#one of my fav dynamics actually it makes me fall to my knees every time

[lesbiradshaw]

when the taller one of the ship is actually the babier one. do you even get it.

[gummybearzgocrazyagain]

MALEC FIC REC POST, vol.3

vol. 1

vol.2 

Media AU

Society Rules by @Tiger_Tiger_Burning_Bright [it is apparently based on films i’ve never heard of - The Philadelphia Story / High Society - which does not make it any less entertaining. malec are childhood friends, who had a falling out 5 years ago, and now Magnus is back from London to interrupt Lightwood wedding, aka the social event of the season]

Making my way to you by @asharee_arie [woah, what was that??? is the correct answer “a perfect fanfic”?? what a muthafuckin delight, where has this gem been hiding this whole time??? i was on the floor, rolling around and squealing like a newborn piglet. Intended as some kind of Office AU, this piece does not necessarily follow the outline, but who cares, when the story, and characters, and author’s style are all that perf??? i am in luv]

Mistletoe and Margaritas by @nevermetawolf [this is legendary, and i mean, muthafuckin epic - Office AU so authentic you’d feel it in yo old bones... author calls it a crack fic, although it was anything but!!! major must read for those, who’s ever loved office, allllllll the kudos]

Once Upon a Time in the Clouds by @Fatale (femme) [one of my all-time fav authors, every time i come by a piece i have not read yet, is like a huge YAY, what a talent. so this piece is an AU of something called “sky high”, which i have no idea about, but luved it nevertheless, Alec is born to a family of Supers, and is going to school for children with superpowers, but he himself is yet to manifest any.]

Quite Magical by @lorenzobane [Hogwarts AU, and what an adorable thing it was! granted, i’ve never actually read any of HP books, this was such a delight though... alec is bad at potions, and magnus has to tutor him *wink*]

Chef AU

the way to a chef’s heart by @lecrit [okay, the GIANT SMILE one’s face acquires when one finds out there is a new lecrit fic ≧◠‿◠≦ ≧◠‿◠≦ ≧◠‿◠≦ was reading it, and legitimately squealing like a feral piglet all the way through, cause i fucking luv every single word this woman writes, is like a tiny endorphin explosions in my brain. i know am a hopeless fangirl, but i’ll die on this hill. the way she gets malec, and every variation of them in her works just makes me go (❁´◡`❁) every. single. time.]

kids in the kitchen by @perpetual_journey [cuteness personified, malec are both chefs, and magnus is a single father of max and rafe, and go and read ittttttttt, its that soft content we all need in our lives sometimes]

Knives at the Ready by @harrysglasses [restaurant AU, that is supposed to be a malec rendition of Burnt (am guessing it’s a movie...?), and what a sweet treat it was! i liked author’s style, this is the kind of smooth, unproblematic content one would require to take repose from all the heart-clenching longing i’ve been reading lately... delightful piece to ease thy soul]

Single Parent AU

I Knew From the First Time by @KlaineJane [emmm, excuse you, dear author, who gave you the right to use Rafe and Max to get to my heart, and be generally so fucking cute??? Alec is a single dad of both rascals, that has a meeting with the High Warlock of Brooklyn, and Chairman meets new friends]

And Then I Met You by @everydayfandom [malec are single parents of max and rafe respectively, and alec gets called in to school about the accident max was involved in...who doesn’t luv them some gud ol’ sweet piece of kidfic? those are like a soothing baths for your soul, and lightwood-bane kids are incapable of being anything less than extremely adorable in any interpretation, so]

College AU

Don’t say goodnight by @alistoney [this the kinda lighthearted content i am always here for - College AU]

One year and a bottle of whiskey by @CryptidBane [yassssss, yet another version of the College AU, but with malec as both clueless and pining professors, this type of fic i can read endlessly]

All is Fair in Love and War by @LadyOxymoron [aaaaaaaa, what was this adorableness *major heart-eyes* what a piece, mashallah, college professors AU, where magnus is new in town, and malec is engaging in an elaborate prank war, which, undoubtedly, is nothing more than a prolonged foreplay (c), what a gem]

Canon Divergence

oh, i’ve waited for you by @manticoremoons [so, the fic is happening a little bit further in a timeline, than the books or the series, and Alec is around 30, and... married to Lydia. i know, i know, it almost stopped me from proceeding, and boi am i glad it hasn’t completely, cause it is a damn good piece!]

Hey There Demons, It’s Me (Your Dream Boyfriend) by @thealmostrhetoricalquestion [how many recs of this author can i make, without being deemed obsessed? cause y’all should go and read every single thing they wrote, stat. this adorableness is outta this world, literally - magnus’ summoning went sideways, and the loft ends up populated with the teenage ghost-demon, who is very clearly enamored with alexander... all kinds of fluff ensue]

Something Else verse by @CryptidBane (Impetus) [maybe it’s my fever talking, but i am such a sucker for memory loss AUs, and SH fandom has the richest canon base for those, yay! this time, it’s an AU verse after 3x10: rather than asking for his magic, Asmodeus curses magnus by taking away memories from everyone who’s ever loved him, in exchange for freeing jace from lilith’s thrall... oh, what a beautiful and delicious angst ensues]

Home by @otppurefuckingmagic [waaaaaaaaat... *sits with her mouth open* how did you....? how did he...? damnnnnnnnnn you authors in this fandom, stop being so talented!!!! this is uncannily brilliant]

I’ll hold on until you’re home by @alistoney [how dare you sir, right in the feels... the missing scene in the midst of 3x18/3x19, when magnus realizes what his idiot of a boyfriend has done, and confronts him about the Asmodeus deal]

First time for everything by @nebulein [“Nowhere in a Shadowhunters’ job description does it read ‘must look adorable while infatuated with the local High Warlock’.” - series of firsts written with such tenderness and adoration for characters, that it warms your heart while reading, - it shows how much the author cares for them. it is not finished, but whatever has already been written, is gold]

Fake dating AU

The Great Repression by @CryptidBane (Impetus) [although it might not be exactly my regular cup of tea, i still appreciate this author’s style so damn much, and the way they do malec dynamic overall, so it’s here. magnus is a camboy, and alec is hired to protect him from a stalker]

Friends to lovers

Family is Family by @hexicity [my brains are fried by the covid, so any coherent rec would be unlikely right about now, but the softness of this <333 alec sees an ad about a free room, and when he moves in, he finds way more, than he bargained for... gave me a bit of a “happy, shiny people everywhere” vibe, and that’s an automatic rec in my books, so]

Spinning Around In Circles by @lemonoclefox [my fav friends to lovers/mutual pining trope, here you are, and what a pretty pretty wrapper are you wearing - absolutely amazing interpretation of a trope, that seems to has been done to death, and yet here i am, never able to get enough of it <3]

If it walks like a duck by @thealmostrhetoricalquestion [this. i was reading this. and after every single word. all i wanted to do was get down on one knee and propose to this person. i dunno who the hell you is, but.... how did you do this? it was... another level of fanfiction.]

Neighbors AU

Meow 17:1 Love Thy Neighbor by @high-warlock-of-brooklyn [again, not a fan of drabbles, but who could resist such softness??? Neighbors AU, where Chairman takes some lessons he learnt from “Parent trap” to heart, and alec is a stumbling mess, but he gets shit done, kudossssssss]

Various AU mix

Solid courage by @thealmostrhetoricalquestion [how goddamn CUTE was dat???? answer - the cutest. mashallah people in this fandom can write]

Paper Love by @thealmostrhetoricalquestion [it would not be an exaggeration to admit i thoroughly fell in love with this author’s style, i mean, all and every version of their malec is all kinds of awesome. this one is no exception - catarina works in the library, and malec have to take madzie out to a coffee shop, cause their obnoxious flirting is too loud for the quaint environment of catarina’s workplace.... it’s tiny and so so sooooooo sweet]

make no bones by @ohfreckle [yaaaaaaaaay, what a cutie, tiny preciousness about magnus having an awful day and taking it out on a no-good useless building super, simply delightful]

Freud is a Dick by @sanctuary_for_all [Alec works in IT firm, and accidentally sends someone else’s dick pick to his boss, whom he has a crush on... do i need to say more]

shadows in moonlight by @kaeg [damnnnnnn, son, that was a ride!! something exquisitely soulful, tender and so, so poetic... young malec meet in summer vacation home, and it will take your breath away in the best way possible... warning, it is unfinished, but whatever was written, is absolute preciousness]

For the Love of the Game by @TicklemyPickle [Hockey AU, where malec were childhood friends, but had a falling out, and were not in touch for the last 7 years, until magnus gets traded in to alec’s team... i was somewhat unsure about reccing this, as some of the choices author made regarding their dynamic did not exactly resonate with me, but decided to go on, because, god as my witness, one thing this world definitely needs more of - is malec Hockey AUs, word upppp]

Love Is A Gamble by @la-muerta [i myself do not completely understand, why has it taken me so long to get to the “The importance of elsewhere” author’s most famous piece, but i finally have, it was amazeballs, like, the world-building...? off the charts. the language, the moral struggle, what a gem. alec is a grumpy and surely sheriff *duh!!!* of a tiny town, and magnus strolls in being all... well, magnus-y, and opens a gambling house, the potential!!! anyway, i highly doubt this piece needs recs, so imma zip it]

@ohprongs [this author has too many tiny pieces i like to name them individually, but as far as reccing goes, they should def be mentioned here for their effortless, seamless style, and clear love for the characters in all interpretations, that simply shines through all and any AUs they choose to put malec in]

special mention:

@theleftboobgrabber [i wasn’t aware that at this stage it was still possible to come by someone like this. the author, who’s style would impress me so. that unbelievably glorious Mafia AU, absolutely delightful and literally perfect My mama don’t like you series, and something that went straight to my top-5 - MI6 AU ohhhhh, that MI6 AU... i have no coherent words to express the depths of my appreciation, this is unbelievable fucking talent for writing malec]

[coredrill]

alright here are my rwby8 thoughts now that i’ve had a few days to sit on ‘em!! spoilers for the entire volume under the cut

so if anyone happens to open this and is like “wow this is more words than i’ve seen you use ever” lol yup! it’s probably the most words i’ve written since high school lmao. feel free to read through if ya really want but this is mostly just my own way of organizing my thoughts for this kind of stuff rather than making a million different posts on random parts of it. this way if i want to look back in the future and say “haha wow can’t believe i thought THAT” it’s all in one easy location! i don’t expect anyone else to be reading all this shite lol

thoughts on the volume as a whole:

honestly i loved it!! there’s very little that i would’ve changed and most of that is nit-picking stuff. i’m very impressed that this volume was made in quarantine lmao. the animation in and of itself was STUNNING (shout out to the finale’s water animation...the aura break particle effects...the cinnamon topography of the amity scenes...all of the facial & body expressions...the whale disintegrating...)

i’d honestly say that it’s probably my second favorite volume?? volume 4 is still my beloved but v8 was so good. i’ll probably need to watch it through a few more times but god. i LOVED IT.

honorable mention cause idk where else to put it: some of the scores were breathtaking!!! i tend not to notice background music on my first watch unless it really sticks out to me and there were quite a few scenes where that happened in a good way this volume. the ones where cinder breaks into the atlas control room and the one at the end when atlas is flooding are probably my favs!!! also there was this one part where it was just screeching over ironwood and it worked really really well.

okay so now for individual characters. let’s start with ruby:

i would like to fund her therapy

very surprised that she didn’t “break” this volume! i was sort of expecting it to happen--between ironwood, the amity plan only kind of working, the hound, the virus, and the fact that she was separated from her usual support system (qrow, yang, and jaune), i was definitely expecting her to. i’m glad she didn’t though cause it’s gonna be so much harder when she actually does (probably when she finds out that cinder has the relics and penny’s dead...)

massive shout out to lindsay jones for managing to make squeaky-voiced ruby still sound like ruby even while going through a whole host of emotions we’ve never seen ruby go through before!

god. that scene where crescent rose fell into the drink and ruby scrambled after it. my heart dropped lmao.

also. this is likely because i’ve got an engineering degree (which came with a free stick up my butt when it comes to technology in media) but the line where they say “mass no longer matters” wrt her semblance??? WHAT??? bro splitting mass up into smaller chunks doesn’t change the actual mass of the material itself what is going on here 😭😭😭 (this isn’t a real criticism of any kind i just yelled WHAT after they said that line lmao)

weiss:

i have one single weiss criticism and its that, in the scene where she’s leaving whitley to go fight the hound, she says “we still need to work on your attitude” and for whatever reason, the voice track doesn’t sound like it was quite mixed right? like it sounds like she’s just standing there rolling her eyes but my girl is BOOKING it out of the room lmao

other than that: weiss you are PERFECT. she really spent this entire volume saving and taking care of the people she loves!!! and i loved every second of it!!!

i would’ve liked to see more of her and klein/whitley/willow. i think there’s a lot of great stuff in that dynamic (not me crying when klein showed up at the manor...) and especially between weiss and her mother. i hope we get one big schneeuinon in vacuo once they + winter are all in the same location (but that’s gonna be a while i think lmao)

it’s been said a million times before but weiss?? shaking and crying but using gambol shroud anyway?? even though she thinks her teammates are all dead?? giving ruby the staff and pushing her out of the line of fire and pulling blake back to safety??? fighting cinder, a fucking wholeass maiden, with no aura because she needs to protect penny?? only unable to get up and keep fighting after she watches gambol shroud (the last physical piece she has of her teammates) go over the edge??? bro. BRO. i’m legit tearing up just TYPING THAT. god she’s gonna find her team at that island resort and never let them go. gonna be like v4 jaune all over again huh??

blake/yang:

not as much here since they didn’t get a whole lot of focus this volume, but i enjoyed all their scenes! yang just fuckin going at salem was 1000/10.

i will say...i think blake’s gonna kiss yang when they meet up in tropical paradise. and good for her!! (especially if this volume’s been planned since the beginning, it makes sense that this would be the writers’ idea for where they wanted their first kiss to be)

jaune:

going from ren saying “he has no fear. he believes that we can do this” about jaune to, five chapters later, forcing jaune to deliver a killing blow to penny was just CRUEL

the fucking dissonance of jaune haha!-awkward-renora-moment-exit vomit-boy-through-the-portals hit-in-the-head-with-a-rock arc being the one that penny asks..............bro. don’t hmu.

it’s going to be such a long time until we see him smile again.

also. the moment when crocea mors snaps in half...again, my stomach dropped.

but it’s okay! he’ll be fine without a weapon! he’s the ~strategist~! *breaks the fuck down*

it hurts so much too to think about, like oscar mentioned.....even if/when he does reunite with ren and nora, he’s not gonna be the same person he was when they last saw him. he’s not gonna be their goofy, wholesome, soft, snarky, healer team leader anymore. he just got his shit sorted out, he just stopped being actively suicidal, and tbh i think this might affect him worse than what happened with pyrrha. especially since they were compounding in his brain--what he did gave penny more of a choice than pyrrha ever got, but GEEZ.

pain. just. pain.

nora:

NORA MY BELOVED

okay. OKAY. so like she was passed out for half the volume but what we did get of her was fucking amazing

nora’s mom i am going to find you and have some words. i’ve mentioned this before but this woman has the same energy as the mom from grave of the fireflies who was like “i know we’re actively being bombed right now but i’m going to abandon my children and get myself to safety.” SQUARE UP BITCH. i hope we never see nora’s mom in the show because i will become filled with rage

but nora herself??? flawless. perfection.

i really did love her journey this volume. realizing that she wants to become her own person apart from ren, and then telling him that when he says that he loves her?? nora sweetie that was heartbreaking but i am SO SO PROUD OF YOU.

nora putting herself first for once and being told that people love her WE FREAKING LOVE TO SEE IT

except NOW that’s all gonna go haywire 😭😭😭

like...the moment in the finale where you can see she’s hesitant to leave jaune to to go vacuo but she goes anyway because he’s her leader and he doesn’t like splitting up either and she loves him and she trusts him only for her to get STUCK ON THE OTHER SIDE BANGING ON THE PORTAL. that scene fucking BROKE me. you just KNOW she’s gonna be hating herself for going through and leaving jaune (even though nobody knew it was one way!!!) and when the portal dissolves and he doesn’t come through........

she really thinks that she’s lost TWO teammates now. that’s TWO teammates that she wasn’t able to save. she saved ren from the nuckelavee but pyrrha’s dead and as far as she knows jaune’s dead too

and jaune’s her fucking family!!!!!!!

and like. when we see her on the vacuo side of the portal, we see that she’s got the happy huntresses behind her. she did her job and she gathered them but now she can’t get back through and AHHHHHH. FUCK. when she drops to her knees because she realizes.........that fucking killed me. i’m tearing up now just typing this sdmndbm

and like. the worst part is that she just realized that she wants some time away from ren. but everyone else is gone and just like when they were kids he’s all she’s got and they are gonna lean on each other harder than ever because this time they both lost EVERYTHING. not just jaune, but ruby, who was their teammate for a while too. weiss, who took such great care of nora while she was injured. penny, who nora helped with blake’s advice. yang, who ren had time to bond with this volume. FUCK

it’s gonna hurt so bad to watch but i cannot WAIT to see what nora does next and how she moves forward. god. this is gonna kill her. it’s killing ME and i’m just a viewer lmao

ren:

remember that one week where neath went on twitter and was like “i love renora and i’m gonna make that everyone else’s problem”??? yeah. that was a good week lmao

speaking of neath. MASSIVE PROPS TO HIM FOR HIS WORK. he managed to give ren every single emotion in the book this volume and none of it sounded ooc despite ren being such a repressed character before. he did incredible!!!!

I LOVED REN SO MUCH THIS VOLUME GOD. i mean i love him in every volume BUT HE HAD SO MANY GOOD MOMENTS AND SUCH A GOOD ARC

i’ve already talked about it at length but the scene where his semblance evolves is one of my favorites in the whole show. he’s so fucking full of love that it’s literally tearing him apart and when he finally accepts that fact his ENTIRE SOUL levels up!!! he looks at himself and there are pink petals falling off of him because he can’t contain the love in his body anymore!!! it’s there in a literal, physical manifestation and it’s so. fucking. GOOD. FUCK.

and also my obligatory remark about how he was thinking about oscar and pyrrha and his parents in that moment. people he loved platonically and familially. rwby goes so fucking hard for platonic love and i can’t ever thank them enough. to see ren have this realization because he was thinking about oscar.....god i’m gonna cry again LMAO

and then after that the way that he just. looks at jaune in every scene with the biggest fucking heart eyes. i’m gonna fucking combust he loves his  leader SO MUCH. (which. as i mentioned in the nora section. pain now)

and the nora stuff........JUST AS GOOD

another thing i’ve talked about a lot but to see him apologize, be emotionally open, listen to what nora’s saying and what nora needs, TELL HER THAT HE LOVES HER FIRST, not holding a single thing against her, agreeing to wait for her to be ready.........literal perfection holy shit

romance is normally not one of my favorite aspects of any media but i will make an exception for whatever the fuck ren and nora got going on

basically as a ren stan / jnpr stan i was thriving this volume and then that finale hit me and i know i will be in pain until they reunite again

i have a handful of jnr gifs that i was planning to make during the hiatus but now they’re all PAIN aksjhdasjdh

oscar:

deeply worried about the quickly approaching merge. i’m really hoping that oscar and oz stay separate but i also love seeing all the animation/voice acting nuances that indicate that they’re getting closer to the merge.......AH

this volume really hammered home just how strong this kid is. he stands up to SALEM and does the right thing even despite the torture cause he’s so BRAVE and STRONG and when he trusted hazel with the password DESPITE IT ALL. ugh. so good.

i love oscar so much and i’ve loved seeing him grow!!!

penny:

serious stuff coming in the next bullet point but. GOD. her model’s head is so big and i don’t know WHY but this stuck out to me every time she was standing next to someone else. it might be because of the volume of her hair (but yang’s hair also has a lot of volume, and her head is normal sized)??? idk it just threw me off a lot. every time she was like, talking to ruby or something, all i could think about was how her head was bigger than ruby’s ENTIRE TORSO lmao. (also why didn’t they give her human body shoes skdjhaksjh)

that said.........oh, penny 😭😭😭😭😭

i’m surprised that she died but only because i thought her plot armor was pretty thick LMAO. narratively it makes a lot of sense and i’m glad her story ended the way it did.

i’ve seen a lot of people interpreting her actions in the finale as “choosing to die,” but i don’t think that’s the case?? penny’s friends all saved her every single time that she presented her own death as an option. that’s what makes this so tragic, is that they successfully saved her every time she offered that, and that in the end, she still died. she was gonna die anyway. she was impaled by cinder--jaune didn’t have enough time to heal her before cinder defeated weiss (who had no aura!!) and turned on them again. penny made her own choices when 1. she asked to die at the hands of a friend, rather than by cinder’s soul-sucking grimm arm and whatever horrible fate that includes and 2. to choose her successor. and i don’t blame her for making either of those choices! she wanted to die with as much dignity as peace as she could and to choose whose life she would be intertwined with. and while it’s very sad, i’m glad that penny finally got some sense of control over herself and her legacy.

and like...she was so happy when she met up with winter!! she was so happy to have full autonomy for once!!! that scene was both heartwarming and heartbreaking!!!

i also think that penny’s death reinforces the idea that remnant is gonna be very different by the time rwbyjnorqe is done with it. now not one but two kindhearted girls have gotten killed because they got tangled up in the maiden powers—which were originally meant to be a gift!! and i’m very interested to see what the resolution is gonna be!! (i know it’s gonna be in like. volume 52 or something alsjfndnx but still!!)

also, if nothing else, i am very glad that whole “pietro sacrifices the last of his aura to revive her” theory is gone. i hate that theory lmao

i will say, while i enjoyed penny’s role this volume, i do think that maybe some of her screentime could’ve gone elsewhere. i get that there needed to be a lot of focus on her, so that we would be attached when she died, but i think it would’ve been beneficial to spread that screentime elsewhere just a bit, especially since she wasn’t really developing at all. hitting the same point with her like seven times did start to feel a bit repetitive lol. my vote would be for extra time with the schnees, or the jn(o)r reunion at schnee manor, or maybe a scene checking in with pietro and maria!!

emerald:

EMERALD MY BELOVED

YOU DEFECTED!!!! GOOD FOR YOU GIRL!!!!

i hope we get a LOT more time with her in the future. she’s still gotta work out the cinder thing of course but i also think it’s gonna be super interesting to see how she acts now that she (alongside oscar, ren, nora, the hh, and winter) is one of the closest things their group has to a “leader”

also like........good for her for being one of the LEAST traumatized people this volume despite being THREATENED BY SALEM

somebody give emerald a nice long hug

i love her

that is all

winter:

WINTER OH MY GOD

seeing her struggle with her emotions all volume.....only to finally accept them and save marrow’s life.....and because of that choice she realizes how long overdue it was and goes all in on helping the heroes.....and is eventually chosen to become the next winter maiden by the girl who challenged her to accept her emotions in the first place......😭😭😭 chef’s kiss

“you chose nothing. this was a gift.” *demolishes ironwood but doesn’t stick around cause he’s not worth it* *fights cinder* POETIC CINEMA!!!!!

also i cannot wait to see her schneeunion with willow, whitley, and klein.......even if she does have to be the one to tell them what happened to weiss 😭

cinder:

CINDER I HATE YOU BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU’RE SUCH A GOOD VILLAIN

her backstory was pretty self explanatory but i think this was a good time to spell it out especially while we were in atlas. the culmination of that, her consistent failures to achieve her goals after v3, and watts dragging her really all just came together to make her so much more intimidating and efficient and i loved watching it.

like i know there’s people who don’t like her as a character but she’s always so fun to watch and her va does AMAZING and she’s just. so INTERESTING

also. i cannot wait for her to find out that ruby and neo are both alive (and especially when salem finds out they’re both alive LMAO)

also also her line to ruby about never being born feels.......awfully specific??? i wonder if it’s a hint at some other part of salem/cinder/ruby/summer lore (like her “and i refuse to starve” line from last volume)

also also also CINDER.......lying to salem is gonna backfire on you at one point or another.......HM

salem:

gosh i love salem. she’s such a good villain and i loved all her scenes (especially the fight scene...SO COOL).

very interested in whatever she does next!! since the only remaining lackey she has is cinder (who is now starting to try to manipulate her) and tyrian and mercury, who are in vacuo, i’m curious about her next steps. is she gonna keep recruiting, now that people know who she is?? is she gonna come to vacuo herself?? she could definitely do a WHOLE LOT OF DAMAGE with the refugee situation there, so i’m super excited to see how her next moves play out!!

hazel/tyrian/watts/merc/neo:

rip hazel. glad we were able to get an INSANE fight scene out of him before his death BUT ALSO WHAT’S WITH YOU BEATING THE SNOT OUT OF A 14 YEAR OLD HUH

listen. listen. i know merc-rescues-oscar was never a possibility BUT i still love that idea. it lives in my mind rent free!!!

i feel like mercury’s gonna be so insane after the worst road trip ever in a confined space with tyrian that he’s gonna be immediately redeemed by team sssnn and the power of himbofication upon landing in vacuo LMAO

real talk though, i am VERY interested in what happens when mercury sees emerald again and learns she defected. like, this is his friend, who he’s tried to keep safe the only way he knows how (by keeping his head down and not angering their abuser) and she got out but he didn’t. GOD. AND in the first fight she was in after defecting, she used the move that she learned by watching him!!!! that’s gonna be SO GOOD and i can’t wait to see it!!!

neo is a wildcard and i love watching her fight and i think it’s SO INTERESTING that she went over the side with rwby and jaune and i CAN’T WAIT to see what she does next.

WATTS MY DUDE. what a GOOD volume for him. like the stuff where he yells at cinder was SO COOL to see and it was so funny that he thought that wasn’t gonna come back to bite him LMAO. i think this was super fitting for him and while i like him as a villain, i think this was a good place for his story to end. i had a lot of fun watching his scenes this volume.

qrow/robyn:

I LOVE THEIR SIBLING ENERGY. robyn talking qrow down and them bonding over their semblances together was so great.

i also loved qrow’s semblance...evolving?? changing?? idk what exactly happened yet, but i know that if i too hung out with robyn hill for 48 hours straight my outlook on life would improve dramatically.

i do hope robyn makes it to vacuo soon because she will be invaluable at handling the refugee crisis there.

on the other hand, if qrow gets to vacuo and finds out that ruby and yang (and three more of his adopted kids) never made it........PAIN. oh my god it’s gonna be like summer all over again 😭😭

aceops:

did not expect to get teary-eyed when vine died. and yet i did. that “themes of death” cw on the finale was CERTAINLY SOMETHING HUH

hell yeah marrow!!! what a good boi!!! i loved his defection ofc and him going off on ironwood...chefs kiss

i hope marrow sticks with the main cast. he’s my favorite and he deserves to see his friends again!!!

as for elm and harriet, i’m not sure?? i think harriet still has a lot of work to do before she’s redeemed in my eyes. maybe they can be dropped off at beacon to help glynda fight the grimm/rebuild so that they can be back for the show’s ending but the cast is somewhat trimmed for vacuo lmao

also. i know they’re not aceops. but WHERE ARE FLYNT AND NEON ARE THE MEME KIDS OKAY

happy huntresses:

may marigold is literally perfect in every way

loved them! would’ve loved to see more of them lmao. maybe even just cutting back to them in the crater reacting to some of the stuff going on.

i very much hope we get to see them in the future! i know the vacuans aren’t gonna be happy with the atlas/mantle people showing up unannounced but i feel like if there’s anyone who’s gonna be able to earn their respect, it’s the organized-and-saved-the-lives-of-those-downtrodden-by-atlas-happy-huntresses.

maria & pietro:

okay. SO. my thoughts are either that they made it to vacuo (penny did see where amity would touch down, so it’s possible that a portal was placed in that location and they made it through) or qrow picks them up.

either way, i hope we get to see them again. I LOVE THESE TWO GEEZERS!!!

oh, pietro......... *cries*

ironwood:

not much to say here except that i loved it. i loved how he got more and more paranoid, i loved that he vaporized jacques schnee, i loved that he only went cartoon-villain at the last moment, i loved that he died unceremoniously surrounded by the thing he thought would save them all. i love that cinder got in one final chess reference beforehand. 10/10

the hound:

it feels like a lifetime ago that this guy died but holy shit. holy SHIT.

i want whitley to summon the hound!! it was an enemy that pushed him to grow, i think it would be neat!!

ambrosius:

LOVED THIS DUDE. i LOVE how his powers work!!! like, even though it’s magic, it’s so realistic because that’s how creation works!!! you gotta design the EXACT thing you want or else its gonna be fucked up!!!

like. okay. so (back on my engineering bs again lmao) for example. let’s say i’m writing a program where the user enters a number from 1-10 and it’s displayed on the computer screen. so i write whatever code i need that says “take user input and put on screen.” that’s what ambrosius did when he created the portals and the pathways between them!

and then let’s say i also put a warning to the user that says “only enter numbers from 1-10.” that would be ambrosius saying “do not fall.”

but...the user can still enter whatever they want. what happens if they put in the number 100? what happens if they type a letter? this program only puts numbers from 1-10 on screen, so who knows what’s gonna happen. and that’s what happens when people fall off the railings!!!

“oh, but you told them what numbers to enter” yeah but humans are unpredictable and ya gotta account for the human element when doing stuff like this!! team rwby didn’t account for people falling off--because why would people fall off if they were told not to? but the human element messed that up anyway!!!

anyways i’m a fucking nerd apparently but it was super cool to see that reflected in ambrosius!!! i’m a big fan!!!

like whenever people call him tricky or sneaky...no!!! he was just doing exactly what he was told to do!!!! so good!!!

also i wanna see him hang out with his sister jinn lmao

alright and here’s my thoughts/predictions for v9:

first off i just wanna say that this entire section (this entire post really, but especically this section) is just me spitballing lmao. we literally have ZERO clue what’s happening next or where they are, i’m just throwing out some stuff that’s crossed my mind! whatever crwby gives us is gonna be infinitely better than whatever i come up with lmao

that said, i have two ideas for what could be happening in madagascar.

option one is the one i’ve seen other people toss around, which is the whole wonderland-land-of-the-dead thing. i’m kinda torn on this because i think it could be good for penny’s storyline, but not really anyone else’s?? sure, yang and ruby could see summer, but weiss would see...jacques?? and blake would see...adam?? i’m not sure what weiss and blake would have to say to them/learn from them the same way ruby and yang would.

on that same idea, jaune could definitely see pyrrha, but again, i’m wondering what purpose that would serve? obviously jaune’s actions in the finale were guided by pyrrha (or specifically her mom, and realizing that pyrrha never had a choice either), but it’s clear that that’s the case for all of team jnpr, and it will be probably forever. their scene together at pyrrha’s memorial felt like they were closing the door--specifically--on their grief. on the other hand, those actions are super relevant right now and i will never turn down the chance to see pyrrha!!! it’s just free waterworks babey!!!

neo also has roman, but i can’t really see roman admitting to anyone that he got swallowed by a grimm 😭😭 just seems too embarrassing for him LMAO

for penny, i think this could work nicely. all she ever wanted was to not have her life controlled by others--kind of like alice in wonderland (the disney movie version because i am fairy tale illiterate lmao). if penny gets to exist after death in a land where she gets to choose everything for herself i think she would be very happy!

again, if this ends up being the case, crwby could 100% make it work! (and i am 0% opposed to maya model pyrrha.) i just personally am not as sold on this being the case as some others are.

option two imo is vacuo but in the past. which i know seems kind of weird BUT i have reasons!

so we know a few things about vacuo. one, it used to be an oasis and was considered a paradise until atlas and mistral destroyed it for the dust. two, it has giant motherfucking crabs that people like to eat. yes this is all i have to go off of BUT both of those things are in the end credits scene we got!

also, them landing in past-vacuo makes sense on ambrosius’ level. their “one way ticket” probably didn’t include all four dimensions of coordinates--so i could see them landing in the same x, y, and z as the official doorway, but at a different time. the creation would still do exactly what it was asked to do--drop them in vacuo.

there’s also a couple other things. “vacuo” means “in a vacuum” which i’ve heard v9 is supposed to be. also in before the dawn, sun saw some bigass magic tree that awakened his semblance which this one definitely could qualify as

(okay. side note. when i first saw the tree i thought of the glowy tree from james cameron blue people avatar. IDK WHY, i haven’t seen that movie in years??? i also had to google it to make sure i wasn’t making it up and apparently it’s called the “tree of souls.” which would also make sense if it helped sun awakened his semblance. i don’t think rwby based something off of blue people avatar, it’s probably more likely that blue people avatar is based off of some fairytale/mythology that i don’t know anything about LMAO)

i don’t actually think option two is gonna happen, but it was fun to think about!!

also either option opens the opportunity to time not passing 1:1 in current vacuo & rwby’s island getaway which???????? AHHHHH

alright so now to the actual characters lmao. i mentioned wby earlier. i honestly have no clue what neo’s gonna be up to, she’s such a wild card and i LOVE IT.

ruby and jaune is gonna be...........PAIN. NO MATTER WHAT. i have no idea how ruby is gonna react--she might just be so overwhelmed by everything that she snaps/yells at jaune which. PAIN. but she also might not?? which. ALSO PAIN. i feel like no matter what ruby does, jaune’s gonna blame himself anyway. god. i love their friendship SO MUCH and this is gonna HURTTTT

and on that, he doesn’t have ren and nora this time to pull him back from the ledge. this dude’s guilt complex is gonna go crazy especially since he doesn’t have his team and double especially if ruby/rwby blames him for what happened. god it’s gonna HURT TO WATCH.

on a wildly different note, i hope we do get to see vacuo/qrow throughout volume 9. if i go a whole volume without ren and nora i WILL cry lmao.

also it’s gonna be super interesting to see how their group fares!!! vacuo’s fuckin nuts and i’d love to see winter just destroying the grimm there (3 headed giraffe my beloved) and see how the atlas/mantle refugees handle the climate--and how the vacuans react to all of them LMAO

ALSO!!!! THE SULFER FISH WERE THERE!!! very glad to see that they’re in vacuo too because from the concept art it seems like they have super unique abilities and i’m excited that we may get to properly see them, instead of just cameos!!!

team cfvy pspspspspspsps theodore and rumpole pspspspspsps team sssnn pspspspspsps

and, of course, i gotta mention that any possible jnr reunion WILL tear my heart out and i will probably cry for days. i gotta start emotionally preparing now LMAO

alright and that wraps it up!! if anyone makes it down to the bottom props to you!! i don’t expect anyone to actually read this mess lmao. tldr: INCREDIBLE volume and i’m so hype for v9 already!!!

[longeyelashedtragedy]

this has been the most wild fuckin year so let’s do a Year in Review shall we

in terms of internet and fandom life, that is. my real life has been atrociously boring but who cares about real life amirite folx

january probably the only calm month of the year.  i spent the first day of the month watching the brazilian inauguration in burgos, spain with one headphone in, while ordering for my family in a restaurant where nobody spoke english (my sister speaks decent spanish, but my whole family has like 8194814 food restrictions so it kind of went past her level of ability). translating between spanish and english with portuguese in one year was kind of awesome. i watched bodyguard and it was amazing!  what else...in january i briefly owned the issue of spanish GQ with Luka on the cover which i then forgot about until november. other than that...? nada.  the calm before the storm. (fav music)

february was so long ago that i keep forgetting how insane its 28 days were.  probably the wildest month of the year really. i got involved in an absolutely batshit and exclusive group chat with a famous person’s family member (which must remain confidential). it was all sunshine and rainbows for a week and a half and it then devolved into the most absolutely insane Lord of the Flies situation ever--it turned into 1 main chat and then 1 chat that was less puritanical than the main chat, and that chat spawned another chat that didn’t trust the previous chat, and then that chat had a massive argument and a like 6-person bitchy chat modded by a gay guy who does voodoo (shoutout to ALCIDES) spawned from that one.  i made it into every level of group chat and was asked by the tiny bitchy chat to spy on the other bitchy chat (i did not lol). i was a member of the tiny bitchy chat until i got a new phone and was logged out of whatsapp for like a month.  these words can’t even convey what this chat was like--oh and did i mention it was all conducted in only my 3rd-best language? it’s no wonder my weird ass survived middle school almost entirely unscathed.  as this was winding down, on the very last day of the month, I found out about Justin’s involvement in the SNC-Lavalin scandal and decided to go public about my years-long boner for him; Lavscam definitely changed the course of the rest year ~ Oh, also i began helping to repair a friendship that had had some Drama go down so that was p cool ~ (fav music)

march was a Time. The insanity of lavscam helped me finally finish the macdeau I started writing the previous December when a bunch of tungelr people called me disgusting for writing it.  i wrote my first straight-up serious explicit porn in years which has wound up being the third-longest thing i’ve ever published on ao3. Also, Hozier released Wasteland, Baby! which made a huge impact on me as well.  i spent like half of march staying up till 3:30 am writing said Long Fic, and i was firmly in the closet about stanning manu. also justin almost got a vote of no confidence or something and he got busted for eating a chocolate bar during a parliamentary all-nighter.  (fav music)

in april i wrote a ton of fanfic thanks to declining mental health(tm).  i think this is when i started my emmanuyell insta account and became really into making weird edits (which i still love doing just...don’t anymore.)  i started meeting some cool people thanks to macdeau.  what else happened in april? i feel like it wasn’t actually too eventful other than writing a lot of fanfic and being Annoyed about manu.  feel free to jog my memory lol.  oh i think i wrote “Okay so who from the French national team are we gonna ship Manu with” on twitter after seeing photos of manu + antoine griezmann at the World Cup but nothing came of that...at that time... (fav music)

may saw me having to deal with my shit mental health and up my meds but that seems to have had a good effect because i seem to not be too depressed to write in the winter/fall anymore! it was the 2nd anniversary of manu’s election and at the Christchurch Call in paris, macdeau took that amazing fairytale princess photo together that was completely unrivalled in Gay Shippy Feels moments until ivan went out of his way to kiss luka during the el clásico gameplay last wednesday. someone wrote ao3′s first griezmanu drabble and at the end manu gets down on his knees in front of antoine, takes off his shoes for him, and sucks his dick, and i achieved another state of being entirely.  my sister graduated from grad school and when we went down to DC for the weekend i went to eat at this restaurant manu famously ate at while there and ordered the same stuff he did and i have no idea how he consumed all that grease.  i learned about the song O Come, O Come, Emmanuel *snort*. i feel like other things happened in may too?  OH YES--i got the idea for my magnum opus, Trophy Boyfriend, and started to write it. the first scene i wrote was justin blowing manu in the hallway. then the same day i wrote the scene at the airport (which was the ending for a solid month and half till i realized it shouldn’t be), and the saddest scene in the fic--but we’ll stop to open presents.  oh! and i stumbled across the macronists discord chat which is such a delightful little community *weepy sniffles* (fav music)

june was Eventful.  a french neonazi on tumblr told me to go let manu fuck me in the ass because i was a fucking degenerate.  what a start!  then came the ceremony in which manu awarded everyone on the french national team the legion of honor medal and the way he and antoine looked at each other was truly...Wait it was the 3rd Gay Shippy Feels moment of the year.  as soon as the ceremony was over i wrote a fic about it and haven’t looked back.  between this + watching almost every 2018 World Cup game and the women’s world cup (during which I cried during argentina’s last game because of that miraculous penalty) i finally achieved my years-long goal of getting into Futbol(TM).  Antoine dropped his spotify playlist and my crush on him turned into Intense Love (TM) and also he introduced me to some legit awesome artists.  which led to (fav music)

july, in which i wrote “ça c’est ma dope” which is definitely the best thing i’ve written since i wrote “modernity towering in front of the sky” almost exactly 10 years before. got embroiled in Soccer Transfer Drama and learned its pain for the first time (unfortunately, since i wound up attaching my heart-wagon to barça’s Suddenly Least Favorite Player, the transfer drama pain has...never ended) became a full-fledged culé, O the joy O the honor.  i wanted to ship antoine with someone on the team, which in their current chemistry-less season is a real challenge, but after seeing a few photos i decided it would be fun to casually ship antoine + ivan rakitic (partially because, ever since i went from Enemies to Lovers with the croatia NT during the World Cup, he was one of the only players i knew anything about other than messi, suárez, and piqué lmao). while looking on ao3 to see what kind of headcanons people had about him--and the fic is definitely in general better than what’s out there about antoine, which is perplexing because antoine is much easier to write than ivan--i found That Amazing Rakidric Fic and thought “oh wait that ship makes a lot of sense” and started also shipping ivan and luka with the fire of a thousand suns.  oh and my air conditioner was broken for like 3 weeks. i worked on more fics, seriously outlining the path of Trophy Boyfriend, and my music taste was killer. (fav music)

in august i finished Trophy Boyfriend in my neighborhood Starbucks after writing the scene that was giving me the most trouble (the scene at the beginning where they’re organizing their book collection). the fic has made multiple people cry and people disagree on whether justin’s choice at the end was the right one and god i’m so proud of it.  Instantly went on to write ‘i might not mind,’ a lively lighthearted Friends to Lovers ivantoine~ romp which was definitely going to be a one-off and i was definitely not going to get an extra celeb crush out of it,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, (fav music)

in september ivantoine became A Thing in my mind and it’s a whole ongoing slow-burn character-arcy series that has taken a very different turn than i had expected. i’m not saying it’s like, the most deep writing of all time, but it’s gone to some interesting places emotionally. honestly, ships and boners aside, the concept of a person who made some really stupid homophobia 101 comments many years ago slowly realizing over and over again that they have gay feelings for a man who seems rather comfortable with gayness is a fascinating one and one that’s really cool to explore in writing.  Or at least, i think so.  in many ways ivan is my most unreliable narrator because of the many layers of Discomfort, Emotion and Repression at play in the fic while he’s interacting with this pretty cheery and uncomplicated seeming-dude who’s still perceptive enough to sort of know what’s going on (and that’s not even adding in the star player/falling from grace former rockstar dynamic!!!)  i know in the current climate it’s Not Allowed to write about someone who said a bad, but luckily i’m too old to give a Fuck. ivantoine is hard to write but it’s my bff’s favorite ship of mine and has a few other excited fans on ao3 which tbh is kind of an accomplishment considering i made it up out of thin air and it’s not something you’d ever think would be a thing. instantly also developed ‘getting called out about ivan by a child on the internet’ as a goal.  and...i achieved my dream of leading high holiday services!!! (fav music)

october had more high holiday services and i worked a lot on certain fics (including d*janfic which would be fun to finish). i came up with the idea of a Very Long Rakidric Fic based on the translation of a gorgeous croatian folk song i sang in college (Janko fell asleep under the poplar/My dear and beloved/My beautiful dark eyes/Look at me/Under the poplar's golden branch/My dear and beloved/My beautiful dark eyes/Look at me/I tore off the golden branch/My dear and beloved/My beautiful dark eyes/Look at me--in which the golden branch is a reference to a way to get into the underworld). decided to start quarter-assedly learning croatian for fun.  Fun...ha.  other than fangirling a lot and watching the croatian NT play, october was pretty uneventful? i think? Justin got reelected and mauricio didn’t ;( (fav music)

in november i finally achieved my dream of having a literal child on the internet call me out about being attracted to a homophobe.  (they were a madridista even!) accidentally started writing some more rakidric and now i’m seriously hooked.  also accidentally came out of the closet about the secret crush i’d been harboring on luka modric and then one fateful day in the ihop on 14th st i realized i’d had this crush already and repressed it from my memory. Don’t do that kids! now it’s Hurting Really Bad. Ivan dropped the most pathetic and candid interview like...ever and i hope “¿Cómo puede disfrutar uno? Jugando al fútbol. ¿Cómo se siente mi hija pequeña cuando le quitan un juguete? Triste. Yo me siento igual. Me han quitado la pelota, me siento triste” goes down in the history of most epic futbol quotes of all time.  (still haven’t actually been able to watch this because no one has uploaded it anywhere)  What else...............Am i forgetting anything? i celebrated my birthday with @tender-vittles in epic fashion after two years of Not doing that, and turned 32 going on 15.  enjoyed my first-ever “x reader” fic (zlatko dalic x reader LOL) and finished “drive your plow over the bones of the dead” which was real fucking good. i saw hozier live and it was a religious experience and i unexpectedly cried during nina cried power and then called myself “Luka B” when ordering at the classy taco bell across the street after getting a glimpse of alexxx ryan in the flesh. (fav music)

now it’s december and my seasonal depression is a little worse than it’s been the past few years but i’m managing.  still shipping and writing and i just got called out about ivan again last week.  i’m 2 for 2 here!  el clásico was boring but also it was gay and my heart my heart my heart ! Anything could happen in the last 10 days of this year and honestly...I’m pretty sure I’m ready.

Most importantly this year, despite it being not that great in a lot of ways, I developed a lot more self confidence, made many important realizations, and became a lot more peaceful (despite how this post makes me sound) and wiser and less bitter and pessimistic.  And i became outspoken enough about antisemitism on the left to lose friends over it...3 for 3.  i can’t say i’m displeased with these developments.

Hasta 2020! <3