88 pulls

These numbers are not with the battlepass or the monthly express pass. Those numbers are inflated by 8 and 24 respectively for pass numbers.

So, no, even by the most generous average, a free to play player is not likely to get even one of the four limited time things in a given patch cycle which is the price of free to play. However... That also shifts what we're talking about here. A free to play player is not looking to get every character and every lightcone. They have to accept the limitations and getting almost one of two things you probably want each patch, as you're unlikely to pull on a lightcone without the character, makes the numbers look more reasonable. We are talking about a worst case scenario of 360 pulls offset by a quarter almost each patch just playing free to play. And mind you, if you're a lightspender like me, you probably are doing the same calculations because lightspending is not about to double that number, just make it so that you are likely to get one of the two things you might want in a given patch. Will you hear the call to try and spend some on getting the other character you want, or the lightcone for the character you do get? Yes but again, if you are playing within your means, these are part of just playing that way one of these games. If you know you cannot resist that call, you should not play these.

Also, the blog I made before this talked about how you don't need everything. Not by any means, especially not to enjoy the game. Only in the most extreme content are you even pressured to want these limited time characters and, you know... it's the highest level difficulty of content only for people who have already sunk in weeks if not months into the game. Admittedly, not full clearing this content will mean a couple less pulls each cycle but not a ton. Like probably closer to 10 tops unless you are struggling to find any answer to the end game content.

But of course, some of you might point out that both limited characters and Lightcones can give mechanical benefits beyond the first copy you get. A max powered character needs seven copies of themselves while a maxed out lightcone needs 5 copies, meaning a maximum power character needs 13 pulls, tripling the most egregious numbers I presented.

And if you think you have to have those, don't play the fucking game.

I know that might be mean but it's the hard and fast about this. I play with minimal extra copies. I have gotten four extra copies of limited characters and two lightcones and I have full cleared the hardest content for MONTHS. Pretty much this entire year. You do not need those. Those extra levels are for the whales. For people who do just want to dump money into the game. Sure, plenty of single extra copies, or two extra copies, can be very powerful but they're never necessary. For many characters, it can sometimes make them LESS mechanically interesting. You also know what they'll do ahead of time for the extra copies and for the Lightcones, you can first just use a standard lightcone and see if you feel the need to get a limited one. There's a lot of good standard lightcones in the game that yes, underperform from their more monetized brethren but aren't bad by any means. It's the difference between how they'll play in a standard way and 10-20% stronger. Acheron is the WORST example of wanting her Lightcone and I didn't for a long time and she still did INCREDIBLE work because I knew how to play the character and the character themselves is good.

And compared to EVERY other gacha I played... This is nothing. ZZZ is the closest because it's also Hoyo but it put out bundles for extra pulls that required hard cash to get you spend a little on a better deal, or had bundles of energy discounted and put forward on limited time deals because it puts more energy into try to open your wallet a little harder. The Atelier gacha game I tried had like a DOZEN banners and at least six new characters it looked like any given patch cycle, let alone any weapons or the like, and made a hard dillineation between free to play pulls and paid pulls, over complicating their store and making it feel worse to play for free when you had the deals that paying for your gacha could get you right there in your face. Nikke has extra banners, including limited time costume banners. Now yes, with guarantees with those costumes but if Star Rail eventually adds costumes, I would assume they will go with the Genshin method of just letting you buy them instead of tempting you to spend more and more gambling.

Hoyo's market dominance doesn't come from extra predation but in fact LESS. It recognized that making an experience someone would enjoy, rather than an experience that someone just comes to gamble in would make them want to spend more time and money on that experience. It's why they have a reputation above and beyond any other gacha company because they've garnered this good will from its players and especially made sure not to ostracize their free to play players.

So yeah, Star Rail is still predatory but it's the difference between a trap spider and a pack of piranhas. A trap spider sits quietly, waiting, happy to have its system there and not shoved in your face. If you hit it, that's your prerogative. The pack of piranhas meanwhile thrash and make noise swimming along what otherwise would be a quiet stream, too numerous and cumbersome to ever let you forget that the purpose to the entire forest around you is to make you fall in and be devoured. I will take the trap spider, even though I HATE spiders, any day of the week over the piranhas. See you next tale.

======+++++======

Fun fact: Star Rail is the only gacha game I've stuck with. If not for my goodwill for Hoyo, I probably would have bounced off ZZZ faster than I did (which yeah, I'm no longer a Proxy). I have never really clicked with gacha as a model. Star Rail is the ONE time it has really worked for me and I think a lot of it is both that it's just a REALLY good game and also it makes me not feel bad for playing it. Doesn't make me obsess over pulls or stuff like that. It is fine leaving me be and I appreciate that. So I didn't say all of this stuff just because I'm drowning in gacha addiction or anything like that. The only time I've topped up in Star Rail is right before the reset bonuses happened as a thank you to the game that had given me hundreds of hours of entertainment over the past year.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[sociomi]

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From time to time, that figure will be achieved quickly, and this doesn't satisfy the wagering yearning to you. However, review at various times, you will have had full scale triumphs, or have sat between your starting bankroll and disaster limit, for quite a while preceding hitting an immense part and getting a staggering accomplishment to put your excess at $1300. Check out link basket168.

Sometimes you'll achieve a fair advantage quickly, little advantage all through a long time, extraordinary advantage all through a long time, or just 5% in a brief time frame.

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #155

Have you ever held hands with someone in a car? Yeah; I did this once first with Juan, then plenty with Jason and I do it lots with Girt too.

Would you ever try being a vegetarian? I did try, but it's simply not practical with how absolutely absurdly picky I am, I would literally become malnourished very quickly. I'm not a person who can really make herself "get used" to certain foods either, when I don't like something, I cannot get that shit down.

Would you ever like to meet Marilyn Manson? Not particularly, I don't know much about him as a person but he's not very well-liked from what I HAVE heard. I'll stick with just enjoying his music.

What would you call yourself the King or Queen of? Catastrophizing, lol. Pretty fuckin' good at that.

What do you think the world would be a very lonely place without? Animals. Like yes, I know humans are animals, but you get what I mean. That sounds like a fucking miserable existence.

Do you have a favorite science topic? Yes, genetics, ESPECIALLY interesting mutations and stuff. I also love learning about the behaviors of social animals.

Do you watch any of the Olympic events? No, I have zero interest in that stuff.

Is teenage pregnancy common in your area? Well I don't really hang out with/know teenagers anymore, but when I was one, they were certainly a thing that you'd see in school.

Do you know anyone that’s ever suffered from post-natal depression? Yes, my older sister actually had it quite bad after having her youngest daughter, planned to be her last. I'm CERTAIN I know others too, this is very common.

When did you last use public transport? Literally not since I last came home via plane from visiting Sara years ago; I don't use other public transport.

What is your strangest fear? Probably whale sharks, like they are totally harmless but their mouths really freak me out.

Shane Dawson: funny or annoying? I never watched his older stuff that got lots of controversy, but I've found him rather funny and relatable when not acting in skits and such, but I haven't watched his stuff in a couple years.

What is the funniest YouTube video you know? Not sure, honestly. I have shit playing on YouTube constantly, I've just seen way too much lol.

Do you want to get married? If so, what color will your dress be? Yes, and it will probably be black, but I'm not guaranteeing that; I'm very open to trying various things when it's time to see what I gravitate towards.

Ever had a caricature done of yourself? How much was it, and were you satisfied with it? No.

Do you like peanut butter and fluff sandwiches? I haven't tried this since I was a kid, I might now, but back then I hated it, the texture of the marshmallow fluff was a STRONG no from me.

If you got married and then got divorced, would you want to re-marry? Eh, dunno.

Have you ever been accused of cheating? Nope.

How about having an eating disorder? No.

How long did your last relationship last? Before Girt, Sara and I were together like... around two years, I think? I don't remember anymore, says something about how attached I really was. At the time I did think it was what I wanted, but since falling in love with someone again, I know it absolutely was not as "real" as I tried to make myself think it was.

Have you ever been banned from anywhere? No.

Who was your date to senior prom? Jason.

Is your mom over 50? She's over 60.

Do you know anyone who’s biracial? Yes.

Are black bras sexy? sis wear a black bra around me and a bitch gonna misbehave 😭😭😭

Are you currently listening to anything? Yes, I've started watching WoolieVS's Dark Souls playthrough.

Would you ever consider getting breast implants? God no, I don't need it; all I ever want done to my breasts is a lift if I lose the weight I want to, because mass weight loss ain't gonna be nice to them.

Are you on birth control? Yes, but I didn't start it as a contraceptive; it was because my periods were unbearable, to where I'd have to stay in basically fetal position in bed pushing a heating pad against the cramping area. It's made them tolerable.

Do you know anyone who is bisexual? Yeah.

Does anyone call you babe? Rarely Girt.

Who would you tell, or who did you tell when you lost your virginity? I'm not gonna run to anyone to share it, I don't feel the need at all. I'll share that information where it's actually relevant.

What was the last video game you played, if any? Girt and I played more of Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage, the remake, yesterday while he was here.

Are you one of those people who listen to songs on repeat? Oh hell yes, I'd drive so many people fucking insane if they had to listen to how many times I repeat songs I get into lmfao

Is your body similar to your parents’ or siblings’ body? Mostly similar to Mom's, although she has always had very skinny legs, regardless of what weight she is. I hate being my weight, A LOT, but the ONE thing I am thankful for is at least my weight is evenly distributed throughout my body so I don't think anything looks unproportional or something.

Are you, in general, usually cold or warm? Too warm. I'm the person that's sweating when everyone else is comfortable.

Would you rather be somewhere very very hot or very very cold? Very cold, easy. Cold doesn't make you sweat every water you've ever drunk out of your body within five fuckin' minutes, nor does it drain you all to hell.

Are “school friends” and friends different to you? Well, yes, I think there are different levels of bonding there. "School friends" are the people you talk to and get along with fine at school, but you're not interested in pursuing a deeper, more personal relationship with them, and I think that's fine.

When is the last time you laid out and tanned? lol I don't think I've EVER done this, I am so uninterested in tanning.

Do you like breaded chicken sandwiches? Ugh yes, I absolutely love them, wish I didn't.

Are you comfortable discussing bodily functions with your friends? Depends on how close we are.

What was the last book you had to read for school and did you enjoy it or were you just trying to get through? The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, and I positively adored it, I'd consider it one of my favorite books if it wasn't for how insufferable the epilogue is to read. She is brilliantly, creatively, but also so accurately descriptive, like you read every page and you can envision everything with incredible detail. I think as a woman it was a book that hit me hard and is also just fucking terrifying, but honestly now, do you really doubt that that "dystopian future" isn't BASICALLY what TONS of especially conservative cis men would adore?????? It's haunting.

Favorite home-cooked meal growing up? Spaghetti.

What was the last food you got a random craving for? Pizza.

If your best friend was a fictional character, who would he/she be? Why? Hm... I dunno, I'm really bad at this sorta stuff, comparing people to fictional ones.

What’s the nicest thing your best friend has ever said to you? He's told me I make him a better person and that meant a lot. ;_; He's said so much sweet stuff, this is only one that's stuck with me.

What is your least favorite pizza topping? Probably mushrooms, off the top of my head. Well I've also heard of sardine pizza, which sounds absolutely repulsive, I'd never try it.

Who was the last blue-eyed person you spoke to? Not sure, but perhaps someone at the dentist's office today.

When you woke up this morning, what was on your mind? I was tired and also nervous about my dentist's appointment.

At this moment, what are you most looking forward to? This Friday since I'm getting my tattoo finished and also having dinner with Girt's family.

Who were the last 3 males you talked to? My boyfriend, nephew, and probably Ashley's husband.

If you have a pet, when did you last pet him/her? Last night; I went straight to the dentist when I got up and haven't been home all that long, but I am surprised he hasn't wandered into this room yet to say hi.

Do you have a favorite hair color or eye color on your preferred sex? It really doesn't matter to me, but I do like deep blue or emerald green eyes; they'd just be a plus. I tend to love unnaturally colored hair, but again, it really doesn't matter much. Neither trait is going to affect my odds of liking you.

The last song you listened to - does it remind you of anyone? Not directly, but it's about political division and needlessly villainizing each other in a way where you harm humanity as a whole, and I certainly know people who basically do that.

What did you have for lunch yesterday? I had a meal replacement shake; I was unable to chew almost at all the past few days with just how severe my tooth pain had become, so I've kinda just been making it off of liquids or things that require barely any chewing.

Are your eyes the same color as your sibling’s? No, except I think maybe Bobby? He's my half-brother though, we have different dads.

Have you received any compliments about your appearance today? No.

Are you attracted to the last person you Facebook messaged? Not personally, he's some distant cousin anyway.

Do you have any appointments coming up? I always do; I see a neurologist tomorrow for a follow-up on my legs, despite how needless it is because we definitely know it wasn't a nerve problem now post-PT, tattoo appointment Friday, and I promise you there's more, I don't keep track of everything as tightly as my mom does.

Have you ever been to a petting zoo? What animals did you pet? I feel like Mom has said I've been to one before, but I don't remember at all, I must have been pretty young.

What do you think about nose piercings? I think they're very cute, especially nostril studs. I've had just that two or maybe even three times, but I know one time it closed from having to be taken out while I was hospitalized, and then the other I lost the stud for the billionth time and just let it close out of annoyance. I wanna get it redone though and get at least one good stud that curves well enough to stay in my damn nose.

Have you ever had anything removed from your body? A cyst and as of today one of my wisdom teeth. Getting the only other one I have out in a month.

Do you wear a one-piece or a two-piece when you go swimming? One-piece, but also with swimming pants because I'm not comfortable showing my legs.

Have you ever experienced déjà vu? Yes, it really freaks me out and makes me question everything lmfao

Do you have any scratches or bruises on your body right now? Only one that I know of on my neck that he didn't realize happened lol

What would be the first thing you’d do with a million dollars? I'm getting Mom a house she actually feels at home in. I take me out of the equation because with a million I would HOPE I could squeeze in my own place with Girt, too.

Who was the last person you visited in the hospital and why were they there? My older sister because she was having a baby.

Have you ever cried in public? Oh certainly.

Are you one of those people who has more than one shower a day? No, that kinda stuff blows my MIND unless you are doing seriously physical, dirty stuff.

Have you ever babysat children who weren’t related to you? Yes, I once watched my neighbor's daughter when I was a teenager.

Have you ever seen Wayne’s World? Yes, I remember Jason was big on this movie so I watched it with him once.

Have you ever taken photos in a photobooth? Yes, done that at least a couple times.

If you have a dog, do you walk it regularly? Neither of us do; she's a teeny-tiny chihuahua that doesn't exhibit any sort of hyper or super busy behavior at all so she seems fine without 'em, she loves going on car rides though. If she has energy to exert, she'll generally beat up her toys, haha. She loves picking the ones that are bigger than her.

Would you prefer a big or a small wedding? Small, I do NOT want a big wedding.

Do you smoke when you’re drinking alcohol? No, I don't smoke period.

How many people do you message on a regular basis? Very regular basis, only Girt, but I definitely message Mazzy and Tez quite a bit too 'cuz I like talking to them.

[xxew-pineapplezxx]

Him sticking up for you when fat shammed ~ Maknae Line

TW/ verbal abuse, bullying

I want to start off by saying, I love you all. Body positivity is something that I’m always for, being someone who is also plus sized. Everything in this is completely fictional but can come off rude and hurtful. Though this is a Y/N pov, there are a lot of people who go through this daily. Size doesn’t mean you can’t perform with your best! I love you and I know for damn sure the guys feel the same!

You sat eating a snack as you watch Jimin planning out his meals to start his diet plan again. You hated this time of year but tried to keep up with him by eating a little healthy yourself. That was the least you could do to help him stay on course.

“ Are you going to make more salads or smoothies this time?” You asked curiously. Of course, whenever he made you different things to eat or drink, it was a little harder to take. And you always tell him that you are going to eat healthier but…we all know how that is.

He shrugged,” I have a plan that we do 50-50.” He looked up at you and smiled.” You have to do better this time. I let you off the hook last time, but you will do the whole plan.”

You made a face at him not wanting to do that. You were going to lose weight when you were good and actually ready. “I’ll do the right thing 40% of the time. No guarantees though.”

He looks up at you dropping his pen. “Why can’t you just do things easier instead of always fighting?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You furrow your brows. You and Jimin often had these weight loss talks but mainly you just told him that you like the way he is. You personally would never ask him or anyone for that matter to change. Especially if they are happy with how they are.

He wiped his face standing up. He tried to think of a way to put it without being a complete jerk. “Babe you haven’t lost anything since we got together. At least not as much as you could’ve if you would just put yourself into actually working it off.”

You looked at him without saying anything. You couldn’t actually believe what he was saying. Is this how he felt all the time or was it just coming out of nowhere? You were comfortable with the size you were and didn’t have any plans to change that. Of course, it never hurt to make a few changes but damn did he have to hit this hard?

“Excuse me?” Was all that could come out of your mouth. You stared at him as if he had seven heads. “You're supposed to support me through everything. From losing weight to having my back on fucking life choices! I’ve never ever stopped you from doing these damn diets that make you so fucking small. I always make sure you're okay and you're doing what you love. Not once have I ever opposed!”

The look on your face read it all. You weren’t only upset about what was just occurring, you were also pissed that the man you love so much was standing here saying such mean things. What made him think he had that right exactly?

“Y/n…” He started knowing you will probably hate him. “ That came out completely wrong. Please understand that I care so much for you and don't want anything to happen. I just want to make sure you are the healthy version of yourself always and never fail at doing so. Please understand that being rude was never my intention. I know, I could've said it a little bit differently, that is completely my fault. But I really hope you understand where I’m coming from…”

You tried to see where he was coming from, but that didn't eliminate the fact that he said it. There were a lot of things you guys told each other. For him to feel this way and not actually have a conversation before this conspired hurt you.

“I understand your intent…I just don’t understand why you would choose now to say it when you’ve had every opportunity in the books to do so…” Jimin got what you were saying. He moved closer to you slowly to make sure you wouldn’t push him away.

“I promise, I will come to you and talk about anything and everything,” He started just trying to make that clear. “I don’t want you to ever change. The way you are is perfect to me and it’s very selfish for me to even put that out there. Again I just want what’s best for you, but I will let you decide that because at the end of the day you get to choose what you want to do and I will love you either way. Your my love and my whole fucking heart. I never want to lose that or you”

You closed the gap between you two before leaning to peck his lips. “Just know, you’ve lost every privilege when it comes to my body until I say otherwise, okay?”

Jimin pouted but nodded his head in agreement. No need to start something else up when he knew the punishment wouldn’t last long.

You had been anticipating this moment for months now. Today was officially the day you got to meet the love of your life’s parents. And eat a day it was going to be.

You have mentally had conversations and made sure to ask Tae just about everything when it comes to his parents. The thing was, Tae was more nervous than you were. Not because of anything but him bringing someone home after keeping it a secret of dating you for the past seven months. Not because he didn’t believe you were the one, but because he believed that heavily. It was because he was afraid of his parents actually approving of him being in a relationship with you.

“Babe, are you almost done?” You hear Tae call out to you. You were in the room practicing your greeting to his parents one good time to make sure you had it down to a tee. The fear that rained inside of you started to grow small as the confidence showed through.

“Yes, let me grab my purse, and then we can go!” You said doing just so. You adjusted your clothes in the mirror one last time before heading out to be greeted by Tae with the best kiss ever.

“Gosh you look so fucking amazing,” Tae told you with a wink. You couldn’t help but smile as he looked you up and down.

“You look very handsome as well my love.” You guys kissed once more before Tae turned to escort you out of the building.

Once in the car, you tried to relax but the anticipation and anxiety had you wired. You looked over at Tae giving him a nervous grin. “I don’t know if I can actually do this!”

“What do you mean? You’re freaking amazing. They are going to love you!”

“What you think about me versus what your parents think is completely different. It’s always different!” You took a deep breath just wanting to get the encounter started so that you can go on knowing that you have your all to meet his parents.

“You are acting like my parents are some high-up political figures” He chuckled. You shook your head with a smile.

“I don't know. I’m just really excited to meet them,” You started, fixing the dress you had chosen to wear. “I just hope they like me!”

“They will, just give it some time,” Tae reassured, taking your hand into his own. “I mean, I fell for you as soon as I laid eyes on you. If they are anything like me, they should also fall in love with you”

Once you guys arrived at his parent's place, Tae helped you out of the car and you two headed inside. There was a moment when you just felt overjoyed with everything. The house was stunning and greeting his father who opened the door was amazing. But things started going down once you stepped foot into the kitchen to greet his mom.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs.Kim.” You extended a hand toward her and she just looked at it. What was wrong? Did you say something weird or mean?

She gave a smile trying to brush it off before walking towards the dining room. You looked up at Tae not really understanding what was going on.

“I made your favorite, Taehyung,” She started as everyone followed. You moved slightly slower not wanting to make a big fuss but not understanding your first encounter with Tae’s mom. Everything with his dad was going great so what just happened?

You smiled smelling the air as you looked at all the food on the table.“Smells good, Mrs. Kim,” You started, taking a seat beside Tae as everyone sat down.

“Thank you,” She whispered not really looking in your direction. You nodded looking up at Tae letting out a brief sigh.

“We can start eating now.” You smiled looking at all the great options on the table. Tae grabbed different things placing them on your plate. You smile, breathing out thanks before you went to place some food in your mouth.

“Shouldn’t you wait for Taehyung to eat before you just stuff your face?” Mrs.Kim asked which made you look up at her.

“It’s okay, I want Y/N to eat well,” Tae smiled at you making your smile back.

“Well it looks like she eats well enough already,” She started which caught you off guard. Was she calling you fat? Why aren’t things clicking with the whole situation?

“Eomma…”Tae started grabbing your hand.

“No, son,” She started standing up. “ I will not allow you to bring any dishonor to our family because you are going through a phase!”

“Exactly what phase is that?” Tae asked now standing.

“You ever being into fat girls! Everyone you have ever brought home was slim and fit and this!” She points towards you, your confidence going down the drain.

You stood up, nodding your head as you tried to take in what was just said about you. “ Thank you for dinner. It was really nice meeting you, Mr.Kim.” You bowed and then walked out of the dining room heading for the door.

Tae looked at his mother upset. “ Usually, I try my best to be respectful to you and even follow your wishes. This was one time I will not stand allowing you to disrespect someone I love so much. She is beautiful, a fucking work of art! If you can’t stand for that then don’t worry about contacting me until you figure that out!” He moved away from the table going to walk out when he turned around looking at his father. “ I’m sorry dad, I don't mean to be disrespectful in your house, but you told me to stand for what I love and who I love. I love Y/N, there is no doubt about that. The last thing I will ever do is allow someone to disrespect the person I see the rest of my life with.”

All his father could do was nod his head, completely understanding where he was coming from. His mother was out of line to do something like this and his father planned on dealing with that after they left.

“Bye dad,” Tae said then walked away to find you standing there. The tears in your eyes said it all. He walked over to you wrapping his arms around you. There was part of him that wanted to go back in there pulling you with him. But he didn’t want to put you back in that whole thing.

He just grabbed your hand and pulled you with him out of the house. He walked to the car, opening the door for you to get inside. You looked up at him, tears still there but a small smile breaking through.

“I love you too, Taehyung”

You sat down watching everyone chatting it up at the annual staff appreciation party. You knew that going with Jungkook meant you were going to end up sitting alone, especially with his hyungs also in the same building, but you went anyways to show your own kind of appreciation for the BigHit/ Hybe staff. You smiled and waved but eventually got tired of sitting there so decided to go and find Jungkook.

As you walked you whispered soft ‘excuse me’s and pardon’s as you didn’t want to seem pushy or rude. Just as you walked by someone, you felt your body go cold as the girl in front of you drink fell on your dress.

“Excuse me I am so sorry-” You began but the girl started to scream!

“How dare you walk into me! Didn’t you see me standing here!?” she shouted making you jump slightly. People around slowly turned their heads toward the sound.

“I’m really sorry about that.” You looked at her to see she had nothing on her. Actually, everything spelled on you and she was spotless. You still felt like you should apologize though because it was still an accident on your part. “ I can get you another drink, I really am sorry about this”

“Maybe you need to watch where your going and things like this wouldn’t happen!”

“Things like this? I was walking by and accidentally bumped you! This has never happened before today,” You started, the once apologetic tone turning into a more upset one. “Your acting as if I saw you and was like ‘Oh let me spill her whole fucking drink on my new dress!’’

The girl looked around herself and then back at you, a slight smirk growing on her face. “ Maybe if you weren’t so fat you could’ve squeezed your way by me” You looked at her as if her head was decapitated from her body. How could she possibly just stand there and say something like

That.

“You are such a bitc-”

“What is going on here,” Jungkook rang, finally making his way over to where you guys were after what felt like hours of you trying to defend yourself. He looked at you then your dress and floor before looking at the girl standing there.

“This fatty just bumped into me, spilling my drink,” The girl started, crossing her arms and giving you an evil look.

You scoffed rolling your eyes. “ Yeah, the drink that got all on the dress that I worked so hard to get to come to this event! It didn’t even get on you!”

“Bitch we all work hard, you just need to put in a little bit more work.”

Jungkook sighed looking at you again. “Which department do you work for?” He looked back at the girl who just looked at Jk with a questioning look on her face. “Did you not hear my question? What department do you work for!?”

His voice got a little bit louder which made the girl jump. “ I’m sorry, I am one of the stylists for you guys” She gave the biggest smile motioning in his direction.

“You were one of the stylists,” Jungkook said followed by a sip of his drink.

“I’m sorry, what?” She began looking between you and Kookie.

“What do you not understand? If you have been working for us you would understand that we don’t do bullying, name-calling, or any type of discrimination. You broke all of those in less than 10 minutes. If you read the contract that you should’ve signed, then you would know what happens to people when they do those things. Especially when it comes to someone that we love.”

“But sir she spilled my drink-”

“No, you spilled your drink. You were holding it, and by the way she is soaked, while you have less than a drop of liquid on your body speaks levels that you seem to be too incompetent to understand. You are finished with this company as of tonight.”

You grabbed Jungkook’s arm and could feel he was shaking. You didn’t need him to stand up for you but you loved that he did. You felt you didn’t deserve him but he proved to you every day that he was the man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.

“You need to leave,” Was the last thing he said before grabbing your hand and walking out of the room. You smirked at the girl while you two passed before looking back at Jk.

When it seemed you guys got far enough you pulled his arm so that he could look at you. It broke your heart seeing him with tears in his eyes, trying so hard not to look in your direction.

“Babe…” You started bringing your hand to his cheek, making him look at you. “ I’m okay”

“What she said was horrible!”

“And you think I don't hear that shit every other day. People are cruel, my love,” You leaned up and pecked his lips. “I really appreciate you standing up for me. You came to my rescue when I needed you and you didn’t back down.”

“I should be the one giving this talk,” Jungkook said, chuckling and wiping the fallen tear that glazed his cheek. “You stood up to her even though she said some horrible things about you.”

“And you stood up for me when I could’ve handled it. I love you for doing that.”

He kissed your lips gently then pulled away looking down at your dress. “ This is coming out of her final paycheck,” He said, another chuckle escaping his lips.

“Can you do that legally?”

“I’m Jeon fucking Jungkook,” He started, cocking his head to the side slightly.

“That answers my question. Let’s get out of here,” You said pulling his arm.” I’m freezing and this wine isn’t smelling all that great”

[rcksmith]

Nobody else — Five Hargreeves

Requests: “Hello! May I request number nine from the fluff prompts and number seven from the smut prompts for Five? Maybe where the reader is a super skilled fighter, and the other Hargreeves siblings can’t get over how amazing she is, but that causes Five to become a little jealous?”

“Okayy if you're not tired of Five and smuts yet, can I request 18,70,74 and 84 from smut list with fem reader?”

Fluff prompts:

9. “So you're saying that girl is your girlfriend?!" "No, that girl is my wife!”

Smut prompts:

7. “The only way you’re getting off is on my thigh.”

18. “Are you sure? Once we start, i might not be able to stop.”

70. “Maybe I should leave you like this, that way anyone who wanted to use you could have a go with you. Would you like that?”

74. “I think I like you better with a gag in your mouth.”

84. “Let me show you what happens to little brats who don’t follow the rules.”

A/N: We not tolerate any pedophilia here !!

I write about Five with their 20s. I write the same about the characters of Harry Potter.

Thank you for requests💖 I hope you guys like💖I decided to compile these two requests, since they were the same energy and they prompts connect to a central plot. I added all the elements that were asked for individually, and made sure that all ideas were respected and written down. Good reading.

English is not my first language, so I so sorry if have a mistake.

Requests are open. Love you ❤️

Couple: Five Hargreeves / Fem! Reader.

Warnings: explicit smut, dirty talk, bad words, fluff, fight, mention of death, jealousy.

— — — — —

People need each other to find support, comfort and understanding. Thomas Merton said: “Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life alone, but with the other. ”

And as cliché as it was, it was the truth. And that is exactly what happened to you.

It was difficult to explain how many years you had already been killing for the commission. Ever since, maybe? You did not remember a time when that work was not part of your life, your routine, your system. But you could feel, vaguely like a hazy dream, that one day the act of breathing was ... light.

Killing without conscience brought many regrets, and the weight of guilt filled your chest, making it difficult to breathe.

But you were good at that. God, you were very good. Maybe it was the endless years of training, your quick thinking, or the simple fact that you had a lot more physical stamina than the other agents. But, whatever it was, it helped you move up the board quickly.

Murdering with a gun was easy, quick, clean, and there were already many agents who did that job. For someone like you, so empowered, the commission has relocated you to more… arduous and dangerous missions.

Your job was to kill those whose gunshots could not show up at the necropsy. Someone who needed to die without the body revealing what had happened very well.

Shoot JFK? It wasn't with you.

End Hitler? It wasn't your job.

To kill Socrates with your bare hands and make everyone believe it was poison? This is where you came in.

The difference between the jobs was that you had to do the whole process. And a melee interaction instead of a weapon always brought people who wanted to fight for their lives. And that is why the commission chose you to do that, without any partner.

They elected you because you fought like a super soldier, focused on your goal like a robot, and never came back without success. It didn't matter how many fights you had to fight with your target, how many punches you had to throw and also take, or how many injuries you returned. You always won.

Over time, you learned things in practice, tricks that made it easy, scams that would save you effort. You learned to study each person in seconds, find their weaknesses, and use his own strength against them.

That's when you met Five Hargreeves. And Thomas Merton's quote made sense.

You two were so much similar. Both the best in their fields, wrecked in a sea of ​​personal traumas, buried by a job that got the best of you two. You two felt misunderstood, alone in the vastness of that world. And when you two met... well, were no longer alone.

You two got involved, in all possible ways and ways. Loved each other, adored each other, and completed each other. Life went out of automatic mode, and for the first time in a long time, you two managed to breathe lightly. The food now tasted good, the heat of the sun on the skin was now better, and the world... the world was ruled by the red color of love.

So it became the most obvious and coherent decision to you two get married. Five could no longer imagine a life in which you did not exist, and you did not know how the world could go without him.

“I can't believe we did that!” You laughed, astonished, as you entered the apartment that you and Five shared.

You two had just married, something just for you two and the ceremonialist. You two chose something very intimate, reserved. And now the ring on him left hand looked like the most beautiful thing in the world for you.

Five laughed softly, hands moving up your arms, bringing you closer.

“We did. Wife.”

After that, your two contract with the commission changed. Five would only continue to do that if no one dared to touch a hair of yours, and you swore to The Handler that if someone did something to Five, you would destroy that place brick by brick.

Five saw in you a strong and atrocious ocean, which could swallow whole cities only with the force of its fury. And he liked that. He liked having someone as competent and firm as he was. Five liked to know that if there was a disaster, he would not be the only one who would go after a solution.

You were the type who knew that if you wanted things to happen, you had to do it with your bare hands. And Five loved it, because he felt understood. He carried so many responsibilities on his back that it was relieving to find someone who also felt the same things.

Five knew that, when him found way home, you were going with him. And you went. You two exchanged vows that would be together in joy and sadness, in any situation. And if the situation now said to go to 2019, well, you would.

“It makes me so sick, God!” Five heard you say when you two fell out of that blue portal he created.

He would have laughed if his muscles didn't hurt so much. For someone so trained you got sick of his powers very quickly.

"Five?!” And then the voice of one of the brothers was heard.

And that's how you two ended up there. A week later, in the Hargreeves' living room, with Diego swearing that you wouldn't be able to beat him in a fight.

Five laughed against the margarita's straw, sitting comfortably at the bar, giving up on telling his stupid brother that you had already killed much more dangerous people with your bare hands.

“I do not want to hurt you.” You smiled understandingly, and Klaus laughed.

“I bet 50 bucks that she beats your ass, Diego.” It was only logical that he was going to encourage his brother to fall.

“There is no way you can hurt me.” Diego guaranteed, getting up and starting to push the sofa away, making room for a fight.

“Are you up for it or are you scared?” He played with you, and Five laughter it back there, having a lot of fun.

“This is ridiculous, Diego.” Allison stressed, but it was obvious that she wanted to watch too.

You smirked, getting up from the bar chair next to Five. You didn't want to defeat your husband's brother in that fight, you understood that the circumstances between the two of you were not fair.

You were created to kill, injure and decimate. Body wrestling was your job and it wouldn't be fair to Diego. You knew, from Five, that the Hargreeves were created to be heroes. Saviors of the motherland. Hurt and kill if necessary, but don't make it a goal.

But not with you. Killing was your goal, always. And your weapon was not super powers or pistols, but the body itself.

“Okay.” You laughed and went to the circle that Diego had made “But I don't want to hurt you. The first one to fall to the ground loses.” You were trying to be peaceful.

Diego agreed, giving him a friendly smile before saying:

“But I will use my knives to distract you.”

It was logical that he wouldn't make it cheap and easy, even if it was for himself, you knew that.

So you agreed, took off the suit you were wearing and rolled up the sleeves of your white dress shirt, while the Hargeeves sat in a safe area, away from that makeshift ring.

Diego delivered the first blow, and you just deflected the trunk, taking him by the same arm and twisting it against his back. At that moment, if it was something for real, you would put more strength to break the bone, but you didn't want to hurt him, so you just released Diego with a little push forward.

Diego turned to face you again, the naughty smile on the face of someone who knows his own potential. He was very good, you knew that, but the different upbringing made you a better opponent.

This time, the blow came from below. It was a trip that you jumped while pulling on the fist he used to land another blow in the same second, forcing him to come forward with force while you deflecting once more. Diego staggered forward, steadying himself on the floor once again.

It was all absurdly fast, as if you were a robot. A machine programs for that.

Diego hurled the knife in the wind while attacking with his other fist. You dodged again, but this time you struck back, slamming a blow down the side of your stomach, blocking his attack with your other arm and unleashing a kick in the chest, which made Diego stagger backward.

In a matter of seconds, the knife was at the end of its course. And while Diego was advancing again, the wind that the knife was making hit your hair. But the knife didn't finish course. You stopped the blade with your hand, holding to the object with your palm.

At that moment, you saw Diego's eyes falter. And a surprised gasp by the Hargreeves graces the ambience. Then it was your turn to attack. You threw the knife on the floor, driving the blade into the wooden floor as you went.

There were punches, deflected blows, creeps. The two of you were dancing to an agitated song, which was reaching its climax.

Diego had holding you in him arms, and you turned your body, locked him left arm in your hands while you used the momentum to propel your legs up, past his neck and turning, taking you both to the floor. He fell on his back while you used your own momentum to balance yourself, standing upright.

“YES! YOU OWM ME 50 DOLLARS!" Klaus's voice was heard.

You laughed, and you were about to walk away when Diego dug his left hand into your heel. He pulled you in a single stroke, and it made you fall, your back hitting the ground as he took the lead. Diego put his legs on your hips the first second you fell on the floor, and he used his own strength to keep you there.

You laughed out loud, and so did he.

“This is cheating!” You scolded him, punching him in the chest.

“Whatever, but you had to fall too!”

Diego was a good loser, you recognized that by the intonation of the voice. He was not possessed or reviled because you won, but he wanted it to be an eye for an eye, even if only as a joke.

But as soon as Diego got up off you, holding your hand for you got up too, your eyes went to Five. And you found the green irises burning in an atrocious fire. You frowned, not understanding, but you didn't have time to go over there and ask what happened. Klaus and Luther came to you and Diego.

Klaus charging his brother and Luther asking you how you did that final blow.

“It's for me to use when he pisses me off!” Luther looked directly at his brother in a silent threat “ But he will not get up alive!”

“Fuck you” Diego said before practically shoving 50 dollars in Klaus's face.

“Is easy.” You replied Luther “I'll show you."

But while the brothers were having fun, marveling at you, Five burned in a visseral cholera.

Wasn't it enough for Diego to have literally been on top of you, you had to want to teach that stupid gorilla too ?!

Oh fucking no!

When Diego went to Luther and started explaining with you, him your side, how the scam worked, Five was exploding. Now that stupid men butcher knife would be on your side?! Agreeing and explaining whit you as if it were your husband?!

Wasn't it enough just fucking being on top of you?!

Definitely fuck not!

“Take it easy, buddy.” Klaus appeared beside him “You are looking at them as if you want to kill someone.”

Five just snarled, not bothering to respond, his eyes never leaving you.

“Wait..." Klaus looked better at who Five was staring “Are you jealous of Y/n ?!” He was amazed.

“Shut up!” Five forced himself to swallow a handful of margarita.

“Oh my God!” And he wouldn’t stop “You like her! That must be why you live in a bad mood! You must be in the friend zone! ”

“Didn't I tell you to shut up already ?!” Five looked deathly at his brother “And I'm not in the friend zone with her.”

But Five realized that he gaved too much information to his brother, because now Klaus's face was opening in a shocked smile.

Goddam!

“So you're saying that girl is your girlfriend ?!" Klaus was loving the situation.

But, out of the corner of his eye, Five can see Diego holding your arm, showing Luther the place to deliver any stupid blow.

You gotta be fucking kidding!

“No, that girl is my wife!” Five tapped the margarita glass on the counter, teleporting to you and pushing Diego's hand off your arm, replacing his own.

“The show over!” He growled as he left the room, pulling you with him, your feet stumbling a few times before picking up the pace.

“Five!” You said, but he didn't seem to hear.

The image of Diego's legs at your fucking waist, the body sitting on you, the hand on your arm, rewound Five's mind like a curse. He felt his anger inflate, jealousy whispering in the back of his neck like a little devil, making him see the situation bigger than it really was.

You called him again, but for Five, it was like you called his brother's name. And then he exploded in his own fury.

He couldn't wait to go up all those stupid stairs, all those corridors, Five just pulled you against him, disappearing in the blue flash and reappearing in the his room.

“You are crazy?” You pulled the wrist out of his grip.

“I should be asking you that!” He said “Did you see that scene ?!”

“What a scene?” You frowned.

Five focused his eyes on you, in angry energy.

“Diego on top of you, fuck!" He snarled “Luther drooling like a dog on you!”

“Five.” You thought all that was absurd “They are your brothers!”

“You have no idea how much i don’t give a fuck!”

The situation was ridiculous, and you ended up laughing in disbelief and bewilderment.

“We were fighting!” You defended yourself "Nobody was drooling on me!"

“I swear to god tha ...” Five walked over to you, his eyes flooded with rage, his body enveloped in that intense and explosive energy.

You lifted chin to get a better look, your chest stuck to him, Five's breath hitting the top of your nose. That week had been full of emotions and issues to deal with, 24 hours being insufficient to do everything, explain everything. And, well, you and Five didn't have much time alone...

All of this compiled with the fact that your husband possessed the beauty of an angry god,and that excited you so fuck absurdly.

Suddenly, the air in the room became caustic, seething with the expectation of something improper happening, injecting heat into your chest that descended to the middle of your legs.

You sighed softly, and Five immediately noticed the waters where your thoughts were sailing.

“Does it turn you on?” His voice was hoars “See me angry?”

The sigh you gave was your whistleblower, your chest started to rise and fall more breathlessly than usual, your core starting to pulse. You wouldn't be able to say anything even your life would depended it, you drowning in the malicious and hot climate of that room, compiled with the absurd beauty and intensity of the adult in front of you.

God, you needed him!

“Yes, you like.” Five had an arrogant, boastful tone, mocking how sensitive you were.

But his eyes took on a more conscious tone, and he whispered as he said: "Are you sure? Once we start, I might not be able to stop. ”

Five knew his own limits, his own anger, his own strength. If he touched you now, in most simple, he wouldn't be able to stop. You agreed, hands moving gently up his body, resting on him hips.

“I will not be gentle.” Five wanted to you know again.

He had already fucked you hard, drowned in insatiable desire, marking your skin with slaps, hickeys. Five had already mistreated your mouth, made you scream. But never fucked you in anger. He never took his anger out on you. And now, submerged in jealousy, he knew how much strength he would discharge on you.

“I don't want it to be.” But you gave Five the go-ahead on a needy sigh, your fingers running around his waist.

Five dropped his mouth to your ear, tracing a path across your skin with warm lips, now bringing hands up to your skin, feeling how hot, needy you were.

“You're wet and I haven't even touched you yet.” His words hung over you like a warm warning of what was going to happen, what to expect.

You moaned softly, your body shivering, screaming for you to get more, seeking some friction, some contact. Then, as if Five read you thoughts, his left hand clung fiercely to the back of your neck, curling him fingers in your hair.

He forced you to look at him, watching the rage and the extraordinary lust.

“Let me show you what happens to little brats who don’t follow the rules.”

Five left you brutally, telling you to take off all your clothes, watching all your movements while he got rid of the shirt himself. He left him tie beside the bed, sitting on the mattress and pulling you onto him lap as soon as you finally got naked. He fit thigh in the middle of your legs, making you sit on his thigh.

You groaned, the friction in the place you most wanted, the core pulsing against the dark cloth of him pants. You rummaged your hips for more than you wanted, but Five dropped his hand on your ass, releasing a loud, stinging slap. The groan was unable to be controlled, and you buried your face in the curve of him neck, sobbing there.

“You will be grateful for every slap I give you, do you understand?” He snarled, fingers tightening on your flesh, marking your skin.

You agreed, and thanked him when Five slapped your ass harder. This time, he moved him thigh beneath you, brushing your pulsating core, leaving you in an extremely needy state.

“Fi-five!" A sob escaped, followed by another thanks when a slap hit your in ass again.

Five's hands roughly grabbed your waist, holding you firmly in place as he started to rummage in him thigh, making you moan louder every second. That was torture. You pulsed and wet him thigh, your body rigid from wanting more of that friction, the sobs escaping your lips, the muscles contracted.

“Such a needy slut." He snarled in your ear “So desperate for my thigh.”

You groaned at him words, your fingers around him shoulders, squeezing there while Five took you so badly in him thigh. He dropped his mouth to your hot neck, pouring a hickey there before sighing hoarsely:

“The only way you're getting off is on my thigh."

It sent electric currents to your swollen core, and moans got even bigger when Five increased the speed of his movements, rubbing your clitoris in those mind-boggling movements. His strong grip, compiled wheezing on his neck, his hoarse voice and the movements of his thigh took you to the limit. And you were pushed into that abyss of the climax.

“So fucking quickly.” Five delighted, in a groan, and stuck his hands on your back, holding you there, turning you in one movement to the bed.

Your back hit the mattress, Five’s warm hands roamed your legs, squeezing thighs and parting them, exposing your wet, red core at the climax. Five groaned loudly, as if seeing you hurt physically, and he took his hands off you to grab the tie next to you.

“Be good and open your mouth for me.” You obeyed, and he wiped the cloth over there, fastening his tie.

You sighed brokenly, your heart beating fast, breasts stiff and sore, your ass burning with slaps, core sensitive to climax.

“I think I like you better with a gag in your mouth." Five reflected, him hands roaming your trembling body, squeezing every bit of skin, reveling in how your skin felt at him touch.

Five reveled in the breath you took, enjoying how you looked like a fucking goddess like that. So vulnerable, so needy, so needy.

He was controlling himself until now, pushing you to the limit, making you sensitive, teasing you, making you sensitive to what was coming. Him smile was purely lustful, and Five leaned toward you, roughly sucking the nipple from your breast, nibbling at the needy skin. Then he brought hands up to his pants, opening his belt and zipper, pulling the pieces down far enough for his dick to pop out.

The moan you gave when you felt the hot, luscious member on your thigh was enough to inflate him ego even more. Five turned your body down, pulling your waist up, leaning into your ear to whisper:

“I'm going to fuck you so hard that you'll never forget that day.” Then he entered you, rough, strong, badly.

He forced your walls to get used to him size and sank to the bottom of the well, clutching his hands to your hips and pulling you against him dick. You screamed against the tie, pressing your fingers to the pillows, sobbing when Five set a fierce, wild and badly pace, mistreating every inch of you.

One of him hands went to your neck, closing his fingers there and pouring out all the fury and jealousy he felt in the thrusts, going in as deep as he could and pushing your limit. The pornographic sounds of the two of you moaning, the sound of his hip hitting your ass, invaded the room, mixing with the smell of sex, lust and hunger.

You shouted him name when Five left and brutally entered you, making you choke on your own sobs.

“What's it? Are you unaccustomed to my dick?” He tasted it, leaving your neck to slap your ass aggressively “Is it too much for you?”

You sobbed, stopped by the tie, and Five hit you again.

“Do you think someone can fuck you like me?!”

Now him voice was angry and his movements too. Five fucked you like he had spent his whole life in fury at you, waiting patiently for the day when he would discount everything on you. Him hand went to your mouth, pulling tie from there and releasing your toxic moans.

“Answer me, fuck!” One more slap, leaving your ass on fire.

“N-no!” You cried “Nobody ... no-nobody fucks me like you!”

You talks with a more thrust, and Five pushed your chest to the bed, keeping his hand on your back, him moans mixing with your.

Then he reached the peak of anger.

Five came out of you, turned you up and bent your legs, placing your knees on your shoulders. He entered in a brutal way inside you, the new position making him occupy all the minimum vacant spaces. You screamed, tears welling up in your eyes, your hands tightening on his arms, your heart already racing.

It was too much. Your body begged for more, for the climax, for the lust, for anything fierce that Five could give you. He dropped his mouth on yours, biting your bottom lip instead of kissing you, making you swallow his lines when he said:

“Maybe I should leave you like this, that way anyone who wanted to use you could have a go with you. Would you like that? ”

You desperately denied it. Five could very well come out of you and not let you come, and just that thought made your body tremble and tears flow.

“Plea-Please!” You sobbed “I beg you!”

That did things with Five. He stuck his body to your, him arm going around your waist and fucking you as if that could chase away all his anger. This time he kissed you, sticking his lips to yours as he felt you pulse around him and break up in a hushed scream, trembling at the climax.

Five did not falter, his black hair clinging to his forehead with sweat, his heart pounding. He cum strongly inside your core, filling you with hot cum. You groaned, wrapping your arms around his neck, deepening the kiss as he came inside of you, slowly calming down.

The two of you sighed, the room flooding with the smell of sex and desire, your hearts thudding at the same pace. You whimpered in his mouth, and when Five want to leave inside you, you denied it, tightening your legs around him waist.

“N-No.” You moaned softly, "Stay inside, please."

Five drew air through his teeth, him hands gripping the sides of your body, stirring inside you, beginning to feel the lust rising.

He kissed you again, whispering:

“You want to have a child of mine, don't you?" It was an arrogant, provocative voice, and you sighed. “You are such a fucking sensitive little thing.”

Then Five started moving again, and you stayed in that room for much longer.

[rebelwrites]

From This Moment || Part Fourteen

Jax Teller x Reader

Summary: Neither Y/N or Jax wanted to go back to reality, enjoying the life in the bubble they had created. Life was simple right now but something always got in the way of their happiness.

Warnings: blood, knife, attack

From This Moment Masterlist

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A small laugh escaped Jax’s lips as he realized Nero had come up onto the roof. Looking around the lot he saw you sitting on the bench staring at your phone screen, more than likely scrolling through TikTok trying to not overthink things.

“I’m surprised Chika didn’t come up here.” Nero said softly as he sat down on the ledge.

“She knows me better than everyone else.” Jax smiled, keeping his eyes on you. It didn’t matter that shit was upside down at the moment, his heart swelled at the sight of you. “She knows when I need to be left alone, she always has. But no matter what is happening, whether I am at fault or not, she still shows me love and doesn’t treat me any different.”

Nero smiled as he listened to Jax speak about you, watching as his eyes twinkled from the setting sun, and the smile on his face reappeared. He knew in that moment just how much you meant to him.

“Listen Son,” Nero said, placing his hand on Jax’s shoulder causing Jax to turn his gaze to him. “This girl you have here, she’s a special one.” he said with a large smile, “She loves with all of her heart, and I can guarantee she is one of a kind, you can search this entire planet but you will never find anyone like her.”

“I know.”

“You can’t do wrong by her.” Nero nodded, turning his gaze to you, watching as you subtly wiped away a few tears that had fallen. “We all saw this happening, right from you both being young. We felt the connection between you. Your old man was hoping it would have happened whilst he was still around. Just don’t hurt her okay, I maybe calm and laid back but I have no problems in fucking you up Hermano.”

“I won't.” Jax nodded, a small smile on his lips as he spoke. He knew how much Nero loved you. “I know just how special she is.” he chuckled, casting his gaze back onto you. “I don’t want to go looking for anyone else, I have my ride or die by my side, I have done all my life. I’ve got plans in place, trying to get the club on a more legitimate path. Pull us out of the guns and drugs, I don’t want this life anymore, it was okay at the start but I have too much to lose now.” he nodded, pulling his smokes out of his kutte, lighting one up before he spoke again. “I have plans of getting Clay from the head of the table, but shit keeps coming up.” he sighed, running a hand over his face.

Once again Jax felt completely at ease venting to Nero about his problems. The man was a breath of fresh air for the both of you and it was nice to have someone outside of the club to share your problems with.

“With our only legit business, Cara Cara burning down, us struggling to find the right space for Red Woody and now everything with Tara and the baby, I just feel like I am stuck between a rock and a hard place.” Jax sighed heavily, his heart was aching for you, this wasn’t how he wanted the first few months of marriage to go.

“Maybe I can help you with that.” Nero smiled, squeezing Jax’s shoulder, making him look up, raising his brow at Nero’s statement.

“I am listening.”

Nero gave Jax the quick rundown of the proposal, knowing it would need to be voted in. As they were talking Nero noticed how Jax’s attention was on you, he knew he was listening but right now wasn’t the best time to discuss business. “Go, go be with her, you both need each other right now.” he smiled. “I know the club is on lockdown but maybe you both need to go for a drive. I know you won’t let anything happen to her.”

Jax didn’t say anything, but he smiled at Nero, nodding his thanks to him. He pushed himself to his feet and made his way down the ladder. The moment his feet touched the floor, he glanced over at the Audi, it was parked in the perfect place. There weren't any other cars blocking it in. Striding across the lot, he stood in front of you, gently taking your phone out of your hand, placing it on the table.

“Go get your car keys, babygirl.” he hummed, taking your hands in his.

“Thought we were on lockdown?”

“We still are but I think we both need a bit of road therapy right now.” he whispered, kissing your knuckles. “We both need to take a step back and gather our thoughts.”

A smile appeared on your lips, as you brushed your fingers over his skin. Jax always knew what you needed and when you needed it. He always knew even when you didn’t know yourself. It seemed crazy going for a drive when the club was on lockdown but you knew Jax wouldn’t have suggested it if it meant you would end up getting hurt.

It had been a couple of days since you found out Tara was having a girl and ever since then shit was getting worse. Clay was getting worse, the club was still on “lockdown” even though the issues with Darby’s crew had been sorted, Clay kept the lockdown in place. You knew it was to try and get under your skin. And it was working but you weren't going to let him know that.

The lockdown gave him the perfect opportunity to get his claws deeper into Jax, getting him deeper into the drug trade. One thing that you knew Jax hated, he could deal with the guns but the drugs, you knew how against it he was. The deal with Diosa was still on the table, the boys had gotten their teeth into the money from the drugs, so you knew it wasn’t going to be easy. You knew it didn’t have to be unanimous, Jax just needed the majority. Which you were hoping to get Opie on your side. But first a conversation needed to happen.

“So tell me again what happened?” Opie asked as he helped you get the car up on the ramp.

Everyone was dealing with club shit but Chibs and Opie stayed behind to keep watch over the club. It meant you could get a chance to have a heart to heart with Ope. Ever since the night you got back from Vegas things hadn’t been the same with Opie and that shit hurt. You didn’t know how he was going to be, some days it was like nothing had changed but then other days he completely iced both you and Jax out.

“Hit a pothole.” you laughed, pulling Jax’s work vest over your black vest top. “Might have been doing eighty, maybe ninety when I hit it.”

You saw the eye roll that came from Opie, making you flip him off as you grabbed the air gun to get the wheel off the car to inspect the damage, silently praying to the car gods there wasn’t too much damage. Somehow your alloy remained intact, no scratches in sight . A silence fell over the two of you, it was now or never. You needed to try and sort things out with Ope, you knew how much this was tearing Jax apart, even if he didn’t say anything.

“You remember when we were kids, we all used to be thick as thieves right?” you asked, leaning on the top of Jax’s tool box as Opie looked over the suspension. You heard him sigh, letting you know he knew where this conversation was going. “You know how much you and Jax being at odds is tearing him apart.”

“Has he said anything?”

“No, but you know that he doesn’t need to say anything.” you said softly, “Look, I get it. You are pissed at us for the whole Vegas wedding. But it just happened.”

“I don’t get how it just happens, like I know you guys have always been close.” Ope said, spinning around so he was facing you, reaching out offering you a smoke which you took with a smile. “The thing that hurts the most was neither of you telling me.”

“We didn’t want to tell anyone that way, Ope, trust me.” you whispered, fiddling with your rings. “Everything happened so fast, Vegas just ignited something between us and it just happened.”

“Can I be honest with you?” Ope smiled, leaning against the tool box. You nodded at him feeling like after today the air would have been cleared. “I saw this coming, even if you didn’t see it you always used to look at him with heart eyes as a teen.”

“I did not.” you squealed, playfully slapping his chest.

“Trust me, you did.” Opie chuckled, pushing your shoulder. “You always used to follow him like a lost puppy. He was the same though. He was so fucking protective of you, I guess nothing has really changed on that front.”

“I guess you are right.” you giggled.

“But even if you don’t want to admit that you always had heart eyes for him, which again you did. I knew deep down in my heart you were both destined to be with each other.” Opie smiled, placing his hand on your shoulder. “Sorry for being a dick about it all, I am happy for the both of you. But I can see something is bothering you, is it the whole Tara thing?”

“Yeah something doesn’t sit right man, I swear she is lying but I have no proof. Then there is Clay, I knew things weren’t good with him before but now me and Jax are married things have gotten worse. He is trying to sink his claws even deeper into Jax with the drugs.” you sighed, trying not to let your eyes fill with tears.

“Yeah shit is getting bad.” Ope sighed, running his hands over his face.

“Look, we need you on our side, Ope. This deal that Nero has put on the table is good, in fact it is amazing for both parties. It is completely legitimate and I can promise you, the money will be a lot better than what you are getting from the drugs.” you said, taking a long drag on your smoke. “Look in your heart Ope, you know deep down what is right.”

“You know you got my vote, kiddo.” Ope smiled, pulling you into a bear hug.

“And plus Jax is going to need his best man.” you laughed, looking up at him. “Let's face it Jax wants us to have a proper wedding, in front of our family and friends. But who knows if the rest of the club will come around.”

“They will, don’t worry.”

The hours had passed, Clay had finally brought the lockdown to an end. Meaning for the first time in just over a week you would be able to sleep in your own bed tonight. The lot felt empty now everyone had gone back to their respective houses, Tara and Ayden had sped off the moment Clay announced the lockdown was over. You were glad they didn’t hang around, you really didn’t want to see their faces any more.

Everyone had left, including Nero, the boys were out dealing with something at the warehouse, which meant it was just you, Gemma and Chucky on the lot. Chucky was frantically trying to clean the clubhouse and Gemma had locked herself in the office mentioning something about catching up on paperwork.

This gave you the time to work some more on your Audi, there was a lot more damage from hitting the pot hole than you anticipated. Luckily with the contact from the garage you had managed to get the parts you needed within a couple of hours.

The quietness of the lot gave you time to go over everything in your head. Trying to be rational about everything that had happened recently. It was your time to just decompress, enjoy your own company and get your head straight before you went back to work and reality.

Due to you having your headphones in and your music on loud, you didn’t hear Ayden’s car pull into the lot. Until he stood next to the car, his arms folded across his chest.

“Shit.” you breathed, holding your hand over your chest. “You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing here?”

“Forgot something.” he smirked, it wasn’t a normal smirk, this was sinister and creeped you out. Pulling Jax’s work vest tighter around your body, hiding your cleavage from your ex, the way he was staring at your body made you feel sick to the pit of your stomach.

“Okay.” you said quietly, wanting to get as far away from him as possible, but he had trapped you between the car and the tool box.

“I think you and I need a little talk.” he growled, stepping closer, pushing you against the workbench that was next to the tool box, trapping you. “Things aren’t how they were meant to be Sweets. I think I need to remind you of a few things.” he snickered, running his fingers down your cheek, letting it run down your neck until he reached the material of the vest. Ripping it open as he ran his tongue across his bottom lip.

Glancing over to the office, you saw the light on and the shadow of Gemma leaning against the door frame, just watching. From where she was she had the perfect view of what was happening, but did nothing to stop it. She just watched as his fist connected with your face, no doubt leaving a black eye in its place.

Your body was starting to shake, the look in Ayden’s eyes was pure evil as you noticed him reach over to the top of the open toolbox, grabbing the first thing he felt. A stanley knife. Gulping you kept your eyes on his hand watching his every movement, knowing that only a few hours ago you had put a fresh blade in it.

The moment the blade was pressed against the skin you flinched at the coldness of the metal. Hissing when he slowly dragged the knife across your cheek. Your hands were shaking as you willed your body to move, but it wasn’t responding, you were frozen with fear. The tears that had rolled down your cheeks mixed with the blood. You were scared for your life right now but finally your brain kicked into action. Bringing your knee up you made contact with his balls, causing him to double over in pain.

This gave you the opportunity to escape, you were not going to stick around to see what else the sick bastard had planned to do. Your face stung as the coldness and bitterness hit your cheek, but you couldn’t stop, you needed to get away from Ayden and the safest place was the roof.

The moment you reached the roof, you slumped down on the floor, pulling your knees up to your chest as the sobs racked your body. Taking a few breaths you pulled your phone out, trying to blink back tears as you managed to send a text to Jax, the text contained only four words but you know the moment he read “I fucking need you 😭” he would be straight on his bike.

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[cordria]

Twin Cores - DP

Saw this headcanon on Tumblr… awhile ago? It stuck with me, and I ended up writing this, and now I can’t find it to give the person proper credit. Lemme know if anyone recognizes this idea and knows who came up with it. (heart) 

Was gonna do this idea for the Big Bang thing, but I forgot all about signing up. ;) Wonders. So I’ll just post it and come up with new ideas.

~2,700 words. 

--

Danny floated high above the clouds, up where the air was thin and cold and the stars sparkled brightly overhead. It was terribly late, and Danny knew he’d be paying for this at school tomorrow, but this was always the best part of his week. He couldn’t come up here all the time, but when he cound, he always found himself relaxing. Hands behind his head, he floated on his back, studying the stars.

He let out a breath through his lips and brought a hand forwards to massage his chest, closing his eyes. Yesterday had not been good day. An accident with some of his parents’ technology had completely ruined his day. For reasons Danny didn’t understand, his chest had felt overly full since. Almost like he needed to cough up something - which couldn’t be, because his ghost form didn’t have any real lungs to cough with. 

With a groan, Danny stretched and rolled his body through a bunch of sharp loop-the-loops and twists, hoping maybe he could work out the kink. Nothing. Hopefully it wouldn’t prevent him from getting a good night’s rest. He was exhausted.

He floated for a few minutes longer, watching the sky and hoping for a meteor or two, slowly turning the overfull feeling over in his mind. He pushed and prodded at the odd sensation, trying to come up with what in the world it could be. 

It had to relate to his parents’ invention. Unfortunately, the day was a fuzzy blur in Danny’s memory and if something in particular had happened to him, he wouldn’t be able to remember it on his own. All he could do on his own was a vague understanding of what had happened.

Getting zapped with one of the newer devices yesterday had resulted in Danny getting split - again. His ghost half had fallen captive to the hero-like obsession of his core, and had gone on a hero-spree. A memory of rescuing a cat from a tree in a very overblown, comic-like way surfaced and Danny buried his face in his hands, embarrassed for himself. “Ugh, I hope nobody videoed that. Or anything else,” he muttered.

His human half had wandered aimlessly through the day, not knowing what to do with no driving force behind everything he did. Vague memories of eating pizza and not noticing the ghost haunting the place next door until Sam pointed it out filtered through the shadows. 

From what he remembered, it hadn’t been a horrible sort of day for either half of him. His ghost half had been allowed to play with his obsession all day and his human half had gotten to just be… human. But he’d been split for much longer than ever before; Tucker and Sam were unable to work through how the strange invention worked. 

Danny didn’t remember being much help with the endeavour. In fact, he sort of remembered his human half stealing the device, passing it to his ghost half, and the thing getting placed on top of the school for the afternoon. Jazz finally got it using some of the newer modifications to the Fenton’s vehicle that allowed it to fly. 

By the time the three of them figured out how to reverse the effects, it was late in the evening on the second day - more than 36 hours since being split. Phantom had started to turn more and more ghost, losing more of his humanity each hour, delving deeper and deeper into this hero obsession. His eyes had turned more ghostly, teeth sharpening, fingers turning into claws. Even a cape had started to mist into view.

Danny slowly ran his tongue over his teeth - they were still a bit too sharp - and pulled his hands far enough away from his face to glance at his fingers. They weren’t claws, not like many ghosts had, but… his fingers no longer really looked human. The changes that had happened to his ghost form the last two days appeared to be permanent, even now that they were rejoined back together.

Danny… didn’t want to think about that. Not yet.

And his human half had started to go through changes as well. Danny vaguely remembered - towards the end of the escapade, when he’d convinced himself that he didn’t want to be rejoined with Phantom - trying to avoid everyone and ending up in a tree, floating in a very inhuman way. His totally human form regaining some of its ghost powers.

Danny mentally poked at the odd, full sensation in his chest again. Perhaps it was that his ghost powers had grown while he was separated. Phantom hadn’t been exactly a half-a-ghost when they’d been slammed back together. And Danny had been just a bit of ghost too. Perhaps now he was somehow 60% ghost and 50% human… and his body was trying to adjust to being too much ghost. 

His mind poked at the sensation in his chest just a bit too hard. Danny slammed his eyes shut tight as he felt the sensation of transformation travel through him - lightning sharp and aching into his phantom bones. Panic set in a second later. He couldn’t transform up here - there wasn’t enough oxygen for his human form to breathe. He’d pass out and fall to his death. 

He gasped and threw his arms out, instinctively trying to grab something even though he was on the edge of the atmosphere, as the transformation arced through his arms and legs. He kept his eyes closed as he fumbled for his ghost side. He needed to transform back fast. His human side would already be aching to breathe, desperate for oxygen after the last hour of being in ghost form.

But his ghost side… was… 

Danny opened his eyes as he realized he wasn’t falling. As he realized his ghost form wasn’t something to grab for, because he was still a ghost.

“But…” he whispered, startled and confused. He’d felt himself transform. There was no mistaking the sensation that had swept through him. He looked around, almost as if the answer would be written in the air next to him.

Then the stars caught his gaze. He froze, mouth falling open, as he stared up at the sky. There were more stars than before, the whole sky alight with points of light. And he knew them - with each star he focused his eyes on, he knew what that star was. How far away it was, what it’s name was, what kind of star it was… 

Delight sparkled inside him as he let his gaze drift across the heavens. Stars he didn’t even know existed seemed to soak into his skin, whispering all their secrets in his ears. “How…?” he breathed, twisting around and around and looking everywhere he could. “Why?”

His gaze snagged on the moon, crescent-shaped and gleaming. He almost felt like he was drowning in it’s glow, feeling everything about it. The ice hiding in its craters. The human-built machinery peppering its surface. The soft warmth still coiling in its dying core. He could just… go there. He could be there in about three seconds. He could just…

He threw up a hand, blocking the moon’s glow, blinking hard and pushing the thoughts out of his mind. “Holy shit,” he whispered, breathing hard, focusing on Earth, on human thoughts, on normalcy. “What is this?”

Then he saw his hand, thin fingers topped with sharp claws, glove missing. His forehead furrowed as he realized both his gloves were gone, as was the logo on his chest, and the white belt around his waist. A black shirt and black pants. His boots looked like his normal shoes, just moon-lit white. Actually, minus the claws and some color changes, he looked… like he had yesterday. “Uh… What is going on with me?” 

He could feel the pull of the stars overhead. He knew he could just lean back, put his arms behind his head, and float there, watching the sky forever. Just revel in space for all time. Instead, he kept his gaze down towards the tops of the clouds. 

At least the first step of what he should do now was clear. Whenever he was dealing with anything out of the ordinary, Sam and Tucker knew what to say. They’d help. He’d go home, grab his phone, and call them. 

Danny flew towards Amity Park-

-and suddenly drew to a stop. He twisted around, eyes wide, realizing that he’d somehow overshot his home by a dozen miles or more. “What the fuck?” he said. He’d only been flying for a moment - how was he all the way over here? “I…”

He licked his lips and tried again. He set his gaze on Amity Park and flew-

-right past Amity Park again. It was an eyeblink of time between one side of the city and the other. Danny hung in the air, confused and slightly annoyed. “What is going on?” he said. A new power, obviously - but one that had unfortunate timing. His fingers curled, the claws digging uncomfortably into his palms. “This is what I get for leaving my phone behind,” he groused. The phone wouldn’t have done well in the thin, cold atmosphere. Even if he’d have brought it with, there was no guarantee it would have still been working. 

“Are all my powers wonky?” Danny asked, raising his hand and pushing energy into his hand. Instead of a steady, gas-like glow, the energy sparkled and hissed, like he was holding onto an exploding firework. “Odd.”

His powers were working differently, so it was time to try using them differently. Time to change tactics. Instead of focusing on a direction, Danny focused his mind on a destination. He closed his eyes, picturing where exactly he wanted to end up. Opening his eyes and taking a deep breath, he tried to fly as slowly as possible.

The world seemed to blur and twist, glowing uncomfortably bright for the fraction of a second Danny allowed himself to be in motion. When the world settled back into place, Danny found himself hovering about ten feet off the ground, within the city of Amiry Park, only about a half-mile from his house. “That worked a lot better,” he said, rather pleased with himself.

Instead of chancing another attempt at flying, Danny figured he’d turn himself human. A ten foot drop wouldn’t be too bad, and he could walk home. It would be the least-tricky way to get home. He took a moment to worry that this new power would prevent him from turning human as easily as normal, but then slammed that idea shut and closed his eyes. 

Danny pushed his ghost form away, pulling at that warm and heavy feeling in his mind. There was a sparkling sensation in his mind, then the sharp pain that came with turning himself human again. He dropped, landing lightly on his toes, breathing a heavy sigh of relief that at least this was still normal. He bounced a few times, testing out a few basic powers - invisibility seemed to work like normal, as did phasing through things. He didn’t try floating, for fear of accidentally ending up two towns over and two hundred feet above the ground in human form.

He walked home, rubbing his chest at that strange, too-full sensation, and snuck in the back door. Despite the fact that all the lights were out, he kept himself invisible to avoid his parents. It was so far past curfew that Danny didn’t even want to think about the trouble he’d be in if they realized he was still out. 

His bedroom door was still locked. Danny phased through it, flipped on the lights, and dumped himself into his bed. “Ugh,” he groaned, feeling the drain of the last two days on his body. He glanced over at the clock. Just before two in the morning. Part of him wanted to just curl up in his bed and fall asleep, try to get a few hours of sleep before tackling school tomorrow. But too much of him had a tight ball of anxious curiosity.

He groaned as he rolled out of bed and stepped in front of his mirror. He looked awful. Dark rings under his eyes and a horrible, pale tone to his skin. He looked half dead. “On the positive side, nobody will question it if I want to stay home sick tomorrow,” he muttered. He shuddered and shifted his weight, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then triggered the transformation.

His ghost form spread like lightning across his skin, slammed through his head, and settled into his chest like a cold ball of fire. He squeaked one eye open just a touch, not sure of what he was going to see. 

Phantom was peering back at him. Danny relaxed, letting his eyes open, and studied himself. From more than a few feet away, he looked absolutely normal. But up close, there were minor changes from the last few days. Teeth that were too pointy. Fingers that were a little more claw-like than normal. Hair that was more… smokey. Just a little. His mouth twisted, unsure of how he felt about the changes. “At least there’s no cape,” he murmured. “I’d look too much like Vlad with a cape.”

He squared his shoulders, set his teeth, and tried flying. He floated up and moved around his bedroom like normal. “So normal.” He caught sight of his claws and shivered. “Mostly.”

“Now…” He took a deep breath and jabbed hard at the over-full feeling in his chest. He was half-hoping nothing would happen. But light sparkled along his body, that tingling almost-painful sensation changing him in very subtle ways. His clothes changed from a jumpsuit to shirt and pants, his shoes looked like they would squeak on the floor as he walked. He was still glowing and transparent. “I’m… a different ghost?” He spread out his arms, feet firmly on the floor afraid to hover. “And I have like… superspeed.”

He took a very careful step forwards, peering closely at himself in the mirror. His eyes looked the same, with the normal green glow. His teeth were sharper, canines almost like little fangs. And… he leaned in, studying his freckles. They glowed, star-like, forming constellations across his skin. 

His mind veered off tangent, remembering the stars overhead, the glittering facts that swirled through his mind, the odd bubbling joy that came with even thinking about space. The freckles on his cheeks rearranged themselves into the constellation Draco, and sparks and speckles swirled into life across his clothes. A supernova that resolved itself into the stars overhead. Danny could trace the stars in his clothes, knew everything about each star. He was caught by the strongest urge to fly there. To zip through space to Alrakis, a binary star system eighty-eight light years away. It would only take him 221 years, 5 months, and 3 days…

Danny jerked himself out of his thoughts. He couldn’t fly for over two hundred years. He shuddered and blinked, settling back on his heels. The glowing freckles on his face settled down, his clothes faded back to black. The familiar sort of pitch-black of space. The sort of black Danny imagined the universe looked like before stars existed. “I have space powers now,” Danny realized, his voice slow and excited. “I have space powers! I’m a space ghost!”

Curious, Danny poked at that over-full feeling in his chest again. The world tingled and flashed, and he was back to his old self. Phantom, with the logo and the better posture and the weight of the world resting on his shoulders. “I’m two ghosts, somehow? Two ghosts… and a human...” Danny stared at himself in the mirror. “Or...” he rested his hand on his chest, feeling that strange overly-full feeling. “Or something…?”

Danny shook his head, not sure where to even begin processing that one. Then he turned himself human again, watching the world get dark as the ghost energy faded away. He scratched at his scalp, trundled over to his bed, and dropped into its softness. 

There wasn’t much he knew right then. The first was that space powers were the coolest power he could have gotten. And the second was that all this would be easier to process after a few hours of sleep and a large cup of caffeine. 

[s0lar-ch3ri]

game theory time! game 1: doors (tw:dr#gs and spoilers)

alright, i mentioned doing this in the past and ill keep my word. ill start off with doors because yes lets get into itttttt!!!!!

ok, so if you dont know about doors, its a very interesting horror game involving doors! some rooms have keys you have to find, some have puzzles, and some if you arent careful lead to death, yay! its very well made and isnt like those trashy horror games you see like those escape obbies with jumpscares. the game can be played with a group of 4 in a public server, but 20 max if a private server. you can go alone though. in doors, theres several entities that try to kill you in cold blood. some are guaranteed to come due to assigned rooms, others come for sure because theyre too common to not happen once, and some are rare to get. theres also several supplies you can buy or find to help you such as: the lighter, flashlight, pills, band aids (can only be found), batteries (for the flashlight, can only be found), lock pick, room key (cant be bought), painting (found in puzzle rooms), library books (found in room 50), code for the door (found in room 50), and the electrical room key (found at door 100). i have theories on literally everything so no more talking! remember the entities i mentioned? lets get into the most common one, rush. how to tell if rush is quite easy: flickering lights, 2+ closets in the room, hearing lights breaking far away or noises running at you. being able to hear him gives you a chance to survive. while in certain rooms hiding a certain way helps you survive still, hiding under a bed or in a closet is the most secure (yes, theres a challenge to not use closets or beds in doors, and yes it can be done with a bit of luck). needless to say, its quite easy to survive rush. speaking of closets... hide! hide hangs out in closets and is a way to not allow people to camp closets. stay in the closet too long (or under the bed) and you get text on your screen. dont listen to the text, and you'll be pushed out and lose some health (hide is not at door 50 or 100, so no need to worry about him there). however, hide is very bitchy at... ambush! ambush is like the brother of rush, but ambush is 6x faster and comes back. he'll run back into the room 2-6 times (dont be scared by this! i mean once he runs in, second he goes out!). this does mean staying in closets the whole time is how to live, right? wrong! after hide pushes you out, theres a timer to go back in. to survive, go in when hes there, wait to see if he rebounds (you'll still hear him if hes going to), and go back in if you hear him coming back. i forgot to mention: the only difference in looking for if ambush is coming or rush is the noises (their noises are very different btw). ambush is very rare to get early game, and most likely will come around rooms 70-90. on the topic of rare monsters to get in runs... halt! halt is very rare but you'll be able to tell from the room before. the lights will flicker, but rush or ambush wont come. when you enter the next door then, you'll be transported to halts hallway. ill be honest, when i played at first, i couldnt survive him, it was just too hard. however, i learned how. while going forward, glitching effects will appear on your screen telling you to run away. afterwards, a ghost like figure starts coming closer. dont turn away from the ghost, but start walking backwards. when its gone, keep going forward. keep doing this until your out the hallway. thats really all i got on halt. another rare monster i can talk about is... jack! he has a chance of coming out of numberless doors or closets! he doesn't kill you at all, but he does jump scare you. in the next room, it'll look red and any windows would have blood red rain. it basically looks like a murder room.

im getting lazy so im just gonna do the rest in here. screech appears in the dark without any lights (it makes a noise to show a dark room), timothy can jump out at you whenever you open a drawer, guiding light happens in dark rooms if it thinks you need help, figure happens in room 50 and 100, shadow is very rare and doesnt do shit, window can be found in the lobby and sometimes if you look at the windows quick enough, glitch happens if you glitch out, eyes takes your health if you look at it, and seek has fire music and chases you at a random door between 35-40. so whats the theory? i wont get big into in on this post but ill reblog when i feel it and shit. the pills i mentioned? they're drugs, and the monsters arent actually real or theyre people who are hiding out in this abandoned hotel. no regular pills make you speedy like how the pills do, and it just can kinda make sense with all the crazy shit. anyways bye ill reblog laterrrrr

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

This is my honest opinion about the future of abortion rights in the United States: when the Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will announce a bill to protect the right to an abortion, and it will FAIL SPECTACULARLY, going down in flames! It'll pass the House by a razor thin margin, but it'll be rejected by the Senate. It will die in committee, or it will be tabled (in most countries tabling a bill means to push it forward, but in the US it means the exact opposite, it means to postpone it indefinitely, and it only takes one senator objection to table it), or Schumer will put it up to a vote and let it die on the floor without 60 yeas. There will be half-hearted talks about maybe nuking the filibuster, but it'll never go through; the Democrats don't have 50 votes for it. Joe Manchin will NEVER nuke the fillibuster; he won't come right out and say he supports an abortion ban, he'll say "we don't want to be too hasty, we don't want to retaliate tit for tat on every issue, banning and unbanning and rebanning based on political ideology instead of the constitution. I'm not gonna blindly vote one way or the other, I want to see a comprehensive bipartisan bill, and then I'll make my decision," which is kinda like asking to see a leprechaun blowing a unicorn. The Democrats will run on a midterm platform of abortion rights, and Joe Manchin will let all the wind out of their sails, sabotaging the entire party by refusing to commit to anything Schumer or Pelosi or Biden want to do, and they'll let him because they don't want to hurt his feelings and push him to become an Independent and caucus with the Republicans. The Democrats have power now, and are blowing it, and they think that they're gonna be rewarded with more power come November?!? Oh, I have no doubt that the base will be energized, but it's gonna be focused almost entirely in safe states where they already hold majorities because of Republican fuckery with the election maps and voting rights; the Democrats will win the nationwide popular vote, I guarantee it, but they will lose seats and the media will blame them for it for being "too radical." And even though the Republicans are the ones causing the problem, they will make huge gains because they are seen as more conpetent and unified than the Democrats; Republicans in power give Republicans what they want, but Democrats think their voters are babies who don't know what they want and have to be spoonfed the same decades old neoliberal bullshit because the party leaders don't want to shift one fucking nanometer back to the left. Abortion rights will evaporate this summer, and then we all get to grit our teeth and clench our fists until our knuckles turn white in the hopes that the midterms don't fuck us even more; best case scenario, the status quo is maintained, Democrats hold congress and continue to do nothing because a handful of conservatives among them want a compromise where none exists. More likely, the Democrats lose one or both houses of congress and then Biden becomes a lame duck whose only job is to veto Republican bills (and he'll never seat another judge for the rest of his term; McConnell will hold every single nomination hostage again, just like he did to Obama, and Biden will either not be allowed to make recess appointments or he will choose not to because he doesn't want to set the precedent that the president can put people on the bench without Senate approval, even temporarily, though we all know Republicans will have no such qualms should the tides ever turn against them like this).

We are witnessing a tragedy in slow motion. The ship hit an iceberg years ago, and the qater has been rising this whole time, but everyone in power has to pretend like everything is okay because they don't want passengers to freak out yet.

[godofsexdrugsandrocknroll]

Jaune’s Father: “Walk the walk Jaune and talking the talk will come natural”

Jaune: *Stunned by Pyrrha kissing him*

Pyrrha: *About to shove Jaune in the rocket locker*

Jaune: *Feels Pyrrha’s hands on his chest, misinterprets and shoves his tongue down Pyrrha’s throat*

Pyrrha: *Eyes open in shock* MMMMPPPHHH!!!!! *Flustered by her naughtiest dreams coming true*

Jaune: *Enjoying the kiss, grabs and squeezes Pyrrha’s asscheeks*

Pyrrha: *Squeals, tries to push Jaune off*

Jaune: *Thinking Pyrrha’s about to push him into the locker and run off to die, panics*

Pyrrha: *Pyrrha’s brain shuts down as Jaune’s thigh rubs against her core, loses the ability to stand upright*

Jaune: *Spins, pushes a dazed Pyrrha in the locker and sets it off*

Pyrrha: *Already three hundred feet from Jaune* W-what, no! No! NOOOO!!! *Incredibly angry* Gosh flipping darnit girl, you l-let him get you all riled up and now he’s going to get himself killed!

----------------- 

Jaune: *In an elevator* This is officially the stupidest idea you’ve ever had! Even worse than the stuff with Cardin, worse than the Deathstalker, worse than the time you took the blame for Coral breaking the window and somehow, someway, worse than the time you let Saphron put you in a dress, do your makeup and practice kissing a ‘girl’!

Elevator: *Shakes ominously*

Jaune: *Pale* I mean you just had your first real kiss with a girl, you felt her ass up and holy gods does Pyrrha have a nice, tight, big one, you’re still hard as diamonds and instead of running from the school that literally had a hole burnt through it by some kind of fucking firebreathing Grimm abomination, you go in! *Elevator goes into freefall*

Elevator: *Jaune’s screams replace screeching metal, crashes*

Jaune: *Climbs out, unharmed but aura has shattered* There’s got to be a limit, Jaune! Sure I turned Pyrrha to putty in my hands but that should not translate into running headfirst into certain death! Stupid Dad and his stupid advice! *Is hit in the head by a cane* Fucking ow! What the shit!?

*Witnesses Ozpin firing a gout of emerald fire that clashes with two huge streams of fire from the hot Haven girls hands*

Jaune: Oh what the fuck. And here I thought walking the walk was gonna be cool. Stupid Pyrrha. *Ducks underneath a scintillating jade orb thrown by Ozpin which vaporizes the elevator leaving nothing behind, in a falsetto* ‘Oh I’ll just kiss him and he’ll be so surprised and then I’ll shove him in a locker and go do something that’ll probably get myself killed. Teehee!’ *Breathes out* Not that I’m doing any better. The hot but apparently crazy Haven chick can fucking fly and - is that a tornado, ohhhh I’m gonna die - and Ozpin’s...

*Sees Amber*

Jaune: Is going to go to prison because this is a sex dungeon. Okay, Okay, you’re cool. Sure it was unanimously decided Pyrrha was going into the singles portion of the tournament and you nearly broke your neck twice getting down here, but something tells me sad Pyrrha has something to do with this. *Pauses* Which makes me wanna punch Ozpin, but question the pedo headmaster after you help!

*Sees Ozpin get a glass spear through the left lung*

Jaune: *Quickly* Or not. Okay, she’s monologuing, that’s good. Sneak, sneak, sneak-sneak-sneak. Blah, blah, magic? Really lady? Add delusional on top of crazy. Just get in closer, give her a nice kick to the ass and Ozpin will use his weird green themed semblance to obliterate her. *Hears Pyrrha mentioned* Ignore the urge to kick the dying sicko in the nuts, just focus on hurting the crazy chick who was apparently gonna kill my sorta-kinda-maybe girlfriend. Just nice, slowly, easily, quietleee-- *trips over his shoelace* --EEEEEEYYYOOOOPPPP!!!

Cinder: *Coughs wetly, stares at the sword sticking through her chest* H-how...?

*Cinder falls on top of Ozpin, her body crushed between the Headmasters and the shellshocked Jaune’s*

Ozpin: *Confused and dying* Mr. Arc?

Jaune: *High pitched* IswearIonlymeanttokickherintheasssoyoucouldfinishhereoff!

Ozpin: *Coughs* I believe you. Unfortunately it was not to be. You pierced her straight through the heart.

Jaune: I didn’t mean to?

Ozpin: And in doing so you’ve saved miss Nikos from a terribly cruel fate.

Jaune: Oh. That’s good. I’m pretty sure that if she hadn’t tried to shove me in that stupid rocket locker there’s at least a 50% chance Pyrrha would’ve jumped my bones, Grimm invasion or not.

Ozpin: *Groans in dismay* Only to quite possibly doom yourself to one.

Jaune: *Suddenly at full attention* You say what now?

Ozpin: You’ve stabbed me as well. *Sees Jaune about to speak* You’ve stabbed my other lung, young man.

Jaune: I-I’m sorry?

Ozpin: Not yet you aren’t. Usually when I reincarnate it’s some unlucky, random bastard. But you’ve imprinted on me.

Jaune: What.

Ozpin: I’m an immortal wizard who, when he dies, his soul and consciousness along with all his memories are transferred into a new man’s preexisting body.

Jaune: *Panicking* I don’t want you in my head, headmaster! On the off chance you’re not just a nasty pedophile, I really don’t want you in my head! I don’t think you wanna be there either! *Ozpin doesn’t respond* Professor? *Still nothing* Headmaster! *Ozpin is dead, Jaune* Ozpin you old fuck, don’t you dare, I don’t wanna hear your voice when I’m deep dicking my hot redheaded partner!

Ozpin: *Body explodes into green motes of light which Jaune inhales*

Jaune: AAAHHH, I DON’T CONSET, I DON’T CONSENT!

----------------- 

Pyrrha: *Bringing dat ass back, clapping his groin* Oh Jaune, oh gods yes I love it, I love your cock so-s-s-so much! *Twists and twirls her booty on his cock* Oh f-fuck, I’m gonna cum agaaaaaiiinn!!

Jaune: *Going hard, closing in*

Pyrrha: Oh yes, please, harder, I’m gonna cum all over that delicious Arc meat again and o-o-oh shit, fuck yes Jaune, fill your slutty Nikos bitch up with your hot jizz!

Ozpin: *Mentally* She’d be cumming harder if you did what I suggested.

Jaune: *Mentally, trying to focus on Pyrrha’s voice and the image of her* Shut up. This is me time you parasite and I don’t care how long you’ve lived, I don’t need advice from the guy who’s ex is out to end the world.

Ozpin: *Mentally* I’m just saying, miss Nikos is a natural born sub. Placing your foot on her head and giving her what I’m telling you she absolutely wants by degrading her, lambasting her the way she does herself and I guarantee you the rewards will be worth it. I know you’ve been eying her anus for quite some time now, give her what she wants--

Jaune: *Mentally, pushes in deeper which makes Pyrrha wail* I knew I couldn’t trust you to shut up! ‘Oh no, the time you spend with miss Nikos will be your own, I’m just an old soul here to help you fight my batshit crazy ex’ and now you’re trying to live vicariously through me! *Eyes widen as Pyrrha spreads her cheeks, lying facefirst on the bed and moaning*

Ozpin: *Mentally, smugly* Oh of course. You certainly don’t want advice from a man who has slept with literally thousands of women. She’s cumming, by the way.

Pyrrha: Ooooohhhh gods, yesyesyesyesyesyesyes I’m fucking cummiiiiiinnnngggg!!!!!!!!! Fuck, fuck, fuuuu~uuuck you’re so fucking gooooood!!!!!

Jaune: *Cumming his brains out*

Ozpin: *Mentally* Good to see you plan on following my advice next round, Jaune. If you feel like paying me back, you could always just tell Pyrrha that you’ve gone through my memories and developed a taste for hardcore, mistress of pain BDSM.

Jaune: *Mentally, lying on Pyrrha’s pronebone body, still inside as they both recover* This is all Dad’s fault. No amount of badass magic is worth this.

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

I wanted one of these to have the advice backfire while still working and while I thought about it being an eventual Raven Jaune’s Father, I realized Pyrrha offered the best opportunity ever in the form of Ozpin, the unwanted and overly friendly brain ghost.

Hopefully any hardcore Arkos fans reading this don’t mind this one being the lewder, screwier one.

[thedeviljudges]

Do you think Yohan always planned to fake his death and join Elijah in Switzerland, or did he originally intend to really die with the rest of the 'villains'? Part of me thinks that would fit with his pre-Gaon conception of himself, as a monster, not deserving of love, not necessarily seeing a role for himself in Elijah's life beyond getting revenge for her/Isaac, and financing an opportunity to help her recovery. Or do you think regardless of that, he'd still never plan to leave her on her own?

i didn't mean to put off this ask for so long. i was busy, but i also wanted to wrap my thoughts around this before i tried answering. not bc i didn't have an answer to begin with but yohan and death is a subject i'd like to approach, but i'm not entirely sure how i'd like to make the analysis of it, and i'm not sure i ever will.

so that leaves me to answer it here in the best way i can because point blank: i do believe yohan intended to die by the end. i do think he had two plans in place since the beginning (dying or not dying and helping elijah), but of course, until that final moment, he wasn't ever going to know the truth. that end scene of him blowing up the court was a 50/50 shot. he had a plan to make it out, but it wasn't a guarantee.

but lets also back up a bit because before we get to that point, i think it's necessary to point out that the reason yohan gets away and does all of the shit that he does is because he knows that he might not make it out alive. it's why he's reckless. it's why he bends the law the way that he does. yohan's actions prove, over and over again, that he does not care for himself. he does not care to live except to protect elijah. there are so many small moments of this. we call yohan unhinged out of fun, but i think there is truth in it because i've mentioned this casually before (and part of my words above in terms of not necessarily knowing how to approach this just yet) is that yohan is almost...... suicidal himself.

he's reckless. he's said that he does not care about the actual law. his goal has always been getting revenge for his brother, especially for his niece who grew up without her parents. yohan never truly cared about the bigger picture until gaon came along. if we leave out gaon and think of the plot as such, yohan would've been able to prevail much quicker, i'd say. he had a plan and was going to follow through with it no matter what, regardless of the ending. and he knew going into it that there was a chance he wouldn't make it out alive.

which is why i think he partially also allowed elijah to blame him for her parent's death because if she hates him, it will be so much easier for her to forget him. she won't mourn him or miss him. she will be able to move on with her life and live it any which way she wants. but because yohan doesn't really understand kids, let alone elijah, what he fails to realize is that elijah doesn't actually hate her uncle. she's looking to get rid of all of the pent up hurt and frustration bc she never had an outlet to let all of that out. yohan fails to see that elijah cares for him and would miss him, to a degree, if he died.

so now, if we think of the plot with gaon, it twists everything on its head bc gaon has no need to be there within yohan's plans. yohan doesn't need gaon to do anything bc everything was already planned from the beginning. if anything, gaon came in and crashed some things, leaving yohan to pick up those pieces and continue pushing forward. biggest case in point, gaon's stubbornness and his arguments against yohan with the law and what he's doing.

see, gaon eventually comes to realize yohan's reasonings for doing what he's doing for his brother, but i feel like gaon thinks that even if that is part of yohan's plan involves revenge, how much does he think yohan is also doing this for the greater good and wanting to fix society? we know that yohan has no intention of that, but does gaon? and so no wonder gaon protests because if he thinks yohan is trying to fix a broken system (plus get revenge all in the same plot), no wonder gaon continues fighting yohan - he's under the belief that yohan is trying to make things better. but he's NOT.

which circles back to the idea that yohan had every intention of either making it out alive or dying. gaon opened his eyes that yes, maybe things could possibly be good. gaon made yohan question a lot of things along the way, especially his own humanness and realizing that he is worth something and not the monster he let himself believe he was, and what others told him he was. that wasn't part of the plan either, which is why it made it so much harder for yohan to go through with bombing the court because yohan's at a conflicting place of finally understanding gaon's hope but knowing that he only ever had revenge as an intent.

yohan's plan is derailed a bit by gaon being hope and introducing concepts yohan has lived without for so long. before then, yohan lived isolated with one clear goal in mind until gaon showed him he had a reason to live. i also said in another post that while gaon stopped yohan because he didn't want to see yohan going down a path he couldn't come back from, it was already too late at that point. yohan had already set his path long before gaon came into the picture and nothing he said or done would've changed that. but it DID given yohan more perspective and more heart, possibly being at peace even more so with dying knowing elijah would have gaon.

but instances within the show - of course, his two fake deaths. him steering gaon and himself off the road on the middle of the highway. him chasing after the minister's son. yohan asking soohyun to save gaon despite him literally bleeding out.

yohan does not care for himself. he does not care whether he lives or dies, as long as his plan is completed. we can talk til we're blue in the face about how yohan was wrong manipulating the law like he did and various other things, but the reason why? is because he did not care. and it wasn't because of him being a sociopath by any means. it was because he numbed his emotions, lied to himself, and used his love for his brother and elijah to propel him to a desired end with the possibility of his death involved. and quite frankly, that speaks volumes about who he is and just how much he actually cares, how much he actually has emotions.

yohan, to love his niece so much he decided to manipulate the law, to serve his own agenda and purposes for an outcome that wouldn't actually give them that much peace, but would at least position the country in a way they could grow and give elijah a life where she wouldn't have to grow up into that kind of destruction. this is why yohan "leaves" gaon behind and why gaon is the hope of the show because in going along with his plans, yohan realized that if gaon wasn't going to follow him through til the end, if he was going to do everything in his power to stop yohan, then the biggest apology yohan could give gaon was the world - the entire judicial system to make things right, to do better. that was yohan's gift to gaon and his apology because yohan had no intention of making it better. but maybe gaon could with him gone.

i've seen a few comments about how if yohan was someone in irl, we'd all steer clear of him, well, there's a lot of characters out there like that, but i wouldn't stay away from him for the reasons everyone typically lists (like the choking and manipulation) because they think he's that way just bc. yohan's actions mimic those of someone who simply doesn't care because they're depressed and not because they're psychotic. there is a DIFFERENCE. like yes, are some of his actions shitty? and his gaon right to mistrust the things he does sometimes, also yes.

but understand that there is a difference in people's behaviors depending on the underlying mental health issues involved. i don't fully believe yohan had any intent to hurt elijah or gaon maliciously. it's part of yohan being oblivious and not recognizing his own actions mixed with the entirety of his plans to be followed through til the very end. we've seen how oblivious yohan can be (the classroom bird story is a classic example; they all thought he was the devil when in reality, this kid only hurt the bird because it was scaring the girl he sat next to. logically, that mean eliminating the threat. he didn't purposefully kill the bird and enjoy it. it was a practical response within his own personal world).

i feel like i'm missing parts of this discussion, which is why i said this was a difficult topic for me to approach just to get all of my thoughts about it out there. and long story short to answer your question: i think yohan intended to die (just like he had a plan in case went to jail, for example). that possibility couldn't have been ruled out. but i think he had the plan to escape with elijah so that she could get better. either way, whatever happened happened, even if he died. elijah would be taken care of regardless.

gaon throws a wrench in his plans just a little bit, makes him realize his emotional capacities but gaon's not enough to stop yohan from seeing his plans out until the very end, even if that means losing gaon, too, because even if gaon has shown yohan that he is worthy of love and family and affection, it is not enough to forgive everything he's done, and he needs to make right what was wrong. yohan's death in that courtroom, if it had happened, wouldn't be the thing everyone needed to forgive him for his actions but it would be a start in eliminating himself as part of the problem.

another thing to keep in mind, is that we know yohan is not a sociopath, even if that's what everyone wanted us to believe. everyone thought he made sunah jump out the window, but what he was actually doing was protecting isaac and his mother's necklace. sunah made the choice all on her own, set up yohan and framed him despite yohan reaching out time and time again. isaac didn't even understand what had happened and focused on the fact that this girl jumped because of yohan without listening to the truth of it. yohan has always been shown to be fiercely loyal to the people he loves. he's never directly done anything bad (at least as a kid) unless he was provoked.

what people need to understand about yohan as a character is INTENTIONS. and i hope i'm making myself clear on this. everyone thinks he's born a devil, but that has never been the case. yohan's actions just come from a place from blind revenge. if he never needed to get revenge in the first place, if isaac was alive and well, would yohan make these same decisions? would he still be this kind of person who needed to use these methods to work around the law? i don't think so.

i think i remember getting an ask awhile back about whether yohan would eventually turn into who he is now had isaac lived because we see him livid and upset during that flashback to one of his earlier court cases (where we find he's ripping the paper with the pen) and whether or not isaac's death just fast forwarded the process. i don't feel like trying to go dig that post out, and i can't remember what i said on it either, but i feel yohan would have his family as a moral compass to keep him in line, and he wouldn't have succumbed to his present-day tactics. i think he could've worked his way up into the system and made real change. i think his heart could've been there all long, but again, was derailed by isaac's death and of course, plans changed.

this was a mouthful, and i hope what i'm saying makes sense because you can probably see what i mean about how difficult it is trying to organize my thoughts about this subject. but i am under the full belief that yohan had every intention of dying at the end or even before that. i think he's a depressed individual who learned to slowly open back up with gaon's help, but gaon is no doctor and no amount of his kindness would help someone that depressed either. it helped, certainly. but yohan saw himself as a monster/devil until the very end, and was more than willing to kill himself to make gaon and elijah's life so much easier. as penance. as justice. as love.

[coochiequeens]

Maybe if Mrs Fitch wants women to “have it all” and not choose abortion for careers she should focus on passing paid maternity leave for American mothers.

In September 2021, Mississippi's chief legal officer sat down for an interview with Pro-Life Weekly, a Catholic television programme featuring anti-abortion activists. 

Lynn Fitch looked how she almost always does during public appearances: dyed-blonde hair blow-dried straight and neat, tasteful jewellery and a monochrome suit, this time in powder blue. 

The attorney general was there to celebrate. The United States Supreme Court had just announced the date it would hear her state's challenge to Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that has, for the nearly 50 years since, served as a nationwide guarantee to abortion access. 

The case, Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, centres on a Mississippi law that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, even in cases of rape or incest. Under Ms Fitch's direction, the state asked the Supreme Court to uphold the law and slash the landmark Roe v Wade decision in the process. A ruling is expected this month. A leaked draft suggests it is likely that Mississippi's ban will be upheld, paving the way for other states to also outlaw abortion.

Ms Fitch - who declined to be interviewed - had argued that overturning Roe v Wade would be "game-changing", "uplifting" women by eliminating what she described as a false choice between family and career.

"Fifty years ago, for professional women, they wanted you to make a choice. Now you don't have to," she said on Pro-Life Weekly. "You have the option in life to really achieve your dreams, your goals, and you can have those beautiful children as well."

If she wins the case, and Roe v Wade falls, some 40 million women may lose access to abortion, pro-choice advocates warn. It could also make Ms Fitch, a single working parent of three, a Republican superstar and poster-child for her own argument: modern women don't need abortion to have it all.

Abortion was not always an animating theme of Ms Fitch's political career. When she first took public office, as Mississippi state treasurer in 2011, she pushed for legislation that would guarantee men and women were paid equally.

Her convictions were shaped in many ways by her upbringing, and especially her experiences as a single mother, says Hayes Dent, a long-time friend and colleague, who ran her first political campaign.

When Mr Dent first met Ms Fitch, she had just been named executive director of the Mississippi State Personnel Board, a state agency, by then-governor Haley Barbour. Mr Dent was immediately impressed.

"Having been around every major political figure in Mississippi for 40 years, I could just tell: she's going to run," Mr Dent said. "And when she pulls that trigger, she's going to be successful." 

It wasn't for another couple of years that she did, launching a campaign for state treasurer. 

Whens he launched her first political campaign, for state treasurer in 2011, "she was an underdog," said Austin Barbour, a national GOP strategist (no relation to former Governor Barbour). 

Mr Dent, who had kept tabs on Ms Fitch, reached out to her in the middle of that 2011 cycle and asked to come on board her campaign.

"I said 'Look, I think you can win this race,'" he recalled. 

She accepted, and the two ran an ambitious campaign, even driving the length of the state in a day, making a handful of different stops and placing fundraiser calls in the hours between. 

"Her attitude was 'what is the task at hand,'" Mr Dent said. "It'd be like 'Look, we've gotta go to the tobacco spitting festival.' And she'd do great! She wouldn't spit tobacco, but she was great."

The only reason Ms Fitch would turn down a campaign event was her kids, cutting out early to make a school basketball game or parent-teacher conference. 

She was a natural campaigner, but fundraising lagged, so Mr Dent asked her father for a personal donation. 

Bill Fitch still lived in Holly Springs, the small, rural town near the state's northern edge where Ms Fitch spent most of her childhood. 

Her father had inherited land on the historic Galena Plantation and used the sprawling 8,000-acre property to restore the family farm, turning it into a premier quail hunting destination. The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and Mississippi governors Barbour and Phil Bryant, became frequent guests. 

Visitors of Fitch Farms could elect to stay in the former home of Confederate general and first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest, which Mr Fitch had bought and transported onto the property. 

Ms Fitch has told local media of "special" childhood memories at her father's farm, riding horses and hunting quail. 

As a teenager, she was the "prototypical popular girl", Mr Dent said. "Leader, cheerleader, athletic, the whole nine yards," he said. 

She went to the University of Mississippi, joined a sorority and graduated with a degree in business administration and later in law. 

When Mr Dent drove to her father's farm to make his pitch for a campaign donation, he said: "I told him if I left there with a big cheque, she was going to win". 

She won, and then won again four years later, securing a second term as state treasurer. 

In this office, she targeted state debt, expanded access to financial education in the state, and advocated for equal pay laws (Mississippi remains the only state that does not ensure equal pay for equal work between men and women). 

Rifts split America's abortion 'ground zero' state

US Democrats' bid for federal abortion law fails

And she developed her knack for connecting to voters, leaning on both her Holly Springs upbringing and an apparent ease in the public eye. 

In interviews and campaign videos, Ms Fitch looks preternaturally poised. She makes easy eye contact, her speech slow and relaxed, often thanking God and her family for the opportunity to serve her state.

"Rural roots matter to voters in this state," said Mr Barbour, the Republican strategist. "And she's very likeable, she just is." 

Ms Fitch also helped bolster her conservative credentials with her support for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, leading Mississippi's Women for Trump coalition in 2016. When Mr Trump was in Jackson for a campaign rally, she sat in the front row. 

Two years later, Ms Fitch announced she would make a bid for Mississippi Attorney General - an office that had never been held by a woman.

But she wasn't the underdog, and glided to victory in November 2019 with nearly 60% of the vote on a promise to uphold "conservative values and principles".

As a devoted Republican in a solidly Republican state, where Ms Fitch stood on abortion was taken as given, even if she didn't run on it. 

Across the country, about 60% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to data from the Pew Research Centre. But among Mississippi Republicans, nearly 70% believe abortion should illegal in all or most cases. 

"You don't run in Mississippi, you don't run in rural conservative states and not want to see Roe v Wade overturned," said Mr Barbour, the Republican strategist. "It's just ingrained". 

The abortion ban before the Supreme Court was passed by Mississippi's state legislature in 2018, two years before Ms Fitch took office as Attorney General. The law, which bans abortions outright after 15 weeks, was immediately challenged in court on behalf of Jackson Women's Health Organization, Mississippi's last abortion clinic. 

A federal district court struck down the ban, saying it was unconstitutional, and that was upheld by a higher court in 2019. 

But in June 2020, five months into the job, Attorney General Fitch petitioned the US Supreme Court to review the 15-week ban. The court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, accepted and heard the case in December of last year. 

Now, she's known nationally as the lawyer expected to topple Roe v Wade. 

At times, Ms Fitch has said her state is merely making an argument for the rule of law: asking the Supreme Court to turn over abortion policymaking to the states. But more often, she says the case is about women's empowerment. 

Roe v Wade, she has said, made women believe they had to pick: family or career, not both. 

"The court in Roe pitted women against our children, and woman against woman," she wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. 

The choice is misleading and paternalistic, argued Ms Fitch. It's an position seemingly drawn from her own life: a single mother who has ascended to the highest levels of state office, while remaining devoted to her children and grandchildren. 

"Being a single mom has sort of dominated her thought process, and her life experience," Mr Dent said. "I think that's one of the reasons she feels so strongly about this". 

In a world without Roe v Wade, Ms Fitch said during a television interview last year, "babies will be saved" and mothers "get a chance to really redirect their lives. They have all these new and different opportunities that they didn't have 50 years ago".

Pro-choice activists have accused Ms Fitch of using feminist language to cover over an inherently anti-feminist policy.

Her arguments lean "heavily into false claims that they are 'empowering women'", said Dina Montemarano, research director for NARAL Pro-Choice America. This tactic, Ms Montemarano said, is often used by anti-abortion activists to assert control over women's bodies and violate their fundamental freedoms. 

In an opening brief submitted to the Supreme Court, Ms Fitch wrote of "sweeping policy advancements [which] now promote women's full pursuit of both career and family". 

But in a counter-argument submitted to the Supreme Court, 154 economists warned in a brief that this optimism was "premature and false". 

"Mississippi's celebration of parental leave policies is particularly bizarre, as the United States is one of only two countries without a national paid maternity leave policy," the economists wrote. 

Mississippi, specifically, has no state laws mandating paid family leave. It is the poorest state in the nation and has the highest rates of both infant mortalityand child poverty.

But if Roe is indeed thrown out, Ms Fitch will return to Mississippi a conservative hero. 

"I'm 99% sure she will run for attorney general again," Mr Dent said. "And based on how the last three years have gone, it's hard for me to imagine she'll have any Republican opposition this time". 

There are also early rumblings that she may one day run for governor. She has not yet commented on this speculation. 

If she wins, Ms Fitch would be the first female governor in Mississippi's history.

[lore-of-the-silvereyes-rwby]

Ironwood Summary

Here we are at last the final conclusion of this long character analysis series, for now. This is mostly going to be my own opinion of the character based on the research I did for the analysis. As well as some ideas of what may happen to the character in future volumes and overall standing of what the character was always meant to be and represent in the rwby narrative. Also keep in mind that this is only an analysis of Ironwood’s character pre Volume 8 so there won’t be any spoilers used in this analysis or summary

(Before we begin i want to thank @spacecapart for his art to be used in this summary as i feel this piece summarizes how i feel about Ironwood)

When I started researching and writing on July 31st 2020  for Ironwood and the months that followed I feel like I have gained a better understanding of what exactly Ironwood’s character was meant to be while making sure my overall opinion of him wasn’t biased but honest and neutral. 

For the most part Ironwood’s life was just sad because, well it was never really his to begin with, since he pretty much had no say in it. Based on what I saw and learned about him with the help of additional lore as well as the current story Ironwood was just a tool and a plot device in the narrative.

He started as a tool for Mantle(pre Atlas) which planted the seeds that made him this cold inhuman person that we see at present due to its old toxic ideologies of imperialism and militarism combined with a Nietzsche's philosophy that survives and thrives through Ironwood once he become a de facto king when Atlas became an official kingdom.

Then he became a tool for Oz to protect and safeguard the current status quo without benefiting from it. Though it was with good intentions Ironwood couldn’t help but feel insulted that he was being restricted and kept in check by someone who does not share his belief or ideals of what he considers right even though they weren't his beliefs or the best to begin with.

Finally after all was said and done he became a tool for the very enemy that he swore to fight and defend against. Due to his toxic upbringing in Atlas and his bitter resentment for Oz he tried to take matters in his own hands only for it to backfire immensely into the events that we see in the show. As I Stated in “The Hero that was never meant to be” Ironwood was more or less the most prominent catalyst for all of the events and conflicts in the show that Salem took advantage of and prospered from simply due to Ironwood’s elitist and violent mindset.

All of this just contributes to Ironwood being a plot device since that he’s essentially just a philosophical mouthpiece for Atlas as the show has somewhat made it clear that he is basically the physical embodiment of Atlas if it were a person with both a voice and need to survive. Which wouldn’t be so bad if Atlas wasn’t the Remnant equivalent of a fasciest imperialist dystopia. Most of Ironwood’s character flaws mostly stem from the fact that his is simply the product of his origins and refusing to change or find a compromise for the better.

Another thing that I believe should be taken into consideration is his overall effect in the plot. Added by how the narrative has been structured with its main conflict I think it's safe to assume that no matter what, Ironwood was always a character that was set to fail ever since his introduction. This is mostly due to the fact that most if not all of his power comes from control and authority over others. As well as his lack of actual experience when it comes to war and conflict. 

As I stated in I am power with my own estimate of Ironwood’s age(47-50) based on his rank’s promotion requirements he has at least 30 years of experience from both his huntsmen and military career: 34 if we were to count his academy days of training. Now you're probably asking; “If he has that many years of experience in his career, then why are you saying he has none?” Well it is quite simple based on 2 factors; his professions and the time that he was born in.

At present he is both Headmaster of Atlas academy and the Atlas equivalent of the joint chiefs of staff of the Military. I think it's logical to assume that Ironwood gained the status of Headmaster first and General later due the needs of Oz. Given the importance of the relics hidden in the academies it would be a pragmatic choice for Oz to ensure that there was always a guardian and supervisor over the vaults as well as training the worlds next gen huntsmen(the agreed upon nuclear deterrent). 

Since his profession shifted from field combat to school administration upon becoming headmaster most if not all of Ironwood’s career from this point on saw very little combat opportunities and would soon be filled with politics once he became General further diminishing his combat skills. Also since Generals are the face of the military they mostly handle diplomatic and public affairs as well as deal with civilian contractors to ensure the military has the resources and gear needed to sustain itself.

This means that Ironwood went from fare soldier, to desk jockey, to financial benefactor throughout the entirety of his 30 year long career. But the two thirds of his later career  basically had no relevant or beneficial experience that would be suited for the war that he had been preparing a long time for. Ironwood’s lack of practical experience is also more damaging when you realize that the very little he did have also wouldn’t be of much help in the first place as well.

This is mostly due to the fact that Ironwood was born at the beginning of the high golden age of peace and prosperity for Mantle/Atlas and all of the concerning conflicts happening at least 5 years before the show’s start very late in his career at an estimated age of 45, with the white fang terrorists groups targeting SDC assets that he wanted for war. 

Also his career at that point most likely focused on policing and enforcing Atlasian laws rather than doing actual combat and even then he was trained to fight grimm instead of human combatants and even if he had to fight people they most likely are that of combat inexperienced and petty criminals that wouldn’t actually put up that much of a challenge and even then most of the fighting was done by disposable robots that he can command  with the press of a button.

Overall Ironwood was really unprepared to even fight anyone in general, let alone wage a war against Salem. Even if he had powered up that army to the maximum it really wouldn’t solve anything. Ever since the first episode of the series the message was clear; You're not going to win with just strength and power alone, but with acts of mercy and honesty. As well as just enjoying the simple things in life and just simply living life rather than just surviving. After all this time Ironwood forgot to live life and be satisfied with what he had. Because of this he’s just going to keep on pushing the limit until he loses everything that he has and drag everyone else with him. Simply because he wouldn’t admit to himself that he has no idea about what to do or accept that he wasn’t the most important piece on the board.

Which sadly brings me to the very likely truth that it is guaranteed that Ironwood’s part and time in the story is coming to an end and his death is drawing near. This has been foreshadowed in the beginning of volume 6 where the true plot and crisis of the story had basically made Atlas and by extension Ironwood irrelevant to the story when it's been made clear they can’t just simply kill Salem and win with brute force as he had hoped. Because of that Ironwood was no longer important to the story as they show and fandom have hyped him up to be. Even if he still had an actual role in the plot I’m afraid to say that Ironwood’s story (even if it wasn’t that much) has already been told and judging by the direction he is going by it’s only going to get worse for his character (moraly wise) to the point that his death may be a blessing in disguise for remnant.

To start we need to look at the essential core concepts that make up Ironwood’s character. If we remove all of his actions and focus on his archetypes we get a character that is A) Half robot, B) the de facto leader of an inefficient military(let's be honest it's just a glorified security force for rich douchebags.) C) A school principal and D) someone who essentially hails from what can be considered the most evil and inhuman kingdom of his world that values power and is placed into a story and conflict where none of those things even matter given what we know about the true stakes and consequences of the plot and this is essentially all that we even know about him in relation to the story.

Which brings me to this point that in my opinion he wasn’t much of a character to begin with. This is mostly due to the fact that we really don’t know anything about him besides the summarized 4 points from the last section. We don’t know anything about him like how he became involved in the plot, how old he is, when and what caused him to be a cyber, does he have anyone outside of work or any family that he cares about and more importantly why does he fight in the first place and what motivates him to do so and what does he hope to gain? These details to me are important as to give depth to a character as to better understand why they are the way they are. Otherwise they are either a philosophical mouthpiece or a living ideological caricature. As I stated before in Ironwood’s case he is just that for Atlas, just a simple tool that it can use for whatever it needs.

Which also brings up another subject towards his contributions to the plot; What exactly can he do and was he really even that important to begin with? As I stated before Ironwood really doesn’t have much to offer besides the Military which has been proven to be useless and unneeded. But if it was to be needed that doesn’t automatically mean Ironwood should be the one leading it. For example should he be removed from power and replaced and the heroes really need the military wouldn’t it be simple just to involve the new commander and chief or appoint someone they can trust to ally with them. So yeah the military part as well as the academy are what give an individual like Ironwood any relevance but that doesn't automatically mean they’re that important or crucial to begin with.

Simply put Ironwood has always been a character in the wrong genre. Had he been placed in any other circumstance he may have had a point and could have succeeded but in the case of his story he doesn’t have one. Ever since his debut he has always been this source of contradictions and antagonism and contrast when it comes to how the world and characters have been set. Due to this Ironwood has always been this source of escalation and conflict as he only follows his own beliefs and tries to force others to comply with them. As well as the truth that he really has no idea of what to do since he was never really prepared to handle anything like this and added by the fact that he won’t admit or consider the possibility that he is not that needed or important. If he continues on with this type of thinking it's only going to warrant his end as simply put by Oscar he really is just as dangerous as Salem.

Before I explain his overall purpose and status in the Narrative I want to go over several ideas for what may be next for Ironwood throughout the rest of the series which will be explained further by the reasoning I will use in the narrative part. 

Fate and status for Volume 8 and the rest of the series

Death

I think it's safe to say that Death flags have been hovering over Ironwood for a while or at least since Volume 7. But is it certain? Most likey. I say it’s near mostly due to my belief that his story has essentially been told and he really doesn’t have anything left to contribute to the plot at this point. The impact of his death whether it will leave a positive or negative impact remains uncertain. But the way of his death to me is certain; he’s going to die by the hands of another character(specifically a hero). I know most people would have hoped for a heroic sacrifice or a redemption by death but I don’t exactly see Ironwood doing such things. (Which I’ll explain in the next 2 bullet points)

If it hasn’t been made clear Ironwood has made more enemies than allies simply due to his inability to compromise or let go of his Atlasian ideals and ego. As well as his refusal to accept the fact that he really isn’t that important or necessary in this conflict or at least in the way he wanted to be. If he further descends into his own little world Ironwood is going to cause more problems and do more damage that can never be undone and the only way to stop it would be if he was out of the picture. Because of this Ironwood is likely to die in V8 or by the end of the Atlas arc but it is also possible that he may die at another point later in the series.

Redemption Arc

The chances for Ironwood’s redemption are slim but they’re there, but probably not in the usual way that everyone expects to happen. To help clarify the possibility of redemption we will be using the trifecta structure of redemption arcs. This includes; How the character sees himself, how they see the world, and the stakes and how they change over time. As well as the Scale and Values of his motivation. To help better understand let us take a look at Ironwood’s motivations and goals from V2 and how they contrast and differ from V7 Ironwood.

Volume 2 Ironwood’s motivations upon first glance are simple; stop the threat and ensure stability and security. However if you watch closely there is an ulterior motive. From this we can determine the true Values of his goals and the Scale of what he is willing to do to achieve them and they go as such;

His values as of V2 are security via large Military foundations and amassing complete control and influence over forign nations while promoting the agendas of Atlas imperialism.(similar to the Galactic empire in its early years from Star Wars) With the scale showing that he is willing to go to such lengths as propaganda and political manipulation and betraying allies to get what he wants(the greatest example of this being subverting control from Ozpin)

From this we know that Ironwood sees himself as this perfect savior that can do no wrong and should be the one in charge. While his views of the world being that everything is below him unless they match those of Atlas. With the stakes at the time being the possibility of losing imperial expansion and the threat of domination from a superior force that could shatter the foundations of his ideology and culture. 

While Volume 7 Ironwood’s motivations being; whatever it takes to preserve his perfect and ideal society even if it means sacrificing everything else before his valued culture is destroyed.

The values of this Ironwood definitely differ from previous versions of the character. As V7 Ironwood’s motivations have shifted from saving lives and defending them from Salem to preserving the very little bastion of control and authority that he has over Atlas. With the scale showing that he is willing to turn on allies and go as far as to abandon a whole heavily populated city and potentially the rest of the world in order to preserve the one thing that he has complete and unconditional control over.

Because of this a lot of Ironwood’s views have changed by the end of V7. 

Due to his streak of recent failures his views of himself changed from being the perfect leader that he thought he was, to accepting reality that he isn’t said leader and is prone to failure. However because of that thinking he no longer feels that he should hold himself to that set standard anymore and do what he thinks is needed to get his desired results. Which leads to the fact that he still views himself as the one that should be in charge but this time he does not feel compelled to be fair or considerate of either allies or people.

His views of the world really haven’t changed as much. He is just more honest, open and direct about his views by V7’s end where it's pretty clear that he values his military industrial complex that is Atlas over people's lives regardless of their affiliation.(It should be noted that Mantle is still apart of the Kingdom of Atlas as a whole so consider the fact that he is abandoning the part of it he deems is an acceptable loss without even trying to save it)

But the greatest and significant of changes for Ironwood in the plot are the stakes. Prior to being told the truth about Salem’s immortality he honestly thought that he could win and kill her and be free to pursue whatever task he could set his mind to now that she was gone. After being told and with the clear indication that his power(Atlas) was at risk he essentially is doing what raven did; cut his losses and settle with what he has and run. As such the stakes for Ironwood at this point are to preserve the very little power and control that he has currently at his disposal and sacrifice and do whatever he can’t to maintain it even if it means letting the rest of the world die or be under Salem's control.

This is just speculation but Ironwood’s chances for redemption are pretty slim but not impossible. But the key start and major factors to make that redemption possible is for him to yield power and let go of Atlas. As I stated before, Ironwood relies heavily on his control over Atlas as he believes it to be the only means to maintain and sustain a war as well as the only way of  enforcing his authority. To reiterate Ironwood true power and relevance to the story is his complete and unchallenged command over the Kingdom of Atlas and at the risk of sounding cliche; “All who obtain power are afraid to lose it even a hero” If there is to be any hope of defeating Salem and or maintaining peace in Remnant it can not happen with Ironwood being in power. Which may be more difficult than it seems which leads us to the possibility that he may not be redeemed and should he live past the Salem conflict with this type of thinking.

A New Enemy

For a character to be redeemed the character needs to want change for better but given his personality and recent events Ironwood at this point doesn’t feel or believe that he should change as he now has an ends justify the means mentality with the belief that he is this grand savior believing his way is the only way. Because of this it is very likely that he may stay an antagonist throughout the remainder of the series and possibly long after the main conflict.

The Third Faction; Okay I think it's a safe bet to say that no matter what Atlas was always going to be an antagonistic force that was being set up as early as V1. And unfortunately for Ironwood he ended up being the face and voice of said force that was there before he was ever given a name or a design.

Because of this setup it is possible that Atlas under Ironwood will become its own faction that may try to counter salem but at the same time will possibly sabotage the allies aka the main heroes and the rest of remnant since Ironwood’s paranoia has increased to the point that he doesn’t trust anyone anymore and most likely will reject any offer of aid or promise of an alliance  since Ironwood believes his in own hype that much that he will eventually become a problem that has to be stopped which will possibly lead to the end of Atlas. Which brings us to what might happen to the character post Salem and Atlas.

Post Salem Insurgency; This is speculation but it's possible that after Salem is defeated and Atlas is destroyed he would continue to be a threat for the rest of Remnant as he will be forced to answer for war crimes and step down from power with the possibility that he may never obtain it again. 

Given what we know of his personality Ironwood isn’t the type of guy to yield power or think he did anything wrong due to his ends justify the means montra. As such in the years following Salem's defeat and the possibility that Atlas may no longer exist or at the very least no longer subservient to Ironwood’s authority its most likely that he might end up in charge of a paramilitary consisting of the very few soldiers that are still loyal to him and start raiding and terrorizing settlements, cities and kingdoms all over remnant just to rebuild his military complex and infrastructure as a means to reclaim the status and power that he was stripped up.

How and why any of this would happen if it ever does is debatable but should it come to be Ironwood is going to need to compensate in order to survive if he becomes a legitimate threat which brings us to a very likely scenario based on his original inspiration 

Full Cyber

Given what happened near the end of V7 and recent V8 concept renders combined with the Tin-man inspiration I do believe that there is a very likely scenario that Ironwood will be more machine than man at some point in the series assuming he doesn’t die yet. This is pretty much a given scenario due to his favoritism for machines than people and his new found ideology that humanity is weakness now it is very likely when given the chance that Ironwood will willingly become full cybernetic(Possibly to the point of just simply being a brain in a new metal body)

 While this isn’t exactly an ideal outcome for the character but at the same time this would actually make Ironwood a credible threat as he would now be able to enforce his authority on his own now without relying on others to do it for him. Based on the research from the I am power post Ironwood is relatively a very weak character in comparison to a majority of other characters that we have seen so far and this is especially true when compared to the villains and main heroes. One key aspect to remember is that Remnant didn’t need the military only Ironwood did because on his own he’s screwed no matter what the situation.

Ironwood relies to heavily on his Army as it is the only thing that gives him some ambiance of a fighting chance but ultimately he is very ill suited to lead and manage said army that when you think of it are possibly full of people that are probably more capable than him as well as able to back up and defend their position of power on their own. Whereas Ironwood can not if he were to be overthrown by the military. In other words a fully cyberized Ironwood would actually be beneficial for him as it would make him a formidable threat beyond just simply being the guy who has the world's only military. Depending on what kind of enhancements he can get he would at least be on par with characters like Ruby Qrow and Yang and at the very best on the level of pre maiden Penny. Because as he is right now Ironwood would surely die if he were to face any character that is not within his capabilities. But this is my theory and observations but until we see more Ironwood’s best bet is going full cyber.

Role in the narrative & what we can learn from Ironwood

To start I think it's pretty clear that Ironwood in narrative is just a foil for most of the characters in the show. Especially with greater comparisons and emphasis on these 3 characters; Ozpin Ruby & Salem. While at the same time he is also the character representation that embodies Atlas the most and as such much about what we know and learned about Atlas is mostly due to Ironwood’s actions as he is the culmination and development of Atlasian culture. Unfortunately though this as far as his character was ever going to go. Which makes it all the more tragic and sad when you think about the role that he was supposed to serve.

We will first be breaking down each Foil comparison between Ironwood and the 3 prominent characters to plot as to better under his place in the narrative.

Ozpin

Of all the characters that exist in the RWBY story I do believe that Ironwood tried to emulate and be his own version of Ozpin(or any past incarnation). However unlike Ozpin Ironwood is biased, lacks actual experience and above all takes shortcuts to get faster results at the expense of others. I know that this mostly stems from good intentions but what exactly qualifies Ironwood to even think that he should be the one in charge to handle this Salem conflict. This is one of the greatest problems that is addressed in the show about Ironwood. He really believes that it's his destiny to lead by replacing Ozpin and win.

 But I ask again; What exactly can Ironwood do that would qualify him to even be worthy to take up Ozpin’s task?

That's just it really, there is nothing about him to warrant such a thing. When it comes to the foils between the 2 it's about being this Big Good character that should lead and the themes of Grey morality that R.T. has tried to implement into the show. But when it comes down to it Ozpin is the true Big Good while Ironwood was simply a pretender. Ironwood has always been a narrowed focused character that cares about the conflict itself instead of the people that are caught in the crossfire. And unlike Ozpin who has based all of his decisions and plans from experience and human nature, Ironwood had based his for a need to simply be right and in control.

In short Ironwood had wanted to be the next Oz as he believed he was more suited to do what Ozpin couldn’t even though he lacked the skills, experience, and power to do so which brings us to the next foil. 

Ruby Rose

This might be stretching a bit but when it comes to the plot there is no greater foil between characters than who is the real hero of the story. In this case is the hero of the series Ironwood or Ruby? To help answer this inquiry we need to know what exactly a hero is. Webster's dictionary defines a hero as a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent, endowed with great strength or ability.

While other sources would say what qualifies  A hero can be as simple as a person that saves lives and stuff, but a hero can be anyone that does something they have fear of but are brave enough to still do something. Bravery is usually the biggest trait of any hero. This person has usually overcomes huge obstacles to survive or to rescue others.

A hero is selfless, a genuinely good person, and someone gets the undivided attention of all of us and causes change.

A hero takes action to help others at considerable risk to themselves, however, if that action also helps themselves, then they are not a hero because they are acting out of self-interest. Courage is admirable, but unless it involves risk or sacrifice in order to help others, then it isn't heroism.

So in short the true hero of the series is actually Ruby not Ironwood or any other character in the series. Not because she is one of the main characters or because this is a story from her perspective but because she has the ideal and pragmatic skills and abilities needed to handle the current situation of the plot as well as doing what Ironwood has failed to do himself confront fear and be brave. As I stated in paranoia over reason most if not all of his choices have been based on fear rather than actual logic, reason, or bravery. Which is further highlighted by facts discussed in I am power that Ironwood is really nothing without the military and doesn’t stand a chance on his own.  

This is indefinitely a stark contrast to ruby as she has proven since her introduction to be capable of handling the threat of Salem as she has the talents skills abilities power and above all the spark that inspires others that compels them to do great things for the right reasons which Ironwood failed to do as all of his action have had a certain goal that would only benefit a certain few with him being the one who would benefit the most. This is mostly due to how the 2 have responded and chose to handle the situation. 

When it comes down to it the main plot is defeating monsters that dominate the world who happen to have a leader controlling them. Remember the whole reason why Salem is even a credible threat is because she can control said monsters and the first premise before she came on screen for the first time was learning how to fight grimm. This is something that Ruby was training and preparing for since she was a kid with the added bonus of having the powers needed to handle the situation with ease while Ironwood has only been preparing for a war with other people rather than monsters and crush rebellions rather than being a guardian peacekeeper that Oz meant for him to be.

 Because of this Ironwood has contributed more to the problem more so than Ruby did as his actions were done in favor of Atlas and his own self interests were as Ruby makes honest mistakes out of ignorance and optimism. Which brings me to the next foil that Ironwood shares more qualities with than anyone else

Salem

I know I'm going to get a lot of heat for this but if you think about it Ironwood is basically a syfy dictator version of Salem’s fantasy dark lord. Face value it doesn’t seem likely but given what we know about their current lore, history, personally, and world building these two can be twins to some extent. The examples are as followed;

They’re both headstrong and blunt individuals who go too far in their endeavors when simple and easier solutions were present

They’re both isolated however Salem is isolated by circumstance and force while Ironwood is isolated by choice and paranoia which is ironically the results of their cold upbringing and history

They both lead organizations with questionable intentions that border on dark and immoral with goals that are based on self entitlement rather than rightfully justified or earned

And to top it off they essentially command armies of soulless killing machines

From these examples we have plenty of foils between the two with them being pride, isolation, tragedy, authority and probably the most important foil in regards to the plot War & Conflict. However when it comes down to it Ironwood is on the short end of these foils when compared to Salem. 

In terms of tragedy these two have let their past misfortunes dictate and influence their decisions resulting in a sense of entitlement that they have been wronged now the world has to compensate them for things to be right. For Salem she had a cruel upbringing for unknown reasons and life being unfairly cruel while Ironwood was lifely forced into servitude and was never really himself as he wanted to be. Salem’s tragedies are the result of grief and dealing with forces that she couldn’t comprehend. While Ironwood’s is the result of unchecked ambition and ignorance.

Similar to Oz, Salem has more experience being a leader that can exert their authority and will over others while Ironwood lacks the experience and therefore can’t do the same. The Grimm under Salem’s command are more of an oppressed hivemind that she leads with little to no resistance unlike her human subordinates. Thus Salem has more direct control and authority over those she commands and has the abilities necessary to keep them in line with her goals. While the people under Ironwood’s authority have a voice and mind of their own that don’t align with his ideas. Due to this he isn’t much of a respected leader as he thought he was. Because of this Ironwood is mostly kept in power by rules and regulations with everyone blindly following suit. 

 As for war Ironwood was without a doubt unprepared for it. This is mostly due to 4 reasons;

He had no idea of what he was doing

His opponents are of better a quality than anything he can make or round up

He was preparing for the wrong war that should never have come to pass.

He was to prideful and sure of himself that nothing can go wrong

When it comes to the 1st reason Ironwood was more or less a pseudo soldier in a time where militaries are pretty much obsolete. This is because militaries are used as power projection of a nation and convey the message to another nation to not cross them. Due to the timing there was no real reason or excuse to justify having a military during a point in time where people are more interested in developing a culture and living life rather than fighting in needless conflicts. As such there was no practical reason, competition, or threat to justify Ironwood’s demands for a large military when he came to power or ensure that it was of a better quality than whatever hypothetical enemy that he would face.

Salem on the other hand has had experience commanding armies before and probably has instigated several wars and conflicts prior to the founding of the current 4 kingdoms thus Salem would have at least accumulated centuries to millenniums of war experience that surpass Ironwood’s brief 30 years of service in the Atlas military. Given that Salem was already a crafty and manipulative person during a time when gods were still around, she most likely would have seen the mistakes and flaws that Ironwood has made and exploited them.

Leading into the 2nd reason Ironwood was pretty much in command of a terrible military. As stated in the 1st reason there was no real threat or competition that encouraged those in power besides Ironwood to remilterze. As well as the current military most likely being filled with people who don’t want to fight a war and most likely enlisted for economic reasons. Because of this and his paranoia Ironwood had to find a surrogate army to prepare for his war that in his mind could happen at any time. However this resulted in cheaply made Androids that can be assembled fast for quick deployment. Due to this Ironwood traded quality for quantity as not only was no one going to fight in his war but believed war was on its way soon. Out of misplaced desperation Ironwood hastily assembled a low quality army that never stood a chance.

In comparison to Salem’s main military force there aren’t that many differences. However the Grimm are slightly a better quality than what the Atlas military has to offer. This is mostly due to the fact that the Grimm are a semi sapient species that are capable of learning and adapting as well as possessing some level of self preservation with individual grimm being around longer than most of their kind becoming even more deadlier than them. While the androids that Atlas uses aren’t as they were made to be cheap and disposable and are mostly effective in large numbers. 

The 3rd reason for why Salem is doing well during this conflict with Ironwood is mostly due to the General preparing for the wrong type of war than the war that he is actually fighting in. After all is said and done Ironwood has solely been preparing for a war with other people rather than for monsters. This is because the Atlas military before Ironwood took charge wasn’t meant to fight a war. Not all militaries are formed or created to defend the people. Atlas is the type of military that serves only in favor of the best interest of the state of government rather than the people. 

Because of this Ironwood had spread misery and divided the people turning them into enemies. Salem would later take advantage of this division that Ironwood created as he was more focused preparing for war than managing the welfare of his citizens. This is speculation but most if not all of the weapons like penny and the Atlesian knights were solely made to fight human opponents as opposed to the grimm that Salem commanded. This is because Ironwood feared and distrusted people more than the monsters he fought.

The 4th and final reason why Ironwood never stood a chance is due to the fact that he believed in his own hype more than he should have. From key dialogues to certain character interactions and in universe lore Ironwood has always presented himself as this towering figure with unlimited power; A god among men so to speak. This shows us that ultimately Ironwood’s ego and pride have been inflated to the point that his overall common sense is non-existent. This is further explored and shown in the control tactics that he uses specifically these ones; Strength and Intimidation in Numbers; 

Some aggressors like to dominate a situation by having a number of associates or friends present to support their position. The superior numbers alone may constitute an intimidating presence. They can also back each other up and challenge an individual in turn during a proceeding. In addition, they may also put pressure on a person to make a decision before they're ready. At worst, the strength in numbers tactic may be used for direct or indirect bullying or harassment.

Ironwood's overall strategy is simply sowing fear and doubt into an enemy that he doesn’t understand with large and unnecessary shows of power wasting resources to cover a wide variety of unknown enemies that pose a threat to him regardless if they are with Salem or not. This is best seen with the thousands to millions of cheaply made androids that are only effective in large numbers and the one ship of the line that was too big to be suited for warfare as they function as more of a forward operating base with their great size giving them the intimidation factor without other supporting fleet vessels like frigates or corvettes.(FYI by my count from V6 ep13 there were at least 41 of those ships hovering above Atlas doing nothing)

This is even confirmed by Ironwood in V3 ep3 where he claims this to be the case with this line of dialogue; 

“The people of Vale needed someone to protect them, someone who would act. When they look to the sky and see my fleet, they feel safe, and our enemies will feel our strength.”

This sort of tactic would probably have been useful if it was applied in a conventional warfare plot with people being his opponent as this is a real life tactic used in militaries and the navy especially in the modern era. The problem however is that the plot isn’t about conventional warfare nor is it a battle between people but with monsters where these tactics are meaningless  to them. These tactics are ineffective when compared to Salem’s psychological hit & run terror tactic being used in a setting like RWBY’s are quite effective and more useful than anything Ironwood can come up with. Even though they rely on opportunity and time to become a practical threat the end result is a huge payoff to the one who applied them with that being Salem. 

To sum it up when it comes to the foils of war between these 2 characters all you really need is the right tactic, strategy or plan and everything falls into place regardless of whether you have an army or a handful of misfits all it takes is careful thought and patience something of which Ironwood has shown to be lacking.

In conclusion what we learn from these foils are Leadership, Heroism, and War and how no matter what Ironwood was always on the short end of these traits and was never going to reach his ideal scenario for each of these ideas as he had set high expectations that were well above his capabilities and now he’s paying the price.

The Atlas Meta Narrative’s influence on Ironwood

Based on my research and what I have stated before; the greatest source of Ironwood’s flaws and antagonism is largely due to the influences of his home kingdom; Atlas. 

Just like Ironwood Atlas is also a foil setting and culture to the other kingdoms and the rest of Remnant. The reasoning for this is best explored in the established lore and other expanded material. To help better understand, here is a brief summarized history and development of the Kingdom of Atlas;

Before Atlas came to be it first started as Mantle who began as a group of desperate people trying to survive. Taking advantage of the cold climate of Solitas they were safe from the Grimm and had an unknown amount of time to develop both their technology and culture without restraint or interference. Eventually this progress was stalled due to a Grimm incident in Mantle that forced the current leaders of the kingdom to make radical and unnecessary regulations that suppress basic human emotions and rights instead of putting the effort to protect the people. 

When the Great war started Mantle joined only to ensure that its like minded imperialist ally Mistral would supply them the resources needed to survive. Because of this and the extreme measures they enforced on their citizens to control them prior to the war Mantle was most likely considered the most evilest faction during the war. When the war came to an end with Mantle suffering an embarrassing defeat it led to an age of cultural segregation and discrimination upon Mantle in the post war era.

Following the war Mantle entered an age of isolation and economic depression due to distrust and suspicion from the other kingdoms as they would only view them as this inherently evil and tyrannical force that can’t be trusted. Because of this the lingering scar of the toxic ideology of pre-war Mantle survived and is echoed in its spiritual successor; Atlas where it continued what Mantle couldn’t survive and thrive under the same core ideology that they had 80 years ago when they were still Mantle with only minor changes made to prevent the other kingdoms to intervene and possibly destroy their so called perfect culture. 

After they lost a scar had remained and an echo was created that still lingers to the present. Due to cause and effect Atlas at its core was developed to be this amoral conservative xenophobic dystopia that was being led by corrupt individuals that were in pursuit of their own self-interests rather than serving their citizens and were kept in power by blind followers that couldn’t see their real intentions. As a result Atlas became a culture of exploitation, expansion, repression, and subjugation for the well being of the political entity that is the state at the expense of its people and others. 

In relation to Ironwood as I stated before is a byproduct of this system and is simply one of a long line of blind followers that eventually supplanted the leadership and chose to continue the machine that is Atlas and replaced cogs needed to keep it running as he was once forced to do throughout his life because he doesn’t know of anything else. 

Because of this upbringing and the history of his origins Ironwood was more or less viewed as indifferent in the eyes of his own people and evil in the eyes of others. Leading to a clash of beliefs within Ironwood that resulted in conflicts with others and the main meta narrative theme that we were meant to learn from him; The essence of Being.

The Essence of Being

Essence is defined as the core nature or most important qualities of a person or thing. Essentially the narrative lesson that we can learn from Ironwood is the age old lesson that has been echoed from R.T. longest running series but with a more individual focus. That's right, Ironwood's journey and arc in the story is an inverse and modification of the classic RVB question; “Do you ever wonder why we're Here.”

But in the case of Ironwood it's more focused on an individual person asking and the age old question of Why am I here and what is my purpose and how do they justify and understand it.

As I stated before Ironwood was simply the wrong character in a different genre from a writing and story perspective. But in universe from the perspective of Ironwood it's simply a matter of him asking; “Why am I alive and here, and why am I this instead of that in a world like this?” At some point everyone questions the reality and circumstances of their situation and it's probably common questioning on a world, setting, and reality like Remnant. For Ironwood it’s possible that he’s asked these questions more than anyone. As for the reasons why he would question his existence go as follow;

Why was I born in Atlas?

How do I prove I'm good when others think I’m evil by proxy? 

Why I’m I so weak when compared to more skilled & powerful people?

Why was I made to be reliant on others that can’t rely on themselves?

I’m I respected only for the rank or the man?

Does anyone really care about me or I’m I being used by sycophants?

Will anyone care when I’m gone?

Why won’t anyone give me a chance?

How do I justify and understand the reasons why I'm here?

Does any of this matter in the end?

The core of Ironwood’s journey, actions, motives, and story wasn’t about saving the world, the balance of grey morality of people, or even the preservation of a certain culture, but instead is about cementing a legacy to escape the harsh reality that everything we do will eventually be undone. It's such a freighting thing to fall but is even more freighting is to admit it

In a way Ironwood's story is somewhat relevant to this line from Monty Oum in regards to immortality; “The goal isn't to live on forever; it's to make something that does.” CRWBY has even stated that Ironwood is a forward thinking individual/ A dreamer if you would. Because of this Ironwood was more focused on where he was heading rather than focus on where he was and what he was doing Causing a lot of problems to happen and escalating events to the point that we see them in the shows present. This oversight and negligence is because he continued to believe that, like everything else in his life, it would be righted by the sheer force of his will.

But sadly he is just only one man put on the world for a brief moment of time that is rather minuscule and insignificant on a cosmic and meta level. Everything changes and legacies are either forgotten or are repeated. In the end time and death are the ultimate victors as they undo everything and the cycle repeats itself for better or worse and individuals like Ironwood are just caught in the middle repeating and doing the same thing that has probably already happened and will probably happen again. All it takes is just a matter of time.

My Thoughts and conclusion

For the most part I was pretty much cautious when it came to the character and felt that he was more or less a side character trying to be a main one. The problem with that however in my thoughts is that well he doesn’t really have much to go on to warrant such a status. As well as how the plot has been structured Ironwood was never going to get what he wants. He may have had good intentions but at the end of the day he is only human with his own wants and needs.  

Overall I do feel that his part in the story is over. Mostly because he tried to take the lead of it. Meta understanding aside Ironwood’s time is coming to an end and I hate to say it but it probably would be for the best. Not just everyone else in the show but for himself as well. As I stated Ironwood’s life is Sad because well it never was really his to begin with. It's illogical because he was ill equipped to be a part of the setting that he was in. His death is more than guaranteed because he has nothing left to contribute to the story that can’t be done by anyone else. At this point with the overall message of death in the show it would be mercy and relief for Ironwood as Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you.

I still hold hope though as I’ve come to understand and see why people are fascinated by his character. But for that hope to be possible Ironwood has to let go of Atlas as it has been the main source of conflict between him and everyone else.

Well that's it I’m done for now as this is an analysis of Pre V8 Ironwood and maybe after V8 I may add more research of V8 Ironwood and see how much i got right in the initial analysis. After doing this I hope to do an analysis on Qrow Branwen and other RWBY characters hopefully in a much shorter amount of time as opposed to the months it took me to do Ironwood.(then again this was my first character analysis) Until then be on the lookout for additional bonus content for Ironwood such as;

Character comparisons from fiction

Character comparisons IRL

How you can fight & Kill Ironwood

A more indepth look of his new cybernetics

What Ironwood should have done

His relationship with other characters

The possibility of an Ironwood spin-off

That's all for now. Let me know what you think and thank you all who helped made this analysis possible.