#was the scapegoat successful? oh certainly

[bill-gates-hate-blog]

unfortunately acting in certain ways because you want to make sure people like you will soon make a dislike of you extremely warranted! Nasty cycle.

[surgepricing]

RWBY Final Thoughts: Legacy

Very rarely would I ever consider a fandom on its own worth its own section of a Final Thoughts. ... [Basically,] they behave like a cult.

This is a repost of a post I made February 1st, 2024 on another site. At the time, it was the final post of a deep-dive recap of RWBY and the history of the show, its fandom, and its direction under Rooster Teeth.

I felt this out with some of my peers and the feedback I got in relation to posting in on Tumblr was that, well, why not? It was my main haunt to begin with, and I may as well, since Rooster Teeth is closing its doors. I'm posting this mainly as a shot in the dark just to see how it gets received. Only minor edits have been made; I'm sure there's some stuff in here that would make people mad, but that applies to pretty much anything someone could say about RWBY. Click the read more to get a glance at how my time with RWBY ultimately wrapped up.

Nine years ago today, Monty Oum died of an allergic reaction. Today is a day of mourning for fans of his work, including RWBY. There’s no sense in waiting. Let’s finish this and heal.

The Showrunners

Miles and Kerry often received the brunt of the attention when it came to RWBY. As the writers of the show, they bore responsibility for the largest chunk of why it eventually went into the shitter, and fan anger against them was almost certainly not helped by the damn near idolization heaped on them by fervent stans. They are, undoubtedly, the focal point of RWBY fans’ parasocial relationship with the show.

Of course, despite sharing about the same credits space as his partner in crime, Kerry tended to fly under the radar a lot, with it being Miles who received the brunt of the fandom’s fury with each successive volume. It’s not hard to see why; the character Miles voices has been consistently over-exposed and is in many ways an obvious creator’s pet, with denials as to this fact falling on deaf ears as Jaune’s screentime continued to balloon past its merits, whereas the character Kerry voices could just about wrangle an average of ten seconds of screentime every three years. Certainly Miles has been in trouble with fans more often than Kerry for the shit he’s said and done. The Ruby body pillow and the Tifa Lockhart ‘prostitute’ comments come to mind. Oh, and the slurs, that one too.

But perhaps the reason Miles gets so much more flak than Kerry is that Miles just...acts like an asshole a lot of the time. Even aside from above examples, Miles’ flaws come out in his writing: he’s petty, holds grudges, can’t take criticism, and just overall has way more power over the story than someone of his caliber should. He’s very poor at disguising his real feelings and often lets them bleed through, and when he actually decides to voice them on purpose, things get ugly—refer to that Cameo about Ironwood.

But as tempting as it is to treat Miles as an out-of-control cockwaffle on the rampage and Kerry as his sympathetic ineffectual shadow, the reality is that they’re co-writers, have been for ten years, and anything Miles gets away with doing is as much Kerry’s fault as his. If the Gray Haddock situation has taught us anything, it’s that more people tend to harbor blame than the one individual that makes an easy scapegoat.

Since aside from aforementioned n-word business, Miles and Kerry are almost never connected to moral outrage, this makes it easy for the stans to uphold them, since all they really have to defend them from is accusations that they didn’t honor Monty’s “vision” for the series. This is only easy because the stans are fucking insane, but that’s for later on down the page.

“Vision” is in quotes because that’s how fans treat it, we all know they don’t really care. Miles and Kerry’s vision matters, and we know that much because of Calixyn’s interview where she all but begged to be told that RWBY Volume 5 was as bad as it was because the “good bois” had control of the show ripped from them. Nope, turns out all that racism, homophobia, and plain shitty writing is all on them. But at least they’re nice!

(Miles was 26 when he said the n-word. I’m 26 now when writing this. I think it’s pretty fair to call him an asshole.)

But the truth is that it’s objectively stupid to think that the direction of RWBY hasn’t changed since Monty’s passing, it’s impossible for it not to have. There are more writers on board than before, and it’s been a long time since he was alive to contribute his thoughts. The real question is whether they at least tried, and I don’t think they did.

I mean, Shane Newville never names Miles and Kerry in his letter, but he does state several times that the choices made for the show were not only not what Monty wanted, but “straight up just shitting all over what Monty made”. I find it very difficult to believe that that insinuation, and all of the people caught up in the net it casts, wouldn’t include those two. And like it or not, but the person who is able to compile tons of clips and interviews over the years as some sort of seeming immutable proof that “CRWBY” are good-hearted people determined to preserve Monty’s vision, isn’t really looking at any more evidence than the person who’s come to the conclusion, based on what they’ve seen, that that the opposite is true. And they’re certainly looking at less evidence than the people who actually did work there around Monty, Miles, and Kerry. The facts sometimes boil down to ‘if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and is implicated in the walls of text like a duck, it’s probably a duck’, guys.

Even in the best case scenario in which the work of Monty Oum turns out to have been treated with dignity and respect (and was just really shittily written from the beginning), the fact remains that Miles and Kerry did not put a quality product into the world. I will be very surprised if either of them manages to get a lead writing position ever again, because once the popularity of RWBY fades, so too will the goodwill they’ve somehow amassed among its fans. RWBY, much like Twilight, is inevitably going to taint the people who were in charge of writing it.

But Miles and Kerry are just two dudes. What exactly is going to happen to those fervent fans who hung on their every word and insisted they were the embodiment of everything pure and innocent? What, exactly, is going to happen to the RWBY fandom that once seemed to be unavoidably populous on the internet?

F, N, D, M

We already went over “constructive criticism” and “worldbuilding”, so let’s add another eternally-misused word to our roster. You know, something I’ve occasionally thought about in terms of online spaces is that no one knows what a “comfort show” is. It’s one of those terms that became too popular almost as soon as it was introduced, to the point that it became meaningless, much like “hyperfixation” and “anxiety”. I see people refer to RWBY as their comfort show and I’m just like...how? A comfort show is supposed to be the show that always puts you in a good headspace, a show you rest easy with because you’ve always connected with it because the love was always there. A comfort show is a show that you watch in your down moments to feel better, not a show you think is just the greatest thing ever, the bees’ knees if you will.

A comfort show is not a show you force yourself to like, it is not a show you defend at all costs, and it is not a show you only still cling to because enjoying it once coincided with a time when you felt popular and among friends. Which, increasingly, seems to have been the case for RWBY fans.

RWBY’s Fandom

Very rarely would I ever consider a fandom on its own worth its own section of a Final Thoughts. But I’m doing it now because the RWBY fandom, though now it’s a shadow of its former self, is still a sizable chunk of people and took a lot longer to die than most other fandoms.

The RWBY fandom itself was an especially big and very online fandom, and the show produced an abnormally large amount of big name fans who continued to use their own influence to push its success and keep its momentum going. As I’ve said before, the RWBY fandom is something that Rooster Teeth were able to extract an excessive amount of praise out of for minimal effort; it simply seems to be in RWBY fans’ nature to speculate and theorize and over-analyze and fill in blanks, and to perceive good writing and animation where there is none. But you know how fandom operates—the bigger its size, the more infamous it becomes.

Long since famed for being especially toxic, those who are in the know consider RWBY fans a different breed, really. They create and move narratives at high speed and act quickly to correct any perceived dissent in the ranks, casting out anyone that feels disillusionment with the product and insisting everything is peachy even as their world crumbles around them. To RWBY fans, the “CRWBY” are always separate from the “problematic” aspects of Rooster Teeth (which is basically the whole company) and it doesn’t matter how many of its flaws get highlighted; RWBY and the people that make it are always great, innocent of any harm done and fantastic, and anyone that dislikes them is a villain—even if those people were at one point part of the “CRWBY” themselves. Loyalty is everything. In other words, they behave like a cult.Those acronyms themselves have always bothered me, and I’ve grown a strong distaste for them. Originally they were just a quirk of the show; a format for team names that spawned the name of the show and eventually stopped being relevant altogether. But RWBY fans are simply unable to not use them. It’s not “the fandom” it’s “the FNDM”. They’re not “the RWBY team” or “the RWBY crew”, they’re “CRWBY”. Even people that the fans are actively trying to shame, shun, and harass don’t get to simply be people—they’re “RWDE” and, when that became an actual community of sorts unto itself, was switched to “HTDM”, short for “hatedom”. They remind me distinctly of code words that get formed and passed around in cult movements, identifying terms that quickly provide boxes to put people in and make it easier to sort loyals from disloyals. “Hatedom” itself is another one of those terms that spread and got so prolific it really doesn’t carry any meaning anymore. Real hatedoms are surprisingly rare, guys. Every fandom that becomes big enough for its respective product to become criticized eventually comes to believe it has a ‘hatedom’ because how could someone dislike something I like so much? But a hatedom on its own arises out of very specific circumstances and environments, and causes the spread of hate for a product based on broad foundations that are often unfair to the product and which creates perceptions that spread faster than the work, so that the work is often talked about in mocking reference rather than true dissatisfaction.

RWBY doesn’t have a hatedom guys, it never did. The Last of Us doesn’t have a hatedom. Fairy Tail didn’t have a hatedom. Blackpink doesn’t have a hatedom. Even Marvel doesn’t have a hatedom.

Paris Hilton had a hatedom. Nickelback had a hatedom. Hell, the website Tumblr itself had a hatedom. These were examples of people or products whose reputations spread too quickly and eventually swallowed rational perception of them, with people who have never experienced them or their work dismissing them and the fans who enjoy it wholesale.

Using the term “hatedom” is understandably common because (and in spite of the fact that) it allows for easy miscategorization. A hatedom is not composed of people that were actually exposed to the work, found it lacking, and expressed that. A hatedom does not occur in the wake of a product that was so bad it pissed off its fans and caused them to walk. People don’t hate Metroid: Other M because they can’t stand the sight of a woman being vulnerable and don’t understand challenging drama, they hate it because it was poorly written, badly designed, and tarnished a long-running and highly cherished gaming heroine’s reputation. People didn’t hate Fifty Shades of Grey because of some bias against women expressing their sexual freedom, they hated it because it was a wildly misogynistic and badly-written piece of dreck. People didn’t hate The Last of Us Part II because of homophobia and transphobia, they hated it because it was a misery fest with a tired moral theme that posited itself far more deep and compelling than it really was. And just because people with the above disingenuous views also hated these things does not discount the fact that the works got the reputations they did because they were getting back the exact amount of love and respect that was put into them.

Similarly, RWBY doesn’t have a hatedom. It does, in fact, have an ex-fandom. Those are also things you don’t see very often, but when you do, they almost always follow the same pattern, don’t they? A work which got wildly popular very quickly, took really deep nosedives afterward, and became disowned by the people that had formerly propped it up.

But that’s a discussion for later. What exactly makes RWBY’s fandom so toxic and cult-like, and why and how did it get that way? I think it’s a combination of several key factors that were baked in and collided badly.

The first was ease of access. RWBY was sold extremely well early on, and shared enough similarities with both anime and video games that it attracted many curious people from those communities. Combine that with vibrant colors, an attractive visual aesthetic, an air of badassery, and good music, and it gained a lot of loyal fans quickly—fans of anime and video games, specifically, being fans that tend to get more attached than to other mediums and are known for spending a lot on merchandise. These, in turn, morphed into nostalgic elements ripe for misremembering—people often have difficulty acknowledging that something they once liked isn’t good anymore even on its own, and I think RWBY fans in particular put way too much energy into the show to be able to admit that all the time they spent defending it (and harassing people who criticized it) was for nothing.

That skyhigh rocket to fame early on, of course, was attached to the reputation of Monty Oum, and once he died, he quickly became a martyr, which galvanized the loyalty of the show’s most toxic fans even further. To this day, talking about Monty at all, even for the right reasons, is seen as disrespectful or distasteful unless you’re trying to use him to prop up Rooster Teeth, a double standard I’ve unfortunately run into even in seeming safe spaces. I think if we’re comparing RWBY fandom to a cult, then Monty Oum and his memory can be compared to a central mythologized figure, the center around which are formed all of the pretty lies the members of the cult will tell you. Monty’s name is irreplaceably tied to RWBY, and as such, in order to defend Monty, its fans have to defend RWBY...and you can see where this leads. Attempting to talk about the mistreatment Monty and his family went through at Rooster Teeth is seen as using his name as a weapon—nevermind the fact that Rooster Teeth and their fans regularly use his name as a shield.

Of course, what this really reveals is that many such people don’t care about Monty, who he was, or who he went through, but rather his name alone. In fact, I’ve straight up seen RWBY stans say that people shouldn’t “take Monty’s name in vain”, as if Monty were in fact some sacred religious figure. It’s both bizarre and harmful.

A third factor was popularity. For a lot of the same reasons as, say, Supernatural, the perception of RWBY skews much more broadly between fan and ex-fan than that of the typical over-hyped show. The truth of the matter is that when a show gets popular, or really any work gets popular, enjoying it becomes a cliquey sort of thing. People that enjoyed being into something well-respected and widely known and basically the hottest trend are far more prone to become overly attached, put too much of themselves into it, and remain unequipped to deal with the fact of that trend’s eventual passing, especially if it’s a fall into disgrace rather than a quiet entrance into history. You can still find certain especially toxic big names from the RWBY fandom active and posting, pretending not to notice that their audience has become smaller and smaller over the years. Let’s face facts here, a lot of people that enjoy being part of the “in” crowd never manage to figure out how to accept losses and will do anything to try and regain lost popularity, or fool themselves into thinking they’re still on top of the world.

But we can reason and explain all day. Another truth of the matter is that it shouldn’t be other people’s problem that fans can’t accept reality and adjust, and that the RWBY fandom quite honestly deserves its reputation as abysmally toxic. The way terminal fans of the show have treated anyone who dissents, most prominently Shane Newville and other ex-employees, let alone other ex-fans of the show, is quite frankly disgusting. RWBY stans are difficult to look at in all of their bewildering, teeth-gnashing toxicity and forgive...so I’m not going to. People that still insist there’s nothing wrong with this show or the company making it are, as far as I’m concerned, beyond help, and are part of the problem. Many an ex-employee certainly thinks so.

In a lot of ways, you could call the fandom one of the driving forces of the show’s failure, mostly because they had an abnormally large amount of influence over the show. Pleasing the fans has always been a major goal of the RWBY team (unless you like characters Miles Luna doesn’t, I guess), but it’s almost disturbing how the Rooster Teeth strategy has been to lead them along and bat their eyelashes at every turn and how the fandom laps it up.

Of course, Rooster Teeth feeds the parasocial engine by engaging with the fans as equals, and I was given a disturbing reminder of how many of the people who worked on the show—the ones who aren’t pissed and digging themselves out of trauma ditches—behave exactly as the fans do, tweeting twenty times a day about their favorite ships and memes. By creating the perception that RWBY’s team is just like the RWBY fanbase and wants the same things they want, they tap that line of excess energy that’s kept this fandom going so long despite how far it’s fallen. It’s that “hey! my friend said my ship is going to be canon and he works on the show” feeling.

Of course, a probable reason as to why so many employees who worked on RWBY behave the way RWBY fans do is because a lot of them started out that way. As in, student hires. This has long been an open secret of Rooster Teeth’s M.O. for a while now, hiring people who look up to them and engage heavily with their content. Many an ex-animator has lambasted this tactic because it’s insidious, and purposely designed to make the incoming staff feel honored and indebted and excited so they won’t notice how they’re being fucked over. Arryn Troche, who made the ‘gays greenlighting volume 10’ tweet, rings up as a particularly eerie example considering they have the same rather-uncommon and unconventionally-spelled name as the voice actor for a ship they’re obviously very attached to. A quick search reveals them to have been a longtime fan and cosplayer for the show before being signed on as a junior animator.

And it is the fandom who ultimately makes the legacy for any given work or body of work. So what is RWBY ultimately going to be remembered for?

Legacy

I thought about it for a little while and found five things that are most likely to be associated with RWBY in the public’s memory after its death. The first should come as no surprise to anyone.

Bumbleby

The only part of RWBY that will likely be carried on by fans who stuck with it until the end is, of course, the only part of it that mattered, to many of them. You’ll know from my earlier recaps that shipping was always a big deal in fandom, but due to key choices (or if you prefer, mistakes) made during Volumes 2 and 3, one ship grew larger and more promoted in fandom circles than any others.

This is a combination of the unique features of the RWBY fandom and their one-track mind. The fans are well-known, as I said, to fill in the blanks in a pattern that best suits their narratives, and this works out with Rooster Teeth because it means that any sudden changes in direction they make will always be excused and praised rather than critically examined. Unsurprisingly, Bumbleby’s fandom, now that their victory has been cemented, have doubled down on their narrative that this was the intended goal from the beginning, despite it being plainly obvious that early RWBY was angling for Sun Wukong as the love interest and threw the occasional bones to Blake/Yang shippers to try and play nice.

This used to be one part of the fandom, of course, but as the show continually bombed with viewers and made more and more decisions that pushed them away, all competitors were slowly filtered out as their fans left, until Bumbleby shippers were the fandom. It’s no coincidence that Blake and Yang suddenly started acting unusually touchy and sentimental in Volume Six, following on the heels of a volume of RWBY so wildly unpopular that it woke up the company execs and forced them to acknowledge that the biggest part of their fanbase was only going to remain loyal in exchange for one thing: their ship.

The sad thing is that you can tell Rooster Teeth wanted to explore other options. Volume Five features a rather sudden shift into Yang and Weiss interactions in what I remain positive to this day was an attempt to sway shippers into a potential second choice while Black Sun was still in the oven, and this really represented one of the major errors of Rooster Teeth, in that they failed to understand the audience they were trying so hard to please.

Bumbleby became what I call a “Big Red Button” ship, and it is only the second of its kind that I’ve seen. The first? Destiel.

Yes, there’s a reason I kept comparing RWBY to Supernatural whenever Blake and Yang’s relationship came up. I admit I wasn’t a part of the Supernatural craze in its heyday and have never really enjoyed the show, but I’ve watched enough of it to connect the dots from what cultural osmosis I had to the eventual downfall we saw in November of 2020.

Both Bumbleby and Destiel were held up as the gay ship that would change everything, the biggest ship in the fandom and the one that would’ve been a major push for LGBT visibility, at least during their heydays. The problem was that its fans were not really that interested in LGBT visibility and were simply obsessed with the ship itself, applying it value as a win for LGBT audiences purely to bolster its perceived importance. Fans like this were not ever going to accept any alternatives regardless of the sexual orientations or gender conventions involved. Hence, the metaphor that is “the big red button”. You have a big red button that says “canon gay ship but not the ship you want” and ask the fans you’re trying to court whether they’d press it or not. Whatever they might say out loud, you know none of them is pressing that fucking button, ever.

Both of these Big Red Button ships became what they were due to showrunners being forced into courting an audience they really didn’t care for, and how could you blame them when both were infamously very, very over-active and annoying in general. Just like with RWBY’s well-intentioned but misguided Freezerburn phase in Volume 5, Supernatural also tried to gently shut down fans who then managed to obliviously ignore any and all hints that their ship was not meant to be endgame, and I can say that because “he’s like a brother to me” in any fandom but Supernatural would’ve been a tactical nuclear strike that sent the shippers packing. Once it failed, the gay bait came out in full force. It’s well known by now that, contrary to what one would imagine, the CW was not pulling a profit off of Supernatural’s minor mainstream success pushed by a cult following, so it’s no wonder they eventually resorted to desperately baiting the one audience that was going to stick it out no matter what, provided they had the right relationship dangled in front of them. RWBY went through the same thing.

The main problem with these two ships is that for all its diehards insisted that it was all about the gay representation, their respective shows teased and baited for so long that the world outside the little bubble these shippers lived in had moved on by the time they came to fruition. Gay visibility in media these days, at least western media, is easily available, to the extent that sometimes people believe homophobia is totally over when it really, really isn’t. If you’re looking for gay representation, you can find it plenty of places, and the first place you look probably isn’t going to be Supernatural or RWBY. So the huge wave of viewers that these shippers expected upon their victories was never going to occur, which might could’ve been avoided if the writers had simply grown a pair and made moves towards canon much sooner than before the shows were on their last legs and due to be scrapped.

Or, you know, just been honest. Diversions and alternatives were never going to work. The only thing that these shippers were ever going to understand was a hard no, a “sorry, this ship isn’t going to happen”. But the execs in charge of these shows were never willing to take a hit like that, so instead they dug their own grave.

And where does that leave the shippers, those people who devoted their whole lives to these fictional characters, only to find the show that bore them into the universe dead in a ditch? Well, nowhere good. Much like Supernatural, RWBY is heavily associated with its booming period, the heavily online portion of these shippers’ lives in the early and mid-2010s when it was all the rage, and yet in modern day, it’s seen as a bad neighborhood to hang in, an abandoned mansion at the corner of the street where awful things happened. These shippers don’t have many friends except each other.

Just like RWBY, Supernatural also exists primarily as an ex-fandom now. Much of its former fanbase remember the good days fondly but make no secret that they stopped following it once the writing tanked, and this left the shippers without many allies to associate with since so many of them had been pissed off with the way their shows ultimately became the Destiel Show and the Bumbleby Show, respectively. Contrary to an unfortunately popular idea, these shows did have actual LGBT fanbases, only a lot of their LGBT fans were not on kool-aid and avoided being sucked into a trap called “if you don’t ship this, you’re homophobic”.

You will find that the Bumbleby fandom are often looked on with disdain by quite a number of viewers of RWBY who have accused them of speaking over minorities, sexual and otherwise. Many fans have noted that, aside from Blake’s bisexuality being a seemingly late addition (Arryn Zech is noted to have cast her as straight when discussing Ilia Amitola’s ill-fated crush on her as late as 2019), Blake was very swiftly removed from all faunus characters who held romantic connotations in favor of Yang, implicitly saying that Blake was better committing to a white human woman than to an ethnic faunus male. There are obvious reasons why this left a bad taste in peoples’ mouths. Not to mention, other LGBT fans that invested in the show were not exactly welcomed with open arms.

Fair Game, or as I tend to call it, Qrowver? Qrow x Clover? Yeah, that was huge in Volume 7’s airing days. It very much experienced a rapid ballooning in fans and fandom love...but we all know how that ended. Many a fan who felt heartbroken and, importantly, betrayed by Clover’s sudden and rather pointless death turned on RWBY and Rooster Teeth and accused them of gaybaiting, which is of course exactly what happened. They received no sympathy from Bumbleby shippers—because of course they wouldn’t. If Rooster Teeth would gaybait with Qrow, a popular male character, that would mean they could potentially be gaybaiting with Blake and Yang, too. That was unacceptable, and so ironically the part of the fandom that had always crowed about the importance of extending a hand to LGBT viewers turned on LGBT viewers, valiantly defending Rooster Teeth as they always had.

And because Bumbleby fans had no room in their hearts for anything about RWBY except Bumbleby, and were hostile to anyone who didn’t ship it, they ended up being their own best friends and everyone else’s bad memories. When RWBY has faded from the public’s memory and is no longer a source of active income at all (so, basically right now), one of the only relics you’ll find of this show will be the two women making out in all the fanart you’ll find on the occasional Tumblr blog.

The Bigotry

You could call this section “the Racism” since that’s the biggest part of it, but we’d be remiss in neglecting the harm done to other minorities as well. We’ll get to them in a minute, but race is the thing that’s going to pop to mind when we talk about one of the other things RWBY left behind in the common memory.

One of the longest-running subplots that RWBY ever went through with was the racism subplot. Its basis is one of the things that so severely dates RWBY: creating an in-universe stand-in for people of color through the existence of people with animal traits was something you would absolutely not get away with after 2020, and even by 2016 was something liable to be seen as tacky. Nonetheless, RWBY openly used the faunus as stand-ins for black Americans and the struggles they faced in a white world.

Except that the company, based in Texas and headed largely by white staff, did not feel the importance of that. What slowly started out as a main character’s attempt to redeem an organization she felt had been driven too far and was no longer her home was slowly transformed into a means by which some incredibly racist people could spout off about what they felt were the real issues to be talked about, which were the condemnation they felt was deserved by activists that turned to violence, labeled, a little too quickly, as terrorists.

The 2010s saw a shift in social values, and much as with gay audiences and gay characters, black audiences and black characters—as well as other racial minorities—were experiencing something of a renaissance, with efforts to put the voices of these people into the public’s feeds. It wasn’t just George Floyd in 2020—the unexpected and frankly traumatic reign of Donald Trump as president of the United States galvanized the divide in America and social awareness became a bigger thing than ever, and since Trump was a flagrantly racist person with racist beliefs who enacted racist policies and was uplifted by racist Americans, people pushed back as they felt their lives and existences being threatened by a racist establishment...an establishment which Rooster Teeth came down on the side of very firmly.

No quarter is given to the fictional stand-ins. Sienna Khan’s policies are never examined in-depth, and the only close looks we get at the sorts of activism the White Fang does are at Adam, who is obviously condemned by the narrative and made into everything but a mustache-twirler, with delusional and frankly baffling beliefs of faunus superiority spelled out at length. No matter what concessions Rooster Teeth might’ve tried to make with Sienna’s beliefs before they stuck a sword in her, the fact of the matter is that their beliefs came through in the voices of Ghira and Blake, who made it very clear that the individual motives and experiences of people like Ilia, Corsac, Fennec, Yuma, and the rest simply don’t matter in the face of what they’d been driven to do by them. The whole ‘blacks can be racist’ tone of the final scenes involved in this subplot are both miles removed from the more cautious and neutral tone of early RWBY, and also just a very alarming red flag overall.

I went over this in my Volume 5 Final Thoughts: the shoddiness of the volume does not lie solely with the animation department. Miles and Kerry are known to have had generally sole control of the show up until Volume 7—but we also know that they didn’t have to, if they were writing anything company execs felt wasn’t to their tastes. The sudden twisting of Adam into a homicidal incel ex-boyfriend, along with his mutation into a faunus supremacist, when he was the face of the faunus movement as a whole, along with Sun’s blatant ill will towards the White Fang when he’d previously been willing to give them a chance on Blake’s word, all imply that Miles and Kerry endorsed the worst possible interpretations of racial activists and felt free to condemn them and place responsibility onto the faunus—and by extension, the real-life minorities they represented—to take a stand against the bad seeds within their causes, and the fact no one stopped them from airing this implies the higher-ups felt the same way.

People didn’t just leave RWBY after Volume 5 because of some really badly animated fights—they left because they’d felt too much of the authors’ racism coming through in the narrative and couldn’t comfortably continue watching. Every member of the faunus that had “bad” views was either killed (Adam, Sienna, Fennec), arrested (Corsac, Yuma), or “redeemed” by choosing to fight the first two (Ilia). All of these combined factors, with no room for charitable interpretations…not a good look.

And once Adam was defeated in Volume 5, and the White Fang reformed, that was the last anyone saw of that subplot, which had taken five years to wrap up and somehow still ended too early. Miles and Kerry had washed their hands of it, and references to Blake’s place in society were sparing from then on. This subplot’s inescapable presence throughout the show, combined with how it was dropped out of existence, left no room for redemption, either. No one was going back and saying “maybe this looks really, really bad”.

And so, that’s what a lot of people carried with them as their final and most relevant memories of RWBY: it’s astounding levels of racism. This is a bitter subject for many an ex-RWBY fan, many of whom aren’t white and, even among those that are, it’s simply inexcusable. Meet someone on social media who talks about RWBY at all, and isn’t one of the Bumbleby stans we’ve already discussed? You will find some mention or other of RWBY’s racist elements somewhere within their sphere. And so, that becomes a part of RWBY’s legacy, as a feature of the show that was simply too big to ignore and too poorly-handled to forgive. People don’t get over this shit, man.

This is of course not to mention the well deserved shitty reputation RWBY has for its other bigoted elements, as well. Bumbleby, as we’ve discussed, encompassed pretty much every RWBY stan left standing by 2020, but that left quite a few ex-fans that were fed up with the company’s obvious ploys when it came to sexuality and gender. Remember when I talked about Qrowver up above? Its ballooning and immediate fall from grace was a much-condensed version of RWBY as a whole, and pretty much featured as Rooster Teeth blowing their last remaining patience from LGBT fans to smithereens. The fact of the matter is that when you get down to it, every RWBY volume after Volume 4 was not a good time to be a minority. If you were gay, the show seemed to either ignore or despise you—between the background gays that warranted mockery, the mixed reception Ilia generated, and the outrage that finally boiled over when Clover bit it, part of RWBY’s legacy is how utterly unpleasant it has been for LGBT fans who expected and deserved better.

And so despite entering the scene in 2013 as a supposedly progressive show all for being led by four women, the show died known as a low-effort half-baked cringefest whose politics were always on display and always several years behind the trend.

The Good Days

Of course, another major part of RWBY’s legacy is the early days when everyone actually liked it. This is, again, something the show creators brought on themselves and something fans assisted with. I did mention the nostalgia for the Good Ol’ Days as a significant part of the RWBY fandom’s more cult-like elements, after all. The fact of the matter is, on some level, everyone knows that RWBY has spent several years going downhill. The ex-fans lament this fact, and the diehard stans insist that it’s all just as good as it used to be, primarily by doing what they do quite a lot, and linking completely coincidental elements back to things characters said or did in previous volumes as some sort of evidence that this has been the plan all along.

I’ve run polls on this matter before; even though I’ve recapped Volumes 1-3 thoroughly and shone lights on some pretty significant flaws, you ask anyone what they think the best volume of RWBY was and they’re gonna tell you Volume 3. Yes, even with all of the stalking incel Adam and the deaths of Penny and Pyrrha. It’s the last time RWBY felt cohesive and even though some obvious derailing was in effect, and Shane Newville has openly said that the behind-the-scenes matters were pretty ugly, it’s still the golden child. Shane’s only one person, and it’d be a while before RWBY scandals would become consistent and begin to overshadow the show as a whole.

The RWBY team themselves have certainly nurtured that very much on purpose. That tactic started with them, of course. Many elements that were either unpopular or predicted to ruffle feathers were stated to have originated in earlier volumes, even in situations where this wouldn’t have made sense or where it’s an obvious lie—such as Maria Calavera. They know full well their seasons post-Volume 3 were unpopular and receiving blowback, and tried to minimize it by linking them to more well-respected seasons. Suffice to say that this simply didn’t work. But it does make people remember those earlier volumes. Because so many ex-fans lost their energy for RWBY after its most active period, much of the hype from the hype era is all that you’ll see when you encounter one. Nostalgia wins out in the end, and at least RWBY can say that, as a show, it had enough of a headstart to leave an impression that lasted in a positive way. Although that’s only one side of the coin...

The Scandals

Let’s face facts here, the biggest part of RWBY’s legacy, period, is that it fucking died. It didn’t die instantly, but rather took hit after hit, blow after blow, and slowly had its image tarnished alongside that of the company, which failed to contain repeated scandals as ex-employee after ex-employee after ex-employee spoke out about the abysmal ways they’d been treated.

RWBY is Rooster Teeth’s biggest IP by far and, really, their only one worth talking about. Every other show was either eclipsed by it or unofficially canceled after bad reception. So when Rooster Teeth suffered the consequences of their actions, so did RWBY. It really can’t be overstated how the last few years of RWBY’s existence have been absolutely bombarded by a barrage of terrible Glassdoor reviews and bombshell exposure letters. Fans managed to stay strong through the first few rumblings of ill will, but after Volume 5 shook the fandom loose, discontent entered enough of the fandom sphere to be normalized, and once that happened, it was all downhill. Once people were actually allowed to talk about not liking Rooster Teeth’s content, they sure as hell weren’t going to be dissuaded from talking about not liking Rooster Teeth as a company or its practices.

Separating the art from the artist is a very difficult thing to do and only really appropriate in certain situations. Don’t fall for any kool-aid, guys, it doesn’t make you more mature or ‘above all the drama’ to actively ignore the damage done to real people in the process of getting fictional content out into the world.

If you’re still able to enjoy the Harry Potter books and look back on the good times they gave you in fondness, then fine. If you actually purchased and played the Hogwarts Legacy game programmed by antisemites and which puts money in the pocket of the transphobic owner of the franchise, then yeah, people will be right to give you shit for it. There’s a difference between quietly enjoying a product in a manner that doesn’t hurt anybody, and actively ignoring the people hurt to make that product while feigning concern. The gap in the fandom widened as the repeated leaks and scandals continuously ate away at the protective bubble around Rooster Teeth and it became clear that whatever fans might bleat, Rooster Teeth wasn’t going to ‘learn their lesson and do better’. The habitual cycle of using whatever recent scandal had occurred to cast disappointment and anger on a particular figure and uplift the rest of “CRWBY” (see also: the Gray Haddock issue) gave diminishing returns as the bombs kept dropping. This is part of why RWBY has such an ex-fandom, because if they aren’t enjoying the product and people were hurt to make it, why stay?

Crunching employees so hard they struggle to sleep and suffer debilitating health issues? Writing the n-word on a white board knowing a black employee will see it? Goading someone into trying to kill themselves? Calling an LGBT employee a slur and then making up a public-friendly nickname in place of that slur just to get away with continuing to call her that? Laying off people without warning or a means of letting them stay afloat until another job is found? Not paying or crediting employees and cultivating an environment where those in charge do what they want and those in the public eye reap all the benefit while those without a consistent spotlight get treated like dirt?

Just some of the things I thought up off the top of my head. There’s plenty more in the details. And you can’t blame Fullscreen, you can’t blame Warner, you can’t just write it off as something that happens at animation studios, because it isn’t. Yeah, the work environment in general for animation studios in America is lacking because, ya know, late-stage capitalism hellscape, but that’s dismissive of the point. Rooster Teeth are a bad company and hurt their employees and lie when called on it. It’s impossible to separate RWBY from Rooster Teeth (despite stubborn stans’ best attempts, which themselves have been called out by these same ex-employees) and because of that, RWBY’s legacy is one of corporate abuse and utterly vile behavior towards people that just wanted to make something cool.

People have refused to associate with the show over these things and honestly, they’re right to. RWBY’s ultimate legacy, if we’re honest, is the show that became a shadow of its former self, still trying to dazzle with reminders of its former glory and promises of gay relationships, all while trying to squeeze money out of both the employees who made it and the fans who upheld it. It’s the show that cost hundreds of people their physical and mental health and didn’t even have anything to show for it at the end of the day. It will live on in history as the most bitter of pills to swallow, that something you once liked and wanted to succeed can and will be ruthlessly twisted for profit margins and might actively hate you on the side. And speaking of…

Monty Oum

The biggest travesty of RWBY’s legacy is that Monty Oum is ultimately only the smallest part of it. He’s there, but barely—he’s a name in the credits that quite frankly is only there to keep up the facade of loyalty, when the show had stopped being Monty’s show before he even died and by now can be safely said to resemble nothing he would’ve made.

It’s a shame that for all that Monty was held up as a genius of his craft and a genuinely good man who inspired so many people, all he’s going to be remembered for is...this. A show people only attach his name to in an effort to insist it’s actually worth sticking by. Yes, Monty did other things, had other works, but none of them ever achieved even a fraction of the fame and respect that RWBY had from its first baby steps in 2013.

Maybe this could’ve been avoided if the real carriers of Monty’s legacy—Sheena, his wife, and Shane, his pupil—hadn’t been cast off as they had.

Shane seems to have found a new life and is working with Dillon Gu on animation, but I think we’ve all noticed his name hasn’t gone mainstream yet. I’ve tried to get in touch with him; from what I’ve gleaned, I frankly just advise leaving him alone. He wants to move on and I don’t think the RWBY fandom, which was so awful to him for telling the truth, is ever going to be a place he can feel welcome.

Sheena has mostly been quiet and done her own thing, cosplaying and watching anime and hopefully enjoying herself, although I notice posts on her Twitter feed from last year calling for a New Deal in the animation sector and castigating corporate abuses.

She also plays Hades, a much better product than RWBY with more love put into it and much better LGBT representation, which means her taste is excellent. She has a site now that you can go to, and the about section doesn’t mention Monty, her late husband, at all, for obvious reasons: Sheena doesn’t want to be connected to RWBY. Though, there is something there that’s noteworthy, in the last paragraph:

Still desiring a social element to her career, the animator turned professional cosplayer also has a history in the live stream world. Past broadcasts have included creating costume pieces, playing games with community members and subscribers, RPGs and more. No matter the project, peers or problem, Sheena strives to keep moving forward.

That powerful phrase we all associate with Monty.

It’s a shame that this show had to be Monty’s legacy, and that years off from now, his name isn’t going to mean anything to the public because the project he was passionate about and died making outlived him and his passion. It feels like his legacy was stolen, and his own part in the show’s legacy is held up purely as a pedestal on which the show should rightfully shine.

Every time I think about Monty, I think about how much I don’t want that to be me. For all the years I’ve spent here, with my graphics certifications being wasted since I earned them while I slave away in retail, I wonder if I’m the lucky one. If I were to enter the workforce and do what I loved, would it be worth it in the end? Would what happened to Monty and Sheena and Shane happen to me? Not sure I wanna know.

Snipped here.

[smolandweirdwriter]

i STAND CORRECTED: our word is aelwyn's song, not adaine's!

"So I hid screw-ups from my father" - adaine's screw-ups were never hidden, even if she tried! they were the subject of her father's contempt and neglect, and the fear of being treated the way adaine was fueled aelwyn need for perfection and fear of her father (and in turn, her neglect and worsening of adaine's own experience, in a cycle of abuse for both abernant siblings). so OF COURSE she would hide her failures from her father

"made up school awards to please my mom/whatever made the steak taste better/whatever kept the waters calm" - adaine never tried to keep the waters calm, deliberately did not attempt to please her parents (i think she tried hard in school for a few reasons: 1) the studying distracted her, 2 or really 1.5) knowledge made her feel in control of something in her life because she understood magic, and 3) she feared what her parents would do if she wasn't perfect. even if they didn't care about her successes, they certainly cared about her failures & ensuring said failures were not a reflection of themselves. anyway-) aelwyn always tried to placate her parents, do what they wanted, be the perfect daughter, keep the waters calm, because adaine was already the scapegoat. their roles were so set in stone by their parents, aelwyn really had no choice but to play along, or risk making things worse

"as i got older, i got dumber/ i couldn't help but cross the line" - the partying etc

"i saw my parents hearing the news... it'd be their word on its own" - angwyn just let her rot in a bubble for 9 months!! it would be so easy for them to just erase her, to rewrite the narrative however suits them- "oh, aelwyn? well, we really tried our best, she's always been obstinate and difficult, there wasn't anything we could do", etc. she has no footing to dispute them! she is nothing compared to her father/mother, and that has always been the point: she and adaine exist solely to fill the roles angwyn and arianwen set for them, and the parameters for their behavior/acceptability can be changed in an instant. the rug can always be swept out from under them. the safest option, as far as aelwyn knows, is just to play along. even if it hurts, even if she hates herself for it, she is afraid and it keeps her safe, and that is all she knows

[irregodless]

popular is actually a very important song to the themes in wicked. even the wizard confirms them

glinda tells elphaba that political figures and social influencers arent those who are the most qualified, theyre the ones who are most accepted. ol oscar echoes this later by telling elphaba history is just the perspective of the favorable. whether or not youre regarded as a protector or a tyrant has everything to do with your pr and who ends up coming out on top

in fact he even goes so far as to say yeah we all know even our celebrated leaders are kinda shit BUT we choose not to acknowledge it. because its easier that way. which is how oz functions at a whole which plays into how maguire played with how it was viewed in the book. the wizard of oz is a magical fantastical place! because dorothy is a child. because the ozians want to show off their best. maguire notes how even the emerald city was filled with slums and ghettos. but are you going to show that to a visitor? is a child from kansas going to know how to pick out vagrants or prostitutes? the wizard of oz was created to be enjoyed by children and so maguire writes the land to, by its leaders, be callow and immature even in its handling of mature issues. its part of why you get such silly wacky fantasy names in a story about. well. A Lot.

oh hes a winkie from the western vinkus isnt that so silly >w<!! We Are Committing Eugenics Against Animals

glinda points this out to elphaba. by having a visceral emotional reaction she has ruined her cause. i dont think even in the books she had any sympathizers that werent Animals. but she needs more than the side of the oppressed to make cause. glinda would have been her best pr manager. elphaba COULD have swallowed her pride and played along with the wizard. i mean after all she has actual magic and he only has parlor tricks. but thats not in her character and is arguably a fatal character flaw of hers

that is until you consider glinda. glinda sympathizes with elphaba at least to some extent. and we see her gain great success... but she still only holds up the status quo. would elphaba have been able to slip out of the political trappings to actually reform oz from the inside? or would the background players like morrible who are also in control subdued her

glinda certainly didnt end up changing anyones minds. not even when she tried to make people have empathy for elphaba by explaining how she had a family and childhood like anyone elses. of course... ephabas family having religious and political Eminence probably didnt help the lower classes who elphaba should have been able to appeal to easily view her favorably

"its not about aptitude, its the way youre viewed" well elphaba already knows how shes viewed. shes so keenly aware she has an entire speech she starts ranting off the minute she introduces herself to anyone. she doesnt want to play along with this game of optics because shes been losing it her whole life and has been victimized by it

she idolized the wizard. she viewed the wizard as the way to absolve how shes perceived. but when she sees the man behind the curtain she doesnt want that anymore. she CANT want it anymore as she says. now that she cant rely on oscar... shes given up on the concept that anyone could make her be viewed favorably. and so she takes the road that makes HER happy. its not the most effective one and its not the comfortable one but its the one that doesnt jeopardize her morals and values and doesnt keep her grounded

she died a villain who couldnt do much for her cause beyond terrorism and being an antaognistic force for the wizard who otherwise would have faced no pushback but she died being true to herself and not changing herself like how everyone in oz wanted her to

and yet did she actually not achieve anything? the world needs a scapegoat, after all. oscar said so himself. elphaba didnt stop the cruelty against animals completely, but she gave oz a new player to target their hate against. and in this way she also manages to undermine oscars power if only slightly

to quote twisted which itself was inspired by wicked:

What remains of a man when that man is dead and gone? Only memories and stories of his deeds will linger on, but if a man's accomplishments aren't in the tale they tell, are the deeds that go unheralded his legacy as well? [...] The question then is whether 'tis nobler in the mind to be well-liked but ineffectual, or moral but maligned? I'll never be the hero all the citizens adore, but if I hide to save my life, what has my life been for?

[charlenasaxen]

“Schumacher always downplayed the fear factor and he did it so consistently and so naturally”

“spoke about this in 2001, by which time he had two small children”

“You don’t think, you just drive to your confidence and your abilities”

“I prefer to take it back to the pits. Before I would probably have driven on.”

“when Senna and Ratzenberger were killed was certainly one of the worst moments of my life”

“He briefly considered stopping after Imola, but that was not uncommon”

“especially those like Gerhard Berger who were close to Senna and Ratzenberger”

“went to Silverstone in the week following Senna’s death for a test session, to see if he still had the passion, the speed and above all the stomach, for Formula 1”

“nothing would have meant more to me than to have won my first pole position at Monte Carlo against him”

“we sit with the car around us, but the head is exposed and it cannot take a heavy impact.”

“I have the advantage that I have a certain standing in this profession”

“Niki Lauda was one of several ex-drivers invited to sit in”

“Schumacher did not attend Senna’s funeral in Brazil. He was advised by the Benetton management that it would not be safe.”

“he was my idol. I was sitting at home and crying and sharing my feelings with my wife and friends”

“He went privately with Corinna, shortly before the 1996 Brazilian Grand Prix”

“It was important to go to him, but in tranquillity. That’s how I wanted to pay my last respects to him.

I just wept. I remembered the moments in which we were together.”

“And then I thought that he really meant a lot to me, that he was a role model for me”

“when a simple expression of contrition would have saved the day”

“He was spotted by a television camera in a helicopter and his distress played out live in front of the world”

“one occasion on which he spectacularly lost his composure was when he won the Italian Grand Prix of 2000 and burst into tears when told that he had equalled Senna’s total”

“he had been told that morning that Willi Bergmeister, his first employer, had suffered a massive heart attack”

“In a tale which has become part of Schumacher folklore he adapted his driving style and brought the car home”

“within sight of his first world title. But then the trouble started.”

“Many seasoned F1 observers felt that there was a vendetta by the FIA against Benetton”

“it has often been suggested that it may have suited them to spice up the championship by cutting Schumacher’s huge points lead”

“brash new team which was closing in on its first world title, threatening the cosiness of the elite”

“says Mosley. ‘As the mafia say, “It’s nothing personal, just business.”

“Mosley said, ‘Oh and by the way, we’re taking away the six points for Silverstone.”

“It seemed a very harsh penalty at the time, even to Schumacher’s rivals”

“My impression at the time was that it was a set-up and I was the scapegoat. We had a big lead in the championship and a lot of people were happy about us getting this penalty.”

“Our success has been gained by hard work and the talents of Michael Schumacher. Unfortunately it is a cross we have to bear that people seem to look for easy reasons why we are successful.”

“I said, ‘If you do that deal then I will walk out of the door and so will Rory because we haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Whichever team did well there was always innuendo. But when they made it legal again the same teams were winning so either everyone had it before or nobody had it before.”

“Schummel Schumi’, which is halfway between ‘crafty’ and ‘cheat”

“saying, ‘I am a free agent at the end of 1995 and I will choose the best option available to me��

“He then further attacked Ferrari, saying that the FIA had been ‘very kind’ to Ferrari”

“Ferrari’s Jean Todt, later to become Schumacher’s closest racing ally, reacted furiously”

“now he was going to pass on some of that suffering to his title rival”

“always seemed the English gentleman but when you are in trouble you get to know people.”

“Hill has not beaten me this season in any race without interference from outside.”

“Those close to him advised him that this episode had been a bad own goal”

“that rarest of species; a full, contrite Schumacher apology”

“Schumacher had his first world title and he dedicated it to Senna”

“I will not accuse anyone for it. It’s like the warm-up lap at Silverstone. Others did the same, but I was caught. I have to live with that.”

“Schumacher’s heart was set on a move away, partly to escape the controversy surrounding his name”

“I’ve nothing against him. When a championship is decided at the last race, things can happen.”

“he would argue that the FIA had played its own savage game by trying to take it away”

“His words were just a little reminder to the team and to Schumacher to keep their noses clean in future”

“We were in the shit in 1996. I remember when the car came out I said, ‘That looks worryingly different from everyone else’s car.’ It turned out that everyone else was right and we were wrong.”

“the youngest ever double world champion at the time and the world’s undisputed number one driver”

“Ferrari meanwhile had been steadily improving under Jean Todt”

“clear to him that there was no one on his own level to beat”

“Schumacher was in a league of his own at the time and he liked the idea of building something”

“rather than simply slotting into the best team on the grid”

“probably the single greatest sporting gesture he made in his career”

“To accept the challenge of returning the sport’s most celebrated brand back to its former glory”

“He had a production line of Schumacher merchandise, which grew to almost 100 items over the years”

“I didn’t want to just jump into the best car. People would expect me to win everything. But I like to fight, I like racing.”

“let the emotions of Enzo Ferrari and all the Ferrari myth infuse him”

“the despair he felt when, for year after year, that first Ferrari title refused to come”

“it was clear that he had taken away a lot of the politics which had previously held the team back”

“Schumacher was a vital part of the jigsaw”

“I hope, with me together with the people already in the team, [means] we are going to do it.”

“little did he know what a shambles he was walking into”

“Schumacher marched into Maranello for the first time on Thursday 16 November 1995. The local police estimated that a crowd of 50,000 was there to welcome him.”

“the great hero rode into town to rescue the Ferrari legend”

“Never before had the arrival of a new Ferrari driver sparked such passion”

“Schumacher was the champion of champions, with him in the team it would surely be only a matter of time”

“returned to Maranello, putting an end to 16 years of hurt and lost pride”

“for the benefit of the photographers and camera crews from all over the world he then went for a drive”

“which was to become his home away from home for the next 11 years”

“Inside Enzo’s study is full of black and white photos from the old days, and models of cars in glass cases”

“Schumacher and Irvine were given a lunch of tortellini”

“then the V10 Formula 1 engine burst into life”

“After one lap he had to stop because a gearbox seal had broken – not an auspicious start”

“but the great Ferrari adventure had begun”

“Schumacher told the Italian media that evening that there was a lot of work to be done but he promised to be in a position to challenge for the 1997 world title”

“Schumacher was expecting great things when he joined Ferrari, but he was quickly disappointed and as the season went on he began demanding changes”

“How Michael drove that car, I’ll never know, it really impressed me. I was scared to turn the steering wheel because you didn’t know if it was going to turn immediately, in half a second or in a second, you had no idea what it would do.”

“at his suggestion Todt contacted Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne and persuaded them to leave Benetton and join Ferrari”

“Byrne had been planning to retire and set up a scuba diving centre in Thailand, but he was talked out of it”

“The presence of Schumacher translates to us in the absence of excuses and of pressure”

“We had done a bad pit stop and then the driveshaft broke. When he came back to the pits we looked each other in the eye and burst out laughing.”

“others paid $50 to enter at each event during 1996, betting on which lap Schumacher would retire”

“At the French Grand Prix things hit a real low point when Schumacher retired on the parade lap”

“he was driven back to the paddock, still sitting in his car, a picture of impotence”

“Schumacher went an entire season without any technical problems, that particular book was quietly abandoned”

“He walked disconsolately back to the paddock, locked himself in the Ferrari motorhome”

“I’m human and I make mistakes, but I’m particularly upset for Ferrari because this was the first real opportunity we’ve had to win together. Now I have an even greater duty to put things right, to repay the team and its fans.”

“no question of him ducking the blame or of making excuses”

“ride back to his apartment, he got a few hundred metres before the engine died! Truly it was not his day.”

“Jean Todt observed that ‘Schumacher accepts other people’s mistakes, but not his own.”

“this time he didn’t put a foot wrong. It was one of the greatest exhibitions of driving the sport has ever seen.”

“Such was his dominance and speed, it was as if the track was dry for him and wet for everyone else”

“at times he was four seconds per lap faster than the nearest competitor”

“He passed three cars on the opening lap but was almost seven seconds behind the leader”

“Schumacher soon passed Alesi, Berger and Villeneuve and then simply drove off into the distance”

“he was one minute and 12 seconds ahead. He made the other drivers look like novices.”

“prompting fears that another retirement beckoned. Schumacher slowed down and nursed the car home, nevertheless winning by more than 40 seconds.”

“he broke the tension in the Ferrari pits with a joke over the radio. ‘Do you think we could fit a heater into this car, it’s freezing!”

“voices were calling for Jean Todt to be sacked”

“I said that I would go too if that happened. I believe since then we were completely able to rely on each other.”

“The Monza victory ended a Ferrari drought”

“the scenes beneath the podium were overwhelming as tens of thousands of people stormed the track”

“well done to my Michael. I haven’t managed to hug him yet”

“Schumacher, too, was caught up in the emotion of the occasion, announcing that he and Corinna were expecting their first child”

“I was thinking about the baby as I went from corner to corner. It is a beautiful thing. Certainly my life will change. I will have to give up my spare time and my sleep. It will mean that I come to Grands Prix to rest! A child is the most beautiful gift that anyone could desire.”

“It’s impossible to express the way I feel about winning at Monza in a Ferrari. Looking down from the podium I got goose bumps with the emotion of it.”

“Ralf had been signed, with just a hint of irony, to the Jordan team”

“When Ralf came into Formula 1 in 1997 Michael suddenly had an important ally in the paddock”

“The pair would often be seen together in the early days, visiting each other’s team motorhomes, relaxing together in their rival uniforms”

“They made a pact early on that they would not discuss the inner workings of their teams”

“When he was about five he wanted to be doing the same things I was doing, but without the responsibilities.”

“It didn’t make me jealous. There were just moments when I thought he had it easier. He had more toys and did less for them.”

“But from there on their career paths diverged. Michael went on to dominate Formula 1 with Ferrari, winning 91 Grands Prix, while Ralf won six races.”

“asked Ralf if he would like one day to be Michael’s team-mate and his first response was, ‘Who could afford it?”

“It seemed on first meeting him that he considered himself to be on the same level as his brother”

“more of a reflection on Ralf than anything else. Their battles in races were relatively few”

“They made history that day, becoming the first siblings to finish first and second in a Grand Prix. ‘Thank God there aren’t three of them,’ joked Mika Hakkinen, who finished third.”

“Ralf’s body had taken a huge impact, calculated at over 70g. He was unconscious, slumped in the cockpit.”

“Michael, who was leading the race, was forced to drive slowly past his stricken brother for several laps”

“The experience must have brought back memories of Senna’s fatal accident and Michael admitted as much”

“found myself in the curious position of telling Michael he shouldn’t believe all the rumours he hears!”

“If his brother stood between him and victory then he had no alternative”

“Corinna Schumacher stays largely out of the media spotlight and works hard with Michael to create the image of the ‘perfect couple’, with two happy children”

“of course, Michael defends Corinna and Ralf defends Cora, so they have their differences there.”

“game was fuelled by the German media, who always maintained a fascination with the ‘battling brothers’ storyline”

“I told Michael and Corinna, ‘If you react now, they will use that again and again.’ He stayed strong and we always stuck with that. The tabloids went crazy because we did not play their game.”

“but he is always measured against his immensely successful brother”

“Even during the first race meeting of 2007, after Michael’s retirement, he was asked many times what it was like not to have Michael around”

“I never compare myself to him. World championship title or not, I’ve achieved what no one would have expected, getting into Formula 1 second, as the little brother.”

“Michael and Ralf were at her bedside before the weekend and actually travelled to Imola from there”

“On the podium he could not conceal his tears and he looked up to the heavens as the German national anthem was played”

“Before Saturday he was on the phone to people in the hospital when he wasn’t driving”

“She raised the kids on the kart track and she was such a part of it that it would have been strange not to drive that race.”

“He just didn’t want to go out and he definitely didn’t want to cry in front of all those people. He just stayed in his room with Corinna.”

“that ‘Michael regularly sends photos”

“I watch all the races. I was alone. A girlfriend rang me up who complained because she had a bet on Michael and Ralf won.”

“I always hope that they stay healthy. Both of them don’t want to give up for a long time, especially Michael, he’s so ambitious.”

“No one has talked to me about the marriage. I only know about it from the papers and from the telly.”

“part of the strategy was to train up young Italian engineers for the future”

“reinforce the idea that ‘made in Italy’ was something of which to be proud”

“design group in England and the engine group in Italy had become so disconnected that fundamental mistakes were made in putting the car together”

“Brawn brought the two sides back together and imposed his master plan on them”

“result was Ferrari’s total dominance of the sport from 2000 until 2005”

“developed almost perfect reliability and at times pushed the boundaries of performance way beyond the reach of rival teams”

“After a ten-year period of Brawn’s rule, the team was put back into the hands of the Italians”

“practising pit stops as the sun sets on the eve of a Grand Prix, Brawn standing there with a stopwatch in his hand”

“With Benetton if practice began at nine o’clock, someone would come and get me at five to. At Ferrari it was time for another cappuccino.”

“Ferrari’s relentless development programme quickly brought them up to the same level”

“the fact that Schumacher was even in the hunt for the world title was largely down to the driver himself”

“the sheer ridiculousness of qualifying on the Saturday afternoon, when Villeneuve, Schumacher and Heinz Harald Frentzen all set identical lap times”

“despite the obvious danger, amazingly there were no waved flags for Schumacher, who did not lift off the throttle as he passed the scene”

“It is no exaggeration to say that the incident was directly responsible for setting up Jerez as the nail-biting title decider”

“if you look at the wider picture Michael was like that with everybody. He didn’t pick Jacques out, but Jacques took it very personally.”

“like the famous occasion on which he had described Damon Hill as a ‘number two driver’ before their title showdown”

“Brawn, who had been there before of course, steadied the ship”

“at one point they again recorded identical lap times, the kind of thing which happens once in a lifetime, not twice in two days”

“as they lost the championship, they left the motorhomes heated and I never spoke with him again.”

“They were also doubtless very suspicious of the Ferrari management under Jean Todt and the growing threat it posed to their grip on the sport”

“I was in the Williams garage for most of the race and watched Dennis come in and pass messages”

“The McLarens were effectively controlling the Ferrari of Eddie Irvine, who could not get past”

“Schumacher, in contrast, was out on his own in front and isolated”

“That is the instinctive part. Then in a split second he changes his mind and turns into a certain collision.”

“He worked out that this was his only opportunity. It was wholly calculated.”

“himself, Villeneuve and a simple question; ‘Shall I or shan’t I?”

“Schumacher was single-minded with all the positives and negatives of being the best in the world. His only handicap was that he did not immediately explain honestly why he did what he did.”

“I reacted far too late to try to take my line and close the door. I have thought about it a lot since then and thought, how stupid I was to let that happen.”

“Schumacher returned to the motorhome, where he sat with Corinna, Ross Brawn, Jean Todt and Willi Weber”

“Famously, Bernie Ecclestone dropped by for a chat about skiing holidays. Schumacher had no idea of the mounting sense of outrage and indignation.”

“It is a feature of the complete self-belief these rare men have which nothing can dent”

“They were regarded for a long time in Germany as being rather smart. Suddenly they were being slated for it. That’s how I feel about Jerez.”

“Schumacher still believes that the Jerez incident was whipped up by the media and his jealous enemies”

“If he had done it properly, if he had wanted to, then he would have really driven into the car”

“Ironically a few hours earlier Villeneuve and Schumacher had been partying together”

“Schumacher even put on one of the blond wigs which the Williams mechanics had had made as a jokey tribute to Villeneuve and his peroxide-blond hair”

“I hope that if I do well in the future it will cancel out this episode”

“clearest signal yet from the FIA that the culture had changed in Formula 1”

“It hurt Schumacher, as once again he seemed to have been singled out and punished for something which had gone unpunished a few years earlier”

“If you wouldn’t have done it you would have been criticised the other way around. Nevertheless we live in different times.”

“He also said that the experience had hardened his view that the press always polarise everything”

“Men like Mosley and Montezemolo are naturally sensitive to press headlines as they strive to protect the image”

“Schumacher’s natural reaction and even more so Jean Todt’s, is to give nothing away and never to accept blame. They are less affected by the fickle attentions of the newspapermen.”

“The real fans are the ones who stay with you whether you win or lose. I believe that most people do not reduce the season to one race.”

“Look at the season as a whole, I had some good performances. It’s not as if I messed up the whole season”

“every racing driver in my place would have tried everything to win”

“all the other bullyboy tactics on the track were debatable: he pushed the interpretation of the rule to the maximum, exploiting grey areas”

“But Jerez cemented his reputation”

“Alain Prost was very clear, he said it was impossible to make the team successful. For me those words were a real stimulus to accept the challenge. At times I have to admit that I began to think Alain was right, but those moments did not last long!”

“the breakthrough in 2000 which led to five consecutive world titles and his unprecedented domination of the sport”

“hard during the early phase to imagine that the Ferrari experience would turn out as successfully as it did”

“Stand outside Ferrari and you wonder why they don’t win every race. Stand inside and you wonder how they manage to win any at all.”

“Ferrari became a well-structured team with a clear direction, rigorous discipline and a clear sense of purpose”

“As a great manager, he took all the pressure on to his own shoulders, giving the team a sheltered environment”

“Before Todt got a grip on media relations, the team leaked like a sieve, with stories and rumours filtering out to the Italian press”

“Only once in 11 years did that happen, when Schumacher was injured in 1999”

“In general, the Todt/Schumacher years were characterised by an unbreakable bond between team principal and driver”

“He described Ferrari as ‘like a beautiful castle, but with leaks everywhere and repairs to do”

“The Todt era is the most successful by far in the history of Ferrari as a racing team”

“he said, ‘It will take a miracle for anyone to catch us.’ And yet Ferrari were able to turn the situation around”

“Schumacher won in Argentina and at the next race in Imola. ‘I guess the miracle happened!’ he laughed.”

“At the same time, McLaren were forced to take their revolutionary ‘brake steer’ system off the car which they had been using”

“It was Bernie Ecclestone who had suggested Jean Todt’s name to Luca di Montezemolo”

“Todt arrived at the house in a Mercedes, but Montezemolo soon forgave him for that”

“Todt felt entitled to leave them. Without him, Peugeot’s F1 experience was a disaster and they skulked out of the sport”

“Todt stood in and so began his career in motorsport”

“his goal was to be a Formula 1 driver himself, but he quickly gave up on that dream when his codriving career took off”

“delivered Peugeot its dream result, but sport had been the loser”

“In 2006 he was promoted to head the entire Ferrari operation, both road cars and racing team”

“Todt loves the social life of Paris, attends grand dinners and goes to nightclubs, is a man about town”

“Once, at the start of the 2003 season, I had a list for him with many questions on it, really specific things on the development of the car and other precise areas. You know we work almost non-stop and you have to have an eye on everything.”

“he said, ‘I’m getting old, but I can still answer your questions.’ That guy is amazing. He can stop a storm and level everything out before it becomes a problem.”

“Todt has been highly decorated by his native country, he holds the Legion d’Honneur”

“much sought after for his views on successful management”

“This is probably the real secret of why Ferrari was so successful under Jean Todt. He managed to assemble a group of individuals from very different backgrounds but who clicked”

“So it was with the five in the inner circle at Ferrari”

“Brawn and Byrne, who were together at both Benetton and Ferrari, are one of the great technical double acts of F1 history”

“Bryne prefers to be based at the factory, making only one appearance a year at the Italian Grand Prix”

“he probably did go further into the deeper layers of the team than any other driver had”

“the true strength of Ferrari was that each person knew their role, stuck to it and had respect”

“the bad moments bonded them and the good moments gave them a taste of what they wanted to have all the time”

“what always impressed me was the way that they would travel out to races on the same plane as their team”

“The sense of unity among the team came across loud and clear in public, too”

“It may seem a small thing, but it says a lot about the way team spirit is built”

“in the early days the Ferrari team contained many expatriates working away from home”

“When he was there for a test session Schumacher would always join them as well. The family that eats together stays together.”

“Many people wanted Ferrari to get back to the highest level, to be a real team with no scandals and no polemics. Now they just look for the faults.”

“He believes that the destiny of F1 and that of Ferrari are interlinked”

“Ferrari has always stayed”

“F1 without Ferrari would be merely a deluxe Formula 2. ‘Ferrari is the capital on which F1’s success is based”

“People had got used to seeing Ferrari take part but not winning and that seemed to suit them. We woke them up.”

“There was no wind tunnel, (the team used a British Aerospace one)”

“All personnel now work on the same campus at Maranello, just across the road from the main road car factory”

“a division of Ferrari which Todt christened Gestione Sportiva”

“The engine department is connected to the chassis department by a short corridor”

“This is not the case with most teams, whose engines come from a different town, even a different country”

“by 1997 the manufacturers were fighting each other to buy the contract to supply the team”

“The personal relationship between Todt and Schumacher was very significant – the hugs and kisses after a race victory, the total solidarity”

“When Schumacher broke his leg in 1999, Todt went ‘way beyond the call of duty’ in Schumacher’s words.”

“It became a tradition for the men to go out into the wilderness for a few nights”

“Todt helped him to pick up the cultural references that a man of his wealth and status should know”

“Racing is life and life is a risk. Michael Schumacher”

“Some made it through, like Juan Manuel Fangio who played Russian roulette for eight seasons”

“Schumacher had many serious accidents during his F1 career”

“The Schumacher who returned triumphantly at the end of 1999 was a vastly improved version”

“I have always believed that the recuperation period after the accident gave him the energy and the momentum to go on and dominate”

“Little did he know it at the time, but those two extra points he could have had that day for fourth place would have made him world champion”

“Ferrari’s first for 20 years. But that is not how the scripts were being written.”

“I couldn’t get my legs out of the cockpit. I was lying there listening to my own heartbeat and it got quieter and quieter”

“then suddenly it was gone. All around me was darkness. I heard the medics talking but it was all very quiet. I was really scared, I really thought that’s it.”

“a typical piece of crass Irvine mouthiness, but Ralf Schumacher was less than impressed”

“Irvine should learn to keep quiet,’ he said. ‘In the last few weeks he’s done nothing except moan”

“I would like to say to Mr Irvine, stop complaining and show that he is faster.”

“stop developing the current car and instead put extra effort into the design of the 2000 car”

“staring at the bunch of 35 red roses, one for each of his wins, sent to him by Montezemolo”

“No other champion in history had endured such a lean spell in the middle of his career”

“still niggled because it was unnecessary. The race had been stopped and he shouldn’t really have been put in that position by Irvine.”

“Eddie claimed it would be sheer hypocrisy for him to visit; after all, they both knew that Schumacher’s misfortune was Irvine’s big break”

“Of course Regazzoni was proved wrong on virtually every point”

“It’s not true that I am okay, I am not okay. The doctors said that I was okay to pursue normal activities, like make bread or go to an office, but I am not okay to drive a Formula 1 car.”

“It would be impossible in my current condition to do a full Grand Prix distance. I’ve tried everything to get fit for my return but I have not succeeded.”

“informed by his young daughter, Gina Maria, that her father was not available as he was putting on his football boots”

“Immediately afterwards he announced that he had changed his mind. He would drive in the final two races and come to Ferrari’s rescue.”

“I was relieved when he turned up,’ says Irvine”

“Michael comes back and everyone goes, “Michael’s back, look at the difference.” I thought, “For fuck’s sake!” ”

“Despite Schumacher’s protestations of a lack of fitness, on the podium he was visibly the least tired”

“Todt offered his resignation to Montezemolo, who turned it down and told him to concentrate on turning the situation around”

“Ferrari won the constructors’ world championship, its first since 1983, which gave the team some payback”

“Hakkinen won the race and with it the world championship, while Irvine trailed in over a minute behind Schumacher”

“In October 2000, after five years of failure, five seasons of joy mixed with agony and anguish, Schumacher fulfilled his destiny and became Ferrari’s first world champion since 1979”

“At a stroke he restored pride to a great institution, which had languished in the doldrums for 20 years”

“they were riding a wave which would not drop them back down again for five years”

“Winning that first world title for Ferrari was without doubt the greatest achievement of Schumacher’s entire career”

“an incredible and emotional win at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza put the challenge back on track”

“Schumacher sealed it in Japan, with victory in one of the most tense races ever seen in Formula 1”

“If he’s faster he’s faster. And whoever is faster is going to be the number one.”

“the world’s fastest driver”

“No one had ever considered that the rule might be applied to the start of a race”

“He upset many of the drivers, including his brother, with the tactic”

“Riccardo Zonta in the BAR. ‘I looked in the mirrors and saw Schumacher coming up behind me like a rocket”

“I knew that either side of me I had the two drivers who were fighting for the world title.”

“He chose this race as his first for many years to watch his son racing. It cannot have helped his heart much.”

“There is something about Monza: it is a place steeped in the history of motorsport”

“In the end Schumacher held his nerve and, apart from four laps after his pit stop, he led the entire race, winning by four seconds”

“the tifosi swept on to the track just as it had done so memorably in 1996”

“Schumacher got caught up in the moment, deeply moved by the passion of the enormous crowd”

“the interviewer pointed out straight away that he had just equalled Senna’s career total of 41 wins”

“Hakkinen, seated to his right, put an arm around his shoulder”

“I said to him, “You don’t have to be ashamed”, and he said, “Yes, but I am.” The Senna part of it was a big deal for him.”

“greeted with almost universal sympathy around the world and actually did him a lot of good in many people’s eyes”

“ran a headline, ‘Schumi we have seen your heart”

“I will never forget that race. I watched it from the McLaren and Ferrari garages, which were next door to each other.”

“The ferocious intensity of the battle was breathtaking as for lap after lap the two drivers pushed their cars and themselves to the limit”

“It is arguably the most important race in the whole Schumacher story”

“it is also Schumacher’s fondest memory of what he calls ‘pure racing”

“this had allowed Ross Brawn to measure how much fuel he had taken on at his stop”

“It’s looking good,’ said Brawn, ‘it’s looking good, it’s looking bloody good!’ Schumacher flashed out onto the race-track.”

“That was the happiest moment of my racing career,’ says Schumacher”

“when he crossed the line, he became the first Ferrari driver since Enzo Ferrari’s death in 1988 to win a world title”

“it was as if I was standing next to myself, looking in on the moment. It was almost as if I were someone else.”

“Suddenly ‘made in Italy’ was a badge of pride again”

“the project for the renaissance of Ferrari had finally borne fruit”

“some mechanics from the McLaren team went to the next door garage with the number one sticker off Hakkinen’s car and put it on the nose of Schumacher’s Ferrari”

“the new world champion had himself photographed sitting in his number one car”

“it seemed entirely right that the team which had put so much work into getting back into the title race and then getting the job done should celebrate in a working environment”

“Schumacher and his wife, Corinna, sat down with Todt among the mechanics, there was a lot of toasting, many cries of ‘Campioni!’ and ‘Forza Ferrari!”

“from this point on anything else was a bonus”

“Ferrari sends out a message to the world that Italy is a very advanced country, it is loved everywhere. I’d say that Ferrari is very important to Italy.”

“the passionate displays of joy beneath the Monza podium clearly hastened that process”

“Ferrari transcends sport. As a brand it is one of the most potent international symbols of Italian style and quality.”

“there is only one Ferrari”

“That bridge too was rebuilt so that the race could go ahead and it symbolically reunited Italy. Ferrari was an important part of that story.”

“took as his logo the cavallino or prancing horse”

“Ferrari lived through this and outlasted Mussolini”

“Ferrari hated the nickname because he was a constructor, not a mere tuner, but in Italy the nickname stuck and still does to this day.”

“Ferrari carefully promoted the myth of his cars and his brand, and his name eventually became associated with passion, speed, triumph and tragedy”

[theres-an-impulstor-among-us]

Heyo, reporting back to request a continuation of a continuation of a continuation, if you wouldn't mind! Aka, please more 3rd Life Villainpulse angst, I'm so invested (and very curious as to whether his latest murder attempt was an actual success, or if he really should have stuck around to verify the death...)

i genuinely rly love this! i’ve got such plans for it now that i think i’ll make it into an actual proper fic.

i’ve also now posted it on AO3, titled Stand For Nothing! link here

…

Impulse is getting concerned. It’s been over five minutes and no death message in chat. It should’ve happened by now. He had been worried about being found near the scene of a death — it’d already been about five minutes since the meeting and someone would’ve gone to find Skizz, so his items would almost certainly be found — but now he’s starting to think he should have stuck around anyway and made sure the job was finished.

He had been intending to stay here at his villager trading centre until the death notification came up and then he would run back to Dogwarts and play the distressed best friend.

But no death message. So his plan has to change.

When he makes it back to Dogwarts, he finds Ren standing outside the Renchanting building, his face pale. When he spots Impulse, he quickly beckons him. “Impulse! For the love of god, where’ve you been?!”

Impulse blinks. With no death message in chat, what can Ren be so worked up about? “W-What? What’s happened…?”

“Skizzle’s been attacked! We heard an explosion outside our walls and when we went to check, we found him out there, passed out. He’s in a critical condition but Martyn’s with him now and hopefully he’ll recover.”

Impulse can only stare at Ren with an open mouth and a pit in his stomach. Somehow, in all the possible outcomes he pictured for this scenario, he never imagined Dogwarts would actually find Skizz alive. After three perfect murders, it seems he got careless.

“O-Oh my god,” he manages to choke out. “C-Can I see him?”

“Not yet, but Martyn will tell us when we can.”

Ren takes him down into the living area under Renchanting. There, Etho is pacing back and forth in front of a closed door, clearly deep in thought, but he glances up as Ren comes in. “Ren, you found him.”

Ren nods, even though it wasn’t really a question. “Any word?”

“Not yet. Martyn has three healing potions in there with him though, so I’d say Skizz’s chances are really good.”

Impulse has to strain to keep his expression steady at that. “G-Good. That’s good.”

Something changes almost imperceptibly in Etho’s expression, but Ren, clearly not noticing, rubs Impulse’s back reassuringly. “He’ll be okay, Impulse. Don’t worry.”

All Impulse can do is nod, not trusting himself to speak.

Finally, after what feels like hours, the door opens and Martyn appears, his body blocking the view inside the room. “He’s awake,” he reports, a very serious look on his face. “Ren.”

Ren quickly ducks into the room, but when Impulse starts to follow, Martyn blocks him. “Not you,” he says coldly. “Etho, stay with him, please.”

Impulse’s heart freezes. There’s only one reason Martyn would stop him from seeing his injured best friend.

Skizz has told him everything.

He takes a step back and bumps into something behind him, causing him to jump.

“What’s going on, Impulse?” asks Etho casually, an only-just-discernible undertone of danger in his voice. “You seem a little tense.”

“My best friend almost died,” Impulse replies coldly, but even he can tell his words are unconvincing.

“Indeed. I wonder how that happened?”

“I don’t like what you’re implying, Etho. Why would you have any reason to suspect me?”

Etho just folds his arms and says nothing, infuriating Impulse. “You said I was the only person on this server you really trust!”

“That was before I joined these guys. I’ve had a weird feeling in my stomach about you for a while, Impulse. Something hasn’t felt right since this whole thing started, but I assumed it was just me trying to apply rationality to this irrational world. But one thing never changes, Impulse. No matter how much you try to change it.”

Impulse falls silent, scowling at the ground. He’s already given away too much in his tone and expression.

He glances sideways at Etho, who has his eyes fixed on the door Ren and Martyn went through. Realisation dawns on him: Etho isn’t expecting him to put up a fight. Etho thinks he has nowhere to go.

Now is the time, then. He can’t afford to wait any longer; when Ren and Martyn come back out here, it’s over. Impulse knows he can’t take on three people at once. This is his last chance to escape alive.

So when Etho shifts position a few seconds later, Impulse strikes. Before he can react, Impulse sweeps Etho’s legs out from under him and shoves him into the wall as he’s falling. Without waiting around to see the result of his attack, Impulse takes off running.

He makes it out of Renchanting and is just about to run down the hill towards the crastle when an arrow whizzes by him, nicking the sleeve of his t-shirt and causing him to lose his balance. Suppressing a scream, Impulse topples down the hill and lands in the shallow river at the bottom. He tries to continue onward but has to stop as he puts weight on his left foot and realises he must have twisted his ankle during his fall.

Gritting his teeth through the throbbing pain, he looks up in time to be able to dodge another arrow fired at him by the figure on top of Dogwarts’s wall.

He has to keep going.

Every step on his left foot is agony but he pushes himself on, half-galloping down the hill on the other side, the crastle in his sights.

“Bdubs!” he shrieks as he draws near, his heart racing. The Red Army is likely right behind him. “BDUBS!”

The person he’s calling rushes out of the castle over the drawbridge just in time to catch Impulse as he finally loses his balance and pitches forward.

“Impulse! You’re soaking wet!? What the-?!”

“Th- They’re coming for me,” he croaks. His eyes flicker up and he spots two faces in the windows on the second floor. It’s time for the performance of his life. “Dogwarts turned on me! They think I killed Tango and Cleo a-a-and made you kill Joel!”

“What?!” gasps Bdubs. “That’s ridiculous! Why would they think that?!”

“I-I don’t know but th- They’re gonna kill me, Bdubs…!”

“Not on my watch!”

Bdubs quickly ushers Impulse inside the crastle and into the waiting arms of Jimmy. Together, the two guide Impulse upstairs and lay him down in the bed Grian has placed in a position safely away from the slit windows.

“What happened, Impulse?” Bdubs asks softly. “How did they turn on you?”

Impulse takes a shaky breath. “Something happened to Skizz. He… He got attacked. Then he told everyone it was me and that I’d killed Tango and Cleo and manipulated you into killing Joel.”

“First of all, that’s utterly ridiculous,” Bdubs snaps. “I killed Joel because he was about to kill you. And second, why on earth would you want to kill Tango or Cleo?”

“I-I think you might’ve been right, Bdubs. I th-think Etho was responsible for Cleo’s death. And now he’s got Dogwarts trying to make me a scapegoat.”

Bdubs’s gaze darkens. “Despicable little-.”

“BDOUBLEO!”

“Stay there,” says Bdubs.

He strides to the window, flanked by Grian and Scott, armed with his crossbow. “What do you want, Ren?”

Down on the ground, having left Skizz in the care of BigB, stand Ren, Martyn, and Etho, staring up at the castle. The latter two hold bows, while Ren is armed with a sword and shield.

“We know Impulse is hiding out in there,” Ren announces, with the regal but dangerous air of a king. “Hand him over to us, Bdubs.”

“No way in hell,” Bdubs snaps back. “He told me everything!”

“We can guarantee you he did not,” responds Martyn steadily. “Not the truth, anyway. He’s using you, Bdubs.”

“YOU’re the ones using HIM! As a scapegoat!”

“Impulse isn’t the angel you think he is, Bdubs,” Etho says darkly. “You’re protecting the person who killed Cleo.”

“No, YOU killed Cleo,” snarls Bdubs. “And I bet you killed Tango too and tried to blame it on me! You’re just trying to frame anyone you can so you can get away with it!”

Despite the pain and stress he’s experiencing, Impulse can’t help feeling proud of himself. The seeds of doubt and suspicion he’s sown between Bdubs and Etho are paying off now.

“Bdubs.” Ren’s voice drops slightly as emotion creeps into his tone. “He attacked his best friend and left him to die. If we hadn’t found him in time, Skizz would have succumbed to his injuries alone and terrified in the middle of nowhere, murdered by his own best friend.”

“What exactly is Impulse’s motive supposed to be, here?” Scott asks suddenly. “You say he killed Tango and Cleo, orchestrated Joel’s death, and tried to murder Skizzle. Why exactly would he want to do that?”

“Skizz claims Impulse said it was because Tango “knew too much” about something,” Martyn says. “Some kind of secret that Impulse is keeping. And that Cleo’s and Joel’s deaths were “necessary to push the war forward”. That’s his motive, Scott. Impulse wants war, and he doesn’t care who he hurts to get it.”

“We ARE talking about the same Impulse, right?” demands Bdubs. “Our Impulse? The sweetheart who wouldn’t hurt a fly? Are we sure Skizz didn’t just misremember? He's a little unreliable like that. Maybe he said it was someone else who-.”

“Don’t you dare!” Martyn bursts out suddenly, his voice filled with the most venom anyone had ever heard it. “Don’t you DARE say that! You weren’t there, Bdubs! You didn’t have to fix his broken ribs and his fractured neck and his shattered arm! You weren’t there when he finally woke up after several minutes of crying out and panicked breathing like he was having a nightmare! You didn’t hear the way he cried, how terrified he was when he told me what happened, the raw agony in his voice! That’s not the demeanor of someone who MISREMEMBERED! Skizz has gone through hell today and it’s all Impulse’s fault! So I’m not leaving here without his head, in one form or another!”

“YEAH!” Ren yells in agreement, hitting his sword against his shield. “No more arguments. No more wasting time. If you don’t give us Impulse right NOW, we will declare war on you and take him by force.”

Inside the crastle, Impulse’s heart skips a beat. This is it: the moment of truth. Either everything he’s been working towards will finally come to fruition… or Bdubs will hand him over and he will die.

Bdubs straightens up, a steely look of determination appearing in his eyes.

“Then consider us at war.”

[catflowerqueen]

Okay, I finished Hiveswap 2 in... basically all one go. I will definitely have to do multiple replays to get all the Steam achievements, but that can wait until I do all my actual work and projects. Thoughts and major spoilers below.

Well Hiveswap 2 was certainly interesting! I can see why it took so long to make, and why Friendisms had to come first. That game certainly gives some more background lore to certain situations, though it also kind of… gave me certain character expectations that I feel were left unfulfilled. Like… given it is Alternia, and Doc Scratch admitted to messing around with everyone involved via his whatever-it-was making people more open to befriending the reader, I guess I’m not entirely surprised how certain situations ended up? Just… severely disappointed.

As far as gameplay goes, I think that the item management system was a little better than in part one, and it was cool that you actually got to switch between playing as Joey and playing as Xefros, and that they each had different commentary when you clicked on things. There is also a replayability factor, which is nice. The music was also really cool, especially how you could tell that the same melody was being used in every train car, just changed up a little to better fit the “theme” of the castes present in the cars. And that even held true when it got a lot darker/more depressing during the final quest! I’m also extremely glad that there was a functional hint system, because there were times when I really, really needed it.

But the bee minigame came pretty much out of nowhere, and the formatting for the directions was horrendous because it gave them to you after the game already started. Not in a tutorial fashion, either! Which meant that I couldn’t really read or understand what was actually going on until I’d failed the game two or three times, making the whole thing really tedious. Also… I’m kind of annoyed at how little actually got carried over when you use the “import Act 1 data” function? Like… inventory was the same, and maybe there were some things I missed, but it didn’t keep the name I gave Dammek’s lusus! It didn’t even use the default name for that option, either, or even throw in a line about Xefros telling you what it’s actual name was at some point while you were fleeing, which would at least explain the discrepancy.

Then there was the jade and teal car… and oh boy do I have a lot of complaints against that car. It’s honestly the one I had the most problems with, from both a gameplay and story perspective. For one thing, it dragged on way, way too long—especially for a middle section of the game. It would have worked a lot better as an endgame thing, I think, just in terms of the way games and stories are supposed to ramp up the action as you play, so things get progressively harder as you go. While there was some nice foreshadowing of how depraved the purple caste really is during that section… like the early game foreshadowing for it, it only really works effectively if you know the source material.

I mean. I guess Xefros’ discomfort in general works and gives it more of a wham/gut-punch for those who don’t know the source ahead of time, but… still.

Anyways, the length isn’t my only complaint with that section. The story was very interesting, I’ll admit, but the execution was not very good, especially when it came to the evidence. Now, I know this is apparently a common complaint with Phoenix Wright games, which that section is based on—that there is a specific order and place you need to use specific pieces of evidence, even when logic dictates that there is a far simpler solution to the problem. Like… at one point you need to come up with a motive for Tegiri to be hanging out by the Jade lockers. Considering that the entire trial has to do with the theft of a “forbidden book on rainbow drinkers,” this is something you find out during the evidence collection phase before the trial even begins, and another piece of evidence collected clearly states (or at least implies extremely heavily) that Tegiri is into rainbow drinker stuff, one would think that piece of evidence would be enough for a motive, right? Wrong. Instead, you have to use a broken action figure… and then you STILL use the other piece of evidence to show that he’s into weird romance stuff and would have been interested in reading the book! And that’s not the only time stuff like that happens!

Not to mention the section in the middle where the trial takes recess. The dialogue implies that what’s happening is you’re getting the chance to collect more evidence and statements… but, no, what’s actually happening is that you’re supposed to be taking this time to accuse other people of actually being the culprit by combining two pieces of evidence. The problem is, it doesn’t tell you this is what’s happening, give you any warning that you won’t be able to talk to the people you’re accusing again if you combine the wrong evidence, or let you use any selection screen aside from the evidence ones when it would be extremely helpful to be able to check on the timeline or suspect section again in order to get a refresher on where everyone was. And one of the pieces of evidence is a diary—but once you have it in your possession, you can’t check the relevant entry again! It only says who the diary belongs to and that some of it is censored. And since there is reason to believe that someone else messed with the diary to implicate the owner, it would be very helpful to actually get to explore that further in depth!

I really do hope that this is a case where there are multiple different endings, since the way it left off on my playthrough left an extremely bitter taste in my mouth, especially in regards to Tyzias’s character, who I actually really, really liked in Friendisms! But here… I got the “Scapegoat” achievement (which is why I’m hoping that there are other ways to complete this section), with the end result being that even though we got our client declared innocent, we also got an innocent (or at least, one heavily implied to be innocent afterwards) person declared guilty—in part because our co-counsel did not inform us of the fact that she witnessed evidence being tampered with and, in fact, knew who the true culprit was all along. And while her “Experiment” was deemed a success—and, I suppose, was technically successful within the set rules and did actually follow the whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing—it just highlighted that legislacerators still don’t actually care about justice. She could have, at any point, chimed in about what she saw, but was more interested in “keeping the peace” afterwards than actually getting the true culprit. And, yeah, baby steps and all, but…

I suppose thematically it does work well considering what happens at the end of the game when reaching the purple car, but…

I just thought better of Tyzias, is all. Friendisms implied that she was a real revolutionary for change, and, yes, I know that this wouldn’t be obvious to someone who didn’t play that game and some allowances must be made for that, but… even so, it just seems really out of character, and I don’t think it can all be blamed on forgetting lessons they learned while hanging out with the Reader/those things not actually happening in this continuity, for whatever reason (though, given how Fozzer was acting, and the fact that Chixie brings up the whole “Mask” persona, I’m pretty sure that we can assume they all remember some things that happened… just in a way that’s vague enough that those who played Friendisms can catch the references while those who didn’t won’t be lost on what’s going on)

…And, in hindsight, the whole thing was probably unnecessary to begin with since the book actually got found before the idea off a trial even came up??? I mean, part of that is because Marvus suddenly wandered in and seemed very interesting in holding one, and they didn’t want to upset him, but… yeah, it’s definitely a case of “this all could have been avoided,” especially since the book is apparently only forbidden for the jades to read. But I’m willing to give that one a pass, since trolls are weird and there were various circumstances escalating the situation.

I still think that Tagora had something to do with it, given what we know about his infatuation with Rainbow Drinkers from Friendisms… but that never actually came up in the game? I see where there may have been an opportunity for it, but it wasn’t a very clear-cut one and, at least the direction my playthrough went—would have required the player to actually have done his route in Friendisms.

(EDIT: Apparently there are some different ways to do this trial, according to some things already up on Steam, but they are dependent on some very early choices in the game--which would presumably affect some other choices in later games, and which means that i’m going to have to do many different playthroughs if i want to see everything available--and it still isn’t likely to remove the taint on my feelings towards Tyzias. After all, I’ll know that such capabilities for ruthlessness remain in her character, whether or not they’re actively showing.)

Also, hero-mode Xefros looks a lot older than I thought he was. And apparently joey is old enough to at least be a Freshman in high school??? I thought she was still in middle school!

As for other characters… some I felt were still in-character, some weren’t. Like… for what little we actually saw of Karako’s personality, considering he doesn’t really talk, I thought he was fine… despite being extremely surprised he was actually on the train at all considering his youth and, well, what little personality we saw indicating that he doesn’t really do “civilization” much. But the twins… while they were spot-on amongst themselves (resulting in an extremely chilling and heartbreakingly well-done scene near the ending), they seemed a lot more vicious in regards to their interactions with others. Wanshi apparently developed a real cruel streak in this game, and, ironically, Tirona was actually a whole lot nicer and not actually a suspect of that trial, despite being put on the stand as a witness.

I was also a bit disappointed that there weren’t more of those clever fight scenes we had from Act 1, where there was puzzle solving going on mid-fight—there were only two of them, one being so forgettable that I pretty much only remembered it existed just this second, and only the last one was really clever. There was at least one, maybe two other points where it would have been really cool/creative if Joey could have solved things with dance in a battling format… but her use of her dancing shoes was only plot important at two points in the game—and that first point wasn’t even her doing actual dancing, but, rather, as a buildup for the bee minigame. And then she never even got to use her “bee dance” skills again. At least Xefros finally got to use his bat—but, again, it was only once where it was actually a useful tool. He did get to use psionics more, though.

 And there was a plot point with Skylla that was pretty much completely dropped? I mean… they did bring it up as something that was still unsolved right at the end, but… well, hopefully this just means that they’ll actually solve it for real in Act 3, because otherwise there was a perfectly good opportunity for a solution that Joey had in hand, but which didn’t get utilized. The issue is that Skylla’s lusus is apparently sick. One would think that this means that, assuming you carried over from part 1 (and I would assume even if you didn’t because it looks like a lot of the problems would be game-breakingly unsolvable if you didn’t have certain items you would have picked up through a playthrough of part 1. I guess that’s something to test for next time), this would require you to use the bestiary and vet kit, right? Wrong: I tried that and nothing happened. Apparently, the solution is that you promise Skylla you’ll look for medicine further down, and use that as a reason that Marsti should move away from the door so that you can pass by. But there’s never actually an option for you to look for the medication.

 …Now that I think about it, though, this would be the prime opportunity for some inadvertent (or intentional, as the case may be) foreshadowing from Act 1. Two opportunities, even, with one being far more obvious than the other. One could be that Joey makes some commentary about knowing exactly what to do, having seen a similar problem in her own “lusus”—her pet dog back home. The other could be that Ladyy isn’t actually sick, but is instead pregnant and having little lusus puppies—which would be a callback to that Puppy Surprise doll from Act 1 where Joey hid her keys.

 Still. I don’t like the fact that it never got solved in this part. Also that Vikare didn’t really get to do much (despite how annoying and confusing I myself find him) and that we didn’t get to see Fozzer again on the train even though we got to see several others on the train who we first saw at the station.

I’m also wondering what’s going to happen in part 4? Obviously part 3 is going to be either the party or further attempts to reach the party (and the suddenness of what happened with the ending does lend some more seriousness to the whole “you only have eleven days before everything gets destroyed thing), but… I’d assumed going in that two parts would be dedicated to Joey’s story, and two to Dammek’s, but apparently that’s not the case? If Joey really does get four parts to herself… then what the heck is Dammek’s story going to entail? I mean… those monsters, obviously, and whoever Jude’s “friends” are, but… I don’t know. I feel like it’s going to be hard to top this.

 As far as lore goes… apparently the maturation trials are not the same thing as the exile, since Zebruh mentions already having gone through his, yet he is still on Alternia for what is implied to be… at least two sweeps, I think it was? I think he said he went through them at seven, and Chahut is approaching 9 or ten and mentions being only a perigee away from leaving. So that’s interesting. I guess the maturation trials are the equivalent of a career aptitude test or something?

 It does make me wonder what happens with the Jades, though. Unless there are more mothergrubs on other planets, what do they even do when they’re off world, since apparently they are specifically tested when they are a lot younger to see who actually is assigned to the caverns vs. just living outside with everyone else. I guess maybe they just get jobs that are slightly more prestigious than olives, but still under teals? That would at least make sense for the ones who weren’t assigned to work in the caverns. Though it does make me wonder about Kanaya a little bit—had there been no game involved, would she still be considered “special” like the jades from Hiveswap given what her lusus was, except that because of said lusus she had to live outside of the caverns? It was, after all, implied that virgin mother grubs and their matriorbs were extremely rare. 

Also, considering how full this train was, and the caste segregation going on, I’m wondering why the train from Sollux’s route in Pesterquest was so empty, and how he could apparently just get on any car he wanted. I mean—sure, he ended up in a car that only had an olive on it, but considering they were literally the only other passenger besides reader, that may have just been a coincidence. It can’t have been that there were separate waiting platforms for the different castes, either, since everyone was mingling together in Hiveswap before separating by car. Is it just that everyone was going to the party, but the train otherwise doesn’t get much use, or something like that? Or did it have more to do with whatever the ramifications were for Trizza’s defeat? …Or possibly the fact that the attack on the train at the end just made people still extremely wary about travelling by rail even sweeps after the fact?

 There’s probably some more lore I can touch on, but… honestly, the trial section left me so upset that I can’t really put much of that together right now. I think I was going to say something about how the Jades would also be a good source of keeping culture alive between heiresses, since apparently they’re actually charged with doing so… but it’s hard to tell how much of that culture is just jade culture specifically vs. the rest of Alternia. Or even how much of it was actually serious, rather than a thinly veiled reason to let everyone indulge in things like tabloids, celebrity magazines, and rainbow drinker books.

Oh, yeah, and I’m pretty sure that Diemen at one point implied that his hot dog was actually made out of someone specific, though I’m not sure at this point whether that someone was his lusus, or if it was a troll. Either way, if that’s true, then it definitely explains why he is so protective of that specific hot dog.

EDIT: I remembered what the other bit of lore I wanted to discuss was. Well. I mean, it might not be considered “lore” as such, but... it’s interesting that of the two major rebellions we know of, both were headed by bronzebloods--that being the Summoner and Dammek. At least, I assume Dammek is the one heading the current rebellion. I wonder it it’s just a coincidence, or if there is something in bronzeblood nature that makes them more likely to lean towards these sorts of reactions? We know Dammek’s breed of lusus apparently favors strong leaders, and given the blood color would only be seeking out other bronzes (except perhaps when they hit the “my charge just died/got culled” stage and go looking for someone else to adopt, given what is happening with Joey), but presumably the Summoner had the same lusus type as Tavros. I dunno, it’s just interesting to think about.

Anyways... Overall I did really like the game! I loved the tone, despite how depressing it got at times, and Xefros’ and Joey’s developing relationship is amazing. I look forward to part 3. Hopefully it won’t take as long to come out.

[thyandrawrites]

I’m asking you because I’m just really curious what other hints are there and I’m not messing with you

oh, okay, sorry! I just talk constantly about how Dabi is Touya so you caught me a little off guard there. 

In case you’re interested, I have a masterpost of all my meta on the subject that you can find here. It’s pretty long though, so in the meantime, let’s do a recap.

A not exhaustive list of hints of why Dabi is Touya (includes manga spoilers)

 1. Touya was said to have a greater firepower than Enji. Dabi’s flames are blue, thus burning hotter than Enji’s. Touya was also said to have a genetic makeup that made his body unsuited to handle fire (as it was better suited for ice). Dabi gives off a burnt-flesh smell every time he overuses his quirk because his body can’t handle the heat for long. 

2. When Dabi was first introduced, he made it a point not to say his real name to the League. From a narrative perspective, it makes no sense for Hori to choose not to disclose his name if he were a character with no ties to the existing cast. By making him use a pseudonym, and by drawing our attention to the fact, Hori wanted us to know that maybe we do already know who he is.

3. Following this pattern, whenever Touya appeared in flashbacks, we never saw his face properly. Once, he was giving us his back. The other time, he had hair covering up his eyes. Again, no need for the mystery if he didn’t prove to be someone we already knew. 

4. Dabi has blue eyes the same shade as Enji. He also almost certainly dyes his hair, and this might or might not be an attempt to hide his real identity. 

5. Dabi was introduced in the story as a follower of Stain. Stain wanted to rid society of the “rotten heroes” who are in it for the glory and fame. Stain hated individualistic heroes who only ever thought about their own gain, and almost attacked Endeavor himself when they faced each other for the first time. Of course an ideology that legitimizes the hatred Touya felt for his abusive father would definitely appeal to him enough to become a villain.

6. During his first appearance, Dabi was shown following the news report on the facts of Hosu. Officially, Endeavor is the one who defeated Stain. This is a very neat way to establish a conflict. As far as we know, Dabi hadn’t committed any major crimes before this point. Then we saw him following Stain’s case closely, sympathize with Stain’s ideology, notice his father’s involvement, and then reaching out to those who were said to have had ties with Stain, the LoV. 

7. Here’s an extensive meta on this, but despite following Stain’s ideology (at least on the surface), imho what really appealed to Dabi was the fact that Stain was the only person who addressed that there can be bad heroes, thus legitimizing his personal vendetta. He’s a revenge-driven character, not an ideology driven one, and that aligns perfectly with him being Touya Todoroki. 

8. When Enji first properly faced Dabi, his vision was blurry and unfocused. From a narrative perspective, there’s no point in that unless Horikoshi didn’t want him to immediately recognize Dabi as his son and keep the reveal for much later on. If Enji is being set up to fail as the number one, and he needs to fail to realize that his current way of “making amends” isn’t enough, then Dabi’s reveal as Touya will play a major role in that. But first, he needed to establish Enji as someone successful, in order to make his fall more impactful later on, and that couldn’t have happened if the truth about the abuse came out before the public could applaud him (it still sucks tho)

9. Dabi being Touya perfectly fits the Golden Child vs Scapegoat theme that Enji’s Narcisistic Personality Disorder has going on. If you read on the subject, you’ll find a lot of similarities with the Todoroki family dynamics. Shouto, with the perfect balance between ice and fire that Enji had always wanted, is the golden child, while Touya, with his “faulty” and “worthless” quirk that damaged his body, is the perfect scapegoat. Here’s a brief summary of how this works (source): 

Shouto was constantly asked to give up his personal wishes in order to meet the expectations of his abuser (aka being his perfect heir and the recipient for all of Enji’s ambitions). Whenever Shouto failed to meet those expectations, he was always mocked and belittled (”are you done with your childish tantrum?”). He ended up losing contact with his authentic self (until he met Midoriya who reminded him that his flames are his own power and not just Enji’s shadow). Touya was the scapegoat given cruelty (being called worthless), criticism and shaming (”he was almost perfect. Almost.”). He ended up leaving the abusive family and became Dabi. 

10. Dabi’s burns are on the same ares of skin from where both Shouto and Enji emit their own flames. 

11. Here’s a meta on this, but Dabi has an established pattern where he always mocks heroes for prioritizing saving people over anything else. He shows this with every pro hero or hero trainee he meets, except for one, Enji. Enji who is an abusive piece of shit who never cared about anyone but himself. 

12. When thinking about Snatches’ words (“didn’t you think of how their families would feel?”), Dabi was shown in a sympathetic manner, hinting that family is a sore subject for him too. 

13. Dabi and Shouto have A LOT of things in common and here’s a good list of them. (I made one too but Rina’s actually a serious list unlike my own, lol) 

14. Dabi’s panicked expression mirrors Rei’s (see here). 

15. When they go all out, both Dabi and Shouto can summon massive amounts of fire/ice at the drop of a hat, and both are shown to have very little restraint and concern about their surrounding when they’re in a tight spot. Here’s a visual of what I’m talking about. 

16. Dabi and Shouto also show really similar fighting style, suggesting they were trained by the same person or raised observing one: 

17. Rina already mentioned this if you read their post, but let me just emphasize it again: much like pre-development Shouto, Dabi shows signs of being uncooperative and highly individualistic, mirroring their father’s mindset. While Shouto later on learned to trust his classmates though, Dabi never did. (here’s another meta on this)

18. Whenever Dabi met a Todoroki, he always called them by their full name. He only ever does this with the Todorokis.

19. It’s possible (if not implied) that the reason why Dabi was willing to listen to Hawks despite Hawks being a very recognizable top hero and also very good at his job, was that Hawks insulted Enji’s approach on heroics on live television.

20. Dabi has beef with Endeavor specifically, because not only did he change the plans for the attack in Fukuoka only after he learned that Hawks had brought Enji along, but he also shows an incredible amount of emotion (something very unlike him) when he might just be able to finally kill him, something he very likely spent a lot of time fantasizing about. He was positively thrilled, and he was smiling so hard his staples almost tore his skin. That’s a pretty big hint that it was personal.

21. Dabi started really hating Apocrypha after he made a speech that really mirrored Enji’s own mindset. 

I’m probably still missing some because as I said before, there’s loads of hints. Forgive me in advance if that’s the case 

[yfere]

Two things

I finished the episode! And as always, have thoughts on both Essek As Possible Traitor and the M9′s approach to the BQ....

...And let’s start with the second thing first. I understand but disagree with the decision (was it intentional?) to withold the information about the Beacon offered to the Dynasty NOT being the one stolen from them, but a third, additional Beacon unearthed at Pride’s Call. This being that, while the M9 were able to use language about a “returning” of Beacons to successfully urge the BQ into the first stage of peace negotiations, I sincerely doubt there won’t be fallout when the BQ hears the Empire’s very official line of “we never stole anything, but you can have this Beacon if it’s so important to you I guess.” She’s invested in the Beacon not just as a cultural artifact, but as something that belonged to them, and which literally contains the souls of her people. She also wants “amends” to be made to her in the way Caleb Widogast has offered, which means she wants either the Empire to admit to responsibility or to work with her in proving that a third party is responsible for all that has happened, and bringing that third party to justice. 

I believe that if the M9 had been more directly forthright about the status of the Beacon being offered (vague statements about “the Assembly trying to bend the situation for their own ends” is profoundly unhelpful without the evidence leading to these suspicions) they would have increased their standing and trustworthiness to the BQ and also likely been given additional official leeway to investigate the continued deception being perpetuated by agents within the Empire. Convincing her to agree to peace talks while having this information and being on her guard, while using the situation for their ends--that’s helpful, while keeping her in the dark due to her uncompromising anger over the war is good in the moment but could backfire catastrophically 

Which brings us to Essek,

a suspected traitor. He also deliberately witheld information from the BQ during the meeting--his motivation clearly being to as cleanly as possible place all blame on the Taskhand for the stolen Beacons and end the investigation (the how and justice of the matter not being as important to him). As long as the investigation remains open, suspicion is also cast on him, and we’ve seen the wear of that on him in previous sessions. But he certainly didn’t hinder the M9 voicing their messy suspicions of the Cult of Tharizdun, either. I hypothesize that while Essek’s status as a traitor is a possibility, that Beau is incorrect in her overall assumption of the cult of Tharizdun as a third party being responsible for the escalation of the conflict--rather, I think that the Assembly at least and Essek possibly is using the activities of the cult of Tharizdun for their own ends--manipulating their zealots both to control the direction of the war and as a convenient scapegoat to their own activities.

As Essek has admitted, his standing is reliant in part on the M9′s activities in Xhorhas. Den Thelyss is the one who immediately and tellingly took a gamble on the M9 in the immediate aftermath of their heroics with the dodecahedron and offered them sanctuary/a home within the city. Essek has also actively encouraged the hunt for Obann and the Angel of Irons cult, been a valuable assist in the chase, and in vouching for the M9 has gained influence as they have accrued success. The Shadowhand would be keenly aware that not only is he in the perfect position to frame another person for betrayal in the BQ’s court (he’s a master of intelligence and interrogation and therefore holds most all the cards in these matters) but that everyone in the BQ court would know that as well and therefore suspect his findings. Bringing in the vocally neutral M9 to lend credibility to his case and muddy the waters further by accusing the cult of Tharizdun would accomplish his goals very well--because of their trustworthiness in the court, they are perhaps the only ones capable of truly deflecting suspicion off himself. And it’s relatively simple to keep off their bad books, isn’t it--just be friends, just give them help when they ask for it (homes and spells and transportation, oh my). Express sympathy for their goals!

Of course, Essek desperately manipulating an investigation to ensure his continued survival doesn’t automatically mark him a traitor--innocent or guilty, his life was at risk and he would gain from ending things quickly and cleanly. And him using the M9 to leverage political power when he himself is a youngster and a newcomer to the Dens without much clout extending beyond his status as a prodigy--that doesn’t point to guilt either. It’s just that he would certainly not be hurt by any of this, were he a traitor. 

As for the Cult--I think it more likely they are being used as tools than it being the other way around. We already know that the locations the Anchors were dropped in were targeted to have a discernible impact on the war (like the one in the mountains being made to cripple the mines and therefore the Dynasty’s ability to create weapons). We know from Jester’s first scry that Vence was not an orchestrator but rather an underling in his own cult’s hierarchy taking orders from others, and we know Obann was likely acting in ignorance of the true nature of his god (unlike Vence) and, if that is the case, would be be even lower on the totem pole when it comes to having an idea of the bigger picture at play.

 That the Anchors were planted within the Empire does not at all forestall the possibility of the Assembly being responsible--the motivation most obviously presenting itself being to take advantage of a continued war to eventually wrest political control away from King Dwendal and seizing it themselves, thus ending the “cooperation” between the two factions in running Empire affairs and settling things decidedly in their own favor. The Cultists directly involved in these affairs were direct underlings of important members of the Assembly--meaning it’s easy enough to dispose of them when their activities become inconvenient, and also easy to disown them and claim ignorance when they are discovered. “Oh dear, both of us have been manipulated!” they cry to King Dwendal and the Bright Queen, making a gift of these agents while remaining in the clear themselves. 

The difference being that Vence is a confirmed member of the cult who was probably given all the tools by his superiors he needed to escape unscathed, while the Taskhand rather had a clumsy bit of mind alteration performed on him which would have aroused suspicion, had the M9 not been around to point that suspicion back at the Cult Of Tharizdun.

What I want to know is more about Dynasty history and politics. What would give someone like Essek, or indeed anyone else in the court the incentive to cooperate with the Assembly, which we have reason to think is being done outside of cult activities? What Dens or people have beef with the BQ, and are willing to use Tharizdun and fanatics to hurt her?

[a-marriedgames-universe-blog]

Why We Need Gaming News

Evidently not a day goes by with out studying of the grotesque horrors related to modern day life. As with films and TV in days passed by it will seem the standard Video Game has emerged as the nice terror influencing the youth of right this moment's fashionable British society.

20 years ago in the event you were to say the words online game to anyone it could conjure up pictures of fats moustache sporting Italian named plumbers making their way by means of a two-tone facet scrolling magical land to an infuriatingly repetitive 8-bit noticias gamessoundtrack. However if you utter the identical two phrases in 2009 you might be likely to be greeted with a gasps and sighs of disgust as the image of a hooded teen in a darkened room with a yr's supply of vitality drinks and crisps piled up beside them.

It appears very a lot that Video Games have change into the enemy of the 21st Century however given the contradictory nature of online game critics it is difficult to take this view severely, however that has not stopped passionate advocates of contemporary day video games doing their upmost in protest of this Our Blog new medium of violence. None maybe have finished extra for the trigger than Florida based mostly attorney Jack Thompson. Thompson has made it his mission over the past decade to rid the world of violent video video games and guarantee those who do slip by way of the new don't fall in to the palms of minors.

Mr. Thompson has a specific bee in his bonnet regarding one Edinburgh based mostly publisher Rockstar Games. Since the launch of Grand Theft Auto and the Creation of Rockstar video games in 1997 the world of video game critics rejoiced at this new 'scapegoat', the mix of on display violence and hands on recreation play led to issues that video video games could be conditioning youngsters in relation to extreme violence. The video games questionable graphics and soundtrack result in many claims being dismissed, because it was not believed a title with such graphics may have a serious influence on a minors mind.

This changed with the release of the PlayStation 2 in 2000 and Grand Theft Auto three the next yr, this for the primary time bought truly 3D gaming to users. It was with the release of GTA 3 that Jack Thompson's ears pricked up with nice consideration Married Games and it wasn't long earlier than he was at it again. In 2003 Dustin Lynch made an madness plea after being accused of homicide claiming he was 'obsessed' with the sport and been influenced by the sport's depiction of graphic violence.

The plea was retracted and his mother acknowledged that it had nothing to do with Video Games. As video video games have improved each graphically and by way of recreation play they have taken https://marriedgames.com.br/ on new roles in society and in recent times have seen a return to the family orientated leisure hub of yesteryear however can online game developers really declare complete innocence?

The Call of Responsibility sequence is without doubt one of the hottest and successful franchises in video game historical past and has even been adopted by the US army as a manner of coaching the US armies troopers in strategic fight so does this not implement the argument that video video games can indeed 'prepare' gamers Wikipedia Here in violent conditions? Well not precisely sure the advancements made in video games has made the level of realism unquestionably detailed however can it actually be argued that at the moment's youth are uneducated enough to battle to distinguish between actual life and quite a few coloured pixels on a tv display screen?

The contradictory nature I referred to earlier performs into this subject. Weight problems in recent times has change into a real hot subject within the USA and certainly Britain and what was being blamed? Sure, that is proper the time being spent in front of the small screen playing video games, so personally I discover it very troublesome to imagine these overweight avid gamers who apparently spend nothing wanting 'all' their time in front of the tv inflicting mayhem and dysfunction on the streets of this nation.

The online game ranking system ensures titles intended for adults usually are not offered to minors nevertheless it does not make sure that they will not be performed by such minors in some unspecified time in the future. An analogous ranking system is in place in the USA nonetheless it is not nearly as tight as that within the UK and mature titles have been bought to underage US kids.

Grand Theft Auto although a favourite for the prosecution just isn't the only franchise to be blamed, the Virginia Tech bloodbath in 2007 which saw the worst shootings of its form in fashionable history, Jack Thompson was fast to put the blame firmly at Social Profile the door of this exciting entertainment type after he acknowledged, killer Seung-Hui Cho was a fan of first person shooter counterstrike nevertheless it was later revealed by Cho's roommates that they had never even seen him taking part in the sport.

By no means the less the declare had great resonance here within the UK resulting in many retailers refusing to stock sure titles one in all which is another of Rockstar's titles 'Canis Canem Edit' originally generally known as bully which underwent a name change for the UK market due to strain on the publisher, despite the sport utterly advocating bullying. The bloodbath also contributed to the banning of the sequal to controversial Manhunt in the UK market.

As with mobile phones and their apparent hyperlinks to cancer much analysis has been executed in to the link between violence and video games, and it is not just violence that has been researched, oh no, it's also video video games obvious glamorization of intercourse, medicine and maybe even rock and roll'. And what is the conclusion? Nicely unsurprisingly research confirmed no significant hyperlink between video games and violent crimes, sexual assault or drug consumption. Nevertheless alcohol however might be immediately linked with the above however has this led to a world damning of alcohol? No. So what of our buddy Mr.

Thompson? What did he make of this analysis? Effectively, not much because it occurs nonetheless in a sign that video games are 'preventing again' in a very non violent approach after all he has since been barred by the state of Florida from filing any new circumstances as a result of improper conduct and abusing the system.

So nice news video games are off the hook, nicely if only it had been that straightforward. Critics will proceed to search for a simple excuse in justifying a teen's behaviour and when the white coat clad forensics transfer in they may nicely proceed to march previous the sawed off shot gun and the newest edition of shooting for beginners and march straight for the games room and the latest online game with an 18 certificates. However I ask these critics to contemplate this, the gangs or the games which got here first? In the meantime we await the most recent medium that may warp and destroy the minds of the children of the world abandoning logic, cause in favour of blaming the glamorous and evolving world of contemporary leisure.

Free online video games have got to be some of the extensive and helpful forms of leisure available on the Web. Web sites all around the world are providing free video games online with a whole bunch of mystery games on easy to use and family friendly web sites. Most web sites nowadays that offer some kind of entertainment or free online games will offer you a publication and give you a approach to keep updated on the most recent news, games, and leisure they've to supply to you.

Some video games will embrace the most well-liked characters that can continually preserve youngsters coming back for more. Mystery games with characters they love will keep them addicted to their free online video games. Some online gaming web sites will offer different types to ladies which are focused only for them in which they are going to enjoy essentially the most. There might be an in depth checklist of video games designed just for them.

Many games are contain using your expertise and require academic studying. Thriller games during which will educate you and make your gaming experience not only fun, however useful. A big free online gaming web site will offer an enormous number of free games for toddlers, kids, teens, and even adults. One of the vital common, best, and most up to date gaming web sites will offer you the power to enroll and can allow you to be interactive with all the things. Many web sites provide this neat means. If you end up provided the possibility to sign up, achieve this. It is possible for you to to touch upon games, write evaluations, message other members, and produce alongside your family and friends.

In the event you consistently end up searching for free online video games and might by no means find that one web site that provides you every part you want and need, search now more. Lately everybody has access to the Internet. Web sites are constantly being created, designed, and maintained. Remember there needs to be somebody to do that, however nonetheless there are hundreds of thousands of individuals on the earth and plenty of them enjoy being on-line.

The leisure by no means stops in the case of the online world. If you're tired of searching for the unique and weird sport, just cease. You're positive to seek out it when all you need to do is go online to your favorite search engine and easily sort in exactly what you need. There are such a lot of games as we speak that it would be inconceivable to not discover the mystery video games that you want to play essentially the most.

[chasholidays]

bellarke but clarke and murphy have a weird understanding slash ride or die friendship that they don’t admit to

according to my notes, this also coincidentally fulfills @pepperf’s prompt for Bellamy in makeup, so although tumblr will not let me tag you I hope you see this anyway

Before Clarke and Murphy became friends, Clarke didn’t really think Murphy had friends. He was the kid who sat in the back of every class and made sarcastic comments and never seemed to really interact with anyone else. If someone had told Clarke that he just ceased to exist when he exited her line of sight, she would have believed them. He certainly never seemed to do anything with a lasting impact.

And then, he shows up at the first GSA meeting of tenth grade.

As someone who joined thinking she was on the “straight” side of the alliance, Clarke does get that not everyone who joins the GSA is gay, but she has trouble imagining Murphy just showing up to be a supportive ally. Even if he is somewhere on the LGBT+ spectrum, Clarke is still kind of shocked he’s showing up. She didn’t think Murphy participated in groups of any kind.

Not that he really participates in GSA either. He introduces himself only as “Murphy” every time they go around the circle for names/orientations, and then he sits in the back and cracks quiet jokes when the opportunity arises. It’s like having another class with him, except that no one is forcing him to be there. This is what he chooses to do with his time.

“It’s weird, right?” she asks Finn. He doesn’t belong to the GSA, but she gives him the updates.

Finn shrugs. “I guess. Why do you care what Murphy does?”

“I just don’t get it.”

“You don’t have to understand everything, princess,” he teases, and Clarke just rolls her eyes. Obviously she doesn’t have to understand, but she still wants to.

Sign-ups for the group trip to Pride happen in May, and Murphy is behind her in line, so he’s there when Taylor asks, “You’re coming, Clarke?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Pride is for LGBT members, not allies.”

“I’m bi, remember?” It’s still new, saying it out loud, a word that tastes clunky in her mouth, but it feels right. After she and Finn break up, she’d like to date a girl. That’s an experience she wants to have.

“Oh, well, still,” says Taylor, like that’s somehow all he needs to say.

Clarke’s eyebrows shoot up. “Still what?”

“Well, you’re with Finn. I feel like it doesn’t look good for straight-passing people to be in the group.”

Clarke’s jaw drops, and she’s glad it’s anger that floods her veins and not humiliation. Taylor’s never been her favorite person, but even from him, this is a lot.

Defenses crowd her mind, but so do the inevitable counterarguments. She’s had this debate with herself so many times, if she can really be bi if she’s never kissed a girl, how she can know, how she can consider herself a part of the community when she’s dating a guy. She got through all of those things for herself, but if Taylor doesn’t think she’s bi enough for Pride, she doesn’t have any better argument than “I think I am.”

Unexpectedly, Murphy pipes up. “Hey, dipshit, she’s bi, that means she can go to Pride. What’s the holdup?”

“And whybare you going, Murphy?” Taylor shoots back. “I still don’t know why you’re here in the first place.”

“You don’t get to vet people’s sexual orientations,” Clarke says. “We all heard Pride isn’t for allies, so anyone signing up is queer. Like me.”

“I’m asexual,” Murphy says. “Is that good enough for you? I’m genuinely curious,” he adds. “If you think bi girls with boyfriends don’t belong, I’m guessing you’re not real big on letters that don’t even make the main acronym.”

Taylor’s jaw works. “Obviously, if you think you should come, I can’t stop you, I just think you should consider that it’s not entirely appropriate for–”

“You know what? Fine. I’m not coming with you.” Clarke grabs a sharpie from the bucket on the desk, crossing her name out so hard it’s probably going to bleed through to the table. “But I’ll see you there. Because I belong there.”

She’s out of the classroom before she realizes Murphy followed her.

“If I stayed there I was just going to have to talk to Taylor,” he says, with a small shrug. “Didn’t seem worth it.”

Clarke smiles with half her mouth. “Yeah, I guess not. You want a ride to Pride?”

“If you’re driving, yeah.”

And just like that, they’re friends.

*

Junior year, motivated primarily by spite and a mutual dislike of Taylor, Clarke and Murphy start a Queer Student Union, open to everyone who identifies as queer. To Clarke’s surprise, Murphy not only cares about LGBT issues, he’s actually shockingly informed about them. He identifies as biromantic asexual, although he admits the biromantic part feels a lot more theoretical than the asexual part, mostly because he has yet to meet anyone he likes enough he wants to be romantic with them. But he’s theoretically open to it. He’s done a lot of reading on not only sexuality stuff, but feminism and general activism, mostly because he seems interested in it. Academically, he’s not the greatest, but he’s intellectually curious, likes learning when he’s engaged.

When Finn cheats on her a few months later, he eggs Finn’s car, which is one of those things that Clarke would never approve of and would have told him not to do if he asked, but since he didn’t and she had no idea until several days after it happened, she doesn’t have to even pretend to not be happy.

It feels like the kind of relationship that might not survive college, but they both end up in Boston. Clarke’s at Harvard because she’s that over-achieving legacy kid, and Murphy goes to UMass because Clarke pointed out he could actually get a BA in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies while still avoiding the classes he hates, which is his ideal learning environment.

It turns out he’s a good litmus test for her pretentious Harvard friends, less because he’s a good judge of character and more because it’s useful to see how other people react to him. Clarke doesn’t really care if they like Murphy–Murphy doesn’t care about being liked much–but how and why they dislike him and how they deal with it tends to give her some good insight into whether or not they’re worth befriending. She and Lexa break up in part because Murphy and Lexa never figure out how to coexist, while Murphy and Niylah’s weird friendship is part of why Clarke starts hooking up with her.

“He’s like all the parts of you that you want to pretend you don’t have,” Niylah observes one night, and Clarke frowns.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re supposed to be–The perfect princess. Rich, straight A’s, top of your class at Harvard. And then there’s Murphy, your excuse for not liking people. The scapegoat for all your worst instincts.”

“You have a very weird idea of what makes good pillow talk,” Clarke teases.

“I just think it’s interesting. Have you ever heard the term morality pet?”

“No, psych major.”

Niylah doesn’t bother responding to that. “It’s a concept in fiction. You’ve got a bad character you need to humanize, so they have a morality pet, the sympathetic character that they actually treat well, the one who’s there to make you think the villain isn’t all bad. Murphy’s your immorality pet. He’s the asshole you like because part of you is an asshole too.”

“I can’t believe this is what you think about right after sex.”

Niylah grins, rolls over for a kiss. “I just think it’s an interesting dynamic. The two of you simultaneously make each other better and worse people.”

“That sounds about right,” Clarke agrees, and tugs her closer, ending the talking for a while.

She and Niylah never get quite to being in a relationship, so when they graduate, they don’t break up so much as move apart. Niylah goes back to California, and Clarke stays in Boston in a cheap two-bedroom apartment with Murphy.

Sometimes, she thinks about what her ninth-grade self would think about her life: openly and comfortably bisexual, working in a museum instead of going to med school, living with John Murphy. Even her post-college self has trouble believing it’s real. But it’s good.

After six months of largely successful cohabitation when Murphy comes home late on a Saturday night with a giant bottle of flavored vodka and says, “We need to get drunk.”

Clarke never needs to be asked to drink shitty liquor twice. “Okay.”

Murphy roots around the fridge, frowning when all he finds is Coke and green powerade. “I thought we had lemonade.”

“Nope.”

“Well, this is going to taste shitty with the mixers we’ve got,” he says, frowning at the vodka, which is apparently raspberry flavored.

Clarke grabs the Coke. “If we drink the first one fast enough we won’t taste the second one.”

“Cheers to that,” says Murphy, and pours one generous slosh of booze into his world’s okayest sister mug and another into Clarke’s novelty Pikachu glass.

They’re adults.

After a glass and a half of raspberry-Coke vodka, Clarke asks, “Why are we getting drunk?”

“You need a reason?”

“I don’t, but it was your idea. What happened?”

Murphy makes a face, then drains his drink. “I think I’ve got a crush on a girl.”

It shouldn’t be unthinkable; romantic interest has always been a theoretical possibility for Murphy. He’s always said he could like someone, but Clarke sort of assumed he wouldn’t. It was just hard to imagine what Murphy with a crush would look like, and even harder to imagine Murphy’s type. What does he even like, in a person?

She wants to ask about a thousand questions, but she knows better. Murphy would just shut down. So instead she grabs the vodka, pours him more, and tops it off with what’s left of the Coke. “What girl?”

“She works at the pawn shop.”

John Murphy is probably the only person she knows who, in 2018, not only goes to a pawn shop, but goes to a pawn shop regularly enough to have developed feelings for someone who works there. It’s just so painfully Murphy.

“Is she just being polite to you because you’re a customer?”

He snorts. “She’s not polite to me. She’s an asshole. I keep trying to bring in stuff to sell and she tells me to get better shit.”

“That sounds about right, yeah.”

“So what do I do?”

“Can you just ask her if she wants to get a drink sometime?”

He pulls a face. “Pass.”

“Can you figure out a way to see her outside of the pawn shop without actually asking her?”

“I think she’s in a band.”

“So you got me drunk to agree to go to your crush’s concert with you? I’d do that anyway.”

“Isn’t that weird? Like–going to her concert?”

“How do you know she has a band?”

“She told me.”

“And the concert?”

“There’s a flyer by the register.”

“Did she ever mention it?”

“I asked her what it was and she said it was her band and they were decent.”

“So that seems like a pretty normal way to express interest in someone. You can just say you were curious or bored or whatever.”

“And you’re coming?”

“I’m coming.”

“Cool.” He groans and flops onto his back. “This already sucks.”

Clarke pats his shoulder. “You get used to it.”

*

Murphy’s crush’s name is Emori and she plays drums in a band called “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space,’” which seems like a lot of name for one band, but Murphy tells her it’s an X-Files reference, so at least it makes some sense. There are four of them, two other women on bass and guitar, and the lead singer, a guy with messy black hair and sharp black eyeliner who looks too pretty to be a real person. He’s got a decent voice too, deep and kind of rough, an unvarnished kind of sound that Clarke feels down to her toes.

“Do you know any of the other ones?” she asks Murphy.

“Nope,” he says. “She was right, though, they’re not bad.”

“They aren’t.” She pulls her attention away from the lead singer to focus on Emori, taking her in. She’s cute, with a big face tattoo that must have hurt like hell to get, and long brown hair pulled away from her face by a red bandanna. She’s wearing a black tank top that leaves her shoulders bare, showing off more ink that clearly continues under the fabric.

She’s not who she would have pictured for Murphy, but she also doesn’t know who she would have pictured. She’s always thought Murphy’s type was more about personality than appearance.

Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space” are the first of three no-name local bands in the set, and Murphy, being the disaster that he is, wants to just leaveas soon they’re off the stage. But Clarke sees the lead singer making his way to the bar, so she makes a quick decision.

“I’m going to go make friends with the rest of the band,” she says. “If you want to run away, you can go, but you’re own your own.”

She doesn’t give him a chance to respond, but she hears some spluttered protests that let her know he is following her, and bites back on her smile. It’s definitely a little bit selfish, but only a little; Murphy did ask for her help. Sort of.

There’s just enough free space next to the singer for Clarke to wedge herself in, and the guy glances over, mildly curious, but doesn’t say anything. She checks around for Murphy, finds he’s hanging back, and leans in to murmur, “Sorry, I’m trying to force my friend to flirt with your drummer.”

The guy’s eyebrows go up. This close, he’s even prettier, tan skin dotted with freckles, a small scar placed perfectly to bring attention to his lips, the eyeliner the icing on the cake. “I’m not sure how this is helping your friend flirt with my drummer,” he replies, just as low.

“If I’m here, he can’t talk to me.”

“My drummer eats guys alive.”

“I think he’s into that. That seems to be his type.”

“Huh.”

Clarke flags down the bartender and orders a beer. “You guys are really good,” she offers.

“Thanks.”

Okay, so, he’s hot, but aloof, and a little too full of himself, if Clarke is honest. The band is really good, but they’re playing a small venue in Cambridge. They’re not big enough that he should be above talking to people, so it’s probably just a personality trait.

“What’s your friend’s name?” he asks, not looking at her.

“Murphy.”

“He probably doesn’t have a chance.”

Clarke shrugs. “I’ll be proud of him if he just gives it a try.”

“Low standards, huh?” says the guy.

“He doesn’t get out much.”

“So, how long do I have to stay here for this?”

Clarke blinks. “Sorry?”

“You’re hitting on me. How long do I have to stay?”

“I didn’t know you were in a big hurry to be gone. I assumed you were at the bar because you wanted a drink. But I can go hit on someone else. Is your bass player into women?”

That perks him up, because he’s apparently the kind of asshole who thinks girl-on-girl is hot. “Possibly, but she’s got a boyfriend right now. Sorry.”

Clarke cracks her neck as an excuse to look around. Murphy is talking to Emori and she’s smiling, which means Clarke’s work here is done and she can leave the surly asshole alone. It’s always a shame when a hot boy in eyeliner lets her down, but she’ll live. “Oh well. Murphy’s set, so you should have a good rest of the night.”

He looks a little surprised. “Oh, uh, yeah. You too.”

Clarke raises her glass in salute and slides away from him, moving down the bar to a less crowded spot. She doesn’t let herself look back to see if he’s watching her, but she does let herself hope.

It would serve him right.

*

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Murphy doesn’t come up with a better way to flirt with Emori than going to her shows, which means that Clarke is also going to her shows, to be a supportive friend, and getting to know Emori and by extension the rest of the band.

Emori, at least, she likes. She’s quick and funny and takes no shit, which is perfect for Murphy, and despite what the surly singer said, she does seem kind of fond of him. It’s hard to get a great read on her, but she keeps coming to talk to Murphy, and Clarke doesn’t think she’s the type to talk to people unless she actually wants to. Their whole relationship seems to be based on talking shit, but that’s got to be Murphy’s type.

Raven and Echo–the bass and guitar players, respectively–are cool too, easy for Clarke to hang out with while Murphy’s busy with Emori. She likes them all, really. It’s not a hardship.

Except that there’s Bellamy, too.

She does want to like Bellamy, but she can’t get over thinking he’s just kind of an asshole. He’s never really as aloof as he was that first night again, seems to warm up once he’s realized that Emori doesn’t seem to be planning to kick Murphy’s ass, but he’s still kind of cold. And part of her can’t help feeling like she should get over it, that it’s unfair of her to hold a grudge for one night, but she just can’t figure out how to get along with Bellamy.

She does try, but from what she can tell, he doesn’t. She asks him about the band and he deflects, talking about how they’re not really that good, it’s just a hobby. She asks what his real job is and he makes a face, says it’s boring. It’s not as if every conversation is like that, but she always feels like he’s not that interested in the conversation, like he’s waiting for her to just stop talking to him.

“So stop talking to him,” Murphy says, with a shrug. “Who cares?”

“Do you like him?”

“I guess. It’s not like I’m making him a friendship bracelet or anything. Does it matter?”

“You’re my barometer, remember?”

His eyebrows shoot up. “You want to date Bellamy?”

“No!” she says, but it’s too late. Murphy’s running with it.

“I guess he’s probably kind of hot? Not my type, but makes sense for you. And you’re pissed because he’s not interested.”

“I don’t know why you’re acting like this is news.” It seems like a safer tactic than arguing. “I told you I tried to flirt with him the first day, it obviously didn’t work.”

“Yeah, but you’re still pissed,” he says. “So you’re still into him.”

“I want him to be into me.” If she can’t tell Murphy these things, what good is he? “I don’t get why he’s not.”

“Okay, but if you’re not into him, who cares? He doesn’t like you, you don’t like him, no harm, no foul, right? Way better than the alternative.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong. He should like me. At least as a person.”

“I think he’d be good for you.”

That actually does surprise her; she’s not sure he’s ever offered an unsolicited opinion on whether or not she should date someone.

“You do?”

“Yeah, probably. He’s a pretty decent guy and we have fun hanging out. Doesn’t take my shit and gives as good as he gets.”

“But he’s not into me, so I don’t know why we’re having this conversation.”

“Because you wanted to talk about him. You started it.”

“I was complaining.”

“You complain about him a lot.” Murphy groans. “Look, like him, don’t like him, I don’t give a shit. But if you don’t like him, stop caring what he thinks, stop talking to him, and let it go.”

It’s exactly what she should be doing; she flops onto his stomach with a groan of her own. “I hate you she says.”

“Yeah, I know.”

*

“So, I owe you an apology.”

It’s a week after her conversation with Murphy and Clarke has admitted, at least privately, that she still wants to make out with Bellamy and still might kind of like Bellamy, despite all logic and reason.

And now he’s smiling at her, nervous and casual in a t-shirt and glasses at Raven’s game night, and she has no idea what’s happening.

“You do?”

“It’s stupid.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what you’re talking about and we can go from there? Because I’m kind of lost.”

He clears his throat. “So, uh–I didn’t know Murphy’s name was John.”

“And you’re apologizing to me for that?”

“The first night we met you said your friend was flirting with Emori, and I knew she liked this customer of hers named John, so I thought you were distracting me so some asshole she didn’t like could slobber all over her. So I was annoyed.”

“And you only just realized Murphy was her customer crush?” she asks, stuck between amusement and disbelief. “It’s been months!”

“I know! I thought he just got lucky and she liked him, but then she said John was coming tonight and I said I hadn’t met him and the rest of the band made fun of me for like an hour.”

“It kind of sounds like you deserved it.”

He ducks his head, smiling sheepishly, and Clarke smiles too. “Anyway, I feel like–I never knew how to explain without telling you I thought Emori was into someone else. And I still kind of thought you were a dick for trying to distract me with your feminine wiles.”

“I was joking!”

He laughs. “Yeah, uh–anyway. Sorry?”

“You don’t really have to apologize for that,” she says. “It’s not like you were–you’re pretty polite mostly. I thought you had a bad night. And didn’t like me much.”

“Yeah. But I want us to do better, so–can we start over?”

It’s strange, because part of Clarke feels like they never actually started. Like this is actually going to be their first try.

Which makes it easy. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

It should fix all her problems, or at least all the problems she’s admitting she has, but less than two weeks later she slams a bag into the island and says, “I bought vanilla vodka and orange juice and I want it to taste like a creamsicle.”

“Won’t work but okay,” says Murphy. “What did Bellamy do?”

“Who says it’s about Bellamy?”

“Can we skip the bullshit and you just tell me?”

Clarke considers. “Drink first.”

They make it through the first round and then Clarke says, “He likes me now.”

“And you hate him?”

“No, I still want to make out with him.” She sighs. “You were right, I’m totally into him, and now we’re getting along, and everything sucks. He’s really cute.”

Murphy takes another drink of his vanilla screwdriver. “So ask him to make out. At least you’re not trying to tell him you’re into him but not into sex and you’ve never actually dated anyone before. Why are you complaining?”

“Have you figured out a way to mention you’re ace yet?” she asks.

“Nope. It doesn’t really come up in conversation. No one’s like, how much does everyone love sex? They just assume the answer is a lot and don’t bother asking.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Keep complaining about your thing, that helps.”

She flops onto her back. “He’s just so pretty.”

Murphy pats her leg. “Yeah, that sucks.”

*

Murphy’s problem seems easier to solve than hers, especially in early May. Clarke gives it a week and then, when they’re out drinking with the whole band, asks, “Oh, is anyone going to Pride? Do you guys need a ride?”

“You’re going to Pride?” Echo asks.

“She’s bi,” Bellamy says, even though Clarke’s never told him that. “Or pan?” he adds, glancing at her for approval.

“I usually go with bi, but as long as it covers no gender preference I’m good.”

“I’m biromantic asexual,” says Murphy. Clarke didn’t warn him, but he’s pretty quick with this stuff.

“We always go to Pride because that’s how we got to be friends. Some asshole in our high-school GSA told us neither of us belonged there because we weren’t queer enough.”

“Jesus Christ,” says Bellamy. “Well, I could use a ride.”

Clarke will admit to startling, just a little. She didn’t really think anyone in the band was queer, had just wanted to give Murphy an excuse to share his sexuality. It was always possible she’d get a taker, but it hasn’t seemed likely.

But Bellamy wants to join them. If he’s gay, that kind of sucks, at least for her. But he’s bi or trans–into women at all and queer, basically–he might be her dream guy.

“I know it’s shitty to ask why people want to go to Pride, but I still want to know,” Murphy says.

“Also bi,” says Bellamy, so, yeah. Clarke wants to marry him. “I’ve never actually been to Boston Pride, though. I don’t like going alone.”

“Then you should definitely come with us,” says Clarke, and he gives her one of his melting smiles.

“Thanks.”

“Can I come along as a supportive outsider who would happily make out with a girl if the opportunity presented itself?” Emori asks.

“Definitely,” says Murphy. “Just don’t talk about ally pride or whatever and we’re good. And kiss a girl if you can, I hear it’s cool.”

Echo’s interested to learn that he’s never kissed a girl, and she and Emori and Raven get drawn into that conversation, leaving Clarke and Bellamy off on their own.

“So, that first day we met,” she says.

Bellamy cocks his head. “What about it?”

“I asked if anyone else in the band liked girls and you kind of–” She shrugs. “I thought you were one of those guys who thinks girls kissing is hot and for your benefit. But you were excited I was queer.”

He laughs. “Shit, I didn’t know you noticed. But yeah, I always like meeting more bisexuals. I was rethinking you.”

“Where did you end up?”

“What do you mean?”

She smiles. “You rethought me, so–what did you end up thinking of me?”

He bites the corner of his mouth, glances over at his band mates. They’re not paying attention that Clarke can tell, but she knows Murphy still has part of his focus on the two of them. The rest of the band probably does too. That’s the kind of group dynamic they have going.

Bellamy must be thinking the same thing. “You want to get another round?” he asks.

“Maybe at another bar.”

He laughs again, this bright, pleased laugh, at odds with his rock-star makeup. “Yeah, that sounds right.”

Outside, he says, “I thought I should have picked you up when I had the chance. I was kicking myself for–I’m still kicking myself for not flirting back.”

Her own smile creeps up, starting small but never stopping growing. “You still could.”

“We could just get a drink at my place.”

“I’d love to.”

*

“How much do you think Taylor Macdonald would hate us going on a double date to Pride with our straight-passing partners?” Clarke asks.

Bellamy pauses in his application of glitter to Murphy. Apparently he’s as good as makeup as he is because he taught his sister how to do hers, which works out really well. Clarke sucks at makeup; it’s nice that they have complementary skill sets.

“Straight passing?” he asks, dubious.

“His words.”

“Dick.”

Murphy grins. “I figure if I’m pissing off Taylor Macdonald, I’m doing something right. I hope every time I’m happy, he feels like someone walked over his grave.”

Clarke offers her hand and he high-fives her; Emori smiles. “I’m starting to see why the two of you are such good friends. It didn’t quite add up before.”

“Spite and stubbornness,” says Clarke.

“Our main motivations in life.”

“Exactly,” says Emori. “It makes perfect sense.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Bellamy teases, but Clarke just smiles.

“Whatever. We’ve got it all figured out.”

[thepatriotsandwe]

Three Up, Three Down: Patriots at Bills, Week 13

The Patriots drive towards yet another division championship continued this week as they improved to 10-2, pun fully intended.

Three Up

Rex Burkhead

The running game in New England is alive and well, and it’s allowing the Patriots to get it done in a multitude of ways offensively. 

Rex Burkhead has been a true x-factor this season for New England. While injuries hampered the 27 year old ex-Bengals early in the season, his play-making ability has added a new dimension to an already robust Patriots squad. He just seems to have a knack for finding the end zone, which he did on two occasions in the 23-3 victory over the Buffalo Bills. 

Not to be undone, Dion Lewis had another fantastic game running the ball, averaging 6.1 yards per carry for 92 total yards on the afternoon. Burkhead put up similar numbers, but with a higher average of 6.5 yards per carry with two touchdowns, and also logged 3 receptions for 25 yards. 

Burkhead appears to be Mr. Everything on the Patriots offense; his ability to fill any role at any time seems to have made him a staple of an already high flying unit.

The Traitors

This loss is going to sting for the Bills as two of the top performers for the Patriots used to be members of the Buffalo organization.

Stephon Gilmore, yet again, put together an absolutely master craft performance against his ex-teammates. He scored a 92.7 from Pro Football Focus which makes him the highest rated cornerback of the week, league-wide. Buffalo receiver Zay Jones was held to just 2 receptions for 22 yards on a massive 7 targets.

Gilmore has gone from the scapegoat in New England to the highest performing Patriots secondary member this side of week 5.

Eric Lee also feasted against his previous team. The previously practice squad resident was signed off the Bill’s squad to the New England active roster after the departure of Cassius Marsh. 

After recording his first sack of his career last week against Miami, Lee was on an absolute tear against the Bills. He logged one and a half sacks, three hits on the quarterback, tipped a pass, and intercepted a pass in critical territory early in the game.

The Patriots seem so high on the second year defensive end that Jonathan Kraft told him in the locker room that Buffalo “made a mistake” by not locking him up when they had the chance.

Rob Gronkowski

I suppose I could have included him in the “Traitors” category seeing as how he’s from Buffalo, but his performance deserves a spot of its own.

Gronk was easily the biggest factor in the passing attack for the Patriots; the rest of the squad (Brady included) had a fairly pedestrian day. It was obvious that the Bills game plan was to shut down the pass and hope that the Patriots did not have the consistency to beat the Bills running the football, but it did not turn out that way.

Regardless of schemes, Gronkowski simply did what he has done his entire career, demolish the Buffalo Bills. He led the team in targets (11), receptions (9), yards (147), and the longest passing play (30 yards). All of this was done while the officiating crew made several blatant no-calls or bad calls on the future Hall of Fame tight end. If the game was officiated correctly, we may have seen a record setting performance from Gronkowski. 

This performance is obviously one we will look back on with only positives feelings. There is no aspect of this outstanding outing that we can pin on Gronk in a negative light, and we cannot wait to see what he gets done against the Miami Dolph-

Three Down

Rob Gronkowski

Oh, come on.

In one of the most blatant bush-league moves this side of Ndamukong Suh, Gronkowski was rightfully penalized and suspended (one game). This seems like an ejection worthy offense to me, and a multi-game suspension wouldn’t be totally out of the question.

It would be one thing if it were a simple unnecessary roughness action after the play, but this was a targeted elbow drop onto another player’s helmet after the play was long dead (which resulted in an injury to Tre’Davious White).

The Patriots will be without Gronkowski next week, and he’s eligible to return against the Steelers in week 15. Following the Steelers game will be a rematch with the Buffalo Bills, so we’ll have to keep an eye out for any payback from a frustrated Buffalo team.

Run Defense

The Bills had extremely limited success throwing the football, but they did have a fairly potent ground game going. 

LeSean McCoy put up 93 yards on 15 attempts, and the team as a whole achieved 183 yards on the ground. Even with the Patriots selling out to stop the pass, this performance is a bit troubling. If the Bills had even a modicum of success tossing the ball, they may have been able to put up some points to force a tight contest.

One bright spot was Malcolm Brown who had his career high in run stops with four, and was fairly consistently in the Bills backfield. 

Some of the running woes can be attributed to the limited use of Kyle Van Noy as he was seemingly given a light load to work through a nagging leg injury.

Pass Protection

I feel like I’m talking about this every week (because I largely am).

Brady was sacked three times, but was pressured far more. One would anticipate that the struggle would come from the right edge as both Cannon and Waddle were inactive at the right tackle position, but Cameron Flemming played a great game. Again, the pressure came from the left side of the line typically, and Nate Solder had another shaky performance.

From what I saw, the issues were mostly cleared up in the second half, but these slow starts to games have become more and more of an issue for Solder who used to be a stalwart bodyguard for Brady’s blind spot. Joe Thuney also had a less than superb day. In one instance Thuney was easily beat near the Buffalo end zone which forced New England to settle for a field goal.

If there’s one unit on the Patriots team that could be the undoing of the 2017 campaign in January, it’s the offensive line. It will need to be adjusted prior to the week 15 contest against the Steelers, and the playoffs could be filled with teams that possess potent pass rushes (such as Baltimore and Jacksonville). 

The defense played lights out, and the offense did enough to coast to another nice and easy victory for the Pats; we certainly deserve it after the stress early in the season (boy, are we spoiled or what?). 

Next week the Pats have a chance to clinch the division with either a victory over Miami, or a Buffalo defeat. The Colts are playing Buffalo, so maybe old Jacoby Brissett can help out the Pats one more time.

Until next week,

Go Pats.