#the wings but also underdeveloped muscles

[candytuft-whimsing]

Based on previous WIP

Yea it took me to the next morning to decide to finish it

[alluringlight]

Sunday x (Gender Neutral) Reader

Warnings: nothing really, ig maybe a little bit of angst but more hurt/comfort, you are the Astral Express medic, you're supposed to be a fallen angel but that's not really necessary to understand this and will p much only become relevant if I ever follow up this one-shot w the same reader x Sunday (which I might bc I love this idea of fallen angel x Sunday), also this is not intended to be canon to Sunday's true form or anything since it's unconfirmed if Halovians have multiple sets of wings or not

Word Count: 1726

As the de facto medic of the Astral Express, since you were the only trained doctor, you made it your top priority to always know how every one of the passengers was doing, physically and mentally. Currently, your most challenging case sat before you; Sunday, former head of the Oak Family and newest passenger aboard the train. 

He sat stiffly, spine straight and hands crossed together neatly in his lap as he sat on your examination table. His head was facing straight but instead of looking at you, his gaze was on his hands. You’d always felt a kinship with the Halovian, whether it be due to your own (miserable) past, or the fact that you both shared avian features. Your own wings twitched, feathers fluffing slightly as you tried to puzzle out the best way to help him. Getting him to even admit he needed help was akin to pulling teeth, but you were determined to be patient. 

“Sunday, I just need to look them over, okay? I won’t do anything you don’t want me to,” you said, your voice soft as you tried your best to coax him. 

He squeezed his hands tighter together, his voice barely audible as he spoke, “I know. I-” He cut himself off, pressing his lips closed as he refused to say anything else. Instead, he uncrossed his hands, and began disrobing his top half, unbuttoning his shirt and sliding the material off until his torso was bare. 

His wings, a dark purple akin the nightingales you’d seen on Penacony, were on his lower back, further down than your own black wings which sat between your shoulder blades. His sat around his waist, and they were very obviously neglected. They were tightly wrapped around his torso, and the feathers were dull and in disarray, it was clear they needed to be preened. Most alarmingly, his flight feathers were clipped on his left side. It made you wonder if the piercings on his upper wings weren’t of his own volition, if they were perhaps a reminder that he was a flightless bird. 

You made your way behind him so you could observe the wings fully. Sunday himself was exceedingly skinny, and you made a mental note to talk to him about that another day; when he wasn’t so shaken up. The connecting muscles to his wings were underdeveloped, making it apparent that even if his wing wasn’t clipped he still would be unable to fly. 

“Is it okay if I touch them?” you asked. Sunday gave you a shaky nod. Instead of immediately beginning a more thorough examination you spoke, “I’m going to try to stretch them out, okay? I’ll be gentle, but it’ll probably be painful or uncomfortable. Please let me know if I need to stop.” 

A rush of breath left him, before he nodded again, his hands gripping onto the edge of the examination table to brace himself. You started with his left wing; it would be the most troublesome to deal with. 

You took it slow, gently prying his wing away from his torso, stopping whenever he’d hiss in pain. It probably took the better part of a half hour to get the wing fully stretched out, but once it was, Sunday heaved a sigh of relief. 

You examined the wing more thoroughly, trying to give him a break before you worked on his other one. His flight feathers were in worse shape than you first thought; many of the primaries had been clipped, including the ones used in landing. It was quite barbaric. You briefly wondered how many times the feathers had been clipped, how long it took Halovians to grow them back in, how many times had he endured such treatment? 

The muscles in the wing were atrophied, and you knew you’d have to help Sunday set up a strict physical therapy regimen if he had any hope of ever flying again. You massaged the joints, helping to relieve the tension from being so cramped. 

You gave him another moment’s reprieve, gently kneading the area where the wing met his back, before you began working on the other wing. This one didn’t take as much time to straighten out, and you gave it just as much care as the other one, rubbing away the aches and pains that lanced through him. 

Hearing a bang, your wings shot out, wrapping around Sunday’s form before you turned to the door. “Hey- oh! Sorry, sorry.” March said, scratching at her head as she realized she was interrupting something. You could feel Sunday tuck into himself, his wings twitching as you felt him barely stop himself from wrapping them around himself. Thankfully, your wingspan was larger than his, mostly covering him from March’s view. “Um, I was just going to ask if you’d seen Dan Heng, but I’m guessing not, so I’ll leave.” she said, giving an awkward laugh. 

“See you later March,” you said as she ducked out the door, giving it a firm shove shut. You could hear her voice carry through the door, speaking to the Trailblazer, before the two wandered off, presumably to find the elusive archivist. 

Your wings settled back into place, tucking them against your back as you sighed. “Sorry, Sunday. Are you okay?” 

His breath was shaky as you peered down at him, his face flushed from embarrassment. You weren’t sure if he was embarrassed at the thought of March seeing him in such a vulnerable state, or if it was because you’d wrapped him in your wings. After a long moment, he responded, “Yes, I am…fine. You may continue.” 

You hummed in acknowledgement before giving his wings another once over before you pulled away. “I won’t lie to you, they’re in rough shape.” You moved back to the otherside of the table so you could look at him as you spoke. “You need to stop constricting them immediately. The blood flow is severely damaged, and your joints are in less than ideal shape from the abuse. The bones themselves are doing well, but the muscles are atrophied.” You took a deep breath before continuing, “It’s going to take a lot of work to get them healthy again, but after strengthening them, and once your flight feathers grow back in, it could be possible to fly again.” 

His face seemed to crumple at your words. This…was not an expression you’d ever seen on him before, especially considering he’d tried his best to appear perfect, hiding away any perceived flaw away from prying eyes. You had to stop yourself from reaching out, uncertain if he’d be appreciative of any physical contact, even if all you wanted to do right now was comfort him. All at once his expression dropped, his eyes downcast and gaze dead as he spoke, the whisper so low you weren’t sure he meant for you to hear, “Do I even deserve…?” 

You sighed. “Forget whether you deserve it or not, do you want it?”

Sunday raised his head, looking you in the eyes, though his gaze remained far away as his lips parted. “I don’t know.” His expression turned pained as he licked his lips, nervous, as he finally seemed to see you again. “Can you help me fix them?” 

You smiled, nodding. “I have some general ideas on what needs to be done, but I’ll do a bit more research on Halovians specifically to help, just give me a day or two to figure out a plan. For now though, we’ll need to get you some better fitting clothes, and the feathers need to be preened. If you’d like, I can do that, or I can leave you to your own devices.” 

His cheeks slowly flushed again, the wings by his ears fluttering nervously, and you had to suppress the desire to cup his face in your hands. He was so pretty it was unfair, but you wanted to help him, and it wouldn’t do to admit any budding feelings you had for the Halovian. It was obvious he needed a friend, and you didn’t want to jeopardize the fragile trust built between the two of you. 

Sunday cleared his throat. “If you truly would not mind, your help would be appreciated.” 

“Do you want tea or anything? This may take a little bit of time,” you said. 

He shook his head, “That is unnecessary.” 

The two of you situated on the examination table, you had your own legs crossed together as you found the most comfortable position. You began your work; gently opening pin feathers and brushing out old feathers that were stuck, all the while carefully avoiding any blood feathers, lest you injure him. 

As you worked, tension seemed to seep out of Sunday, and every once in a while he breathed a sigh of relief. You wondered when he’d last been preened by anyone else; his smaller wings by his wings were taken well care of, his own handiwork you presumed, and the way he shuddered at each gentle touch of yours, each delicate caress as you dutifully worked through the plumage, was telling enough. 

It took over an hour to completely finish, and your hands and fingers ached, but it was well worth the effort. You stretched your hands, your joints popping as you did. “Alright, you’re good to go,” you said, sliding off the examination table to once again stand in front of him. 

“Thank you,” he murmured. 

“Of course.” You smiled at him. “Just ask if you want me to preen them again, okay?” He nodded at your words, giving you a small smile in return. “Plus, if you’d like, you’re welcome to return the favor one of these days.” 

His eyes widened at your offer. “You would trust me to preen your wings?” 

Your brows furrowed as a slight frown made its way onto your face. “Yeah. It’s not that surprising is it? I trust you, Sunday. We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of, and I’m not going to condemn you for yours. The Express is about starting over, about not letting your past weigh you down. Instead, blaze the trail, see the stars, do what you want.” 

A soft smile seeped back onto your face as you spoke once more, “Trust, and be trusted in turn, by your fellow passengers. There’s a whole universe waiting for you, Sunday.”

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

hello! sorry to bother you but i am currently working on character designs for my next d&d campaign. i am creating a winged elf inspired by avariels, and he will have some form of physical disability which causes them to be unable to fly. however, i am not very educated about physical disabilities, so do you know any which might affect limbs such as wings and any ways i could portray life with them and accommodations for them in a respectful way? any tips are appreciated. thank you :)))

Wing disabilities are a bit harder to research than regular human limb disabilities, but you might be amused to learn that the very first thing i found upon a quick search for bird wing deformities was something called "angel wing", found in many different bird species. I've linked the article I found. It develops over time and can be corrected, but obviously when it happens in wild birds they have no means to fix it on their own and it becomes permanent.

Angel wing is a deformation of the wrist area, making it droop and then turn outwards. Once it's permanent, the crooked shape of the wing makes flight impossible. If a winged humanoid had this problem, they would need to worry about things like how far the crooked wing sticks out, maybe bracing it to alleviate chronic pain. I'm sure something like that would cause pain, even if it wasn't mentioned in the article. It may be helpful to clip the feathers on that part of the wing, so they're not in the way. Finding a comfortable sleep position may also be a bit tricky.

Other possible wing disabilities which I have not researched at all but sound like plausible congenital issues for people with wings:

- underdeveloped wings. They never get big enough for flight, maybe the feathers never grow in properly, possibly they're also shaped wrong for flight. Could come with chronic pain, weak muscles/atrophy, etc.

- missing wing. Somehow just didn't develop a wing, or developed a nub where the wing should be. Could also be missing just the "hand" part of the wing.

- general feather growth problems. Weak feathers, feathers that come in short, chronic molting that causes a lot of unhelpful bald patches, etc.

- chronic joint pain. Wings appear to be normal, but the joints hurt a lot and movement is difficult.

You can also go the route of disability by injury, having a wing broken or amputated or otherwise harmed in a way that is difficult or impossible to recover from.

Overall, the accommodations needed could include pain relief, a brace to keep the wing in a comfortable folded position, feather clipping, massages, etc. Mobitiy aids to let this character fly without the use of their wings is easy to handle in fantasy because you could give him an enchanted flying device of some sort. Magical prosthetic wing might work, but that depends on the disability you're working with and also wing prosthetics are pretty tricky. It would not be as functional as a real wing. If the wings are fully grown and intact, but the problem is something like joint pain, then a flight brace to steady the wings could be useful. They'd only be able to fly for short bursts though, probably. But it would be akin to giving someone leg braces so they can walk, while also having access to crutches or a wheelchair. You can work with your dm on figuring out what's allowed in the campaign setting.

As for being respectful in how you portray the character, I think the most important thing is to let them be a full person. The disability is obviously a major part of their life, but they ought to have more personality than that. Hobbies, interests, attitude.

They're also allowed to be sad about the disability, but this should not be their main defining trait. I think it is pretty normal to be sad that you have a physical difference preventing you from doing something other people can easily do. The problem in fictional characters who are sad about their disabilities is that it often becomes Their Entire Thing and then the character arc is either "so I became evil about it" or "and then they died" or "but there was a magical perfect fix!" all of which obviously don't respect the reality of being disabled. But making them totally happy go lucky about it also doesn't work. So you just need the middle area there, as that's the most realistic one. How does it feel to have a permanent disability? Well, it ends up feeling pretty normal when you're used to it. Sometimes it sucks a lot. Sometimes you hardly pay attention to it. Focus on making your character emotionally varied and give them an interesting personality that makes their interactions with other characters more fun.

Roleplay games are great for that, because you'll have to mesh with the group and really flesh out your character relationships as you go.

Anyway I hope that was all helpful! No illustrations to show, because I'm sleepy today. But good luck with your character! And maybe go check out @cripplecharacters for extra advice on generalized disability rep if you haven't already!

[talkingfishb0ne]

Listen I know I’m not gonna the first person to talk about this but can I please just reinstate the appreciation for certain aspects of Toothless’ design through time?

Disclaimer: I still don’t like how they turned Toothless into this mascot looking thing with out of frame proportions that just make him look too friendly and less dragon-like in the 3rd movie. But this post will be an appreciation of his migration from 1st movie, to GotNF and the 2nd movie.

Now ONTO THE ACTUAL GOOD STUFF.

As someone who’s raised parrots and cats I’ve seen the way they change over time and, specifically, how their weight distribution shifts as they grow. As with humans, animals don’t grow their limbs proportionately - sometimes a head will be too big for the cute baby animal to hold up, or its wings might be too small compared to the torso. But let’s talk about the Night Fury’s development as seen in Toothless.

The first movie is about discovery and, of course, adolescence; Like Hiccup, Toothless is not just hindered by his inability to fly without a tailfin, but he also shows a sign of uneven weight distribution on his limbs. Toothless from the first movie has a body that’s far more streamlined and salamander-like, with his chest and leg muscles still underdeveloped and his ribcage clearly flexible and/or still small.

Following with the salamander comment- have you SEEN how flexible his spine is in the first movie? I think the big allure with Toothless is that feline flexibility he used to have- and the way he distributed a lot of his movement like a caterpillar. I can’t find the right gif but in the scene where toothless creeps towards Hiccup before revealing his teeth for the first time- THAT scene? You know what I’m talking about. His spinal digits clearly have more space between them, or his bones are still flexible like a child’s.

And listen, I know that a night fury’s tail is long and CAN drag on the ground- but generally you’d think that a night fury should lift it up a slight bit while treading, right? So, with how I see Toothless’ tail dragging behind him in the HTTYD1, and how it often turns with a delay instead of synchronically with the rest of his body, it kind of reminds me of how teenagers tend to flail their limbs around where they walk because- well, they kind of don’t know what else to do with them. And it adds to this whole image of a mass that’s not yet articulated or fully controlled- also a great detail that not many would think too deeply into.

I think toothless also has this adorably wide stance because his legs are still a bit gangly-ish for a night fury so added onto the high hunched back he’s trying to figure his legs out. Of course I know that the creators based his animations off of a cat- but think about it, you don’t see him hunching up as much as in the 2nd movie, or anywhere else- because later on he simply lowers down.

You can see the way his legs are a bit more apart in the left GIF- it’s kind of like looking at a kitten, or a puppy, cause they do that too! And in the right you can clearly see a tall stance, with a fully developed ribcage and muscles. His shoulders are not as sunk-in as before.

Also take into consideration how his wings have changed, specifically the curve of his wing’s apex (aka the joint between the radius and the ulna, in more technical terminology). The apex changed from a sharp bony angle to a curved structure that’s clearly accomodating for articulated ligaments and muscles (however thin they may be, they’re there).

And of course, let’s not forget the obvious; skin. Over time the melatonin in his skin would have developed as he was more exposed to the sun during the daytime, suggesting that because of the more day-based lifestyle Toothless had to adopt because of Hiccup, he’s a bit darker than other night furies could be. Or a funny way to put it would be *tanned*. You could argue that you can still see Toothless’ markings but I say that’s just his scales going ashy in addition to scars adorning his torso.

On top of that there’s two stages in which his skin has developed: first is the development of scales on less flexible parts of the body (forehead, forelegs) which I’ll call the prepubescent stage- y’know, like how guys get these weird curly hairs on their face before they start going straight. And THEN Toothless entered his post-puberty scales (more dappled and glossy, and on the rest of his body) + additional spikes that were smooth or otherwise not there on his jaw and ears. The theory of scales and spikes = male puberty in night furies is supported by how the light fury doesn’t have spikes (but i’m open to arguing this one too because light furies are a subspecies and male light furies may not have them either).

This entire post is just a big fat chef’s kiss towards the animators and model makers for making such an effort to show the growth that Toothless has gone through from a more zoological and physiological standpoint- and in MORE WAYS than just facial structure and extra scales. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk 😂

[ruthlesslistener]

Motion, Canvas, and Bling for Theodonalus!

motion: How does your OC move? How does their clothing help or hinder their range of motion? Are they flexible, coordinated, clumsy?

-Theo moves like if you crossed a greyhound with a ferret, and is extremely flexible and agile to boot! The Queynï are built like a blend of storks, sighthounds, and cheetahs, but since Theo has underdeveloped wings, he doesn't have the same muscle distribution that the rest of his very flight-based tribe tends to obtain, so he's far more agile on land than the rest of them. That sense of coordination is important, too- nests are built high on mountainsides, often in small nooks on sheer cliffs, where its assumed that even newly-hatched drachlings would be able to glide to safety if they fell. Theo didn't have that (part of the reason why he was treated as basically already being dead from hatching), so if he was any less coordinated, then he'd be long gone. Luckily for him, Queynï claws are sharply hooked and built for being able to cling to pretty much any surface, but he's also just a pretty nimble fellow to begin with

canvas: Does your OC have any scars, piercings, tattoos, or other markings? Do they display or cover them up at all?

-Theo has a lot of scars, and he pays little to no attention to them, as most were obtained from either stealing prey from other carnivores or from defending his meals from scavengers. The only ones he's bitter about are the ones on his throat, where some of his own clanmates attempted to tear it out 'for his own good', but he isn't ashamed of them at all. They just inspire him to live out of spite even more than he already was doing

bling: What jewelry does your OC wear? Does it have any meaning?

-Alas, Theo is nakey. Dragons both queensborn and not always collected precious stones as a means of impressing their mates- pretty rocks or objects are hard to spot on the wing, and even harder to defend, so the dragon with the most shinies is the one who's got the keenest eye and is the best at hiding/protecting their nest- but it's not until bonds between the human refugees crossing from the Sea of Storms and willing members of the Queynï were fully established that draconic jewelry began to become a thing, as a means for rider, craftsman, and dragon to show off their status and skill. Theodonalus was the dragon who extended the olive branch to humankind (as he is a curious fellow and was fascinated by these complex, clever-pawed monkeys), but he never took a human rider, and the full establishment of the dragonriders and their culture happened centuries after his death

Oc ask game

[spinnertop]

Oh, finally a world building thing I have that can be put to use.

Wyverns with human forms that have underdeveloped muscles in their legs meaning they can't stand or walk on their legs for long periods of time. When they take on human forms, they use walkers, crutches, wheelchairs, or other mobility devices to get around. Most take on half human-half draconic forms because full human forms can be uncomfortable (I'll go more into depth about that later) walk with their arm/wings on the ground. Think elbow crutches but leaning a little farther forward for comfort

Undead people experiencing bouts of not being able to move properly, similar to rigor mortis. It goes away after a while, but it is cyclical and comes back over and over again.

Phantom limb sensations for people that hide extra limbs and appendages.

People that have lost their tails having a hard time balancing and walking.

People with lightning or storm spirit ancestry experiencing chronic seizures due to their powers disrupting the electrical signals in their brains.

People in the Void being unable to breathe regular air. In my world, the air is much thinner in the Void, making the creatures and people there evolve to need less oxygen. When in a place with regular air, they cannot breathe it properly for extended periods of time without special equipment. The equipment normally takes on the form of gas masks and helmets with filters to thin out the air enough for them to comfortably breath.

Piggybacking off of that, draconic beings, fire elementals, people with general fire magic, and the like also sometimes need masks or helmets with filters because they occasionally, or in some more extreme cases, constantly exhaling smoke so they need filters for the air coming out to prevent them from breathing it in again.

People from low light places, such as the Void, the deep sea, subterranean worlds and places, etc. need sunglasses and goggles to protect their eyes from bright lights, similar to how blind people where sunglasses indoors to reduce glare, discomfort, and harm from UV light.

Chronic illness and fatigue for people that constantly strain their magic or try and force it to do things it can't do.

There's more, but I can't think of them right now.

What are some chronic illnesses that can only occur in a fantasy setting?

[briarworthandoleander]

Hello! I'm a biologist working on organizing some of the many studies and observations that have been brought back by the more adventurous folks of our settlement, and I noticed something odd. Nobody around here has been able to answer my question, so I decided to reach out to you in hopes that you can. Now, what I noticed was that there's a striking resemblance between Magnamalos and Teo/Lunastras- both in appearance AND behavior! I was wondering if this could be evidence of an evolutionary relation between the two species or if it is instead an example of convergent evolution? If there is indeed an evolutionary link, it would be extraordinary, and I'd be very curious to find out the conditions that caused the ancestors of 'stras to retain their wings while magnamalo's ancestors lost them!

I hope the sketches despite their simplifications of each monsters anatomy will help showcase that Magnamalo and 'Stras are a case of more parallel/convergent evolution than divergent.

A Teostras wings are very much a seperate limb from their foreleg, and as such have different bone, muscle, cartilage and skin formations from those of Magnamalo, Barioth and Nargacuga.

There is also a misconception with 'Stra and Magnamalo forming their explosive powers in the same or similar manner.

A Teostra or Lunastra actually have wings that are covered in small hairs used for storing and spreading an explosive powder, which is a byproduct from its diet that consists of not only meat, but in ores and minerals like coal. By snapping its jaws together, it produces a spark that causes the powder around it to explode almost instantly, damaging anything caught within the blast radius. Also the inside of its mouth is special saliva that it combines with the minerals its eats. Combining these two substances allows Teostra and Lunastra to breathe flames and cover themselves in a fiery aura.

Magnamalo however uses a gas to produce its "Hellfire". It is not triggered by the Magnamalo snapping its jaws shut either - but by the process of oxidation - which is why it takes a little bit of time to ignite and explode. It's also why you can actually very badly hurt a Magnamalo while it's releasing the gas by igniting it early before it has left the body.

So while Magnamalo and Teostra have adapted and evolved to thrive in the same biomes, they have done it in different manners.

Now, whilst it is known that Nargacuga and Barioth are distant relations there is also reason to believe that Barioth and Magnamalo are actually far more closely linked together in their evolutionary line.

Though Magnamalo are far more top heavy than Barioth and lack the mobility and extra flesh between foreleg and flank that acts as a rudimentary wing - they have elongated fangs, an external bone coming off the forelimb at an angle, and a heavily spiked tail that branches outward.

Now both have adapted to very different locations, but there is a varient of Barioth known as a Sand Barioth that lives in desert regions.

It is commonly believed that this is probably where the link originates; with an ancestor of Sand Barioth adapting to even more extreme high temperatures and locations and slowly becoming the species known as Magnamalo.

With a high amount of thermals in the volcanic areas making gliding a difficult process in terms of landing, it is theorised that heavier set Barioth over time lost usage of their wings and thus the adaption started to lose their original function. With the underdeveloped "spike" of a wing however the Magnamalo found a new usage for the appendage as a means of a defensive measure; and thus it adapted into a hardened and sharpened claw for the monster to use.

But again - this is all theory; not fact. It's just compounding what we do know about each individual species and lining up the similarities and the differences.

I am open to discussion on the matter, and while I believe that this theory does hold some weight I would be happy to be proven wrong for the sake of accuracy.

- Leo Briarworth

[rwbyconversations]

RWBY Volume 7 Review

Two weeks out from Volume 8 and I finally cared enough to write this. Go team I guess. 

Part of it came down to my feelings on Volume 7. It’s a complicated season that’s made me realize a lot of my overall feelings on RWBY as a series, particularly a lot of the less flattering feelings. Volume 7 is just... frustrating in general, as for all the good that it does have, and it does have a lot of great elements to it, it’s let down by a frustrating script and writing choices that feel distinctly amateurish, especially as the series moves on and gets better and better looking each year. There’s elements and kernals here of great character writing, season-wide arcs that land in a really good way and get me emotionally invested in the characters. But on the other... Ren only has two hundred words the entire season and you can tell! 

Volume 7 is a season of dizzying highs, some of the best moments of the entire franchise... and some of the series lows. It’s a season where there’s no production reason for its shortcomings... it just comes down to an awkward script that focuses on the wrong elements far too often. Let’s talk about that. In a very long and drawn out manner.

Thanks to @jamesbranwen​, @h-e-m-o-goblin​ and @retro-riffraff​ for help with GIFs and consultation on this review.

1) The Good Stuff!

A) Atlas is very pretty!

I cannot stress enough how on a set level, Volume 7 is leaps and bounds above the other seasons in sheer environmental detail and setting dressing. Mantle has a great atmosphere with its New York influences, the smog covered backgrounds and oppressive streets and alleys. Ironwood’s office which is deliberately designed to evoke astronomy themes to represent James’ love for the stars. The cold oppressive atmosphere of the Schnee Manor and how Jacques has begun warping it to glorify him with only lip service paid to Nicholas in public. Penguins! 

There’s a lot of great set design work that went into this season and the crew deserve props for it. Genuinely. 

B) Ironwood’s arc is the best character arc in the entire franchise

Yeah just wearing my heart on my sleeve there, I fucking love Ironwood and his character arc here in Volume 7 is the best written arc of the show. I simp for the tin man who just wants to do the right thing. This one season of content is better than a lot of the series-wide material being honest. I went back to James’s big volumes in the last month to rewatch the show and it’s interesting to see the early seeds in retrospect for where his arc goes. His need to protect everyone he can and the brutish measures he considers necessary for such an act, his conflicting loyalties towards Ozpin that manifest in both frustration at Oz’s seeming apathy to the growing conflict, but also desperate desire for validation from Ozpin that what’s he doing is the right call. After the Mistral seasons set up James as going off the deep end following Volume 3, having him open the season with an earnest smile, an immediate apology for the team’s arrest and trusting them with his plans for Amity and Salem is a jarring but pleasant surprise. He’s not been slacking off, he’s been trying to keep the world together in the way he thinks is best. He lets his guard down around the heroes and we see the good man underneath, which makes the moments where he raises his walls hurt all the more. While Em and Merc are still probably my favorite characters period, James is absolutely my favorite character in Volume 7 and Top 5 favorite characters series-wide. I’m very eager to see where he goes from here. He also rocks the beard and fixed his T-Rex arms so James came out of the washing machine that is Volume 7′s costume design. He truly is the Best Boi, and I cannot give Jason Rose enough credit for his performance this year. He hit every note of Ironwood’s character perfectly and I wish the fandom would give him more credit for giving James as much life as he does.

Oh, and as the obligatory comment on mlm rep that I am known for getting obsessively weird anon hate over: IronQrow hug nearly had me crying on a convention floor from how goddamn soft it was. Remember conventions? Ah good times.

This just... hits me... ya know? Seeing him lower his guard so much to come in for a hug just shows how isolated he’s let himself become to let himself have this moment of contact... Godamnit James. Also this is the second time after Martial Arcs that two guys hug and I really liked their ship for the following hiatus. 

C) Soft Qrow hours are nice

Qrow’s a good guy, he went through a lot of bad stuff in Volume 6 but now he’s on the other side and purged his voice of the demon within. I think Volume 7 was a very good year for Qrow overall. It was great to see him interacting with more characters his age and lowering his own guard. His moments of letting the facade drop around James and Clover especially are great expansion for his character. Jason Liebritch hit the ground running as Qrow and gave him a far more dynamic range than I think Vic could. While I wish Qrow going off alcohol had been given more of a focus as it’s kind of done off-handedly that he’s gone cold turkey and otherwise doesn’t get brought up barring his revulsion at the wine in the Schnee Manor, he overall had a great year. And trust me I’ll get to the fights later, I have a lot more I can say about the bird boi there. 

D) I liked the Ace Ops! 

I was ambivilent towards the Ace Ops on first watching. They’re kinda underdeveloped in the context of the season at large and most people immediately pegged them as a miniboss squad/fodder for Salem to kill. But in rewatch they do still get to shine, if not as brightly. They’re very enjoyable. Clover especially is just really fun in retrospect, I love cocky fighters in general, and he was infectiously enjoyable (I’ve already covered the FG stuff in the past, not doing it again). Marrow came a close second because... well it’s Marrow, he is The Best Boi. Harriet got points for being a punchgirl which is always cool, I liked how her Semblance was shown and being cocky while being able to back it up is always a win. Elm and Vine are tied for dead last, I like the body diversity Elm introduces with her muscles and Vine... existed... but overall I think with the time they had, they did get to establish themselves well. I wish I could say that about their relationship with Team RWBYORNJ but this is the Nice Section so we’ll leave it there for now.

This is one of the best shots of the entire season. I adore it. God I like the Teryx design.

E) God the villains rocked this year! 

I am a villain whore. I own that. I will embrace that monkier. But when they’re as cool as this, I feel validated in this Chilli’s tonight. Watts and Tyrian really make the season shine and don’t have a dud scene all season. They have great chemistry together, shining bright in even the weakest or most mediocre episodes. Watts went from “Oh yeah you exist” tier to “Oh yeah you rule” tier. His vendetta against Ironwood feels so real and pre-established, even though this season is the first time it’s ever come up. Watts just ozzes style in everything he does. The animators bring him to life and make every step, every flick of his twist and even just how he moves his eyes all bleed contempt. He’s such a rat and I love him! Chris Sabat finally gets to stretch his wings after a few years playing Watts as just Evil Scientist Guy, and he makes the most of it. 

And Tyrian remains an absolute treat. He didn’t get much in V6 but here he takes center stage with Watts and also gets so much impact because of it. All the little twitches, and tilting of his heads, and dramatic gestures, he’s still just so goddamn cool to watch and we even get a little backstory of him. I know he’s irredeemable. But I just want to watch Tyrian kill people and scream. Like hot damn his line “THE GRIMM SHOULD HAVE DESTROYED OUR ENEMIES, NOT MADE THEM FRIENDS!” is so fucking raw. He’s having fun destablizing a nation with his boyfriend! 

“You want more chaos than a Grimm invasion?” “If anyone on Remannt can do it, wouldn’t it be you?” There is no heterosexual explanation for how these two look at each other and yes this is me outing myself as a Nuts and Volts fan.

Watts and Tyrian really do become the absolute highlights of the season alongside James. They have a great dynamic and even during their more slower moments there’s so much care and thought put into their every mannerism. Animators, seriously, great job, I love what you did. And their fights... we’ll get there. But they’re so goddamn good. 

Look they even run the same! They’re soulmates! 

Honorary mention to Salem by the way. She’s only in two scenes but her presence is felt throughout Ironwood’s arc and his growing fear of her and she damn well delivers when she shows up. That shot of her arriving in person is a killer shot to end on as well.

Oh and I guess Cinder and Neo exist don’t they? Eh, we’ll come back to them. 

F) Oscar got a character arc!

Finally! He did it! He got an arc that began, continued and ended all onscreen! It only took four tries! 

But yeah Oscar had a really good set of scenes in Volume 7. I like him being the first to confront Ruby on the Ironwood lie, bringing up the hypocrisy after their condemning of Ozpin just last season. I like him having a more forward role (outside of not getting to be part of the celebration in episode 4 what the hell guys), and that he’s the big link between RWBY and Ironwood was a great call. Having Ozpin shelved for one more season so Oscar can take center-stage was an inspired choice. I love his dynamic with Ironwood, and how James closing himself off emotionally gets reflected in how he begins slipping in how he refers to Oscar, starting off as treating him and Oz as separate, ending with him gunning Oscar down as he doesn’t care anymore to differentiate the two.

My big issues with Oscar’s arc are that I’m first of all annoyed at the lack of followup on the Oscar stuff from V6, I’m still waiting for Qrow to apologize for punching Oscar guys! I also really wish Neo’s first attack wasn’t offscreen. CRWBY’s cliffhanger fetish meant I got to break out the Offscreen Pine jokes again. And of course, the Neo hallway punch was a bit bullshit.

G) (Most of) The fights are amazing

There’s no punchline. These fights are great, two of them are in my Top 10 Series Wide fights list and at least the duds aren’t Volume 5 bad.

If you’d told me before Volume 7 that Watts would get an extended firefight with James, I’d have felt that a bit cheap as Watts to me doesn’t feel like a fighter, more a planner who hides behind armies of mechanical soldiers. But damn if they didn’t sell me on Watts “You’ve yeed your last haw” Watts whipping out a Glock just to spite James. 

This is another one of my favorite shots in the entire series.

Ironwood vs Watts is potentially my favorite fight in the entire series, and if it’s not, it’s easy Top 3 alongside Yang vs Mercury and Pyrrha vs CRDL/Mercury. It makes great use of Amity in the abandoned gravity biome meant for SSSN vs JNPR, with Ironwood and Watts deftly moving around in a manner that very easily could have been difficult to track with the constantly shifting gravity, but the crew do their best to keep it coherent as to who’s where. The credits showed their dedication also stretched into visual continuity, as James and Arthur’s route throughout the Arena was carefully considered so they’d loop around organically. 

This is what I mean when I say the crew went above and beyond to keep things clean.

Ironwood vs Watts could have easily failed to impress, given its lack of choreography on the level the series usually does, but the team’s efforts went instead into showing a situation that lets Watts get a dragged out battle: James wins whenever he closes the distance here, so Arthur’s constantly on the run and being forced to tamper with the arena. Great camerawork, a GOD TIER song from Caleb Hyles that I’m still listening to today, and two characters with a fantastic history coming to blows makes for easily the best fight of the season and a series-wide highlight. Watching it develop from storyboards, to mocap, to animations and the full version is a delight to see. This is what CRWBY can do when everything comes togehter. The orchestra’s all tuned. It’s a goddamn symphony.

THIS is my favorite shot of the season.

Tyrian also gets to shine with his two battles this year. His alley fight with Qrow, Robyn and Clover is short but sweet, the corvid and the scorpion especially trading brutal blows in the cramped space. Qrow goes full Devil May Cry with his style-switching here, Harbinger being swapped between sword, tonfa and gun forms freely alongside Qrow applying The Power of Punching. His 1v1v1 with Clover and Qrow though is the true highlight of the season in terms of choreography. It’s lighting-fast, and has some impeccable shot work. Qrow gets to use his scythe with deliberate nods to the Red Trailer, Clover gets to shut up everyone who doubted his weapon, and Tyrian is just along for the ride and he makes the most of it. It’s frentic, it’s heart-pounding, it’s everything a fight should be. 

Honorary mentions as well go to Ace Ops vs the Geist, which is just really fun and has a great backing music choice, the opening battle with Sabre having Ruby’s obligatory ten seconds of fighting that come at the start of every new era of the series, and the Ace Ops vs RWBY fight which has some good choreo in places.

H) Winter and Penny have good chemistry

I don’t have a ton to add here, I just like their dynamic and how they advance each other’s arcs. It’s nice writing. I also like Winter apologizing to Penny when she’s angry at Jacques and takes it out on Penny by accident with the “You wouldn’t understand” line.

Penny as a Maiden is a nice idea, I think her new design is cute. Penny says trans rights.

Those are a lot of my favorite things about Volume 7. It’s a killer season when it’s firing on all cylinders but unfortunately... it often misfires in frustrating ways, many of which are unfortunately due to core emblematic problems with the series that won’t go away.

2) The Bad Stuff

A) The costumes

It’s been a over year. It’s low hanging fruit. I don’t care. Most of them are still not good and they’re ludicrously over-designed.

Blake’s in a fetish suit and I wonder how she even goes to the bathroom. Weiss just looks like an abino Sabre alt, Yang is what a Halloween costume site would describe as “Sexy UPS Driver,” (why does she have a thigh window) Ruby... looks fine, it’s one of her better costumes. Jaune’s hair is silly, Ren’s model has lost some muscle definition and he looks like an e-boy, Nora’s costume really doesn’t fit the Atlas visual design and looks like a rejected Kingdom Hearts costume. Cinder’s is too black and I actually can’t track her in darker scenes because of it (which is kinda bad during... a fight scene... where I need to know where she is...), Neo looks like a Ren Fair cosplayer doing a bit for her OnlyFans, Winter’s is anatomically weird with super skinny arms and legs, and Blake’s hair is a fucking hate crime. 

Qrow’s is one I liked at first but in retrospect it does feel like a downgrade. To quote @h-e-m-o-goblin​ from a Discord chat:

in a show like rwby, where color is such a vital defining aspect of every character, a cohesive colorscheme goes a long way. qrow's original outfit works great in this regard. neutral tones. greys, whites, and blacks, with red accents that pop against the otherwise sparse color. it's good! it's distinctive! it doesn't feel cluttered and it doesn't look like a clown vomited on him! the subdued colors really lend themselves to the grey, cynical energy qrow seems to carry with him. a literal lack of color in his life. the outfit itself feels like something he would wear; a combination of "clearly trying to look cool" and "a little disheveled and laid back." the design breathes, it isn't cluttered. let's contrast this with his vol 7 outfit. a lot of outfits in vol 7 suffer from this problem, but first and foremost it doesn't look like something he would wear. where his old outfit had a casual feel to it, his new look feels like someone dressed him up for a family christmas dinner. it's too... tidy. now of course you could argue this is him "cleaning up his life," but i dont feel like you have to sacrifice his own personal style in order to convey that. if that's really what they were going for, they easily could have just, oh i dont know, given him a cape that isn't tattered???

remember how i said qrow's original outfit really made his colors pop? how less is more when it comes to having a character with a specific color theme? vol 7 butchered that. we suddenly have articles of clothes that are tinted with greenish blue tones, browns, and with gold trim? on TOP of the old colors he already had in his design. it's muddy. it's ugly. the burgundy vest is fine, if they wanted to work more color into his outfit they should have done it that way throughout, shades of grey and different tones of RED. his COLOR. it just feels like they tacked so much on there without a second thought and i really think he deserves better. its just. such a mess.

The ones I did like were Watts’ new coat (I like the puffy hood), Penny’s is fine, the Ace Ops look great, Ironwood’s new outfit is stellar (those last six are great examples of how to do a lot with just primary colors of white and red), Neon’s Jolyne cosplay is cute and Flynt is slick. Otherwise, Volume 7 feels like it’s taken a lot of the wrong lessons from the costume design of the earlier seasons. Less is often more but now it feels like they have a pathological aversion to empty space on the costumes, leading them to feel like... costume vomit for lack of a better word. I didn’t love the Mistral outfits, but their modifications at least were carried by how many of them called back to the Fall of Beacon and emphasized the themes of loss in Volume 4. The new Atlas outfits... don’t have that shared theme. It feels like a hodgepodge of different design influences without trying to find a way to unify them. It’s like putting Baki the Grappler beside My Little Pony, they just fail to mesh.

Also for fuck’s sake already CRWBY just give the girls muscles already.

2) JNR suck and Ren’s arc is glorified character assassination

I don’t love JNR. They’re fine, but the show has arguably not needed them for a while and while I’ve liked them all at different points, it’s never been adoration outside of Ren in Volume 4. I was cool with the idea of them staying in Argus to help cover Mistral after its Huntsmen were wiped out, and Volume 7 has... made me wish they did that.

Jaune is just comic relief, and it kinda blows for later reasons but the big one is that he’s just not very funny. His big role in Volume 7 is basically to crosswalk some kids so we can have a joke scene during the Mantle Battle where Jaune uses his tactical genius to teach people to walk in single file. I feel like at this point Miles is just actively trying to kill Jaune’s fandom out of spite for how badly Jaundice was received. He’s never allowed to be cool or try and redeem himself. His hatedom aren’t going to stop hating Jaune because he gets more comedy guys. They’re going to stop when you write Jaune well. It’s a bummer he got some genuinely great upgrades for his sword and shield and never gets to use them outside of the opening. 

Nora exists. She got a surprising amount of focus this season in that she got focus of any kind. I liked her confronting Ironwood over his choking of Mantle because we know she was once the kind of person Ironwood would have been stifling. I like her being the one to realize the loophole in Jinn’s “You can’t” line. I don’t like much else about Nora this year, or at least the Nora the writing team are pushing. She’s not funny like Jaune but Nora just absorbs so much screentime in the first half with her constant shrieking. Sam Ireland has good range but making Nora into Discount Harley Quinn is pushing her out of it. She sounds shrill, making Nora sound like she has no heart outside of the election rally. A shrill voice is one thing. A shrill voice that never lands a single joke? Yeah that character is tainted by association. 

And Ren... oh God Ren what happened to you.

The Volume 7 commentary confirmed a suspicion of mine that Ren’s arc was heavily cut down from what was planned. Even watching V7 I could tell his arc was bare-bones at best, and it’s downright character assassination in places. Why is he suddenly so cold to Nora? Why is he now so obsessed with training? Why does he side with Ironwood for all of... one line which is this last between episodes 7 and 11. Ren only has two hundred words of dialoge in Volume 7 and they feel so weird in places. Ren goes from seemingly disliking Nora, to kissing her, to never referencing the kiss, to partaking in the Worst Scene Of The Season, all with no consistency. It’s not even threadbare. Ren’s arc just has no connecting tissue for so much of it! It’s insane how badly Ren was hurt by this, and I shudder to wonder how bad his Volume 8 arc will be because you know that was one of the first plotlines they cut down on when they inevitably overreached again. 

I don’t know how they made Renora kissing feel unearned? But by God they found a way with how much of a trainwreck Ren’s writing is in regards to tainting this. 

If Ironwood is an example of RWBY doing character writing well, Ren is the mirror image of how badly they can do. JNR really suffered from Volume 7 (also fun fact, Ren has about 200 words of dialogue? Ironwood has 4400). Maybe not to the level of irredeemable dislike? But very close to being on the same tier as Cinder of “Just go away already.”  I’m not looking forward to their content in Volume 8. 

3) RWBY themselves are poorly handled in Volume 7

It’s unfortunate that the actual title characters of the series are also some of this season’s weaker links. RWBY feel... superfluous to this season in a way they’ve never felt before. It’s baffling how much of the season doesn’t change if you just don’t include them, and apparently Volume 7′s first draft? Was even worse.

The commentary says that many of the RWBY moments were added later in production. Stuff like Ruby and Renora at the rally, Blake and Yang’s talk with Robyn and Ruby and Qrow’s chat were all either added in near the end of the writing or were “low priority” enough that they could have been cut which is... veyr alarming that’s stuff even the main protags have to worry about! 

Ruby feels half-baked. I was looking forward to her in V7 after how V6 gave her a more dynamic personality and the focus she got in Brunswick, and having Penny’s return had me interested in seeing Ruby grapple with her emotions about it. She watched Penny die, how would it influence her to see Penny back and OK? Good question, we never get to see it. Ruby’s just OK with Penny’s return, the one time they touch on it Penny immediately glosses over it. Ruby just goes back to her old happy go lucky persona where any and all negative emotions are immediately forced down instead of confronting them and growing from them. I’m getting a little tired of Ruby bottling her grief and being teased about finally getting her snapping like a Twix Bar. We finally got her crying and it lasted all of ten seconds. And it doesn’t help that Ruby’s still getting shafted for fights. Her scythe choreography has no excuse being as flacid as it is now after Qrow vs Clover showed they can do scythe fighting! Why is Ruby being upstaged by (let’s be real) a supporting character! Why is she being limited to ten seconds of good combat then nothing for the rest of the season outside of flimsily swinging it or shooting. It’s disappointing, especially after how good V6 Ruby was.

I swear, Gravity’s not just my favorite episode of the season just because Ruby finally cries in it.

Weiss was kinda just done dirty though. At least Ruby has a good outfit. Weiss confronting her father has been a long standing plot thread for the series, it’s been Weiss’s Big Thing since the White Trailer. And when Jacques finally appears, he’s very... bland. He’s just evil corporate dude who exists less as an obstacle for Weiss and more just a roadblock for the plot through the election. Weiss finally gets a chance to take her father down and work to redeem her family name... but instead of earning said victory and it being treated with the same gravitas and emotional weight as Blake defeating Adam... Weiss has her victory handed to her. And it’s played for comedy by her abusrdly attractive mother. 

Listen, I like I Willow Schnee. I think she’s a fascinating character and I like the idea of a person who is aware of the harm they’ve done by accident but is too broken to fix the issues she accidentally left. I love her calling Weiss out on her treatment of Whitley. But she is absolutely a Deus Ex Machina that exists to get Jacques out of the plot as fast as possible. You mean to tell me Hackerman Watts never once made sure Jacques had hidden cameras? Or that none of the staff found Willow’s cameras and reported them under the assumption they were White Fang spies? It’s so... convenient. It’s handing Weiss her victory on an unearned platter. Which sucks. I was really looking forward to Weiss beating Jacques. Instead she just gets given the plot device while JNR engage in the Worst Scene of The Season in that Whitley food stunt.

Me whenever I’m asked to rewatch Cordially Invited

Blake and Yang have much the same problems, in they never separate. I know they’re going to be together. I know CRWBY are making it canon (get it over with already). I still would like Yang and Blake to have individual character scenes. I’d like Blake and Marrow to talk about being a Faunus Huntsman in Atlas (another thing that got cut thanks to Robyn Hill). I want Yang and Ironwood to discuss their PTSD and have Yang thank Ironwood for his trust in her that he commissioned the arm despite Yang attacking Mercury. I want Blake to be well animated in fight scenes so she’s doing more than just jobbing so Yang looks better. I want Yang to stop hogging all the good Team RWBY choeography. I want them to interact with other characters and continue to grow instead of feeling like two halves of one character. And no, making a meta joke of how Blake and Yang don’t talk to other people doesn’t make it OK. It just means you’re self aware about your own faults. 

(Also give Yang better merch or quit the favoritism. If you’re gonna milk her, put effort into it beyond crapply overpriced flannel. RT’s merch store is actively making me hate Yang.)

Team RWBY’s biggest contribution to the season is the Ironwood Lie which is... a can of worms. They certainly had a point in withholding some of the bigger truths from James but I feel by Pomp and Cirumstance he’d proven himself truthwrothy enough to warrant being told the truth about Salem. But then when he’s finally told the truth, it’s offscreen’d and the consequence isn’t “Why didn’t you tell me earlier” but “Fucking Ozpin man.” Gravity has it bite them in the ass, but it’s more an accessory to Yang and Blake telling Robyn about the Amity tower. I wish more had been done with the team disagreeing on whether the lie was a good choice or not, maybe have Yang be hardline against it due to her own “No more lies and half truths” policy instead of... having Yang tell more lies and half truths (Commentary confirms she never told Ruby and Weiss about the Robyn stuff BTW). But that’s a wider problem where RWBY aren’t allowed to disagree beyond surface level “I don’t know if this is the right call” dialogue. There’s never a threat of one of them cracking and just spilling the beans to James, everyone just blindly trusts Ruby and Qrow tells the audience “No this is different from when Ozpin lied. Trust us.” 

This is the most RWBY get for content in the season finale: Ruby just nuking Cinder with no difficulty after having trouble with the eyes three episodes ago. Kinda lame tbh.

Team RWBY are just disappointing in Volume 7. They’re not given good animation, their story roles are largely insignificant, the impact of their roles on the story is threadbare and... well most of their costumes suck don’t @ me even CRWBY have admitted Blake and Weiss’s haircuts looked bad. It’s a whole barrage of a letdown for the main girls. And it’s really sad that the best scenes of the season... are usually the ones where RWBY are nowhere in sight.

Why the hell didn’t Yang get to keep the sunglasses come on guys. One job.

4) Robyn, the election plot, and the Happy Huntresses

Oh God, Robyn Hill is... not great. I could and likely will write a full meta on her character and how they bungled it but I’ll just be blunt here: I don’t like her design, the colors don’t mesh well, he head’s too small, Christina Vee is sleeping through the role and her weapon’s lame. Introducing her in a scene where she threatens to attack our heroes, and her agents are actively sneaking up on them to do it, is not a great first impression for a hometown hero. And that the commentary thinks she’s meant to be the hero in that scene is... staggering. 

RWBY’s greatest threat yet is a wine mom Karen and her Home Owners Association army. 

The election plot is less a misfire and more the engine just exploding. There’s so little good content between when it’s introduced and concluded, with it usually being individual scenes that are more good in spite of their connection to the plot (such as Tyrian’s massacre). It drags in pacing, going on for nearly half the season between episodes 5 and 10, and it purely exists as a roadblock to keep RWBY spinning their wheels while Watts and Tyrian keep going with the main plot. I don’t know why CRWBY went for this plot. They could have easily had something else fill the gap that also allowed for a lot of the character beats (such as Marrow and Blake’s talk and Ren’s entire arc) to shine, or at least condensed it to the important elements instead of letting it become bloated. It ends in such an unsatisfying way where Willow just shows up and goes “We have four episode left, here’s the plot device to beat Jacques, get back ot the main plot.” If they wanted to do the election plot, the best route would have been to give Volume 7 more episodes or stretch out its events to two seasons, but neither is realistically possible while RWBY lives off the teat of AT&T. 

Jacques and Robyn are just boring. Evil corporate man and a lame adaptation of Robyn Hood who only has fans because of thirst who also like downplaying Robyn making a racist remark at Marrow (to say nothing of that weird subsection of Robyn fans who make her a Fox Faunus who cut her tail off to join Atlas Academy which is... certainly a creative choice especially when Marrow and Neon are punching holes in that angsty BS backstory). They can’t carry this plot and the artifical attempts to make it seem more exciting with the two cliffhaners ending on Mantle under riot or Grimm attack are laughably cut short by the next episode in each case opening the morning after. On binge watch it becomes weirdly funny more than anything and that’s not a good reaction. The dual cliffhangers being cheaply resolved is a short but succint example of V7′s pacing issues, and they almost always loop around to the election plot being too bloated, slow and just boring.

Also the Happy Huntresses are just... lame. I like their Semblances but that’s it. Fiona’s OK because she gets some screentime but May’s just “the surly one” and Joanna doesn’t even get her Semblance or much dialogue (oh wow she really is just a female Sage Ayana isn’t she). Robyn should not have been leading the HH and running for Council. That’s really stupid. And kind of wrong. Having May or Fiona be running instead while Robyn leads the team in relief efforts would have been better and could have split the focus more effeciently instead of leaving May and especially Joanna feelng like roster padding. There’s also some delicious irony in the show trying to frame the HH as the resistance fighting for the people and representing individuality, only for them all to have the same boring outfit and weapons (I think even the exact same model just with different sizes) while the Ace Ops are meant to be the military drones who are “Just following orders,” only for them to be more racially diverse, more diverse body-type-wise, and have more unique weapons. It’s another one of those odd creative dissconnects between what the writers wanted and what the artists/animation teams chose to do. 

The election plot is overall toxin for Volume 7, and Robyn in my opinion, has one of the worst introductory scenes of any character in the franchise (and CRWBY have tacitly admitted that V7 had a character they were surprised at how controversial they were, which has to be Robyn). In a year where they were already juggling so much content and characters, adding in this bloated subplot was something I don’t think anyone wanted, especially now that we know we lost so much content on the sacrificial altar for this. It’s a black mark on the season and I don’t really care for the return of the Happy Huntresses or Robyn in Volume 8. None of them are interesting enough to care for outside of meta reasons like “cute.” 

Also fuck you Fiona, can’t believe you got a shirt before Ironwood. 

5) Cinder and Neo sure exist

To be fair, this is one of Cinder’s best years, easily her best since Volume 3 but that’s more because Cinder in the Mistral era was crap. (And if I wanna be cruel, because Cinder wasn’t in two thirds of the season)Her fans were finally vindicated after years of telling anyone who dunked on Cinder that “nooooo she has a super covert backstory that’s gonna be amazing when it’s revealed! You’ll see!” And well they finally got it. All of one line during a fight about how Cinder “refuses to starve.” 

It’s still something so I guess we have to take it. Seriously... how do we still not have Cinder’s backstory. 

There’s just not a ton to say about Cinder and Neo in V7 barring I that don’t think they needed to be here. They feel very superfluous and just here to have a big boss fight in Cinder’s case alongside continuing her streak of ending the odd numbered seasons fighting a female side character... which for me became an exercise in tyring to find during Cinder during the damn fight.

And this is why when most people saw Cinder’s V6 outfit they went “It’s gonna be hard to see her in darker environments,” then were vindicated when it became legit difficult to see Cinder in this scene. God if they at least just made the inside of the cape red it’d be easier.

Neo is Neo, which means she makes funny faces and mocks Cinder (I like that), but she doesn’t get a super good fight which uh... we’ll get to. I’m interested to see her finally exploding at Cinder and going for a backstab, but really Neo in V7 was kinda hit hard by the double whammy of the Oscar Hallway Punch and how humiliating ORNJ vs Neo was for ORNJ. Cinder’s definitely had far worse years and after how aimless she was in Mistral this feels like a sep in the right direction, but at this point CRWBY just need to shut up and tell us her deal. It’s been seven years guys. Come on. At least make her interesting if she’s gonna say around. They’ve had worse years, but unfortunately Cinder and Neo’s role in the finale leads into...

6) Some of the fights weren’t good

I wanna be clear, I like most of Volume 7′s fights. It’s just a bummer the worst ones are back and back and make up a chunk of the finale. ORNJ vs Neo is just crap. It’s the worst fight since the Battle of Haven. There’s nothing else I can say, it’s poorly animated, paced, choreographed and written. JNR especially are made to look like complete jokes after they spent all season training, to the point where it looks like V2 Yang could solo V7 JNR after this. Oscar I expect this from because he’s not allowed to have fun stuff onscreen after accidentally stealing the Haven budget for his fight with Hazel, but JNR were just done dirty. There were ways to make the fight work in a way where Neo still won but JNR looked good. They went for the worst possible outcome that just leaves Neo looking like she got fan-wanked and JNR looking like they’re just not allowed to be cool due to Miles’ spite at the Jaune-Self Insert stuff (and that’s not even getting into JNR being forced to run from lame rent a cops who can’t even handle a single Grimm). Cinder vs Winter and Penny isn’t much better, with her dark outfit making it very hard to track the fight because she blends into the background too well. It’s not a great showing for Winter or Penny given their earlier feats but, hey, some random female character had to fight Cinder in this odd numbered volume, carrying on Glynda, Pyrrha and Raven’s tradition. It’s at least better than ORNJ vs Neo, but that’s really not saying anything. At least Cinder’s VA work isn’t too bad this time but this fight commits the cardinal sin of a finale fight: It’s just not super interesting because we know Cinder can’t kill both Winter and Penny and she’s not becoming a Maiden, while Winter’s been too blatantly set up so it has to be Penny.

RWBY vs the Ace Ops also gets a dishonorable mention due to the choreography on display here... and the lack of it for Weiss, Blake and Ruby. Ruby never once swings Crescent Rose the entire fight and is just reduced to getting the tar kicked out of her by Harriet. Weiss barely gets to use her sword and largely just sticks to her summoning and glyphs which makes for a very visually uninteresting fighting style at the best of times. Blake just swings around and gets caught by the bad guys so Yang is motivated to fight stronger. She never dual wields (again) and her best moves are just setting up Yang to do all the hard work while Yang gets to personally KO two of the Ace Ops. There’s a lot that can be said about whether or nor RWBY earn the win, but while the animation team try to sell the Ace Ops landing heavy hits, having only Blake’s Aura even flicker really undercuts the idea from the commentary that this wasn’t meant to be a stomp for RWBY and they had to work together and be in synch to win.

Which is why Yang solos two of the Ace Ops whle Blake plays support, Weiss beats Marrow alone and then kill steals Harriet from Ruby, all while the song playing is an extended diss track from RWBY to the Ace Ops about how badass they are now, and the commentary itself says the Ace Ops are hard carried by Clover’s Semblance (because you gotta love basically saying four POC were only competent because a white guy led them, and then have them lose because said white guy wasn’t around to carry them!). Great job guys, you really sold it.

And talking of Clover, I feel it worth mentioning Qrow vs Clover vs Tyrian. It’s animation wise near perfect, but unfortunately I do feel it would be remiss to not mention that I feel the writing really has to bend over backwards to justify this fight. A lot of it is stuff I would say in that hypothetical Robyn essay, but I feel Robyn, Qrow and Clover all have to become massive idiots for this specific sequence of events to occur, and for Clover especially every retroactive attempt to explain why he prioritized Qrow over Tyrian just sounds more and more desperate. Between the references to MCU Captain America (a person whose entire arc is about learning when it’s OK to defy bad orders) or the attempt in the commentary to say “Oh Clover thought it would be easier to take out Tyrian alone instead of Qrow,” none of them land and just further drive home how much the plot had to stretch and reach to get that moment of Tyrian killing Clover. I like the fight. But I hate the road the show took to get there.

Some of the misc fights are also weak like ORNJ vs FNKI and elements of the Mantle Grimm battle, but those are the big offenders. Otherwise, again, the fights are largely good. 

7) The soundtrack wasn’t... great

I mean the vocal songs only, don’t crucify me. Trust Love is just lamer Let’s Just Live/Triumph, Celebrate and Let’s Get Real are so boring I thought they were the same song until the OST dropped, Brand New Day is boringly peppy and Jeff’s vocals are dreadful. I completely forgot Touch the Sky until I was checking the tracklist to make sure I didn’t forget any songs. War has good singers but tries to sell the RWBY-Ace Ops bond as way deeper than it was. The lack of a villain song did really sting though, those are always the highlights.

There are good songs. I really like Fear, I feel it encapsulates the themes of the volume well and serves as a good condemnation of Ironwod’s mentality. Until The End is finally the Ruby song I’ve waited for since Red Like Roses 2 and I enjoy that she got a melancholic song, and Hero is easily, hands down, best track of the record and probably best RWBY track, full stop. Caleb killed it, I loved the second verse, opening opera was strong, guitar riffs were a plenty. Stellar work all around for that one.

The OST has great work from Jeff and Alex as usual, but the Jeff and Casey songs are really starting to lose their appeal. Going for a peppy feel this year didn’t help cover the cracks that are beginning to show with RWBY’s vocal songs (especially Jeff’s vocal range), and while a few standouts remain such as Fear and Hero, they are the slim minority in an otherwise very boring vocal tracklist that barely scrapes above Volume 5 for weakest set yet.

8) It wasn’t as funny as it thought it was

Comedy is subjective but man a lot of these jokes didn’t land. RWBY really needs to realize that does work in traditional 2D does not translate into 3D and just comes off as making official reaction GIFs for your Twitter account. Making characters SUDDENY SCREAM LOUDLY is not good banter. Please stop making Nora into Harley Quinn. Marrow was probably the most consistently funny character but that was it. Also I dunno why CRWBY thought Forrest was funny or what the deal was with that FRWBY crap. 

“Honorary” mention to the JNR food scene in Cordially Invited which is genuinely one of the worst scenes in the entire show and I hope whoever animated it has their save files deleted for a game where they were about to beat the final boss. Nothing sums up JNR’s pointlessness in the series more perfectly than this.

C) Conclusion

See what I mean about Volume 7 being frustrating? 

It’s weird that I overal think of Volume 7 as a mid-tier volume. There’s so much here I genuinely adore, with some of the best stuff to do with the show coming out of this season (barring lame, overpriced merch that feels like clothing gacha), but simultaneously the whole thing is let down by outside circumstances that unfortunately are ones the show can’t ever really recover from. Put bluntly, Volume 7 is the most technically proficient season of the show with the best lighting, backdrops, (some of the) character models, etc. CRWBY definitely didn’t slack off this year, but the problem isn't with them. It’s with the writing. A wider reaching problem is just that Miles and Kerry can’t really improve to the level that the series now requires. Eddy and Kiersei’s first season could have gone far worse, but it definitely was notable whenever they took over. Volume 7’s core problems are fourfold: The comedy is terrible and none of the jokes really land, the season focuses on the wrong plots and gives them too much effort, too many episodes are spent building up to new plots only for them to be weakly resolved (especially the Mantle Riot/Grimm attacks that are shoved off-screen), and the character bloat strikes hard here and leaves a lot of the cast feeling like dead weight. CRWBY don’t need more writers. They need more editors willing to tell the team what has to go instead of them hemming and hawing themselves on if they if they can include a plotline. The election never should have gotten past its first draft, there was too much already in this season before adding that.

When this is an unironic shot in your series... you’ve got character bloat issues.

At this point, I think JNR need to go. The show had no idea what to do with them throughout the season, leading to Jaune just being comic relief while Ren and Nora became characters I actively dislike. Renora was the easiest ship in the show to land, and they still managed to blow the engines and ram at least three icebergs just to prove that RWBY can’t romance to save its life. Team RWBY themselves are little better, with Ruby’s feelings about Penny’s return being shelved, Weiss’s victory against Jacques feeling un-earned and undercut by comedy, while Yang and Blake are benched for the volume and become a singular entity with how tied at the hip they are. Maria basically yeeted herself out of the show and I didn’t notice, Pietro is just a death flag, and while the Ace Ops had a good intro, it was undercooked by how they had to play the villain role to give RWBY something to do in the final hours. Cinder and Neo didn’t need to be here. Robyn had one of the worst introductions for a character I’ve ever seen, I never enjoyed her moments and it genuinely feels like she only has a fandom because RWBY’s community are in fact that desperate. 

On the brighter side, Ironwood’s arc is fucking perfect and Jason Rose deserves all the love. Great fight, great song, great design, love the beard, it was a perfect downfall for Volume 7’s true protagonist. Qrow had a fun volume and I loved his dynamic with Clover (I don’t see the ship stuff but that’s more because I’m an IronQrow main so my blinders were on). Clover was also way cooler than I remembered. His fights stood out but the guy’s just really cool at the end of the day, with Chris doing great work as a VA. Oscar even managed to do stuff this year which was a shock and a half, but a welcome shock and a half. I didn’t mention it, but the Ozpin fear monologue is one of my favorite scenes in the entire show and it and the Ironwood/Oscar confrontation in the vault save the finale. And of course, Watts and Tyrian were the MVPs. I don’t have a bad word about either of them, they fucking nailed their roles and I can’t wait to see them again. 

And that’s kind of what I mean when I say Volume 7 flummoxes me. It’s frustrating at times with how it handles seemingly easy tasks and drops the ball. Renora went from “everyone liked that” to wondering how badly Ren’s stuff got butchered for him to be the way he is. RWBY themselves could be almost entirely cut and so little would change, and the fact that the finale basically hinges its entire emotional stakes on Winter, Penny and Oscar is a staggering call. And it really feels like the season was compressed beyond necessity because they decided going in that Volume 7 had to end on Salem’s arrival. There’s two volumes worth of material here, and maybe it would have been best to have broken up these events. Volume 7 does too much in too little time, and RWBY especially suffered from it. But when it works… it’s good. Never close to the highs of Volumes 6 or 3, but there’s genuinely good material here. The fights are mostly getting better with far less missteps than previously, the acting (mostly) continues to improve and it’s obvious that RWBY is a very good looking show at this point. Ironwood’s arc is franchise-wide highs, I loved Clover, and Marrow remains the best boi. But it’s frustrating that despite all the tech advances Volume 7 has made, it still makes such threadbare, rookie writing mistakes in cast management, comedy and character arcs. I’m glad Miles and Kerry finally realized that they needed more writers, but it won’t mean anything if the show just continues to circle the drain on the core mistakes it’s been making since 2013. Volume 7 has good in it. But I can see where it could have been great.

Thanks for reading, stan IronQrow and please get Whitley a therapist.

And for the love of God already make an Ironwood vs Watts shirt! 

[carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory]

Mesozoic Monthly: Scipionyx

My high school calculus teacher, Mr. Surovchak, once told me about a competition he and his brother had every Thanksgiving. They would weigh themselves before and after dinner to indisputably measure who was able to eat the most. When it comes to dinosaurs, it’s typically much harder to tell what and how much they ate. However, a few fossils give us windows into the guts of dinosaurs – literally! Paleontologists are extremely thankful for spectacular fossils like that of Scipionyx samniticus, a small theropod dinosaur with several internal organs preserved!

Oil painting of Scipionyx samniticus in its Early Cretaceous environment by Emiliano Troco, used with permission. You can find more of their work on their Tumblr and contact them via their WordPress site.

Theropods, like Scipionyx, are dinosaurs that stand on two legs, usually with only three prominent toes on each hind foot. Some of the most famous dinosaurs are theropods, like Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, and previous Mesozoic Monthly honoree Citipati (does that make it famous? I like to think so). Most theropods interacted with the world primarily with their heads rather than their hands, hence why several of them look like they have oversized skulls and relatively underdeveloped forelimbs. Many also had hollow bones, and, as we can see in extremely well-preserved fossils, feathers. Is this all starting to sound familiar? That’s because these are also features of birds! If you’ve ever heard someone say that birds are dinosaurs, that’s because modern birds, which are called Aves or Neornithes, are just one evolutionary subset of theropod dinosaurs! Birds have all these features of theropod dinosaurs, plus others like toothless beaks and wings made partly from fused wrist and hand bones. If you are eating turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, remember that you’re eating a dinosaur!

Scipionyx didn’t look much like a turkey, though. It belonged to a group of theropods called compsognathids, which were long-tailed, slender, and relatively small predators. It wasn’t imposing size or an especially fascinating appearance that made Scipionyx special – it was the way the only known specimen was fossilized. It is so well preserved that many of its internal organs are intact in its body cavity! Petrified tissue from the trachea, small intestine, and even rectum can be seen in the fossil, as well as muscle tissue, blood vessels, and traces of other organs. We can tell from the bones and scales in its digestive tract that it ate several meals of lizards and fish before it died. There is such a wealth of biological information preserved in this single specimen, and we can learn even more when we consider its relatives. Although skin didn’t preserve in Scipionyx, at least one fossil of another compsognathid named Sinosauropteryx has such well-preserved skin and filament-like ‘protofeathers’ that we can even see pigments preserved! Based on Sinosauropteryx, we can assume that Scipionyx had some sort of filamentous or fuzzy covering as well, at least over some parts of its body.

The incredible fossil of Scipionyx preserves the dinosaur’s internal organs in 3D! For example, the sinuous shape of the small intestine is visible immediately behind the right elbow. Photo by Giovanni Dall’Orto on Wikimedia Commons. You can read more about this specimen in a paper by Dal Sasso and Maganuco (2011).

The fossil of Scipionyx is very small because the individual in question was just a hatchling when it died. Paleontologists can tell it was a hatchling, and not a small adult animal, because its proportions are similar to those of other juvenile dinosaur fossils and many of its bones had not yet fused together (you can learn more about how bones fuse as organisms get older in the Nemicolopterus edition of Mesozoic Monthly). The baby Scipionyx individual represented by the fossil would have measured around 18 inches (46 cm) long in life, and estimates based on how other compsognathids grew suggest that its species reached about 7 feet (2.1 meters) in length at adulthood. Not much is known about its habitat, but it was likely one of the largest animals around. Scipionyx was found in deposits laid down in a marine environment in what is now Italy. Back in the early part of the Cretaceous Period (the third and final division of the Mesozoic Era, or ‘Age of Dinosaurs’), when Scipionyx was alive, Italy was mostly under a shallow sea dotted with small islands, and the dinosaur would have lived on one of these. Since then, tectonic activity has dramatically changed the region, creating new mountains and lowering sea level to what it is today.

So, this Thanksgiving, if you’re looking for a conversation starter at the dinner table/family video call (or if you urgently need to divert discussion from a more sensitive topic), here’s an idea: ask your dining partners whether they think non-avian theropods like Scipionyx would have tasted more like turkey or chicken! Or, if your loved ones would rather learn than debate, you could perhaps offer to read them any of the 12 Mesozoic Monthly animal spotlights (that’s right, December makes one whole year of Mesozoic Monthly!). I’d certainly feel honored to make an appearance at your Thanksgiving feast.

Lindsay Kastroll is a volunteer and paleontology student working in the Section of Vertebrate Paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum staff, volunteers, and interns are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

[cobblepotindustries]

With no evidence to back this up, I've also heard them as being developed for what amounts to being living bait for falcons and hawks, for falconers to catch a young or hungry bird.

All the tumbling breeds have those... tumbles and we're not sure why or how. Parlor breeds are actively bred with weak, underdeveloped muscles in their wings, which is the issue.

Anyway, I'm sure you can give yourself more credit than that, good sir or madam.

I don't know what the fuck y'all are talking about, but you probably shouldn't be talking to a 14 year old about their love life online or whatever y'all are getting into.

I was just thinking about picking Jervis up and don't want that wrapped up in this.

[naralanis]

Edges

A Replicant!Lena AU because am drunk. Little bit. And watched that movie like last week. Anyway.

also on AO3

“Do you like our owl?”

The voice comes out of nowhere, and admittedly scares Kara enough that she startles the bird in turn, sending it flying in a flutter of beating wings and displeased hoots/  

Her eyes follow the owl's trajectory through the opulent waiting room, up until it lands a bit ungracefully on a perch by the door she had come through. There's a woman there now, impeccably dressed and a prim, severe demeanor. Her jet-black hair is pulled tight into a ponytail; her eyes are a captivating green, and there's a full, manicured brow raised in question.  

“I do,” Kara says, clearing her throat and not looking at the bird at all. “Is it real?"

A little smile tugs at the woman's wine-red lips, and she lets out a soft chuckle. “Of course,” she says, as if the question is entirely absurd, green eyes shimmering in the light. “Do you think Mr. Luthor would have a fake owl in his waiting room?”

Kara shrugs. “Must have been expensive.”

The woman's smile widens. “Incredibly so,” she quips, motioning to the door. “If you would follow me, Ms. Danvers; Mr. Luthor is ready for you now.”

“Right, right, thank you,” Kara says, reaching for her briefcase and hastening to follow. “Thank you, Ms...?”

The smile turns into a smirk, as if the woman seems to be enjoying playing with Kara as the blonde quickens her pace to follow after the echoing click of her heels. “Luthor,” she says cheekily. “But you can call me Lena.”

Kara almost stops dead in her tracks; she has to make a conscious effort to keep following after her. “Luthor?” she repeats dumbly, unable to conceal her surprise. “Are you a relative of Mr. Luthor's?”

“His sister.” 

Kara has to process that information for a second; none of the files she had been given on Lex Luthor mentioned any living family, especially not a sister.  

“I didn't know Lex Luthor had a sister,” she admits.

There's a twitch to Lena's upper lip, but it's gone in the blink of an eye. “I prefer to be... behind the scenes, so to speak,” she says. Her gaze abruptly turns to Kara, and yet her steps do not falter for even a moment. “Tell me, Ms. Danvers, have you been a Blade Runner long?”

Kara's brows furrow before she can help it. “For some time.”

“You must have retired quite a few Replicants.”

It wasn't a question, and Kara was not sure if she should treat it like one. “Some,” she said simply. She has never particularly enjoyed her job; it was just one of those things that had to be done, and something she happened to be more than competent at. Nothing more.  

“What are your thoughts on them?” Lena presses on.

“Replicants?” Kara asks. The line of questioning throws her for a loop. “I have no thoughts one way or the other; they're... machines, for good or for bad.”

Lena nods, though her expression is unreadable. “And if they're... not good, it is your job to retire them.”

That was definitely not a question, Kara thinks. “Yes.”

“You must be quite good at spotting them.”

That also isn't a question, but Kara cannot think of a response before they reach an impressive set of heavy doors that look to be made of real wood. If Luthor has a real owl, it stands to reason that these would be real wood. Lena stops right at the threshold, shooting Kara an odd look that the blonde cannot process immediately, because they walk into a spacious office, and there, at the end of a long conference table, sits the man, the legend himself, in all his glory.  

“Kara Danvers,” Lex Luthor greets them jovially, in a cheerful voice that inexplicably sends a chill down Kara's spine. “Thank you for showing her in, Lena.”

Lena gives him a polite nod, not leaving her post by the doors.  

“Mr. Luthor,” Kara says, already reaching a hand out for him to shake, wanting to get this over as soon as possible for reasons she cannot presently fathom. Something about Lex just rubs her the wrong way, and she tries not to let that show as he approaches and shakes her hand. “Thank you for taking the time to see me, I understand you're quite a busy man.”

He grins, and Kara doesn't like it one bit. “Please, call me Lex. Of course, of course, anything I can do to help.”

Kara squares her shoulders, getting right down to business. “Well, Mr. Luthor—Lex--as you know, we'd like to establish a few baselines for your Nexus-6 model to help us with an ongoing investigation. I was hoping to...”

“All in good time, Ms. Danvers. Patience, patience. I'll help you with your little investigation however I can—if you can answer a few questions of mine first.”

She has to fight the uncomfortable feeling that manifests in the pit of her stomach. She's dimly aware of Lena's green gaze fixed on her and Luthor, interested, curious.  

“That little test of yours... capillary dilation of the so-called blush response? Fluctuation of the pupil, involuntary dilation of the iris?”

“We call it Voight-Kampff for short,” Kara says, brow raised in question.  

“I must admit I am rather curious, Ms. Danvers. Tell me, have you ever retired a human by mistake?”

“No,” she says quickly. “Mr. Luthor, what exactly is the purpose...”

“But it is a risk, in your profession,” he interrupts. “Is it not?”

Kara frowns. “What is your point, Mr. Luthor?”

Lex's grinning sets her teeth on edge. “The Nexus-6 is the pride and joy of my corporation, Ms. Danvers—the most advanced model ever put on the market. And yet, they still have flaws—fatal flaws, that caused the ones you're hunting to go... off the rails, so to speak.”

He seems to take Kara's silence as encouragement to keep going, and does just that, pacing in a way that unnerves her. “You see, they lack certain capabilities, certain... nuances that you and I are privileged to possess that we simply have not been able to reproduce artificially. Empathy, emotional maturity. They are, I hate to say it, woefully underdeveloped in that regard.”

“I am well aware, Mr. Luthor,” Kara interjects, annoyed that this man—a genius though he may be—is speaking to her as if hunting down those machines wasn't literally her job description. “That's why they have a failsafe.”

Luthor nods, and his expression remains unreadable, even if his unsettling smile is still very much in place. “Yes,” he confirms, stopping and holding the back of his chair. “The four-year lifespan. Tell me, Ms. Danvers, have you ever performed your little empathy test on a human subject?”

“No.”

His grin grows wider. “Lovely. I would love a demonstration, if you would be so kind to indulge me.”

Kara frowns. “Mr. Luthor, I'm here to acquire a new baseline for the Nexus-6 models so as to better understand...”

“Yes, yes, I know,” he waves her off. “I won't stop you from doing your job, Ms. Danvers. I would simply like to see a negative result before I provide you with a positive one. Is that agreeable?”

Kara feels her knuckles tightening around the handle of her briefcase; she wants this to be over.  

“Very well. I assume you will be the subject, Mr. Luthor?”

His eyes glimmer in a way that makes Kara's stomach turn. “Try Lena.”

Lena seems just as surprised as Kara feels at the suggestion, but does a remarkably better job of hiding it and regaining her composure. The clicking of her heels approaches immediately after Lex summons her, and her expression is completely neutral by the time she takes a seat at the table.  

The brunette eyes Kara with a raised brow breaking her schooled expression, looking almost forcibly nonchalant. She pulls out a cigarette as Kara takes her time unloading and setting up her equipment, still very much aware of Lena's watchful green gaze.  

“Do you mind if I smoke, Ms. Danvers?” she asks, and it sounds almost teasing.  

The machine whirrs to life, and Kara contains a heavy sigh at the unshakeable feeling that she has walked straight into a trap of some kind.  

Her gaze locks onto Lena's hypnotizing green irises, and she flicks the button to start.  

“It shouldn't affect the test.”

~page break~

Kara's back is sore from leaning into the Voight-Kampff apparatus, and her eyes sting from the strain of looking through the visor for so long. It feels like hours have passed, but she's afraid of actually checking the time. She shuts off the machine with a strained huff as she rolls her shoulders and arches her back, feeling her spine pop pleasurably at the stretch. She blinks away the strain and dryness of her eyes, taking her time to sink back into her chair, and tries to give her mind a few precious extra moments to fully comprehend what she has just uncovered.

Lex had not moved a muscle during the entirety of the test; he's still sitting unnaturally still by the time Kara shuts off her equipment. Lena eyes her curiously, lips pulled into a taut line.  

“Lena, if you would please excuse us a moment.”

Kara deliberately looks at her equipment, putting it away methodically and slowly, but for a moment she catches a hint of displeasure that flits across Lena's face at Lex's command. The brunette hesitates for only a second, but complies. Kara's heart beats in tandem with the fading staccato of Lena's heels, and once the door finally clicks closed behind the other woman, she tries to speak, only to find the words stuck to her throat.  

Lex regards her knowingly, his expression—his smirk—shifting into something conspiratorial, as if he had just let her in on a great big joke.  

“Well,” he says with obvious satisfaction, slapping his hands on the table. “I must say, I am impressed. That was rather... illuminating.”

“She's a Replicant.” Kara finally bites out, shutting the apparatus closed in its case with a bit more force than she intended. She stares down Luthor, probably doing a piss-poor job of concealing her inexplicable anger, but unable to bring herself to care. She wants him to deny it. She wants him to tell her that her equipment must be faulty; hell, she wants him to tell her that she is just plain wrong and that she sucks at her job. She wants anything but the truth she's still presently still struggling to fully comprehend.  

“Well-observed, Ms. Danvers.” he says simply, nonchalantly.  

“She doesn't know,” Kara murmur, unsure if to herself or to Luthor.  

He shrugs, looking entirely unbothered. “I think she's beginning to suspect—I made her into a rather intelligent prototype, after all,” he explains, drumming his fingers casually on the solid wood of his conference table. “Tell me, Ms. Danvers, how many questions does it usually take you to, as some policemen so eloquently put it, ‘sniff out a skin-job,’ eh?”

Kara grits her teeth, “Twenty to thirty questions, cross-referenced, depending on the model,” she answers by rote. “How can she not... how can it not know what it is?”

Lex's smirk is unbearably smug. “It took you over a hundred for Lena, didn't it?”

Kara has to focus on unclenching her fists for a moment. “Yes,” she confirms, turning a flinty gaze to Luthor as she repeats her question. “How?”

“’More Human than Human’, Ms. Danvers—that is the motto here at LuthorCorp. Our goal is commerce; it's that simple. Lena is... an experiment. Nothing more.”

He stands, walking around the table tos top directly in front of Kara.

“The Nexus-6 is quite a marvel of bio-engineering, Ms. Danvers, if I do say so myself,” he begins again, voice laced with deliberate false-modesty. “Nevertheless, I began to observe in them certain behaviours, certain... strange obsessions. They are, after all, stunted, in a way; they are emotionally inexperienced. That’s to be expected; after all, they only have a few years to store and process experiences that take a lifetime to build, experiences that you and I may take for granted.”

His eyes glimmer in the low light of the room, pupils dilating in a way that takes Kara's mind back to the test she just performed; she wants to smash her machine to smithereens for reasons she cannot fathom.  

“It's what makes them unstable, you see. If, however, we gift them with a past—any past—we create a cushion; a safety net for their emotional development, and thus, we can control them far better.”

Kara's eyes widen; she feels her throat go dry. “Memories,” she whispers. “You mean... you mean you're giving them memories.”

Lex chuckles, looking increasingly pleased with himself. “Bingo! With this process, we have better control over them. Who knows, perhaps we'll even be able to increase their lifespan, in time. They're quite expensive to make; it's such a shame they have such a short shelf-life.”

Kara opens her mouth, then closes it again, finding it difficult to form coherent sentences.  

“What memories are you even giving them—she, she thinks she's your sister!” she finally croaks out.

Lex waves her off, unperturbed. “The source of the memories is inconsequential, Ms. Danvers. They can be fairytales, for all I care,” he says, and for the first time, as he regards Kara curiously, he looks... annoyed. “In Lena's case, I wanted them to be as real, as tangible as possible. Implanting some of my own memories—easily recalled, and easily corroborated with minimal tweaking—was the simplest course of action.”

Kara's not sure why the mere idea of memory implantation makes her sick to her stomach; she feels her hands balling into fists and jaw clenching so tightly she can practically hear the grind of her own teeth. Green eyes and questioning glances flash back to her mind, and Lex regards her pensively for a long moment. His smile fades by degrees, until his lips pull into a thin line, and for the first time, he looks displeased.  

“Remember, Ms. Danvers,” he says, brows furrowing in clear distaste. “She's an experiment. Nothing more.”

[alithographica]

With your wing shape post what shape would flightless birds have? (Chickens, ostriches, kiwis, etc) Or do they all have different types?

Chickens aren’t fully flightless but they are so very bad at it, bless their hearts. They have an elliptical wing, the problem is that it’s too small relative to their body, and the corresponding flight muscles are underdeveloped.

To be clear, flightless birds aren’t flightless strictly because of their wings. Most have lost their keel—it’s a little bone growth on the front of the sternum (breastbone) where flight muscles attach. No muscles, no power, especially when the body mass is high as with many flightless birds. So, even if you were to stick proper wings on these guys, they’re not going to be taking off. 

With that in mind, no, many flightless birds don’t have a wing shape comparable to flighted birds. Their wings are no longer under selective pressure to be functional for flight and were therefore able to undergo a lot of changes that flighted birds wouldn’t tolerate. Feathers need to be stiff and grow in a certain aerodynamic pattern, but flightless birds have lost or dramatically rearranged feathers, and their feathers are often soft and oddly shaped…and the sum of these effects makes the overall wing shapes weird.

Ostriches, for example, resemble…nothing. Like, look at that. That’s a craft project. They now use their wings for mating rituals and other displays, as well as some general braking/turning assistance while running. (That assistance basically amounts to “fancy rudder” though, and isn’t a particular special shape from what I was able to find.)

(Image source and also a cool article on possible similar wings in dinos)

Their overwing feathers are fairly uniform and soft, the underwing is totally unfeathered, and they’ve gained long feathers on both the leading and trailing edge of the wing, none of which would be allowed to happen in a flighted bird because it’s an aerodynamic disaster. Rheas are like this too. Here is a very viscerally unpleasant picture from the underwing of an ostrich…

(Image source)

Here is all the grandeur of an emu wing.

(Image source) (Thanks @reggiemess and anon for the pic/correction!)

But there are a few cases of recognizable wing shapes. These are all shapes that came from the flighted ancestor; they weren’t developed anew during flightlessness. The species just hasn’t messed too much with the wing pattern, whether that’s due to a recent loss of flight or a neutral/positive selection towards the old feathers.

Kakapos fall into this situation. Kakapos have the chicken problem. That’s a fairly standard wing, but too short for its body mass and with no flight muscles. They’re still good for balance, though.

(Image source)

There’s also a flightless cormorant. No, this bird isn’t sick or molting—this is what their normal feathers look like, and they’re used for swimming and diving. It’s still approximately a normal cormorant wing, they’ve just significantly reduced the feather length and coverage.

(Image source)

Please also have this great rhea pic I came across in the process of finding images for all of this.

(Image source)

[tamsong]

more on the sophie accidentally got wings au... sophie’s wings are growing in over the course of Keeper and Exile. she has a few troubles to do with them such as: growing two new limbs can be pretty painful! mostly it’s just a continuous low grade soreness, but sometimes the pain can be excruciating. she also isn’t quite sure how feathers are supposed to work when wet, and how is she meant to wash them? lastly, since her wing muscles are pretty underdeveloped, they have trouble staying folded. sophie needs to hide them, so she wraps cloth around herself under her clothes to hold her wings in place until the black swan gets her better, more comfortable bindings.

[qqueenofhades]

Hello I see that your ask is open. I imagine from what I've seen that you know and like the Tennant Richard II and I only recently experienced it (had it forever but the Tenaissance is upon us at the heels of Good Omens) and I would like to invite you to share any feels or flails or complexities you might have in terms of the relationship of Shakespeare to History or Kingship to Divinity or the conflation of Queerness with Otherness etc in the context of that performance

OH NO. YOU REALLY WANT ME TO GO THERE DO YOU. 

First of all: yes, the Tennant Richard II changed my life, after I watched it with @oldshrewsburyian whilst on vacation at the start of June and had to yell at her about my feelings for like ten minutes afterward. I was just SO FASCINATED by the things it did with gender and kingship and queerness (god! It was SO GAY! I was NOT PREPARED! The kiss with Aumerle broke my brain the first time I saw it). I was compiling a preliminary bibliography for my new queer medieval book project a couple weeks ago (which is very interesting, if I do say so myself, and I am really trying to get someone to give me money to research it at their institution) and I discovered an article basically arguing that the RSC Richard II was bad because Richard was portrayed as effeminate and openly queer/bi. Now, to be mostly fair, I think it was because it wanted to critique the association of queer men with effeminacy, rather than being homophobic, but it was still…. a bad take? Or at least a substantially underdeveloped one. It never said why this was bad, it never really got into the gender politics of what it wanted to say about this performance and the queerness thereof, and I was left looking at it like… uh huh, so… what’s your point here pal? (It griped about Gregory Dolan changing the script to have Aumerle kill Richard, but given as every Shakespeare play alters the script or staging or whatever else, I was still waiting for it to say something more about that too. But no. Anyway).

My feelings about Shakespeare, queerness, and queer Shakespeare have recently been noted. I have been working my way through Shakesqueer, which is undoubtedly fascinating, though as a historian I sometimes find all this theoretical vagueness a little TOO broad and am like DEFINE SOMETHING AND SAY SOMETHING ABOUT IT RATHER THAN SAYING THAT YOU CAN’T SAY SOMETHING. But that’s a personal methodological thing on my part, and it certainly has been delightfully helpful in pointing out how none of Shakespeare’s plays are in the least Straight ™ by modern standards, even if technically none of his characters are LGBT. Obviously, they would not be constructed as such by sixteenth-century terms, but that’s another debate. He absolutely left the exact interpretative space that many productions have taken advantage of, some plays are VERY heavy on the subtext, and while critics have argued that the gender subversion and sexual fluidity is introduced only to re-establish heteronormative supremacy at the end, I think that is a fairly shallow reading. Why otherwise HAVE it so consistently, when its negotiation and presence is part of the ways in which these characters can and often have been read? Just because everyone gets married at the end of the comedies doesn’t mean that the queerness has been negated or made irrelevant. Arguably, the opposite.

Anyway, one of my main contentions in this premodern queer lives book project that I’m developing is that when we read the past as queer, we have to take care that we’re not only considering it as thus in comparison to modern heteronormativity, which we consider to be monolithic and transhistorical and applicable to all times and places. Richard Zeikowitz (among others) has made this point in Homoeroticism and Chivalry: Discourses of Male Same-Sex Desire in the 14th Century. Male desire that we would consider “queer” either in its affection or formulation was solidly mainstream, and if we read that as Queer/Other, we risk imposing an estrangement on medieval/early modern queerness that may not have necessarily existed within its community. Yes, we’re all aware of the anti-sodomitical polemics of clerical writers, but consider: why did those guys (the equivalent of right-wing religious commentators today) keep having to write things complaining about it if nobody was doing it, if it wasn’t visible or accepted at all in society, or it was only a theoretical concern that had no relevance to anyone’s daily lives? This is why it drives me so batty when the Straight Historians inevitably try the “just because it was being written about doesn’t mean anyone was doing it!!!” erasure tactic. My dude my guys my pals. How do you think rhetoric even works?

In the particular case of Richard II, there was absolutely a queer discourse/suspicion of queerness around him in his own time (see Sylvia Federico, ‘Queer Times: Richard II in thePoems and Chronicles of Late Fourteenth-Century England’) and it was part of a larger late-medieval discourse of suspected sodomy around kings and their favourites, not just in England but in other places across Europe. (Henric Bagerius and Christine Ekholst, ‘Kingsand Favourites: Politics and Sexuality in Late Medieval Europe’, and E. Amanda McVitty also talks about Richard, his favourites, chivalric masculinity and homosociality in ‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting ChivalricMasculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415′). So…. yes, there is considerable leeway to depict him as queer, and Shakespeare does write it in the text in the scene where Bushy and Green are accused, prior to their execution by Bolingbroke:

You have misled a prince, a royal king,A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,By you unhappied and disfigured clean:You have in manner with your sinful hoursMade a divorce betwixt his queen and him,Broke the possession of a royal bedAnd stain’d the beauty of a fair queen’s cheeksWith tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.

“Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him/Broke the possession of a royal bed.” Yeah, they’re Richard’s boyfriends. Both we and the Elizabethan audience would have understood it that way. Bushy, Bagot, and Green are fictional, but Robert de Vere, duke of Ireland, was Richard’s real-life favourite and was accused by Thomas Walsingham at least of sleeping with him or otherwise having some taint of an “obscene relationship”. But Richard was also notably devoted to his first wife, Anne of Bohemia, so as ever, bisexuality exists, my pals. It can go both ways.

….anyway, this swiftly got away from me, so in conclusion, let me relate an actual dream I had last night, for which we can 100% blame the heat. In it, I was watching some Shakespeare play or other, and there was a scene in which the villain dramatically pushed the blonde heroine into the arms of his muscle-bound henchmen in their flowing trousers, then turned to the hero and announced that he would do the same to him. To this, in what was supposed to probably be a defiant “you just try it” moment in other versions of fictional Shakespeare plays that my subconscious writes, the hero stared him dead in the eye, whisked his tunic off to reveal he was wearing nothing but a jeweled G-string underneath, and announced that lo, NOW HE WAS PREPARED. DO THY WORST.

I can only think that this is exactly what Shakespeare would have wanted.

[nofliight]

FULL NAME.  Pit MEANING. Pit - ‘a hole in the ground’. Nah, it’s actually inspired by the name of the mythical cherub, Cupid - ‘Pit’ sounds better than ‘Pid’, doesn’t it? NICKNAME.  Pitty, Pitty-pat, Angel Face, Hole in the ground, etc.  GENDER.  Male HEIGHT.  5′2″ AGE.  late 30s ZODIAC. Saggitarius - fittingly enough. SPOKEN LANGUAGES. English, Greek

𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

HAIR COLOUR. brown EYE COLOUR.  blue SKIN TONE. Fairly pale, but lightly tanned. darker than in canon, at least. BODY TYPE. Small, but more muscular than it looks. You won’t see much muscle on his arms, but he does have well-defined abs. Don’t ask about his oversized Hands and Feet ACCENT. N/A, don’t have it in me to put thought into this one VOICE. Anthony Del Rio is a God and I would trade that voice for Nothing

DOMINANT HAND.  Left-handed! Because I’m left-handed, fuck you and fuck canon. POSTURE.  Pit stands tall and proud, meant to look ready for anything! He’s surprisingly grounded, so he genuinely does tend to be standing Tall and Proud whenever he can. SCARS. Only a few dinges, since Palutena can heal most wounds. TATTOOS.  n/a MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S). The wings. Definitely the wings.

𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝 !

PLACE OF “BIRTH”. Skyworld HOMETOWN.  Angel Land BIRTH WEIGHT.  He was a frail angel from the very beginning - he was barely 10 pounds when he was brought to life. Angels are all light, even the big and muscular ones, but that’s small even by angelic standards! BIRTH HEIGHT.   Small boi. Small. MANNER OF BIRTH.  I still have to work on my hcs for Centurion “birth” so I’ll get back to you on that. FIRST WORDS.  "I’m ready to serve you, Lady Palutena!” Yeah, angels aren’t really born wordless. SIBLINGS. n/a PARENTS.  n/a PARENT INVOLVEMENT. n/a

𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 !

OCCUPATION. Captain of Palutena’s royal guard - protector of humanity, whenever he can be. CURRENT RESIDENCE.  Skyworld - or the Smash mansion, failing that. CLOSE FRIENDS.  His bond with Palutena is absolutely unbreakable, as to be expected of an angel - but he’s vowed to stand by her to the very end. He’s also grown to care for his dark doppelganger, and he even has a soft spot for Viridi, even if they don’t really have the option of being proper friends at the moment. RELATIONSHIP STATUS.  Single. Would really like to change that. FINANCIAL STATUS.  All finances are hearts he spends in Skyworld. Given the training he does, he’s doing fine. DRIVER’S LICENSE. Don’t need a license to drive vehicles designed by the Gods. CRIMINAL RECORD. None! Surprising, considering he’s not well-liked by the general pantheon. VICES.  He bottles up his negative emotions and more cynical views in favor of always holding a positive attitude. He isn’t as open as he acts, and he’s a lot more aware of how cruel the world truly is than he admits. He’d rather be seen as an idealistic kind-hearted sweetheart who believes in everyone than someone who thinks that everyone is pretty equally terrible.

𝐬𝐞𝐱 & 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 !

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. Heterosexual ROMANTIC ORIENTATION.  Heteroromantic PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE.  submissive       |       dominant |       switch PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE.  submissive       |       dominant       |       switch LIBIDO.  He does have one - he’s not scared of Palutena reading his thoughts for nothing. He would very, very much like to know what the act is like - but given it’s such an impure craving that sort of thing is for an angel (combined with no one actually teaching him much about it, it’s not exactly necessary teaching in angel anatomy), he’s content to keep it ( and his internet history ) to himself. TURN ON’S. TURN OFF’S.

RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES.  Pit in a relationship is... awkward, but well-meaning. More than anything, he’ll value his partner’s happiness over anybody’s, and he’s willing to hold his lover up as high as he needs to to make their day. He’s very touch-starved and melts into just about any form of affection, and he can get snuggly once he’s used to the relationship. Scratch his head, hold his hands, he’s yours.

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬 !

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG. this one, obviously. or that one he and palutena sing about being upbeat, but i can’t find that anywhere HOBBIES TO PASS TIME.  Learning to read, video games, listening to stories about his favorite heroes, talking to friends MENTAL ILLNESSES.  N/A PHYSICAL ILLNESSES.  Underdeveloped wings LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED. Left-brained.

PHOBIAS.   Monophobia. He does have a growing discomfort toward uncontrolled fire and explosions as well - Not quite pyrophobia, but it’s there.

SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL.  Pretty high, even when he has to force it. He has to believe in himself - he’s serving Lady Palutena’s guard, after all, he’ll never doubt himself again! At least nowadays, he normally tends to mean it. VULNERABILITIES. He’s somewhat dimwitted, and mostwhat gullible. He’s also very easy to loosen up and lower his emotional guard, and he relies on company and connections to keep himself going, even if only just Palutena’s. Though his spirit is hard to break, enough power can certainly give him a bad time. He also has a temper - albeit a rather controlled one. Plus, around pretty women when they’re trying to get him flustered or embarrassed... god help him.

TAGGED BY: Stole it!

TAGGING: Steal it!!

[drifter-verse]

Planet 4546B: Day 2

ACyrus awoke to Ryley climbing back into the lifepod. He headed straight over to the fabricator, and created a couple things: A scanner tool, a survival knife, and a bit of food and water. He tossed a cooked Peeper to the still half-asleep Cyrus, who just barely caught it.

“Eat up.“

“You sound-”

“Of course I sound frustrated. Some dumb fish literally exploded on me. Not pooped, exploded.”

Cyrus made a slightly horrified expression, but quickly went to eating the Peeper. He almost felt bad about eating something so cute, but he had no other choice, and didn’t want to annoy Ryley any more, so he kept himself quiet... For a little bit. He then remembered something that would probably take quite a bit of stress off of the other. So he stated it.

“I can eat things fully raw without getting sick.”

“You can?”

“Yeah. I’ve tried to do it many times, and I never fell ill.”

“Huh. Less work for me I guess. Thanks for telling me. Anyway, mind if I scan you? It’ll tell me some important things about you.”

“Ok.”

Ryley performed the scan, the monitor on the tool reading: Normal.

He then proceeded to check the PDA, which read:

Juvenile Scratcher

This specimen appears to likely be in an adolescent state, as hinted by a developing prefrontal cortex. It also appears to be sapient, being able to think and reason just like a human.

1. Claws:

This organism dons sharp claws on it’s hands and feet, sharp and strong enough to leave well-defined scratch marks on even the hardest metals.

2. Large single eye

The large, single eye on this organism’s face indicate powerful eyesight, but it has no depth perception.

3. Wings:

This creature appears to have wings structures positioned on each side of it’s back. The muscles on this specimen’s wings appear to be rather underdeveloped, likely rendering it flightless. The wings appear to be permanently clipped somehow.

4. Superhuman strength:

This creature can likely lift approximately 400 pounds on it’s own. This specimen shows significant muscle development, raising it’s maximum lifting weight to around 500 pounds.

5. Digitigrade

This species appears to have evolved for speed and stealth, making it a dangerous predator.

Assessment: Extreme threat if aggravated- Avoid at all costs and do not fight back

“...Alright, so I shouldn’t make you mad?” Ryley looked up from the PDA, now intimidated by this creature.

“That’s probably best.” Cyrus shrugged.

“Well... I’ll take you back to your lifepod now. Your wound seems better.”

Cyrus nodded, putting his diving mask back over his eye. The two left the lifepod, heading in that direction. However...

Saying what they had arrived to as horrifying was an understatement. The lifepod had multiple holes in it, and no signs of a body anywhere at all.

The two went pale, and Ryley pointed to the surface, prompting the two to swim there.

“So... I guess you’re stuck with me.”

Cyrus shrugged.

“Let’s get back to my lifepod, alright?”