#recently read dec 2020

[armoredsuperheavy]

The Complete Raffles, Annotated (Rebind)

Who is Raffles?

Written by E. W. Hornung, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law, dedicated to ACD, and inspired by the Sherlock Holmes stories, but starring A.J. Raffles, a gentleman of leisure and recreational crime rather than a detective. Accompanied by his admiring friend and narrator, nicknamed "Bunny", mischief is afoot.

It's very shippable, and if you have an interest in historical fiction, Edwardian London, or are a Holmes/Watson fan, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

The Annotated Version

I originally found the annotated stories on the Raffles Redux website and was struck how complete and informative the annotations assembled by Sarah Morrissey and Genevieve L. Morrissey were. In addition to explaining many obscure things the modern reader would otherwise have completely missed, they also collected profuse illustrations from past editions.

I was dismayed that this great addition to the original, public domain Raffles tales was only available (at the time) in this ephemeral form. My reading was greatly enhanced by all these insights into the period and places of the stories. When I recently discovered it was available in an Amazon print on demand edition I immediately bought it.

What a bittersweet experience it was to have the text! Yes! YES! The text is out! In a nice big block with breathing room for the annotations and a handsome typeset at that! What a thoughtful design, but what else should I have expected, considering how well done the annotations were?!

But what was bitter, you ask? Well, that cheap thin cardstock cover, which immediately curled up like Hokusai's Great Wave after I perused 3 pages of the first story. This was infuriating. This book deserves so much better. But! We have the means of production. I couldn't do anything about the "perfect-bound" spine, but i could definitely fix this woefully inadequate cover.

Views of the text, annotations, illustrations.

Let's Rectify This Injustice

I sliced the covers off and removed as much paper from the spine as possible. Scrounged out a moderately "old timey" sheet big enough for endpapers, cut and attached them. Glued mull and an Oxford hollow type kraft paper tube on this bad boy. And then built a case, using the remainder of the endpapers sheet to stretch the book cloth supply.

Then, fortuitously, from the discarded flimsy cover, I was able to salvage the JC Leyendecker portrait of Raffles. This piece was originally done for Collier's magazine, and oozing "late Edwardian cruising". Brother can you spare a light? JCL was a magician.

A sleep overnight in the press and now the complete annotated Raffles (x Bunny of course) finally has the proper treatment, complete with that exquisite side eye right where it deserves to be.

I am Back (ElmoFire.gif)

This is my first finished book project in 4 years. It felt great to get back into it.

I'm finishing up a number of Dead Dove Publishing projects that were partially done when I ground to a halt in summer of 2020. Wish me luck and stay tuned for more...

ArmoredSuperHeavy, 25 Dec 2024

Fanbinding project #162

[the-inheritance-games]

Ok so I was going to post my theory on why I thought jlb was going to announce a new book/novella as the last card later today but then of course this amazing fandom somehow got a synopsis and found it on good reads idek how, but I was going to post this breakdown from evidence I gathered from stalking jlb’s insta but now I’m posting it to show a timeline of when she was Writting this book and how much of a mastermind jlb is.

This going to be long so buckle in

Ok so let’s begin on October 3 2022, jlb announces TBH as the new book in the TIG universe, single handedly returning my will to live after the heartbreak I endured when Grayson ended up even more sad and alone in TFG 😭

Then we fast forward to Dec. 14 2022, we see that jlb is Writting the Grandest games.

Fast forward even more and we start getting updates about how the book is going and about her Writting process (scroll 2)

And then on March 10 2023, she turns in the first draft of TGG

This is where things get interesting, mind you at this point we know about TBH and TGG openly, but she starts talking about another secret project she’s working on, using #secret project, (March 20, 2023) (scroll 3)

She also says that she has been working on this on and off for 2.5 years (from March 2023), which if you go back is late 2020-early 2021. Which also happens to be right around the same time she was writting THL (wrote tig in 2019, released in 2020, wrote thl in 2020, released in 2021, etc)

Why is this fact important?

Bc jlb has openly stated that thl is the book she has planted the most clues/ Easter eggs in. It’s also arguably the best and most important book in the triology. (Argue with the wall if you disagree)

It’s the book where we get the most backstory and information on who this family is. I can imagine jlb Writting the book and delving into this world and, for example Toby’s past and his relationship to Avery’s mom and her past, and coming up with all these ideas she can’t really write into thl in much detail bc those events where in the past.

If she started Writting this novella, backstory, prequel, whatever during this time it would make total sense. It would also give her a chance to answer all those unanswered questions that where left while also doing us some fan service.

Now fast forward, she keeps updating on the grandest games and at the same time posting about writting this secret project, but most recently (February 7 2024) she posted this

She states that her secret project, the novella book that she has been Writting, her secret, is not going to be a secret for much longer, just a week before the vault opened, and 13 days (in Taylor swift we trust) before this all happens.

It was right there infront of us and yet we didn’t see it coming.

So yeah, she’s been Writting this book and compilation of stories for a while now, starting from when she was Writting thl. I was going to use this convince y’all her secret was a book could be a prequel but I don’t have to anymore but still I find it so interesting and I just got this out of my drafts bc why not. I had a hunch for a while but this is honestly better than I could have imagined, if it is what we are seeing :)

[halluciniwaynia]

i think one of the most baffling articles I have ever read analyzing welcome to night vale has to be this one from the artifice (written in dec 2020, so very recently in terms of the shows history) because it points out literally everything correctly about wtnv but then pulls an insane conclusion out of its ass that wtnv…supports fascism…? Because the narrative does not explicitly show the change of the town or focus on that as a plot point…..?

like call me crazy but i think wtnv assumes that you, the viewer, know that what is depicted in it is bad. There’s a reason the show doesn’t delve into body horror outside of the desert bluffs segments (most of the time) because the horror is that the town is so wretched and byzantinely run. You’re supposed to laugh at badly this place is managed, you’re supposed to laugh at the phrase “vote correctly, or never see your loved ones again!” because it’s so eerily grimdark of like, actual American fascism. This entire show is literally a parody of everything wrong with modern suburbia/small town closemindedness, so much so that it ended up being prophetic in a few places (“helpful pandemics”, wheat and wheat by products). Did you think the interns being literally disposable was a joke the writers came up because they thought that was a good and fair practice in the real world?

if you came out of night vale thinking you were supposed to sympathize with its residents and the way the town is structured, or that it’s a nice to live, you ended up with the wrong message. Yes, Cecil and Carlos and everyone within the show are lovable, but the presentation is deliberately framed like that. Everything from the supernatural to the horrifyingly realistic depictions of fascistic liberal democracy are presented as being normal because we’re living in a world where the latter is becoming normal. We’re living in times that are tumultuous and terrible, times where our tax dollars go more towards bombs than they do our healthcare. People are getting married while other people are being murdered unfairly because of some kind of societal injustice. That’s just the reality of the world we live in, baby! And pointing that out through a satirical horror podcast does not suddenly mean that the writers condone what they are depicting. What kind of backwards ass tumblr reading comprehension is this article?

[imaginespazzi]

Ok bestie, anon who followed up on Amoore reporting back as requested ha. I should say we are on a similar page, her & Kitley are very tough to get a read on. And a lot of the online chatter agrees its hard to judge and goes back and forth on whether theres something more going on. For those interested, I suggest watching their youtube ch series for a general sense of them interacting. Entertaining and light vids, not overly long. Really just little things between them here & there that add up. And of course a person can review their socials..

Now onto the tea I came across online. Imperfectly summarized the best I can below. (Allow me to stipulate that I have no way of verifying any of this, so please understand Im not at all sharing any of this to be presented as true or false. Take it as simply passing along the posting of others for conversations sake here in a safe space. Comments/feedback/corrections welcome)

:

Its described as on/off thing, first beginning summer 2020. A VT insider says people are aware that Amoore hasnt been committed, to put it delicately/nicely. Leading most recently to a break of sorts last Dec-mid Jan. (Added pretty sure they are together rn though. And another person did point out if Liz was getting cheated on why would Georgia seem to maintain a good relationship with the Kitley family, which is a fair Q to pose). But notably, a strangely long break in their podcast took place over that period and for the first time in 3 years they didn’t spend XMas together or hang around each other over the holiday and when podcast recording returned they just said “we had Xmas” and didn’t talk about it. It was also pointed out that sometime in winter, Liz had tickets to see an NHL game and went w Cayla King despite her and Georgia talking about how they wanted to go together before. Only sus bc it happened to coincide w the time where Georgia was speculated to have gotten close to Kate Martin. Then suddenly they K & G werent interacting anymore and L & G seem back to being “besties”.

Sidenotes:

Liz’s "2020 love playlist"… apparently someone has screenshots that it used to be titled Georgia. Includes some fav bands/songs of Amoores. And a tune called Australia Street lol. Lots of love songs predictably, but some breakup songs were added to it at one point (the comment seems to insinuate during the time they were going through issues)

They're friends with a married lesbian couple (Youtubers/influencers? The Bellaires) who they once visited alone.

Also, fyi, Kate Martin is apparently recently back w her last ex, whoever that is - per talk re social media activity

You're my new favorite person omg because this is my kinda tea fr! Can y'all tell I love some good gossip?

I'm ngl, I was never the most invested in V-Tech or the girls on the team, so I don't really follow them. And I was pretty convinced Liz was straight so I just assumed her and Georgia really were just really close besties.

But this checks out with what I've heard/read too, that they were in that "undefined" kinda place, mainly because of Georgia and eventually Liz got tired of it. I definitely didn't know about the Christmas or the NHL stuff but that makes sense. Also from what I heard, they were probably done for good now with Liz going to the draft? But still being together also makes sense. I'm so invested in this now omg.

[syn4k]

digital media i watched this year that i really really enjoyed: a (non-exhaustive, non-ranked) list

hi everyone! ray keys here. i'm writing this on Dec 21st because I know I'll forget to post this on time if I don't schedule it beforehand.

i don't watch things on streaming services because i don't have any of the apps downloaded on my phone and most shows just aren't my thing anyways (ATLA has been the only exception) so all of the links here go to YouTube or other (free) sites

here we go!

Misc. Series and Standalone Videos

17776

17776 is a multimedia webnovel (?) about American football in the year of, you guessed it, 17776, written in 2017 by Jon Bois. It's told through the communications of three space probes made by humans and it's genuinely comforting as someone who's generally terrified by the concepts of eternity and immortality. Trigger warning for unreality at the start.

17776

20020 (the sequel, written in 2020 by the same author)

Code MENT

Code MENT is a YouTube series made by PurpleEyesWTF, of which the first episode was released in 2010. It's a fan-made abridgMENT of the anime Code Geass, voiced entirely by one guy (or at least i think so), and some parts of it have become legendary (see: Soup Store). Trigger warning for murder, infrequent use of the R slur, and depictions of blood and gore.

Code MENT playlist

Star Wars The Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West

Star Wars the Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West, uploaded to YouTube by GratefulDeadpool in 2017, is a video where somebody put the entire script of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in Google Translate, translated it to Chinese then back to English, and dubbed over it. Yes, it's the entire movie. No, it somehow hasn't been taken down yet.

Star Wars the Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West

Mianite (S1)

At least some of you should be familiar with Mianite, seeing as how it has taken over my entire blog over the past month or so. The World of Mianite is a vanilla Minecraft SMP launched in 2014. It was streamed live, but the recordings of those livestreams were later uploaded to YouTube. The main members of the serverlist are CaptainSparklez, II_JERIICHO_II, SynHD, and OmgItsFirefoxx. Mianite has had three seasons so far, but I've only watched the first from one perspective so that's what you guys are going to get.

CaptainSparklez' Mianite S1 Playlist

MAMASb0y's Mianite Animations Playlist

Mianite Purge Highlights Playlist

Alan Becker (and his Team)'s Work

Hi! This channel gets a special section all to itself because I just finished the Animation vs Minecraft series and I'm pretty sure my life has been irreversibly changed forever.

Animator Vs Animation

Animator Vs Animation (shortened: AVA or AvA) is an animated YouTube series by Alan Becker. The first episode was originally posted in 2006 and was later reuploaded to the platform in 2018. I recently binged the entire thing and was NOT expecting it to be as fucking incredible as it was. This is the de facto best place to start if you want to jump into Alan's other works featuring these characters, which I highly recommend because all of them are fantastic!

Animator Vs Animation Series Playlist

Animation Vs Minecraft

The stick men play the block game. Do not read the comments of any of the episodes until you have finished the entire series. Do not go in with any prior knowledge if you're able to. Set yourself up with a bowl of popcorn and a big ol' glass of ice water, sit back, look really closely for continuity because it is there and it is GLORIOUS, and enjoy.

Animator Vs Minecraft Series Playlist

[radwolf76]

2024 Tumblr Top 10

 1.) 79 notes - Oct 31 2024

In Case You Were Wondering Where 1/3rd Of The BOOps Were Coming From

 2.) 43 notes - Jul 25 2024

Ah, you think pixelation is your ally? You merely adopted the 480 interlaced. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see High Def until I was a man, by then it was nothing to me but distracting.

 3.) 38 notes - Jun 17 2024

@staff @support @humans the ads on mobile are autoplaying audio without user interaction again, specifically Temu and...

 4.) 35 notes - Dec 19 2024

Wake up, Babe, a new Defunctland just dropped

 5.) 33 notes - May 18 2024

Fine. I'll make my own Valerian, with -blackjack- black president and -hookers- Tucker!!!

 6.) 30 notes - Jul 21 2024

Money Cat - You know what to do.

 7.) 23 notes - Jun 18 2024

Which Of My Favorite 100% Official* & Legitimate* Pokémon Is Your Favorite?

 8.) 21 notes - Jun 22 2024

#nature

 9.) 21 notes - Apr 28 2024

WH40K Homebrew Space Marine Chapter: Stormwolves

(There have been a lot of updates and refinements to the Lore since that post about them in April, but the most recent version of my unofficial “Codex” for them can always be found here (illustrated with plenty of pictures)).

10.) 17 notes - Nov 23 2024

Wolfenoot Feast

Honorable Mentions:

verpfwot’s Miette Halloween costume from 2021. At the end of 2021, it had 428 notes, at the end of 2022 it had 6,186 notes, and at the end of 2023 it had 18,082 notes. As of right now it’s up to 20,683 notes. This will be my [tumblr] legacy. (Unless somehow Pika Sword Grandma catches up.)

My 1,114 Followers.

My Hero Forge creations, like this one I actually had Color 3D Printed.

My Tribute to the April Boopening.

My posts spreading the word about YouTuber jeffiot’s work in tracking down primary sources for the Mystical Skull Trumpet. (If they’d both been in the same year they’d be in the top ten for sure.)

The Eclipse I didn’t actually get to see (but my Spouse and Metamour did).

My Spouse’s Art and my Metamour’s new Blog.

Another [tumblr] AdFail.

My hyping up of Let’s Read Homestuck’s Trickster Mode Upd8.

One of my additions to the TRONcharov discussion.

My obligatory post sharing SecretGalaxy’s Blockbuster Video video.

Getting labeled a greymuzzle in the Therian Community.

This Ask that gave me a chance to post my periodic reminder that TERFs can suck my Wife’s dick.

These two specific Magic: the Gathering foil cards. (I might not have the pack-a-day habit anymore, but it’s a hard addiction to kick.)

Getting to update one of my posts from my old FLASHBack series about early internet animation. Charlie the Unicorn finally gets a moment of tranquil peace.

Miss Fortune and Kitten Fortune.

My cats Lucky & Jinx.

Previous Year’s Top Tens: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019

Created by TumblrTop10

[surgepricing]

That RWBY retrospective was a great read. Would you be willing to share the rest of your deep dive? I would love to read it

Thought long and hard about what I wanted to show off next; very rarely did I get into discussing RWBY in later volumes without stepping on some toes. I decided I'd post one of the more tame chapters from the Volume 2 recap, just to see what people have to say. I hope you enjoy it.

I won't be able to do this with every recap while preserving the images and gifs I used, since there's a limit of 30 and sometimes my posts went well beyond that, but I can always try other options.

Title: RWBY 09 – Volume 2, Second Arc (Part I) Original Posting Date: Dec 19, 2020 Episodes Covered: Volume 2, Episodes 5 & 6

Alright. So far, Volume 2 is not taking me to happy places. But why stop now?

We ended on a gigantic fight between four girls and a robotic mech.

V2E5, “Extracurricular”

The first thing I get to recap to you is a fight scene, right out of the gate. We open on Pyrrha, seeing her gear up for combat, spliced inbetween flashes of the fight itself. Now, for once, since this fight is neither the focus of the episode, nor that important overall, I’m not going to slavishly transcribe it, but rather give you the rundown:

It’s Pyrrha versus the entirety of Team CRDL (Cardin, Russel, Dove, and Lark, in case you forgot). Cardin’s packing his big giant mace, Russel’s armed with dual knives with what look like dust rotors, Lark is swinging around a halberd that looks completely unaltered, and Dove is armed with a slim double-edged blade that can fold into a pistol. If you want to see the fight that badly, I have good news: it’s easy to gif, since it’s brutally short, a mere minute and a half (1:40 to 3:14). So here, my treat:

As you can see, Pyrrha is completely untouchable here, even four-on-one. She sends CRDL’s members flying with precise strikes and sweeps, and deflects Dove’s and Russel’s blades with only the shield braced on her one arm without even going off-balance. Sky and Cardin hit a bit harder, and Cardin gets points for being the only one to take more than three seconds to demolish, but she trounces him, too, the minute she sees an opening. All in all, she was in complete control of the battle and it showed.

You might be wondering how Pyrrha could so skillfully dismantle four attackers, some of whom have clear advantages on her in size and weight and who were attacking together. Don’t worry—you’ll see.

The lights come on in the arena, and Glynda’s voice again announces the end of the match, complimenting Pyrrha and mentioning she’ll have no trouble qualifying for the Vytal Tournament. She turns to the stands, asking any of the attending students if they’d like to fill one last match. RWBY, who are in the stands, appear uninterested, but we can see two familiar faces sitting just behind them. Glynda zeroes in on Blake, who hurriedly snaps some book shut, accusing her of being rather ‘docile’ in recent classes, but before she can volunteer her, a hand is raised and Mercury’s voice pipes up.

Glynda makes to select an opponent for him, but he stops her—he wants to go a round with Pyrrha. Glynda, clearly a tad peeved at having been interrupted twice, tries to tell him that she’s already finished a match, but Pyrrha welcomes another fight, very happy to take him up on it.

Mercury, legs greaved in black metal and showing off glinting silver bullets loading the chambers, slowly struts onto the field to meet his opponent, and in the background, Emerald glances at the back of Ruby’s head, then at the match, with a pointed focus on her eyes. Mercury takes a kickboxing stance, while Pyrrha stands with shield and xiphos at the ready. The two of them rush to meet each other, and Mercury throws a kick that meets Pyrrha’s shield before she sweeps his other leg out from under him. He makes distance with many an unnecessary backflip.

The two fighters clearly appraise one another, before Pyrrha runs forward and presses him. Mercury goes on a fantastic defense, deflecting her strikes and trying to get around her shield, but this enables Pyrrha to just butt him in the chest and send him skidding back.

Mercury nods, as if to say ‘eh, pretty good’, and in the stands, Ruby turns to compliment Emerald on how well her ‘friend’ is doing, who smiles and then rolls her eyes as soon as Ruby turns back towards the match. The two in the arena continue:

Mercury launches a fast and furious series of strikes with the goal of bringing a heavy boot down on something that gives, and Pyrrha performs the sickest move ever, throwing her sword into the air behind her and then just catching Mercury’s next kick with the back of her arm. Mercury undercuts the coolness of this just a bit by answering her next series of slashes with the re-equipped sword and knocking the xiphos out of her hand and some distance away. Pyrrha doesn’t look too concerned about this.

When Mercury makes to pounce on this advantage, she raises her free hand as if to catch his boot, but it doesn’t make contact. We the viewer see a very faint black outline around her hand and his boot as she does it. Mercury is sent off-balance, and takes a moment to absorb what just happened. Pyrrha rushes him, and he gets back up in time to meet her shield with both legs and fire his greave-guns, sending him shooting off of it and a good distance away, just in time to say the magic words before she can press her assault.

M: I forfeit.

Pyrrha is thrown off, and skids to a halt, surprised and rather annoyed at this turn of events. Mercury dismisses her—she’s a world-class fighter, and they’re obviously leagues apart. Glynda understandably shares her irritation, given that Mercury chose to fight her in the first place. Mercury and Emerald are both grinning.

Glynda reminds everyone that “the dance is this weekend” and their first mission is on Monday. RWBY file out of the arena, Blake’s nose buried in a notebook and Emerald watching them as they go. Mercury dryly remarks, as he comes up to Emerald, that learning is “so much fun”.

Now before I pounce on the words that I just bolded, which the next scene that we cut to would like to elaborate on, let me draw your attention to something:

Do you see this overhead shot of Beacon’s courtyard? To the right of RWBY, heading out, you will see Sun’s team, SSSN (pronounced “Sun”)—himself and Neptune, plus Scarlet and Sage.

That is their—Sage’s and Scarlet’s—only appearance this volume.

No, they do not actually interact with anyone nor are they involved in this scene whatsoever, they’re literally in the background and stay there. I don’t feel bad about spoiling that. Better we got it out of the way now. Do any of you remember something I highlighted in my Volume 1 Final Thoughts?

I said that slow pacing wasn’t something we could afford when this show only runs for 25% of the year and is on hiatus the other 75%. It’s not like live-action dramas, either, able to make up for that by running for 50 episodes at a time or packing 30-45 minutes into each episode. It seemed, at the time, an astounding feat of juggling to introduce so many new characters in the very last episode and then even more in the Volume 2 trailer and opening—but now we can see that it evens out, because they don’t intend on using any of them.

By this point in time, RWBY fans had been sitting on the knowledge that Sun had his own team, salivating in the aftermath of his glorious first impression, and hungering for some details on his crew for quite a while, and have at this point gone five weeks with nothing but scraps. They will go the rest of the volume—ten more weeks, what with the World of Remnant introduction—and then the rest of the Volume 2-3 hiatus with yet more nothing to go on.

Release date of Volume 2 Trailer: July 4th, 2014 Release date of Volume 3 Episode 2: October 31st, 2015.

Fifteen, almost sixteen months. Over a year. Not a year in which consistent content was coming—a year in which an official entry to the series’ collective body came and went. If you were actually interested in these characters as a team, any sparse involvement of the remaining two, or anything deeper than a petri dish from Sun and Neptune, you were absolutely not going to get it. Sucks to be you.

Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 10

*idly twirling a foil scraper* That’s not good. That is, in fact, pretty fuckin’ bad. Dickish, even. A point each for Sage and Scarlet, plus a point for the lack of unit behavior with Sun and Neptune—plus another for the conspicuous amount of time spent ignoring these dudes whose names haven’t even been said in-show. Fairest arrangement I can think of.

But that’s all I can say now. I will be bringing this back up later, near or at the end of the Volume. The same goes for the hair-ripping Exit Stage Left from last post that had me so bald.

So let’s move on to the issue actually comprising this scene.

Blake is lagging behind her team, head still buried in her notebook. Sun breaks off from his own team to catch up with her.

S: Hey, Blake! You, uh, doin’ okay?

B: I’m fine.

S: *clearing his throat* So I hear there’s this dance goin’ on this weekend… Agh, sounds...pretty lame, but you an’ me, I’m thinkin’, not as lame? Huh?

B: ...What?

S: The dance, this weekend! You wanna go, or what?

B: ...I don’t have time for a stupid dance. *turning and walking away* I thought you, of all people, would get that.

In case the tone of this conversation is not clear to you, here’s a gif, so you can see their body language like I can.

Sun is being his usual chill and somewhat dorky self, if a little nervous, not pushy or rude. Blake, who has suddenly developed noticeable circles under her eyes since leaving the school arena, responds in a much rougher tone than we might have expected given her previous characterizations. Sun is visibly deflated and her teammates eye her as she walks off. Ruby spares sad boi Sun a glance before we cut to the next scene.

B: You what?

Ruby answers that they want her to go to the dance. When Blake calls that ridiculous, Yang mentions that they’re worried about her. This investigation, she says, is starting to mess with her head.

Ohhh, the investigation! Yeah, that was a thing that happened last episode, wasn’t it?

Wiess mentions that Blake can’t sleep, hardly eats, and her grades are tanking. Blake wants to know why she should care about grades when lives are at stake! Yang responds that they know, and they’re still trying to find out what Torchwick is up to.

Ruby mentions that thanks to Blake and Sun, they know that he and the White Fang are operating somewhere outside of southeast Vale, and Weiss follows up that Schnee records indicated that Vale was clearly the primary target of dust robberies over the last month.

Not to interrupt yet more blossoming angst from Blake, but yeah, this is our reward for following that three-episode ‘arc’ that culminated in the Paladin fight. Weiss lists that last bit off as if it’s useful information—it isn’t, because the characters live in Vale, among the robberies, and the viewers have so far only been shown Vale, and robberies happening there. It gives them nothing to go on besides “hey, at least the plot isn’t operating outside of our reach, like in other countries!” and that is why I remain firm in my decision to award it the Road to Nowhere point.

But seriously, think about what’s going on here. Blake’s grievance about lives is that they’re at stake, not that any have been lost, just in case you don’t believe that all those massacred people on the interstate really last episode didn’t matter. They don’t even register here. As if to underscore the fact that we just hit the reset button—on everything, including Blake’s inner turmoil over Torchwick that seemingly got resolved in Episode 2—they’re even back in their standard outfits, with the cool, unique, badass outfits that they wore for an episode and a half completely ditched, forgotten, and never brought up again.

None of that mattered. We went nowhere.

Alright, now that I’m good and mad, let’s continue with the scene.

Y: Don’t forget about their missing military tech, too.

I’m fine! I’m cool, I’m calm, I’m fine!

(for reference here, the recap before, I had gone into an extended rant about how Torchwick just having a gigantic military mech made no sense, since it's not feasible for him to steal it undetected with his level of resources, and how barreling down a public interstate in it with the White Fang emblem stamped on it pretty much broadcasted his location and claimed the carnage so that it couldn't even be used to sow distrust against Ironwood).

When Blake protests that there’s still unanswered questions, Ruby responds that she won’t find any answers if she can’t even stay awake. Yang reiterates that they want her to relax a bit for one day, and Weiss insists it’ll be fun—because after all, Weiss and Yang are going to make sure of it! You see, they’re planning the whole event!

Yes, Yang said that verbatim. They—two girls—are planning a school event comprising not just the hundreds of students living at their campus, but hundreds more students coming in from three other countries! Sorry, I’m not letting you get away with that.

Ill Logic: 16

It isn’t alleviated by the fact that the event was originally being managed by four students instead of a mere two. Weiss mentions that upperclassmen team CFVY (pronounced “coffee”) aren’t back from their mission yet, so she and Yang were asked to pick up where they left off. Weiss promises that after the dance, they can return to their regularly scheduled business, nose in Torchwick’s business and all.

B: I think this is a colossal waste of time.

She gets up and strides out, mentioning that she’ll be in the library, with her team bemoaning that she can’t keep going like this.

But enough about that! There’s a knock on the door, and Weiss answers it. Guess who it is!

What he’s here for is obvious before he even says it. Weiss shuts the door in his face, and he knocks again, begging that she open it, and promising not to sing.

J: I lied!

W: [facepalming]

J: Weiss Sch-nee! ♪ Will you accompany me? ♪ To the daaaaance on! ♪ Sunday? ♪

W: Are you done?

J: ...Yes?

W: No. [she shuts the door in his face, then turns to her teammates] ...What?

Y: And that, is why they call you the ice queen.

W: All my life, boys have only cared about the perks of my last name. [crossing her arms and turning away] Besides, I already have a date in mind.

R: Date or no date, none of this will matter if we can’t get Blake to go.

The scene here ends on a zoom-in towards the sky outside the open window. But first…You didn’t think we were going to escape this shit without a little commentary on boundaries, did you?

Mkay. We’re not quite done with this issue, but we may as well do this—you may be flashing back to the first interaction Weiss actually had with Jaune, and his very pushy and rude flirting in the same scene. I mentioned there that it translated worse when written than watched, and could easily be brushed off as harmless even though it wasn’t. There is no such allowance here.

We’ve already established, through that scene and through the recent cold shoulder she gave him in class, that Weiss has no interest in Jaune’s time. Trying to ask her out to a dance, therefore, is a bad idea, but not necessarily a full-stop no-bad-wrong. Once she made it clear via door slam that she still wasn’t interested, that was the official cutoff, and any further pursuit should’ve been given up. He continues to pester her, and then she still gives him the official “No”.

If, like me, you mis-remembered this as Jaune asking her out like four or five times past a clear “No”, don’t worry, there’s still more to talk about. Because while Jaune is still over the line—

Jaune: 8

—what the real issue here is, is the framing of Weiss’ answer. See, it’s not because Jaune has qualities that turn Weiss off, or that his behavior is bad, or even that she simply doesn’t want to go to the dance—it’s that she assumes that Jaune only wants her because she’s the illustrious Schnee heiress. It is framed as though Weiss’ ‘no’ to Jaune is simply one of caution rather than actual disinterest in him—as though he ‘deserves a chance’, and the only reason he isn’t getting one is because a) Weiss made the wrong assumption and b) she already has the spot filled.

The problem is that Weiss doesn’t need a reason. She may hate Jaune’s guts, or may be head-over-heels with him. She may simply find him unattractive, or may simply not enjoy his company. She may not enjoy dances on principle. She may already have a date, or may not. She may have no reason whatsoever to say no to Jaune.

And she can still say no to him, and deserves to have that respected. Because a girl doesn’t need a ‘good’ reason to reject a guy. The ‘no’ is the beginning, middle, and end. She says no, and that’s that.

Fauxminism: 6

There’s shades of this with Blake, too, mind, what with her team trying to push her to go to a dance she has no interest in. Blake may, like myself, simply not find dances enjoyable and want to skip it, regardless of whatever turmoil is causing her to lose sleep, but this passes just a tad more easily because her physical health and mindset are clearly not their best.

Back to the next scene. We are shown Jaune training with Pyrrha. Both of them are wielding their swords with both hands and have gone shieldless, so Pyrrha seems to be teaching him the basics. He presses her into a couple of sword locks, before she sweeps his legs out from under him with her own. She laughs, and compliments how much his swordplay has improved, extending a hand to help him up (while a very creepy but un-commented-on green glow emanates from the headmaster’s tower in the background).

She asks if he wants to go ahead with Aura training, and Jaune hesitantly wonders about skipping that for tonight. She recommends he keep at it, and that she’s sure they’ll discover his Semblance in no time (hinting for the audience that one is attached to the other). Jaune dismisses this as the problem, saying “It’s dumb”. Pyrrha presses him when he clams up, and he admits he wants time to lament about Weiss.

What about her, Pyrrha asks, and he confesses he asked her to the dance and she promptly shut him down. Pyrrha, quite stiffly, mentions that there’s plenty of fish, as the saying goes. Easy for her to say, he says, since she probably has guys falling over themselves in line to hit that up. She subtly hints that this isn’t the case, only to be blown off. If she doesn’t get a date to the dance, he says, he’ll wear a dress.

Wait for it. I’ll comment on it in time.

Pyrrha gives Jaune’s retreating back the solemn gaze of the unrequited crush, and all I can do is question her taste, which I will do in detail soon enough.

The next scene we cut to is the dorm room where Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury are staying. They’re commenting on ‘the invincible girl’, Pyrrha Nikos, who Mercury appears to have figured out. He and Emerald explain that her semblance is ‘polarity’, but she hides it well, using it to manipulate combat in her favor in subtle ways that won’t be noticed if you aren’t looking. In this way, she creates the impression that she really is untouchable in combat on skill alone, rather than because most fighters would realistically be helpless against her.

We will ask a question now: if Pyrrha’s so good at being subtle about her abilities, why did she magically wave Mercury’s foot away from her face rather than simply catching it? She proved she was capable of doing just that. One looks significantly less suspect than the other, and likely wouldn’t have actually been caught by Mercury’s oh-so-clever analysis!

Ill Logic: 17

Your Fight Scene Sucks: 10

C: People assume she’s fated for victory, when she’s taken fate into her own hands. Interesting. Add her to the list.

How very ominous. Mercury mentions that Cinder should be able to take her easily, and she adopts a more serious demeanor as she declares that it’s not about overpowering the enemy, but taking away what power they have. How different those two things really are, in this context or any, is something I’ll leave up to readers.

When Mercury bemoans more waiting around, Cinder mentions a ‘fun weekend’ in store for them, while holding up a needle she’s using to sew something. The episode ends.

Before I move on to the next episode, I need to air an issue I’ve been saving since the beginning of this one, and I will preface it with an apology, because one last time, I’m about to use the j-word: juvenile.

It took me a while to find that word, you know, when I was first outlining a spork of this animation, and when I was searching for and finally settled on it, I was thinking of this plot point right here, and nothing else. It didn’t occur to me until I was actually writing the recaps for the preceding episodes just how many times I could, and would, apply that word.

And it does occasionally hit me that I may come off as snobbish or elitist for that, and I apologize if so. I promise that’s not my intention. I’m not some fun-hating asshat that takes issue with a show being accessible to kids and not being filled with blood and gore and sex and f-bombs. I’m not trying to put RWBY ‘beneath’ me.

But there is nonetheless a problem with how this show is treading its water. There are certain things the audience is expecting, was expecting, and some they most certainly weren’t—and probably didn’t welcome. And as for me, I would call this one of them. Let’s lay our cards on the table here: we now have a dance arc to sit through. Dance arcs are restricted, generally speaking, to a few different settings, and it’s rather difficult to make most of them cross over with the dramatic, monster-slaying world of Remnant. And failing the one, rather more flexible type of dance arc—the whole ‘regal, fancy high-society ball’ type—we instead are being handed the other type. Say it with me now, what we’ve really got is a prom arc.

I cannot fucking stand the prom arc.

Suppose for a minute that I did enjoy high-school shows, of which the prom arc is the most standard, inseparable staple. Regardless of the fact that I detest them in general, there are interesting things you can do in a high school setting, especially if there are fantasy elements involved. If binging Supernatural doesn’t scar me deeply enough by the time I’m done, hell, the one I’ll probably move on to is Teen Wolf, in which I understand this problem to have reared its ugly head. The prom arc is emblematic of both high school shows and what ends up being wrong with most of them, in that it’s the least interesting thing you can possibly show me.

Absent any monster-slaying or teens with superpowers, maybe on occasion I can still get invested in a plot about how some chick is trying to hide her pregnancy, about how a bully gets his due (one we had in this show, as it happens!), or how some kid getting in with the wrong crowd tries to get out before it destroys his life. To say nothing of the oft-ignored or mishandled potential of trying to watch teens struggle through things like sexuality or gender, which more and more of us could relate to and want to see. And yes, even that is relevant to what I will say later on.

The fact of the matter is, ‘who is taking who to prom? Tee-hee! Ooooh!’ is the plot point that is both the least interesting and the one that often takes up way too much time and attention. It’s tired, annoying, endlessly-retreaded, boring…and now we have one right here.

Coming right off the heels of Torchwick chasing gun-and-sword-wielding teens down a crowded freeway and the large-scale implications Blake keeps babbling about, why should we disagree with her assessment of this? Why on earth would we care about some freaking prom? Do we not have a million more interesting things to look at?!

And don’t think that it ends with me calling this farce for what it is. There’s also the fact that it doesn’t make sense. This prom is happening on the heels of a bazillion exchange students arriving to stay on campus.

Really? You want to ask hundreds of people who are unfamiliar with the city and have never been here before to try and find dates, ostensibly with people from other countries that they hardly know, when they barely know their way around? That makes sense to you? Someone should bitch slap Ozpin upside the head for thinking that’s a good idea.

Ill Logic: 18

It’s not getting Reliable Leader points because I can’t prove it was him that organized it, but it’s still a terrible idea nonetheless. Whatever, let’s move along.

V2E6, “Burning the Candle”

We open on Ruby sitting at a table when set upon by Weiss, asking her opinion: which tablecloth should she go with? But they’re both the same, and Weiss leaves in a huff when this is pointed out. Yang is carrying a huge amp and sets it down with a colossal thud. She asks if Ruby has picked out her dress yet, and Ruby, incredibly down in the dumps, asks what the point is if Blake isn’t going.

You have a weird fixation on Blake attending a very pointless event, you know that? Do you have some terminal inability to enjoy anything if it isn’t being done with your whole teeeeaaam? I’m gonna start calling you Esme.

Yang waves this off: don’t worry, Ruby, Blake’s going! Said with a confident smirk, which given Yang’s track record with coercion so far, does not make me think the things I imagine Rooster Teeth wanted me to think, so great work there. She then snaps at Weiss that she doesn’t want doilies everywhere. No doilies, no fog machines, Weiss answers.

This leads to a comment from Neptune, who walks in with Sun. Lovely to see you two again, did you ever find your missing two team members? No? Sorry to hear that, keep at it! Neptune thinks this might be pretty cool, and Sun asks if the ladies are all ready for ‘dress-up’. Ruby is not as enthused as Yang and Weiss are at the idea of getting all dolled up to turn heads. So what are they going to be wearing, the latter asks?

S: Pfft, uhhh, this?

Before I can point out that this is yet another detail implying that Sun is poor, Neptune tries to wave him off, but Sun will not be ignored. He mentions that, despite having moved to Mistral, he grew up in Vacuo, which viewers will by now understand to be a desert nation and rather dangerous.

S: It’s not exactly a shirt-and-tie kind of place.

Y: Yeah, we’ve noticed.

Holding my tongue here.

Sun, visibly uncomfortable, asks what Blake thinks of all this, and if she’s still in her ill mood, and they confirm that she is. Yang, again all a-smirking, says to just trust her, because Blake will definitely be at the dance tomorrow. Whatever could she mean?

She means racism, of course! See, in the next scene, she’s got a laser pointer, and interrupts Blake’s time poring over a library computer by bothering her with it until she gives in and tries to follow it to the source. It is an extended sequence and very uncomfortable. Remember: this would not matter if Blake was just a cat person, and cat people and humans coexisted with nothing else said about it. But the faunus in this show are explicit stand-ins for people of color! So this joke is unfunny and offensive by default. Imagine if some black kid was hanging out on the computer and some rudeass white kid started trying to dangle fried chicken or watermelon in front of them, ‘cause black people love that stuff, right? Ha. Ha. Ha. So very funny.

RSVP: 22

When Blake finally finds Yang holding the laser pointer, the latter drags her off by the arm, claiming they ‘need to talk’ and no, it’s not funny. Cut to the next scene!

Lie Ren walks out of the JNPR dorm’s bathroom wearing only a towel. In the exact same manner, Jaune comes out of nowhere and grabs him by the arm, claiming they need to talk. Ha, funny, hee.

J: Ren…I’m just gonna come out and say it. You…are one of my best friends. These past few months, I feel like we’ve really bonded! Even though...you don’t say much. I mean, you’re really quiet. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know that much about you personally...but darn it, I consider you to be the brother I never had!

R: [still in a towel and visibly uncomfortable] ...And I you.

J: Which is why I wanted to get your advice on...girls!

I love when racism is followed by good old-fashioned homophobia! Because yes, that’s what this is. The fact that Ren’s in a towel and Jaune starts by using language like “you’re one of my best friends” and the ever-suspect “come out and say it” make it clear that this is obviously a funny joke meant to make the audience laugh because oh, he sounds like he’s about to confess his love to another man! Isn’t that funny?!

*icily* Miles Luna, you see this big fat dick? Eat me. It’s fucking scary as hell for gay people trying to approach love and you don’t get to make us the butt of your jokes.

And for the record, no, I don’t think that was a one-off. See, people watching RWBY had, before Volume 2 even aired, asked about the topic of sexuality within this show. They wanted to know...well, mostly whether their favorite ships were gonna happen, but beyond that, they wanted to know whether Rooster Teeth intended to display non-heterosexual identities and how they felt about doing so. Monty went on record and assured them the characters would figure that sort of thing out under their own power and on their own time, and that it would not be brushed aside but also wouldn’t be a huge part of the story. So by this point, Rooster Teeth are already aware they had an LGBT audience...and this little scene still got greenlit.

Malevolent? Malicious? No and no. But abso-fucking-lutely in poor taste? Definitely so.

Jaune eventually says that he wants to know how Ren and Nora got together, only for them both to uncomfortably clarify that they’re not a couple. He urges her to put her headphones back on, since obviously he wanted Ren’s opinion on this and not hers. Dick. Ren asks him what this is about.

J: It’s Weiss. I’m completely head-over-heels for her, and she won’t even give me a chance. She’s cold, but…she’s also incredible. She’s smart, graceful, and talented...I mean, have you heard her sing? I just wish she’d take me seriously, you know? I wish I could tell her how I feel, without messing it all up.

Yes, we are still not done with this tiresome matter.

First, this was clearly an attempt to back up what I said above: it’s all a misunderstanding! Jaune doesn’t want her because she’s a Schnee, (or just because she’s hot), he’ll have you know! It has nothing to do with superficial qualities like her money (or her hotness). It’s all about those other not-at-all-superficial qualities like how graceful she is, what a beautiful voice she has, and uhh, what was that last one? Oh yeah, how smart she is! Notice that Jaune said nothing that actually indicated he knows her. Is she a kind person? Does she have passion or drive? Does she care about others? Does she put forth effort to be the best she can be and make every day great? What are her interests and hobbies? The best you could say is that ‘smart’ technically isn’t superficial, but it’s one short step away from ‘aw yeah, she’s got a brain to go with those hot titties!’

This was clearly a transparent attempt to smooth over burgeoning distaste for Jaune and his interactions with women, so it’s getting two points, and one of them is our very first!

Jaune: 9

Band-Aid Brigade: 1

Moving on. Pyrrha cuts in, telling Jaune that if he really feels that way about Weiss, he should just tell her. No schemes, no pick-up lines, just honesty.

P: Jaune. You can’t get it wrong if it’s the truth!

I beg to differ! He can get it very wrong! He’s gonna show us that much very soon!

But Jaune likes this advice and hurries out, leaving Nora to sadly advise Pyrrha to practice what she preaches.

Now we cut back to Blake and Yang. They are occupying some unused theater classroom, with Yang sitting cross-legged on the teacher’s desk and Blake pacing back and forth with her arms crossed. Blake insists that they can’t afford to slow down, while Yang says that taking a break isn’t a luxury, but a necessity. At Yang’s invitation, Blake reluctantly sits down to listen to her story.

Cuz it’s story time!

Y: Ruby and I grew up in Patch, an island just off the coast of Vale. Our parents were Huntsmen. Our dad taught at Signal, and our mom would take on missions around the kingdom. Her name was Summer Rose. And she was like...Super-Mom. Baker of cookies and slayer of giant monsters. And then...one day she left for a mission and never came back. It was tough. Ruby was really torn up, but…I think she was still too young to really get what was going on, you know? And my dad just kinda...shut down. It wasn’t long before I learnt why. Summer wasn’t the first love he’d lost. She was the second. The first was my mom. He wouldn’t tell me everything. But I learnt that they had been on a team together with Summer and Qrow. And that she’d left me with him just after I was born. No one had seen her since.

Yes, this is belated Yang Time. Pay careful attention to what she said here. I’ll be talking about it in just a minute.

Blake asks why Yang’s birth mother left. Yang answers that it’s that exact question that ate at her as a kid and drove her to find out why. We transfer to art deco as Yang delves deeper into her backstory. She found a clue, she describes, while the art deco shows us a picture in a broken picture frame, that she thought would lead her to her mother or answers thereabouts.

Y: I waited for Dad to leave the house, put Ruby in a wagon, and headed out. I must’ve walked for hours. I had cuts and bruises, was totally exhausted…but I wasn’t gonna let anything stop me. When we finally got there, I could barely stand. But I didn’t care. I had made it. And then I saw them. Those burning red eyes. There we were. A toddler asleep in the back of a wagon and a stupid girl too exhausted to even cry for help. We might as well have been served on a silver platter. But, as luck would have it...our uncle showed up just in time. My stubbornness should’ve gotten us killed that night.

The bolded material, this time, is for me. First, I know a lot of you will expect me to comment on Yang’s parents and what they’re like, and on this matter, one in particular. But please wait. Give it time—there is an appropriate moment to talk about this, and you need the full effect. For now, let’s just focus on the first one: Ruby.

In addition to Yang Time, we now have our very first details about Ruby’s mother, Summer Rose! Fans had been itching to hear about this ever since that extremely loaded song, Red Like Roses Part II, debuted in Volume 1. A dark past, trauma, a desire to know why her protectorate left her...and then we find out Ruby was too young to understand Summer dying. That handily puts a stopper in any of that juicy development we were kind of relying on for Ruby, not to mention any development of it in the future, too. It’s not as though it doesn’t make sense for Yang to angst about a missing mother as much as Ruby, but this kind of locks it onto Yang and away from Ruby. And with Yang focusing on her birth mother over Summer, that means Summer will continue to be unexplored. And Rooster Teeth will continue to fumble this going ahead.

At the end of this story, Blake makes a very good point: these situations are not the same, and she is not a child with no sense of scope. Yang, gripping the desk rather hard, reiterates that she isn’t telling Blake to stop. After all, she herself hasn’t—she’s still looking for details about her birth mother. The difference is, she doesn’t let the search control her, which is what she wants for Blake. Blake insists that she doesn’t understand. That she’s the only one who can fight this. Why…? I’m not sure. Perhaps you guys need to see how this goes down:

Y: No, you don’t understand! If Roman Torchwick walked through that door, what would you do?

B: I’d fight him!

Y: You’d lose!

B: I’d stop him!

Y: You can’t even stop me!

I’m not of the opinion that Yang shoving Blake necessarily constitutes abuse, or even just an unhealthy scenario. Certainly I wouldn’t do it, but Yang is supposed to personify ‘tough love’, and she’s right: Blake is literally running on fumes and would suck ass if the time came for her to get what she wants. That said, this is another one of those Yang ThingsTM that looks way worse when considering prior missteps surrounding her. Fortunately, I think this is one Rooster Teeth actually caught onto in time—but that’s for later.

Yang gives Blake a hug, reiterating one more time that even though she supports what Blake wants, the way she’s going about it is self-destructive. And that’s why they want her to get some rest, for both her and the people she cares about. And...maybe try and head to the big event tomorrow, if she feels up to it? Yang’ll save her a dance, she says. They both leave, allowing us to get a good look at the winged gear emblem Yang was drawing on the chalk board.

(I will, even with what I said earlier, condemn anyone that, like Certain People Back in the Day, has the audacity to say this would’ve been a perfect time for them to kiss or for Yang to ask Blake to the dance. That turns what is framed as a gentle suggestion into the sort of thing that you do not do to an emotionally unstable and hurting person. You wait ‘til a person is stable and in good health to put the moves on them or you face my fiery wrath.)

That was pretty okay. A bit belated, and a bit of a forced fit for Blake’s problem, but we did indeed get two things I said we needed in my Volume 1 Final Thoughts—in-depth Yang characterization and one-on-one interaction with her team members. Here, have a cookie.

We cut to Jaune strolling down the sidewalk with a big ol’ smile on his face, holding a white flower and yes, he is doing exactly what he shouldn’t be doing—!

Jaune: 10

Pyrrha, I gotta pin this one on you. You were in the room when Jaune said he got turned down, why did you encourage this?

Yes, he’s off to go announce his feelings for Weiss! On...the night before the dance. And unless I’m just dumb, hoping to get a date with her. But his attempt is, as we already know, doomed. Jaune passes an alleyway, only to hear Weiss’ voice...calling Neptune’s name. Peeking around a corner, he (and we) watch Weiss catch up with the man himself, who asks what’s up.

W: I know this is a little...unorthodox, but…I wanted to ask you something. Would you...like to accompany me to the dance tomorrow?

Neptune’s hand is behind his head in apparent recognition of how ‘unorthodox’ this is. Jaune, crushed, backs away from the alley and goes back to his dorm, the flower discarded, and since he didn’t stick around to see Neptune’s answer, neither do we.

We cut to the very next night, where the dance is happening indoors. Yang, in a very untypical plain white dress and heels, is hosting, and yes, before you ask, every single one of the couples in view behind her is visibly a man/woman pairing. The latest visitor Yang welcomes is her very own sister Ruby, who she gushes over for having gotten all prettied up, including heels. Ruby would like to complain about those in particular, lampshading Weiss’ uncanny ability to fight in them. We then cut to Sun.

Sun is wearing…black? His tail is swinging behind him and we see that he’s swapped out his white jacket and lack of shirt for an identical jacket in black, this time buttoned up just high enough to let him display his necklace, and that he’s also wearing a white tie, which he is very unfamiliar with and struggling in. Behind him, a quiet voice reaches him:

B: I knew you’d look better with a tie.

Awwww!

She takes his arm, and he asks if this means they’re going, yanno, together. Technically yes, Blake says, though her first dance is spoken for.

Cutting back to the dance, we get a lovely view of all of those cookie-cutter heterosexual couples dancing, before...

…Blake finishes one dance, and starts another.

*tapping a foil scraper on the desk* Yes, I know I was a tad snide about the background characters, but we got the important bits here with the main characters. Via Blake dancing with Yang, we are being shown that it’s not a stigma for people of the same sex to dance together, even if they’re not there as a date, so to speak. I’m not going to call that an accident, because that was the purpose of the scene and that’s what it did. I am going to call this dangerous, because even if the intent was clean and hit the mark for once, this also adds potential energy to a burgeoning fandom war.

See, what they aimed for was “Same-sex couples can go to the prom dance!” And they got that. They did. Laud them for it. What they also got was “Blake and Yang went to the prom dance—right before she got together with Sun!”

Yang bows out, Sun steps in. I’ve already commented on the...particular energies of certain shippers in this fandom. I also mentioned that, with the somewhat-too-close relationship Rooster Teeth have with their fans, and the way they like to eat away at what gap there is between them, they can invite bad things. A lot of people were not happy with how Sun, the resident love interest, was still ‘getting the girl’. And yeah, that’s entirely on them—shippers take things too seriously and get very up in arms over shit that doesn’t matter. We know that, that’s what they do. But things like this stoke the eventual fires that break out. I, personally, would’ve had Blake dance with a woman that wasn’t the other half of the biggest ship in fandom at the time—Pyrrha or Weiss, perhaps—but I’m not going to berate RT for not thinking to do that.

Enough about that, though. Sun and Blake are very cute dancing together, as commented on by the others, who are very happy that Blake is happy and is going so far as to laugh, apparently having gotten some rest and improved.

When Ruby asks what they do now, Yang just tells her to have fun before walking off, as does Weiss. She’s left alone to complain about her dumb stilt heels she can barely walk in. The music takes on a twinkling tone as Ozpin shows up, asking if she’s not enjoying herself.

They talk about nothing. No, I’m serious, nothing of any importance is being said here. Ozpin and Ruby bemoan that life is more than just fighting, Ozpin says fighting and dancing aren’t that different, and then muses on bonds becoming stronger. I think he showed up just to give this closing line:

Oz: Nights like these are ones we’ll never forget.

Yang then welcomes in two more guests—Emerald and Mercury.

The episode ends. And so does this post—unfortunately, this arc has to be split in two as well. Like the last one, it’s a bunch of little annoying fails leading up to a huge fail-fest that will get me absolutely furious and chatty about it. Then we’ll do the World of Remnants, and then the last arc, which will take...three posts? Maybe four?

Counts:

Jaune: 10 It Was Right There: 3 Fauxminism: 6 Hypocrisy: 1 Ice Cream Queens: 0 Reliable Leaders: 4 Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 0 Threatening Enemies: 2 Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 10 Your Fight Scene Sucks: 10 + 2 Evisceration Evasion: 2 Ill Logic: 18 Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 4 + 1 Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 0 Band-Aid Brigade: 1 RSVP: 22 Road to Nowhere: 6 Y.A.S. Queen: 3

[ravenwolfie97]

so there’s this one comic artist i really like

honestly i don’t know how to promote this so i’ll just be blunt: i’ve loved this comic ever since it came out (apparently only in dec 2020??? what the fuck) and i’d been following this artist’s work before and since 2016 when the mob psycho 100 fanfic it’s pulling from got big have i read it? no. the only way i’ve consumed it is via this person’s comics. and i have no attachment to the fanfic itself i am just utterly enamoured with this person’s art and this one in particular really got to me

and i had the ambition to voice act it recently with the help of a friend and try out my first comic dub video of my own! ______________

original fanfic by @phantomrose96 fan comic by @sandflakedraws voice of Detective Isa: @mew-cake voice of Ritsu Kageyama, video editing: me :3

[fairyminnie444]

Hi! Hope you're having great holidays uwu

This may be a long post, sorry about that.

I knew about LOA and manifestation circa 2020, and since then I've been investing in pursuing my dream life with it.

But (I hate to use this word) since then is practically null what I've manifested consciously.

I already read, watched, heard, and consumed an enormous quantity of LOA content, even though I left it at some point, because I thought it was pointless and I was wasting my time. For one reason, LOA content found me time after that and I thought it was a signal.

I challenged myself to manifest "small things" and most times they happen, but the important ones never seem to come.

I've been a very depressive person most of my life and tend to sadness easily, but I really put the work into changing that. I do a lot of mental diet, meditate before sleeping, sleep to affirmations, not to take the 3D too seriously so it doesn't bother me. But I can't seem to manifest my desires.

I've been trying to manifest my SP back since November, and even tho I persist in the idea of being together, I do my affirmations, even the bad things I tried to take em as positive, or at least seeing them from a positive perspective, but everything looks totally on the opposite side, he blocked me out of the blue, and all of that. The last thing I knew about him was a 3rd party, and even with that, I have taken my attention away from there, "What 3rd party?". And I'm sure that's not the story I've been counting since Nov (the bad things), I really can picture us together, having fun, I can hear his mother talking with us and hanging out, his family adores me, and also imagined Christmas Eve in his house, the colors , noises, smells, everything was so vivid....

I recently went on vacation and imagined him being there with me (I had this plan since October, so I had the chance to invite him before he left me). On my way back home, I was on the plane, on CHRISTMAS EVE night, and I saw a shooting star, it made me so excited and joyful, and I used it as a sign of my manifestation coming together, but to this day Dec 26, everything looks worse than before and I feel him further away than before.

What am I doing wrong?

It sounds like you’re doing a lot of the right things, but there are a few points to clarify and adjust to help your manifestations come through more clearly.

One of the main reasons things may feel like they’re not coming together is doubt. Even though you’re doing all the affirmations, mental diet, and meditation, if there’s still a lingering doubt or fear, it can create resistance. When things don’t show up right away, it’s crucial to trust the process fully, even when it feels like the 3D reality isn’t matching your desires.

Living in the End: While you’re visualizing and imagining your SP and the situations you want, it’s important to live as if your desires have already manifested. This means fully embodying the feeling of already being with your SP, not just imagining it but feeling like it’s already your reality. If you’re still looking at the 3D world as proof it’s not working, it can slow things down. The key is to align your feelings, thoughts, and beliefs with the end result, not with the current 3D situation.

No Resistance to the 3D: You mentioned taking your attention away from the third party and seeing the bad things from a positive perspective, which is great, but sometimes there’s still a subtle form of resistance when you focus too much on “trying” to make it better. It’s important to let go of any attachment to the outcome, not in a way where you’re giving up, but in a way where you trust the process completely without being fixated on how or when it will unfold. The more relaxed you are about it, the more space you give for it to happen.

The universe is always working in your favor, but focusing too much on signs can sometimes increase doubt instead of alleviating it. You don’t need signs cause it’s already yours, but if you want to notice signs Treat it as something light and keep focusing on the feeling of already having it instead of seeing it as a sign that it is coming.

In summary, check your belief and trust level—are you fully living as if your manifestation is already here? Let go of the attachment to when or how it happens, and focus on the feeling of having it. The more you do this, the more natural and effortless your manifestations will become. Stay persistent, but without the pressure.

Your manifestation is not meant to be tiring, a burden or something difficult that requires work to achieve. It is something easy, the methods you do because you like them and because they make you feel like you already have them. When it becomes so natural for you, your manifestation will come and it won't even be a surprise, because your main state is what you desire already.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Jake Mackey (@omni_american)

Published: Dec 21, 2024

"The hardest thing in 23 years for me to watch was the city council yesterday making their statement that in essence said every single one of us are racist by the very uniform and badge we wear. And then the news pans out, and it shows the outside of City Hall, where the city council is making their statement. And what do I seen outside? It's a mobile field force around City Hall protecting the very people that called us racist."

2020's assault on police was, as the quote above shows, pure hypocrisy on the part of elites. But it was also evil and we knew it, bc Roland Fryer proved in 2016 that its premises were false and, in 2020, that it would cause a huge increase in the deaths of black Americans.

The BLM-led assault on policing in 2020 led, according to @wil_da_beast630, to the homicides of 2,874 more black Americans in 2020 alone than would have died otherwise. Almost 3,000 black lives were therefore "unmattered" in a single year as a result of this movement.

The city council in the OP, denouncing as racist the very cops who are protecting them, and everyone who joined the "abolish"/"defund" luxury-belief frenzy, have blood on their hands. They're complicit in the deaths of thousands of black Americans who wouldn't have died without their activism. A central tenet of the "systemic racism" construct is that you don't need individuals with prejudicial attitudes, engaging in intentionally discriminatory behavior, to get outcomes that systematically harm black people. On this theory, the BLM-led "defund"/"abolish" movement is the most lethal systemically racist social phenomenon since at least the end of the Civil Rights era.

To be clear, I think there would have been a spike in homicides among black Americans even without any BLM activism. The spike was multifactorial in its causes. A couple of recent 🧵s can be read to suggest this. As Crémieux points out, the causes of the homicide spike include "reduced cooperation with police, reduced police activity, presence, and willingness to confront potential criminals." What's crucial to grasp is that every single one of these factors was exacerbated by BLM's activism. For example, Charles Fain Lehman's 🧵 notes "the importance of protests leading to depolicing" in the homicide spike.

Thus, BLM activism is complicit in the deaths of thousands and thousands of black Americans.

Crémieux: https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1869563321860461009 Lehman: https://x.com/CharlesFLehman/status/1869832195789205965

@coldxman to @kriegman: "The rhetoric and the environment that resulted from BLM created thousands of excess homicides that fell almost totally on black people. And so BLM, I suppose you could say indirectly, BLM caused indirectly the deaths of thousands of black people that otherwise would be alive."

To return to the shocked police of the OP, who have just learned that the city council they protect has denounced them as racists: I would submit that BLM's confrontational, maximalist approach squandered an opportunity to achieve reform that most Americans agreed in 2020 was needed. The need varies jurisdiction by jurisdiction. In some places, there are nests of overtly racist police. In big cities, the police are often majority minority and disproportionately led by black police chiefs. Reform will require a scalpel, not a bomb. Moreover, as I wrote last year: "Police reform is not well addressed through identity politics, in which one group’s grievances are pitted against another group’s perceived sins, biases, and privileges. The issue of police violence falls instead within the broader purview of American identity, which emphasizes our mutual bond and shared interests as citizens."

And here's my @FreeBlckThought colleague @mdcbowen on the grotesque overall ethos of the BLM approach to social change:

The video of the police officer in the OP comes courtesy of @mdcbowen, too. The officer goes on addressing his fellow cops: "It’s the worst thing I've seen in 23 years and I swear I hope for any time I have left on this job I never see it again. But in closing I have nothing to say the council members. I have to say to all of you, thank you."

Finally, let's recall just who was agitating for defunding/abolishing police and minimizing crime, because that's who's complicit in the avoidable, needless deaths of 1000s of black Americans in 2020 & after—"woke" whites:

--

By: Crémieux

Published: Oct 17, 2024

And here we have it: Weekly homicide data!

The massive increase in homicides in May of 2020 occurred in the week ending on May 30, five days after George Floyd's death.

And here we have gun murders by week, from an entirely different source (GunViolenceArchive), although I'm not sure about the end dates for weeks.

In any case, the signal is clear.

Whether aggregating to years, months, or weeks, the U.S.-specific, largely gun violence-specific, and largely race-specific increase in homicides is affirmed in the data.

The increase in automobile mortality was similarly timed, but the responsible week of May is less clear:

==

George Floyd wasn't worth it. He wasn't worth it.

Wokeness kills.

[much-the-millers-kid]

Yas Queen, read that series backward!

Some other things of note (or at least that I found interesting, I'm not sure if any of them will have lore relevance)

Most recent book on record being checked out is "King of the Earrings Vol. 2: Friendship of the Hoops" by Irite Wurds, which was checked out by Justin Wood on Dec. 16, 2020… anyone else wondering why the calendar in the office was 2023 but the last checkout on record is 2020?

Caroline Hunter is the only name that is shared with someone on the secret tapes; from 1992 to 2013, she checked out "Masc-off," "Bamcrackle," "The Capitalist Tree," and "Counterfeit Cardinal"

12 library patrons (that I've found so far) share a name/last name with someone on the crew

Chase Emerson and Allison Lownie both checked out "How to Teach Yourself Morse Code in 3 Weeks" on Feb. 8, 2001

Taylor Sinstadt is the only person to have checked out all three King of the Earrings books

Earliest book on record being checked out is "Am the Person, The Are Story" by Notan Ant, which was checked out by Frank Peabody on July 10, 1992

[ausetkmt]

A trailer for a low-budget film that thinly recreates the night rapper Tory Lanez shot Megan Thee Stallion in July 2020 has gone viral and fans of the “Cobra” rapper are not here for it.

Will The Real Black Journalists Please Stand Up

Under a trailer available to watch on YouTube, the synopsis for an upcoming film called “The Rapper Who Got Shot In The Heel” reads like this: “Music artist Raven The Stallion and Cory Gainz are having a secret love affair behind their friend Chelsea’s back. One night after a lot of partying and drinking everything goes wrong, leading to a shooting that will forever change their relationship.”

Sound familiar? Many social media users thought so too, and they are not having it.

“This is tacky as hell” wrote one commentator under the trailer on YouTube. Another commentator agreed and wrote, “This not it.”

Produced by 9/10 Productions Film, the trailer was actually released back in September, but lately it has been making the rounds on social media because director Alvin Gray posted movie stills from the film on Instagram that were set to audio from Stallion’s “Anxiety.”

A caption for the photos reads:

“Movie stills for the film “The Rapper Who Got Shot in the Heel”! The film was a heavy production, focusing on bringing REAL awareness to domestic violence within our community and making the appropriate choices before it’s too late! I hope people learn from this film, and not take it too lightly.

So, far there has been no set release date for the production, and it could be because no streamer wants to touch the subject. Previously, 9/10's productions were picked up on Amazon and Tubi—including “The Nurse That Saw the Baby on the Highway,” inspired by the Carlee Russell hoax—social media users assumed that the Stallion and Lanez-inspired drama would also be available on the streaming platform. But Tubi reportedly told Vibe Magazine that the film is not on its streaming platform, and there are no plans to ever have the film on its platform.

A negative response to the trailer also prompted director Gray to release a video statement on Dec. 14 to clarify why he felt dramatizing the incident was important.

He explained, “I want you to understand this movie is not poking fun at domestic violence or anyone getting hurt or anyone getting shot. If you truly are a fan of mine, you know I don’t even get down like that.”

He added, “I was intrigued by that whole thing. Because — this is my opinion, personally — a lot of things didn’t make sense. Guilty, not guilty, whatever the case may be, certain things just didn’t make sense to me which is intriguing. That’s how I am as a filmmaker.”

While some wrestle over whether the “The Rapper Who Got Shot In The Heel” is shrewd filmmaking or simply an exploitation of a Black woman’s trauma, others can’t wait for more.

“You should do Puffy next lol,” wrote one commentator under the Gray’s film stills, referencing Diddy’s recent legal troubles.

[oldfashionedmorphine]

i wrote this back in 2013 while roleplaying in world of warcraft…

it’s the pov of a forsaken/undead character i used to play (why i wrote in 1st person i have no idea) but one of the things about her being undead was that she couldn’t taste or smell anything (she found comfort in textures) and back then i could only imagine what it must be like not to taste or smell anything, but damn, it is now my reality…currently i can’t smell again because of my most recent encounter with covid, but even before that everything had been distorted since the first time i caught covid in dec 2020…

but yeah i was being nostalgic and reading some of my old stuff and i read this one part and it just hits different now cause i truly do not remember what some things are supposed to taste or smell like anymore. and i try really hard to remember, but can’t conjure it…and it’s depressing.

[feuqueerfire]

Bloodhounds Live Blogging

I've mostly been watching non-BL kdramas from 2019-2022, so I thought I'd give something recent a try! The whole series dropped yesterday and it's apparently action filmed + good bromance, so this'll be my weekend binge for now

Ep 1 (Jun 10)

Dec 2020

I can't remember having watched many boxing shows/movies before, maybe the Shark: The Movie with Wi Hajoon but I can't even remember if that was boxing or something else

oh yeah fuck I was so focused on the other aspects of the show, I forgot that the main characters have debt apparently agh it's so

ew Suju Siwon

damn, this loan shark really lending them 100 billion won for this hotel, that's wild

the loanshark mans has a scar on his face that he hides with makeup

boxer name: Kim Gunwoo (more like Geonwoo tbh)

oh lol that win was Hong Woojin's imagination? and then he calls Geonwoo a name and gets knocked down as his plan backfires pls

fun Woojin vs Geonwoo fight

ohhh I checked MDL and the main duo is Geonwoo and Woojin?

heh Geonwoo is so endearing with his calm and no-nonsense, serious answers

plsss the way their dynamic is switching when we figure out Geonwoo is 2 years younger than Woojin and then changing again when Geonwoo served the marines earlier? or higher status in some way. a sunbae

pls earnest, honest Geonwoo keeps falling for Woojin's lies every 3 minutes T.T

ahhh these loanshark fuckers going around offering to every store owner - anyway, I know Geonwoo's mother missed reading something in the fine print bc it was mentioned on a reddit on-air thread commend

oh? who's the woman with the tazer and the man who was "a fake" being chased?

ah, so this old man does interest-free loans and tazer girl works for him

these loan shark fuckers are sooooo >:(((( die die die

ohhh that scar on their face is like a gang tattoo?

I love how earnest Geonwoo is while still being serious and a bit naive and optimistic and just cute :> Though he's gonna have to change now that he's been pulled into such violence.

Ep 2 (Jun 11)

these loanshark fucks

D: Woojin trying to get a loan for Geonwoo T.T plsss

oh they have to work as bloodhounds? meaning they're also gonna be loanshark types? - oh they left but why's the title bloodhounds then, will they have to come back?

ohh Woojin taking the disrespect at the beginning of the meeting but being intimidating and giving a same slap back at the end ah

is this an Apple ad lol

ah so that's how Geonwoo and the woman's story connect - the guy who she's chasing is getting loans using homeless people and giving the money to Smile Capital glasses guy

Dream On Capital guy - is he familiar to us or no?

ohh is Chairman Bang the dude with the wheelchair? or is that Mr. Choi? anyway, are they gonna be the bodyguards that the man was looking for?

ah sucks so bad that when searching for loans, they keep being offered loan collector positions

ah security job

so indeed the man is Mr Choi

dang, interesting that Geonwoo is telling his mother he got all the money and how because I feel like a different character would hide it and pay it off in secret. he might've done the same thing if he was working as a debt collector or something instead of security though

Siwon's character from earlier who is apparently a well-connect chaebol with his cop cousin + the loan shark hm what's gonna happen - what's up with getting the loan shark drunk lol

ohh I don't remember this loanshark man calling himself Chairman Bang but I guess he did so in ep 1? so he's masquerading. also I wonder if Mr. Choi himself is just Chairman Bang lol like only Mr. Choi knows who Chairman Bang is + he looks around 60 which is supposed to be his age

ah Siwon's character's name is Beom

plssss Woojin lying in front of Mr. Choi, he has become an actor

damn, another interview step

broooooo just insane amounts of money but also don't pull it all out

ah, they have found the common enemy (Smile Capital)

ofc Geonwoo wouldn't be able to stay still while an old homeless man is beaten up

Ep 3 (Jun 11)

cruel or heatless or cold woman vs upstanding empathetic man ah - although I wish I liked her acting better? the character doesn't feel natural for her idk

plss their excitement at getting rehired T.T

her calling them oppa surprised e fr

Mr. Choi definitely knows the Chairman Bang poser who has the cut on the side of his face - oh mans name is Kim Myeong-gil

ah trio friends now

ohh the loan sharks investing in that hotel are gonna make illegal gambling take place in the casino at the top of the hotel -> send evidence to police -> hotel in ruins -> loan sharks will take over hotel

damn they're beating up Siwon's character just to scare him or what? oh nvm Smile Capital ppl here

damn I wasn't expecting such brutal torture scenes

and now blackmail material by making him strip down?

oh, seems like some of the people in Smile Capital (including CEO) actually worked for Mr. Choi back when he was a loan shark

goddamn so that's how Kim Myeong-gil got the scar on his face and Mr. Choi became disabled

just straight-up bars of gold lol

Myeong-gil is being real or tricking Beom with this trust and sweet talk about him being his donsaeng?

goddamn this crowd of people

I saw a gif where Geonwoo was waiting for some operation to be successful on Woojin or something, will that be due to this fight?

Ep 4 (Jun 11)

oh nooo he's going to Geonwoo's mother

wait, who is this who's stopping them from taking the mother? someone Mr. Choi called right but like who?

oh actually the boss called this man who went to where the fight happened but who was the one who rescued the mother?

oh sashimi knife - that sushi restaurant from before - he's the one who saved Geonwoo's mom

ah the 5 knifers - when those 2 talked about avenging their boys, they mean the 3 knifers the Kim Myeon-gil managed to kill - Lee Du-yeong and Hwang Yang-jung

they ate all the fucking rolled omelets without leaving any for the others? die fuckers

who's spying on the trio going to transfer money? it's probably the smile capital driver dude but somehow it also looks a bit like the knife to me oof

oh noooo yeah it's the driver dude and he got her while the big Beom dude is going to the duo

ah fuck they're sending so many people to capture the trio

damn bruh not a car chase but fucking car crashes

no Geonwoo don't get outtttttt

beat them with bars of gold lesgo lmao

pls their slow jogging with the gold bags T.T

Ep 5 (Jun 11)

okay at least they dropped the gold bag and several boxes bc indeed their lives are worth more + they got most of the money

the big plans of Myeong-gil and his men vs Mr. Choi and his knifers are fun, moreso than the trio because the trio often involves just fighting and some bickering whereas the big players have planning and intrigue and history

ah Mr. Choi offering him an out

lol the knifers and trio convo is so cute and endearing

lol yknow I did think that Hyunju and the biker knifer looked kinda similar so for them to also say it was like lol

wait, why'd Beom just fuck up those people? why mad?

he declined his wife's call? bro are you gonna fucking die? we first saw him while he was in bed with his wife too so

oh he for real slayed Junmin's throat - ngl I didn't fully get what their next step was, like, did they kill him just because he was the one going around intimidating people and stuff?

oh so they're killing Junmin and capturing Im Jangdo driver mans? I remember they said something about getting them to point to dead bodies or something

omg torture scenes D: sanding someone's thing and then using saltwater

Mr Choi got Jangdo to talk

are phones trackable or not? they're keeping Jangdo's phone but can they be found out through that

oh damn Jangdo also saying Myeong-gil and In-Beom are like brothers, they've saved each other's lives before

Ep 6 (Jun 11)

Today's plan was to actually watch eps 2-5 but people say the show is soooo good until ep 6 and it's one of the better eps before ep 7-8 seem different (?), so I think I'll just watch this one too

damn they're using Siwon's dumbass character to track the knifers

D: boil body, grind them up and pour them into the ocean that's so disgusting

who's seung-duk

the way the knifers know of myeong-gil's preliminary plans with the casino but still don't know the extent of how terrible it is

Mr Choi is making vacation plans? dreams of going to Italy? bruh he's not gonna make it out alive, is he

not this happy times where everybody's chatting and drinking and feeling good, we're boutta see serious shit go down huh?

as expected, he's also gonna be a dad, ah my guy i can forsee your death so clearly

okay this young kid isn't Hyunju, right? because the story doesn't fit with her history

oh nvm it is indeed Hyunju

huh? Geonwoo's mother didn't take Mr. Choi's loans though, so

teary-eyed grateful Geonwoo ahh

pls Mr. Choi keeps having parallels with youth like learning what flex is from Hyunju and thanking Geonwoo for teaching him what youth is

ah fuck they've got Mr. Choi's address, it's starting. bro people are drunk and shit now, right?

oh wait they're found the biker knifer Duhyeong's address actually? is that where they tortured Jangdo?

naurrr this Dayoung and his wife scene T.T

let's go knife throwing

damn so fucking bloody

ah rip Duyeong having to sell out the other knifer

bro wtf do you mean someone might have seen the car? take a diff mean of transport then let's go public transit where they can't just pick you off

ah fuck sushi restaurant

oh noooo his apprentice is fucking dead in the room

this sense of foreboding is so

noooooooo Myeong-gil killed Duyeong and his wife after he got the info? D: nooo. I was like dang, it would've been good if Duyeong called Yungjung to warn him but alas he is dead

another hand-to-hand knife fight

ah fuck I can't believe Yungjung is also gonna dye so soon before the fight even reaches Mr. Choi

the knifers didn't get to avenge their 3 brother knifers T.T this is actually so fucking sad man

it's interesting that this whole show is so focused on the fight scenes and intensity but in this episode, we focus so much on the softness of everybody together and the leadup fights and deaths are also so quiet and mostly solitary, this is so fucked

like bruh Woojin's just chilling and having breakfast

these scenarios remind me so much of my recurring childhood nightmare of home invasion by gunda (thugs) and having to figure out how to escape and then being chased while you attempt ah fuck

ah at least Mr. Choi has overcome the hesitancy to shoot though the fact that his safe and everything is wide open is a lot

okay I know he doesn't die because there's some surgery thing later on that's at least successful or something

ah fuck this Beom motherfucker

it's actually crazy that these evil people are straight up just defeating them 75% in like not just "oh they're being cornered but will easily win" but like people are fucking dead like straight up the experienced, big players from this side are just gone

as is the money and the house is aflame

bro fuck Hyunju and Geonwoo coming home to see all this

oh my god I did not expect to get teary-eyed at Geonwoo begging to donate one more bag of blood for Woojin

Fave Ep of the show and just genuinely suchhhh a good episode in general. The humanity and serenity of it drove me to madness.

Ep 7 (Jun 12)

I watched less than 3 minutes of this during lunch and then went to take a little nap and now I'll finish this ep and then go to sleep. I'm just a sleepy guy

and she's gone, the result of Kim Sae Ron's DUI

ah, time-skipped to a healed Woojin

the young girl assigning who's gonna take the top bunk after taking a look at them is so T.T funny

fuckass Junmin lives but the knifers and Mr. Choi are dead how is that fairrrrrrr

I'd be more empathetic toward this man's heartbreak at Mr. Choi's death if he wasn't sleezy toward the woman earlier like yeah fucker, get scammed

I'd be more empathetic toward this character if it wasn't played by fuckass Siwon

won't yall get alcohol poisoning

idk if I'm supposed to be suspecting people of double-crossing or not like people give up info when interrogated but what if it's like Minbeom's brother in law is actually working for Myeong-gil or something, y'know?

Myeong-gil could just use data but sure yep, wifi

did he actually delete some instances of the video or no?

damn, they really did manage to destroy the hard drive just like that? would there not be backups?

are we supposed to know who Myeong-gil called at the end at the serious crimes division? somebody surprising?

I know what people mean by it's a different tone because this is less action-based and more like the shows I usually watch with the planning and secretly attacking rather than fights.

Ep 8 (Jun 13)

bruh ofc the first cop that the brother-in-law would tell about getting the list of victims would be in Myeong-gil's palm

oh fuck they found the place Mr. Choi's friend lived where Geonwoo and Woojin also lived for a bit?

fucking dark ass fight, can't see shit

bruh bad cop good a good view

oh my god they got the whole detective trio?

bro so the 2 male cops survived and my poor girl just straight up got ran over and died rip

oh i see she's in a coma

so we just won't know how they caught the sell-out cop? or we're just supposed to assume they got some info from the fish farm lol

why the fuck did you yell Myeong-gil's name, are you dumb

and then also dropped the knife? you dumb?

and Woojin had also dropped the taser? fr?

you're literally trying to just fuck up the man who killed and ruined hundreds and thousands of people, fuck your "I've become a bloodhound" i need you to straight up kill Myeong-gil or call the cops right now at least tf

well at least keep a couple gold bars for yourself too because you're the poor people who are supposed to be helped too btw lol

siwon playing a fuckass sympathetic kind character is so agh ew also why give him all the money to improve their company image or whatever agh rich ppl like why would you trust a cocky chaebol kid?

well at least they do get 2 gold bars = 1B won = ~1M USD each

Overall:

Good enough, especially the heart of episode 6 but not something I'll be thinking about at all. The characters didn't resonate a whole lot, this focused a lot on just fighting scenes (more than like strategizing, being clever, etc, which is usually what I'm a fan of), the defeat of the villains wasn't really satisfying at all - especially with how cruel episode 6 went down. Also, I don’t ship Geonwoo and Woojin, sadly.

Rating: 6.5/10

[graysongoal]

This.

Also, earlier this month, IDF dropped leaflets OUTING QUEER PEOPLE in Gaza. (Note: the account did not blur out the individual's name or details, which are written in Arabic.)

That's not ally behavior.

Here are some links about pinkwashing:

Queer collective calls out ‘pinkwashing’ of Palestinian genocide - Prism | February 21, 2024

No Pride in Genocide: Calling Out Israel’s Pinkwashing - Yes! Magazine | February 5, 2024

Pinkwashing - Decolonize Palestine

LGBTQ Protests Against Israel Are About Justice, Not Anti-Semitism - In These Times | January 29, 2016

Yes, Our Anti-Israel Protest Disrupted LGBT Conference — That’s the Point! - Forward | January 28, 2016

Shutting Down a Pinkwashing Event Is a Smart, Legitimate Protest Against Israel's Occupation - Haaretz | January 28, 2016 (Note: You need a free account to read this. You can create one using a number of services like Temp Mail.)

Against the pinkwashing of Israel: Why supporting Palestinians is a queer and feminist issue - Al Jazeera | Aug 9, 2014

Gay Rights as Human Rights: Pinkwashing Homonationalism - Jadaliyya | Dec 16, 2011

Let's take a second to talk about homophobia, transphobia, and colonization.

I studied Islam, Arabic, Middle Eastern history, Israel, Palestine, and LGBTQ+ rights for 2 years in graduate school. My focus was all over the place, for sure, but it means I have a lot of knowledge that I can offer on this stuff. I am w h i t e and not Muslim. I am both queer and transgender. This is something I'm incredibly invested in, so please enjoy this infodump.

The idea that queer and trans folks aren't welcome in Palestine is absolutely false. Multiple Gazans have talked about having trans or queer neighbors or friends and not blinking an eye. Obviously, mileage varies based on who you run into... just like it does in the good old US of A.

And? LGBTQ+ identities were openly and freely embraced before colonization fucked it up. Whether it's recent history or pre-colonization, this has been researched and well-documented.

The digital archive unearthing queer Arab history - Huck Magazine | April 19, 2021

The Instagram Account Dedicated to Queer Arab History and Pop Culture - AnOther Magazine | April 16, 2021

This Arab is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers | April 2022

‘Queerness is part of Palestinian culture. We’ve existed forever’ - +972 Magazine | January 18, 2023

The Arab and Muslim Evolution of ‘Deviance’ in Homosexuality - New Lines Magazine | June 24, 2022

Queer Islamic Art: A Very Brief History - Epoch Magazine | December 2020

It’s different now, but Muslims have a long history of accepting homosexuality - Scroll.in | June 18, 2016

A Map of Gender Diverse Cultures - PBS Independent Lens | August 12, 2015

What changed acceptance was colonization, whether it was from the British Empire or others.

How the British Empire exported homophobia - Socialist Worker | August 22, 2023

How Britain Exported Homophobia - Migrants' Rights Network | February 24, 2023

How the Middle East Moved From Tolerant of Homosexuality to a Battlefield of Anti-Gay Violence - Hornet | September 16, 2021

377: The British colonial law that left an anti-LGBTQ legacy in Asia - BBC | June 28, 2021

The homophobic legacy of the British Empire - CNN | September 12, 2018

How homosexuality became a crime in the Middle East - The Economist | June 6, 2018

This is because colonialism is directly tied to w h i t e supremacy, racism, and belittling The Other in order to hold and maintain power.

The Gender Binary Is a Tool of White Supremacy - An Injustice! Magazine | July 14, 2020

Transphobia in Commonwealth countries is an injustice left over from British colonialism. It’s time we addressed it - Pink News | March 31, 2021

Transphobia is Settler-Colonialism - Tina Ngata | March 25, 2023

How Britain's colonial past can be traced through to the transphobic feminism of today - The Independent | June 10, 2020

Why Transphobia Is at the Heart of the White Power Movement - The Nation | August 18, 2021

Transphobia is a White Supremacist Legacy of Colonialism - Michael Paramo on Medium | July 17, 2018

Homosexuality predates colonialism. It is homophobia that’s new - Minority Africa | June 17, 2020

Transphobia, Whorephobia And (As) Capitalist-colonial Gender - Manchester University Press | April 29, 2020

Until we acknowledge the racist and colonial roots of transphobia, Trans Day of Visibility will remain a Western scam - Pink News | March 31, 2021

The Colonial Roots Of Homophobia - Zeitgeister: The Cultural Magazine of the Goethe-Institut

This is just one reason why, when we have folks like Tom Daley calling for a ban on Olympians from countries who have both a history of experiencing colonization violence and struggling to undo that RE LGBTQ+ rights, it pisses me the fuck off.

If you do not know the history or the context, you're doing everyone a disservice.

Whether it's in Africa or the Middle East, w h i t e colonizers act like we're so much better than these countries - countries that did not generally have homophobia or transphobia until we entered and fucked them up.

Instead, we view them as "barbaric" and "savage" and all the other racist buzzwords.

Victoria Kishoiyian wrote a bit about this, specifically focused on Africa, for the Harvard Political Review in 2022:

Backward and Barbaric: How The Western Gaze Perceives and Portrays Homophobia in Africa

tldr; colonizers fucked up the world, not only by creating false countries and giving land to people not indigenous to the areas (like Is rael) BUT also because we introduced homophobia and transphobia.

Pinkwashing is just an extension of colonial practices, and it must stop. Now.

You're literally gay??? And it's pride month??? And Israel's our only safe haven in that region???

There's no pride in genocide

[mikaelamagbanua]

how's adulting so far from someone who just turned 26 last November?

well for starters, backpain is getting worse lol. kidding aside, life's good somehow. nothing close to perfect but still pretty good. mostly because I've learned few important things that I'm gonna share here as well:

1. if something is meant for you, you'll never miss it

missed opportunities in the past took me a step closer to where I'm supposed to be. fallbacks are temporaryyyyy and always remember that rejections = redirections

a little story about me:

got accepted to this food company last dec 2020. First na inapplyan ko yun na tinanggap ko saya ko, medical nalang kulang but I got rejected due to my diagnosis of inactive ptb . applied to more companies, got accepted again pero wala pa ata ako two weeks nakapag leave na agad kase nafracture collarbone naman ko. ff to 2024, can't believe this girl shifted career. data analyst na ako and recently got promoted 🥹

2. it's so important to stay curious and keep learning istg

you're never too old to learn new things. not just based on books type of learnings but also on experiences. learn a new hobby/sport , read a book, learn a new word, explore a new place or learn a new recipe. your mind and body needs it . train your self by gaining more knowledge and experiences

3. allow yourself to have bad days and take all the time you need to heal

being an adult doesn't make you invulnerable to having breakdowns but it demands you still show up even after breaking down (or during lol haha) peak adulthood experience yung umiyak while working kase may pinagdadaanan ka pero need mo pumasok office lol

crying is normal and I believe it is indeed healthy. don't you get that feeling of relief after a good cry? yes, crying doesn't solve the problem itself but who doesn't need a good cry when all around you feels like falling apart. also, it sometimes feel that it is the only thing that we can do

4. you're never too old to have fun. do what makes ü happy :)

find ways that makes you heart feel blissful despite the situations you're put through . spending time with my friends and family, trying out new recipes ,coloring books , planning the next trip , dressing up, going to the beach to watch sunsets, listening to my fave playlists ,writing whatever thoughts I have , playing with kids , endless scrolling on my tiktok fyp , re-watching 'friends' while I wait for new episode of '911' ,reading books that I like, buying the food that I've been craving and more. Happiness doesn't always have to be the big things, it can also be simple things we do each day because altogether they can make you feel better

5. you'll make mistakes and it's okay

as you strive to grow up as better person , know that not everyone is molded that way. you can end up trusting wrong people but that it is not a reflection of your worth but rather a reflection of who they are. we can't control how people act around us, if something is bound to destroy you, it will. what matters is how you react from that. grief, be mad , heal then pick yourself up. mistakes like that doesn't mean you can't start over. take what you learned and move forward.

and sometimes, we can also make mistakes by hurting other people with our own words and actions. intentionally or not, reflect on what you did, think how you can be a better person than who you were before and forgive yourself for doing things you're not supposed to. grow up and try to live a better life and be kinder!!! the world is already cruel so don't be one

6. find your people

while watching an episode of 911 I recently discovered an old song entitled 'find your people' by Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors. there's a line in the song that says "you gotta find your people, then you'll find yourself" which actually speaks truth. wanna gatekeep this song but I think it is a good reminder for all of us about choosing the people welcome in our lives. who you surround yourself with is very important to the type of person you'll be and know that they will the first people you'll run to when the world seems to turn their back on you

7. catch and release

let go of people , opportunities or things that no longer serves a purpose or goodness in your life. losing them may be hard but you still have a whole life ahead of you. if plan A doesn't work, always remember you can make as many plans as you can

8. take good care of your health

invest on your health mentally and physically. be active , meditate and eat healthy. as much as we wanna work hard, do not abuse your body and your mind. know when to take a break and rest . health is the most expensive thing for me because it is not something you can just buy. it requires effort , consistency and discipline which not all of us can afford. then when we don't try to have those things, that is where the real expense of getting sick comes to haunt us

9. it's a privilege that we always have a chance to try again and do better

as we turn older each year, our thinking and beliefs (should) grow too. but may we never lose our inner child. after all, we're just kids trying to navigate this adult life. I'm actually passed my mid twenties and all I wanna say is that despite of my shortcomings, I hope younger versions of me are happy and proud of where 'adult me ' is 🫶

and i hope you , whoever is reading this, knows that little versions of you are so proud of you. so, pat yourself on the back and keep going. may we all win life this new year...

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this was actually supposed to be a bday post but I end up forgetting about it. still, posting it anyway lol.