#so i think she’ll get it

[chloesimaginationthings]

Okay, but Elizabeth being an absolute savage girlboss isn't something that's talked about enough.

Love how you're spitting facts for our girly pop. 💪💪💪

TBH I go off the personality baby has, and gotta assume some of that sass is definitely Elizabeth

[m1ckeyb3rry]

“anri cares about the blue lock boys” “anri is like a mother/sister figure to the blue lock boys” “anri is kind to the blue lock boys” meanwhile this is anri with kunigami:

SHE DOES NOTTTTT GAF ABOUT THEM 😭 they are a means to an end for her!! obviously she doesn’t hate them and of course she was happy they beat the u20s but let’s think critically here…was she truly proud of them as people or was she just happy that the program wouldn’t be shut down??

the narrative (especially via her interactions with ego) treats anri as someone very naive and dumb, but blue lock and hiring ego were HER idea. everything that has happened to the boys is a direct consequence of HER actions, decisions, and dreams of japan winning a world cup. let’s not forget she’s also only 3 years older than aiku, kaiser, and sendou — she has no interest in taking care of a bunch of insane high-school-aged soccer freaks, she literally just wants her country to win the wc because she herself is a soccer freak!!

[swedenis-h]

Hanging out with big brother and his new lab partner after school, waiting for mum to be done with council work

[nellasbookplanet]

Downfall has only just started, but already I'm deeply curious what Bells Hells reaction will be to seeing it play out. I've mentioned before that I suspect the dislike or outright disdain some of the party feels for the gods - most notably Ashton and Laudna, but also Imogen at times - is in part a product of the gods being so distant as to not feel like real people to them, and therefore being easy scapegoats.

It’s easy to see the mortal victims of Ludinus and the Vanguard as just that: victims. The Hells have met them, have been them. They have not seen or felt the gods suffer in the same way. Laudna even went so far as to blame the gods for mortal deaths and suffering after the solstice, even as the gods are the ones under attack. They feel uniquely abandoned by the world, and it's easy to blame these distant, powerful figures for their hardship. Certainly much easier than to see the mortal systems that enabled their harm, or to actively seek improvement on their own.

But to see the gods now, not just as people but as mortals, with all the flaws and vulnerabilities and fears of any of the Hells, with loved ones of their own and the same desperate sense of self-preservation as any living thing, will they be able to hold onto the disdain that they’ve clung to for so long?

[bruciemilf]

Nah we gotta talk about Silver and Bruce cause —-

[shima-draws]

HHFHGHHH caught up with the Dungeon Meshi anime…can’t even describe how absolutely fucked up it was to watch Laios have to reassemble the digested bones of his dead sister (that were drenched in her blood) piece by piece. Like. Idk how homie didn’t go through a mental breakdown in the middle of that

[jackass-jones]

Thinking of vlr Akane is so conflicting cuz on one hand I’m so upset that she doesn’t ever get a moment to just rest and enjoy being alive again I’m upset that she just gets deeper and deeper into this role she’s built for herself and she loses her humanity and will never ever be that girl who died in the incinerator. But on the other hand, I need her to get so, so much worse I need her to be so obsessed with perfection she has this unique ability to change the course of history and she will burn everything and everyone to the ground in the blink of an eye if it means she can "reset" and get a perfect timeline and I desperately need her to never be satisfied with anything because really, is there anything that’s worth all the damage she’s caused?

[bestworstcase]

So having already moved past the idea of Yang as a Maiden - I do suspect the other reason people jump to that conclusion is people getting Raven's trajectory wrong. Yang as Maiden is the obvious conclusion if you think that Raven is going to come back to save Yang and die for it. Which... look, I can see Raven getting badly hurt. But dying - nah. The STRQ team and the Rose-Xiao Long household is not getting any outs from the most awkward family conversation ever. (Though your points about Raven actually being very difficult to kill does mean that the show can have the Spring Maiden get Yang out of a really tight spot without killing Raven or sacrificing tension) But it does feel like the idea has bit at least in some respects of the fandom that way to balance Raven being a coward/bandit and the setup for the untested "Everyone Only Gets One (Save)" rule is for Raven to come in and die for it.

mhm

i think something that is broadly true of this fandom is a general struggle to conceptualize what the narrative can meaningfully do with old-guard characters that isn’t… killing them off. qrow gets this a lot too, he’s nominally ruby’s mentor but she’s outgrown that relationship and is now on a level with him and there’s a persistent belief that it’s only a matter of time before his time is up. but it isn’t just him, i’ve also seen this attitude toward pietro, for example. (including one. memorable post that outright expressed surprise that pietro and maria survived v8 on the grounds that without penny the op thought it was pointless for the narrative to keep them around, because what would they even be doing in vacuo. which is absurd!)

and then raven in particular is a difficult character – fandoms always have a hard time with performative/masking behaviors, rwby is no different, although i do think the specific way rwby utilizes archetype and allusion makes it worse because fandom is also bad at paying attention – on top of also being, in v5, an antagonistic character to yang.

(i hesitate to describe her role as villainous, because raven’s response to getting backed into a corner was to neatly sabotage salem’s operation; she didn’t help salem under duress, she acted as a double agent on behalf of team oz under duress, and what she did wrong was mainly not communicate this to them. as ever raven is very brave about everything that isn’t having a slightly difficult conversation with someone she cares about. lol)

the point being, raven gets this general difficulty this fandom has with the old guard stacked on top of 1. being a difficult character (as a woman lmao) so a lot of people just don’t like her very much, and 2. being an antagonistic (or outright villainous) character depending on whether one takes raven “joining” salem at face value or not. so a fair amount of “speculation” that raven will die is either character hate in the guise of theory, and i think there is a large share of raven-will-die-saving-yang theories that boil down to redemption-by-heroic-sacrifice thinking.

what’s funny about that, aside from the obvious factor of raven being in vacuo now (and the most probable reason for her to only be in the last section of the epilogue being that she arrived on the refugee ship from vale and the likeliest answer there being that after haven she went to loop glynda in and help out because she knew salem would be coming back for the crown sooner or later), is how pragmatic she is and how desperately in need the heroes are right now of pragmatists – real pragmatists, not “leave mantle to die”-ish cowardice masquerading as pragmatism.

like. raven has been the leader of what appears to be a quite large encampment of bandits for more than a decade now, right, and to all appearances she’s done a great job – they respect her, trust her to have their backs, morale seems high, they’re well-supplied (by non-huntsman standards) and well-provisioned, they’re disciplined enough to erect fairly impressive temporary fortifications surrounding their camps – all of this suggests that raven is skilled at managing problems of scarcity, attrition, morale, grimm predation etc under fairly harsh conditions.

those problems are much larger in vacuo and the branwen subsistence strategy of raiding settlements is off the table, but – raven’s experience managing these sort of challenges in the animan wilderness is invaluable here! (especially if she brought all her bandits with her, because that’s a small militia that can whip up very nice ad hoc fortifications in an hour or two, given materials to work with, and two maidens solves the “no trees in the desert” problem).

and raven is also – demonstrably – someone capable of being very cunning, and turning lose/lose situations to her advantage even under intense pressure. salem’s people strolled into her camp like they owned the place, and raven took a deep breath, went “okay, we planned for this,” and played them like a fiddle! she is the reason salem’s infiltration of haven failed, and had everything gone according to raven’s plan, cinder would have died that night with omen in her back.

without the spring maiden, they’re all going to die. not because of her magical power, but because of who raven is. they need someone who can think and plan like this. they need someone who can evaluate an impossible situation and make tough choices like “i want my brother dead” – given the choice between capitulating or letting her people get massacred, raven bet on qrow not being stupid enough to walk unarmed into an obvious trap without backup, and tricked cinder into letting her tiny infiltration force be outnumbered almost two-to-one by highly trained combatants.

raven is what ironwood thought he was.

and she’s decided to join the coalition at a critical moment when they have zero good, easy choices ahead of them.

it would be absurd and baffling for the story to kill off raven at this point – this is Her Moment! and she and yang get to have their uncomfortable, painful, incredibly fraught reunion after haven in a time where raven has plainly earned back the full trust of the vacuo coalition, in all likelihood in large part by showing the fuck up at exactly the right moment her skillset and perspective were most helpful. which creates a really juicy tension for the personal relationship she has to now build with yang!

[xxplastic-cubexx]

I hope everyone whos walked behind me today has acknowledged the fact ive just been staring at rivals magneto for the past hour

[strawberryshortcake1495]

The Drifting Stars AU has me on a chokehold so here’s my Mabel design :3

Here’s Mabel! Or Lover Girl, if you’re an alien in some faraway dimension. After a while of traveling the multiverse, Mabel changes her name to Lover Girl (because of her boy-crazy personality) to hide her real identity. She tried encouraging Ford to do the same thing but he politely declined. As a final touch, Mabel cut her hair, dyed it pink, and put on eye contacts to really complete the new look.

Lover Girl is known as a rebellious war criminal who’s often committing crimes and throwing rallies with her no-nonsense sidekick. She’s a master manipulator wherever she goes, always charming people with her cuteness. She’s sometimes known as “The Primrose”. It’s not until she finally goes back home to Dimension 46 that she goes back to being Mabel Pines.

But depending on your AU, that could take years. So with her huge treasure chest of trauma, feel free to add existentialism in it.

[superhousecat-once-again]

Unfortunately now that I’ve finally seen it, I 100% cannot stand the Solavellan ending and like I knowww that’s in large part because I’ve been functioning on a different level with the ship the entire time but it’s just sooo forgiving of Solas and sooo tragic for Lavellan and does not include the most fascinating element of their dynamic to me which is ‘Solas starts to see the value of the current world because of how much Lavellan loves it and is so deeply part of it’ and in fact fully discards it because Lavellan just fucks off to fade prison for “true love”

[leverage-ot3]

silly episode idea but hear me out

okay well the first part isn’t silly! so the episode is based around a con they are doing where a polyam triad wants to get married and have been writing to senators and stuff for years but nothing has happened. maybe there is a time element that leeway has to happen soon (not sure what that would be yet, maybe someone is sick???)

(obviously polycules aren’t only and are often more than just a closed three-person system, but I’m saying triad right now bc I feel like that would be an easier and more ‘socially acceptable’ gateway into more accepting legislation for diverse relationship dynamics)

the leverage crew, of course, can’t outright change the public perception of poly marriage, but they can use the ‘enemy’s’ tactics against them and slip stuff into legislation without people noticing like they do. it’s slimy and it’s not a permanent fix, but it’s a start, and it gives people the opportunity to see poly marriage in action and that it isn’t as terrifying or pearl-clutching-inducing as they think it would be. there’s a long way to go, but the seeds of change have been sown and they will make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible

this is one of the cases that they will monitor on the back burner over time. some cons can finish within a few hours (the bottle job), and some things they will follow over time and make adjustments when needed- amplify voices and expose corrupt politicians etc

and then it’s just after 3/4 of the way through but the con has been finished? what is going on? this is where the silliness comes in

the camera turns to the ot3 and…

hardison, pulling out three individualized rings: I know it’s not legal yet, and we have the necklaces, but I think rings would be a nice touch

eliot, pulling out an intricately carved box that also has three self-handcrafted rings: dammit hardison (with feeling and tenderness, and damp eyes)

parker, pulling out three very stolen rings from her pocket: does this mean we’re getting triple married if we all have three rings???

harry pops into the conversation (practically vibrating) excitedly just casually mentioning that he’s a notary and would be honored to marry them to each other if they wanted to

(they do)

wait, did I say silly? I meant unwaveringly tender and heartwarming

[trash-can-sam]

What happens when your coworker kills your other coworker but both of you are in a relationship (kind of) with the same ethereal woman who had an admiration for said dead coworker.

+bonus Evandrey because it’s funny to me (I’m sorry Eva.)

[vigilskeep]

i need to wynnepost. somebody has to

[oysters-aint-for-me]

before the election i told myself if he wins, i’ll come out to my friends and family as nonbinary. just to have SOMETHING good come of it, you know? but i haven’t come out yet. i don’t think anyone will react badly and it’s not like im requesting a full pronoun change, just adding another option. not like requesting a full pronoun change is a bad thing but i acknowledge it is harder to come out when you’re announcing/requesting a bigger change, so theoretically this should be easier… you know what i mean? but idk. it’s just weird. i don’t want the attention necessarily, i just want ppl to know and also i want to do it to spite the haters. if that makes sense. but anyway i have to come out to my parents first bc they can’t find out on social media, that’s not fair to the kind of relationship we have. but blech it just makes me feel cringey idk why. they’d be supportive! and they probably already know! it’s just that sincerity makes me want to throw myself in a river.

[littlenastieswewhispered]

sorry i’m on my bullshit again but i CANNOT imagine taking the line “i loved him” —past tense lol—and making that the basis of proof for my endgame ship.

like yeah “loved him more than i will ever love anything” blah blah. she’s clearly saying it in an extremely emotional moment trying to appeal to her friend who also loved someone a lot. (not to mention dawn the sister she sacrificed herself for instead of put a sword through to save the world is RIGHT THERE.)

still past tense! still “loved” as in not love presently.

still ends her own story saying “i love you” —meaning actively right now loves— someone else directly to his face.