#when he says ‘he messes with all of us’ does that include the chaos council??? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

heckinconfusedparade · 2 years ago

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I honestly wanna see Nine, Thorn and Dread regaining their original memories but… due to how they are now, they try to comfort Sonic when he has an emotional breakdown due to the guilt and heartbreak of his original friends and home being gone. Also, they, including Shadow, are all in the Grim where they’re hiding from the Chaos Council. And I bet Nine would feel like just being there for Sonic and letting him let it all out would make him feel more like his original self, Tails, due to their bond as brothers still being there despite the whole Shatterverse situation.

Firstly, I won't do the memory regaining thing because I don't know how it would go. Doesn't mean they won't try to comfort Sonic though! Enjoy the angst.

CW: PANIC ATTACK/EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN

...

Through odd circumstances, Nine, Thorn, and Dread have all come to fight the Chaos Council.

During the battle, things got intense, and Nine wanted to get him, Sonic, and Shadow (Sonic insisted they be a package deal). Somewhere along the line, Thorn and Dread joined the ride and now they're all recharging in The Grim. Sonic and Shadow are watching the three interact. Nine is annoyed that they came along, Thorn is extremely confused, and Dread is also confused, but is also demanding where the hell he is right now.

Shadow turns to look at Sonic, but Sonic isn't there. Shadow hears some weird noises from behind one of those tall grey things and follows the sound.

Sonic feels cold. His heart is pounding, and he suddenly feels like he can't breathe anymore. He feels lightheaded and the warmth of the tears he cannot force back. Memories of what happened before breaking the prism is all rushing back and spinning around like a messed up merry-go-round. He's so tired, but refuses to rest because like it or not, those people NEED him and it's HIS responsibility because he's the one who ruined it all in the first place. He holds his head as the pressure bangs against the inside of his skull. Sonic feels like he isn't doing anything right, and that everything he does only makes things worse.

Shadow gasps "Sonic??" and rushes to his side to check on him. Despite their differences and being rivals, Shadow does not hate Sonic. He actually respects him quite a bit. To see the fearless and optimistic hero in this way brings a kind of sadness Shadow cannot describe. Shadow crouches down to him "Sonic, are you alright?" Sonic doesn't respond, he curls into a ball and closes his eyes. Shadow sits next to him. He doesn't know how to approach this.

Nine, Thorn, and Dread come from behind the grey pillar. "There ye be! We been lookin fer-" Dread pauses when he sees Sonic in the state he's in. Nine rushes to Sonic "What's wrong?? What's going on?" he says, frightened something bad had happened to him. Thorn gasps "Oh no, what's the matter?".

Shadow gently pushes the 3 away to give Sonic some space "He's having an emotional crisis. Give him space, please." The three look at each other, nod, and give Shadow a stern look. "Sonic selflessly helped us all. He puts everything down to help anyone in need.. It's time we return the favour." Nine goes to Sonic and sits next to him "Sonic? What's going on?"

Sonic takes a shaky breath "I-I'm okay..really!"

Dread shakes his head "Ye clear as water aren't. Ye can talk to us." Sonic responds in grumbling.

Thorn sits on his opposite side "Sonic, do you remember what happened in the forest? You told us that we should talk about our feelings. You gave us the floor to express our feelings and talk about them. I think.. it's time you talk about your feelings too. I kept my feelings locked away for a long time, and you saw what happened."

Sonic lifts his head up and leans it against the pillar. He takes a deep breath..

"I just.. Look, it's my fault. I'm the reason we're all in this mess. I let my body move before my head, and I made my best friend upset.. then after apologizing, I proceeded to yet again act carelessly. I shattered that stupid prism even though everyone was shouting at me to stop. I didn't listen.. and now? My home is gone, my friends are gone, and it's all my fault! I got Shadow stuck in some void for a stupid amount of time. Every time it feels like I'm finally getting somewhere, everything falls apart. I keep ending up back at square one. I miss my friends.. I miss home.. and I miss my brother.” Sonic silently sobs. The others exchange concerned looks. Thorn reaches and holds Sonics hand tightly “let it out, Sonic..” and Sonics tears keep flowing until they can’t anymore, and he’s light headed from hyperventilating.

Shadow coaches Sonic through some breathing exercises so he can resume normal breathing “I’m.. im sorry..” Sonic says, embarrassed for his little meltdown.

Dread meets Sonics gaze “listen here, Sonic. Ye been facin some crazy stuff nonstop without breaks for a real long time. It was bout time ye was gonna break! Don’t feel sorry for bein overwhelmed.”

Nine adds on “we’re gonna help you get your home back.”

Sonic feels like he’s going to cry again “thank you.. all of you. So much. I.. I don’t know what else to say!”

Thorn rubs her thumb over his palm “you don’t have to say anything more, if anything, we should be thanking you! You’ve been helping us out of the kindness of your heart, helping us see the positive in negative situations.”

Shadow looks away “and.. I’m sorry for yelling at you and beating you up in the middle of shatterspace. I still think you’re incredibly stupid for it, but I’m not angry anymore. I think we might be able to pull this off. We’ve saved the world before, haven’t we?” Sonic nods “you’re right..”

Sonic stands back up and stretches. The group rest up for a while before plotting what to do next about the Chaos Council.

Sonic hates crying or showing vulnerability. He’s mad at himself for letting himself go in that way, and guilty that his friends had to deal with him. He’s thankful, though. If they hadn’t been there, maybe he would have just given up, which is a completely foreign idea to him.

Sonic realizes that it doesn’t matter if these people are different versions of his friends, they’re still his friends and the people he knows them to be deep down.

Dread is still the Knuckles he enjoys bickering with, who is strong, and has a good heart deep down.

Thorn is still the Amy he holds very dear to himself, the kindest soul he could ever meet.

Nine is still the Tails he knows and loves, his scary smart little brother who he would do anything for.

Shadow is still Shadow.

It was this exchange that made him see this more clearly. He feels more comfortable now.

#sonic prime #prime sonic #prime shadow #knuckles the dread #thorn rose #tails nine #miles nine prower

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years ago

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 18, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

It is still early days, and the picture of what is happening in Afghanistan now that the Taliban has regained control of the country continues to develop.

Central to affairs there is money. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with about half its population requiring humanitarian aid this year and about 90% of its people living below the poverty line of making $2 a day.

The country depends on foreign aid. Under the U.S.-supported Afghan government, the United States and other nations funded about 80% of Afghanistan’s budget. In 2020, foreign aid made up about 43% of Afghanistan’s GDP (the GDP, or gross domestic product, is the monetary value of all the goods and services produced in a country), down from 100% of it in 2009.

This is a huge problem for the Taliban, because their takeover of the country means that the money the country so desperately needs has dried up. The U.S. has frozen billions of dollars of Afghan government money held here in the U.S. The European Union and Germany have also suspended their financial support for the country, and today the International Monetary Fund blocked Afghanistan’s access to $460 million in currency reserves.

Adam M. Smith, who served on the National Security Council during the Obama administration, told Jeff Stein of the Washington Post that the financial squeeze is potentially “cataclysmic for Afghanistan.” It threatens to spark a humanitarian crisis that, in turn, will create a refugee crisis in central Asia. Already, the fighting in the last eight months has displaced more than half a million Afghans.

People fleeing from the Taliban threaten to destabilize the region more generally. While Russia was happy to support the Taliban in a war against the U.S., now that its fighters are in charge of the country, Russia needs to keep the Taliban’s extremism from spreading to other countries in the area. So it is tentatively saying supportive things about the Taliban, but it is also stepping up its protection of neighboring countries’ borders with Afghanistan. Other countries are also leery of refugees in the region: large numbers of refugees have, in the past, led countries to turn against immigrants, giving a leg up to right-wing governments.

Canada and Britain are each taking an additional 20,000 Afghan women leaders, reporters, LGBTQ people, and human rights workers on top of those they have already volunteered to take, but Turkey—which is governed by strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan—is building a wall to block refugees, and French President Emmanuel Macron asked officials in Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey to prevent migrants reaching their countries from traveling any further. The European Union has asked its member states to take more Afghan refugees.

In the U.S., the question of Afghan refugees is splitting the Republican Party, with about 30% of it following the hard anti-immigrant line of former president Donald Trump. Others, though, especially those whose districts include military installations, are saying they welcome our Afghan allies.

The people fleeing the country also present a problem for those now in control of Afghanistan. The idea that people are terrified of their rule is a foreign relations nightmare, at the same time that those leaving are the ones most likely to have the skills necessary to help govern the country. But leaders can’t really stop the outward flow—at least immediately—because they do not want to antagonize the international community so thoroughly that it continues to withhold the financial aid the country so badly needs. So, while on the streets, Taliban fighters are harassing Afghans who are trying to get away, Taliban leaders are saying they will permit people to evacuate, that they will offer blanket amnesty to those who opposed them, and also that they will defend some rights for women and girls.

The Biden administration is sending more personnel to help evacuate those who want to leave. The president has promised to evacuate all Americans in the country—as many as 15,000 people—but said only that we would evacuate as many of the estimated 65,000 Afghans who want to leave as possible. The Taliban has put up checkpoints on the roads to the airport and are not permitting everyone to pass. U.S. military leaders say they will be able to evacuate between 5000 and 9000 people a day.

Today, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark A. Milley tried to explain the frantic rush to evacuate people from Afghanistan to reporters by saying: “There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.” Maybe. But military analyst Jason Dempsey condemned the whole U.S. military project in Afghanistan when he told NPR's Don Gonyea that the collapse of the Afghan government showed that the U.S. had fundamentally misunderstood the people of Afghanistan and had tried to impose a military system that simply made no sense for a society based in patronage networks and family relationships.

Even with Dempsey’s likely accurate assessment, the statement that U.S. military intelligence missed that a 300,000 person army was going to melt away still seems to me astonishing. Still, foreign policy and national security policy analyst Dr. John Gans of the University of Pennsylvania speculated on Twitter that such a lapse might be more “normal”—his word and quotation marks—than it seems, reflecting the slips possible in government bureaucracy. He points out that the Department of Defense has largely controlled Afghanistan and the way the U.S. involvement there was handled in Washington. But with the end of the military mission, the Defense Department was eager to hand off responsibility to the State Department, which was badly weakened under the previous administration and has not yet rebuilt fully enough to handle what was clearly a complicated handoff. “There have not been many transitions between an American war & an American diplomatic relationship with a sovereign, friendly country,” Gans wrote. “Fewer still when the friendly regime disintegrates so quickly.” When things started to go wrong, they snowballed.

And yet, the media portrayal of our withdrawal as a catastrophe also seems to me surprising. To date, at least as far as I have seen, there have been no reports of such atrocities as the top American diplomat in Syria reported in the chaos when the U.S. pulled out of northern Syria in 2019. Violence against our Kurdish allies there was widely expected and it indeed occurred. In a memo made public in November of that year, Ambassador William V. Roebuck wrote that “Islamist groups” paid by Turkey were deliberately engaged in ethnic cleansing of Kurds, and were committing “widely publicized, fear-inducing atrocities” even while “our military forces and diplomats were on the ground.” The memo continued: “The Turkey operation damaged our regional and international credibility and has significantly destabilized northeastern Syria.”

Reports of that ethnic cleansing in the wake of our withdrawal seemed to get very little media attention in 2019, perhaps because the former president’s first impeachment inquiry took up all the oxygen. But it strikes me that the sensibility of Roebuck’s memo is now being read onto our withdrawal from Afghanistan although conditions there are not—yet—like that.

For now, it seems, the drive to keep the door open for foreign money is reining in Taliban extremism. That caution seems unlikely to last forever, but it might hold for long enough to complete an evacuation.

Much is still unclear and the situation is changing rapidly, but my guess is that keeping an eye on the money will be crucial for understanding how this plays out.

Meanwhile, the former president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, has surfaced in the United Arab Emirates. He denies early reports that he fled the country with suitcases full of cash.

—-

Notes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/world/asia/ashraf-ghani-uae-afghanistan.html

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/overview

https://asiatimes.com/2021/08/the-root-of-russias-fears-in-afghanistan/

https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2021-07-30qr-section2-economic.pdf#page=14

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-afghanistan-funding-int/u-s-other-aid-cuts-could-imperil-afghan-government-u-s-watchdog-idUSKBN2B72WJ

https://www.dw.com/en/eu-will-have-to-talk-to-taliban-but-wary-of-recognition/a-58890698

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/08/17/treasury-taliban-money-afghanistan/

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/08/18/business/afghanistan-lithium-rare-earths-mining/index.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russia-taliban-afghanistan-putin/2021/08/17/af53a9ec-ff4c-11eb-87e0-7e07bd9ce270_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/18/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-live-updates/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/aid-groups-warn-of-possible-refugee-crisis-in-afghanistan-far-beyond-western-evacuation-plans/2021/08/18/0d7094fc-0058-11ec-825d-01701f9ded64_story.html

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/21/1008656321/how-does-the-u-s-help-afghans-hold-on-to-gains-while-withdrawing-troops

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/18/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-live-updates/

https://www.reuters.com/world/canada-accept-20000-vulnerable-afghans-such-women-leaders-human-rights-workers-2021-08-13

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/us/politics/memo-syria-trump-turkey.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/18/afghan-refugee-debate-fractures-gop-506135

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/18/politics/us-must-rely-on-taliban-for-evacuation/index.html

John Gans @johngansjrFrom what I'm seeing and hearing, the reasons for the mess in Afghanistan might be far more 'normal' than many are suspecting/suggesting -- driven more by typical pathologies in government & Washington. More to be learned. But a few thoughts. 1/x

533 Retweets2,195 Likes

August 18th 2021

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/15/1027952034/military-analyst-u-s-trained-afghan-forces-for-a-nation-that-didnt-exist

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#quotes #political #Afghanistan #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #money #corruption

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lovleez · 4 years ago

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oner 《恶浪》 mv/film theory

(this is less of a theory and more of a debunking of the mv though)

warnings: mentions of violence, murder (i wont include gifs of the bloody moments but it will be discussed!!!), animal abuse, and a bomb or two ? (someone gets blown up ;-;)

honestly the debunking might get a lil bit dark around the ling chao and ziyang individual parts, so be warned of that!

it would be helpful for you to watch/listen to these to process whats going on here:

oner 《恶浪》 mv (cw blood, murder, animal abuse, & heavy violence - please dont watch if these are triggers for you!!!) (there’s also eng subs in this link ^^)

oner - AGENT (this is a song, but there’s quite a bit of dialogue near the end that ties into this plot!) (cw gunshot, beeping noises that resemble a bomb ?? - all at the end of the song w/ the dialogue)

okay lets dive into it d(^-^)> !!!

to get the important info out of the way!

the start of the mv shows the three of them chilling on the couch, as friends do, watching,,well themselves on the screen (oner’s past performances as idols) (and i do believe that the idols part of this has some significance that i can figure out). the important takeaway from the beginning rlly is that they’re three good friends...who are completely unaware of each other’s secret occupations

their occupations being: ziyang, a murderer, yueyue, a spy, and ling chao, a hacker

now to jump into the main story! (starting around 1:35)

yueyue and ziyang both have the same target: the man in the restaurant. however yueyue gets there first and does his job well, as he gets away without being caught. ziyang is frustrated that his target is taken already.

*interesting detail here, but when trying to enter, ziyang shows them a ring with a purple jewel in the middle for entry,,,coincidentally, the man yueyue kills in the bar in his personal segment in the film later also has the same ring? obv the ring is for the restaurant entry so maybe ziyang wasn’t going to kill this “boss” but maybe negotiate/discuss something with him instead...but also thats disproven by the fact that ziyang pulled out a gun to presumably shoot him before realizing the dude was dead....

but also,,,suspicious how there was a zoom in to the purple ring when yueyue kills the man in the bar..maybe it means more than we think it does? altho im not too sure what to think abt it for now

for reference:

ziyang’s ring

dead man in bar’s ring

moving on

okay so since yueyue is a spy n all, he has to confirm his kill somewhere right? this somewhere is a phone booth,,,one that ling chao has rigged up with a bomb,,,,

speculation: someone hired ling chao to kill someone who will be approaching the phone booth; at this time, lc doesn’t know that this someone is yueyue (and is v shocked to see him there through his cameras as evident by his “what the hell! are you kidding me?”)

....and after this part the film dives into their personal stories to give more background on who these three are (i’ll expand on those after i finish explaining the present timeline ^^) before coming back to the main story

so!

ling chao “accidentally” blew up yueyue oh no (he’s still alive tho yey)

& then yueyue holds up a piece of candy,,,and immediately knows its ling chao (cuz its the piece of candy lc was eating earlier in the film)

(and to take care of all loose ends that my brain is providing me with: in the beginning they didn’t know abt each other’s secret occupations...how does yueyue know that lc is capable of doing this? my answer: they used to be agent buddies!!! i’ll expand on this later hehe)

and so

it was at this moment ling chao knew...he fucked up

he’s afraid yueyue might come after him.

which, is exactly what yueyue does

after going home or somewhere, yueyue receives a text telling him to get rid of “them” (ling chao) bc his “identity is exposed”

....so now yueyue has to go and hunt down his buddy ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

and they fight! looks very painful for ling chao,,,poor dude,,,

since ziyang comes out from the back door to join the fight, theres two possibilities that come from this:

1) ling chao knew yueyue was coming and knew he couldnt take him down himself (lets be honest; he looks rlly scrawny) so he called ziyang to his location for backup (how could he know ziyang can fight? agent buddies 👐)

2) ziyang and ling chao live together in the same house

anyways, both results making it obvious that ling chao and ziyang are on the same team while yueyue is on another (lets ignore the fact that ling chao was getting up to fight ziyang as well)

the fight scene is so dramatic oml T-T

ziyang could also be motivated to beat up yueyue in this fight cuz the dude did take his target before he himself could (loophole: how did ziyang know it was yueyue who took his target? answer: maybe yueyue left like a signature or smthn at the crime scene, or ziyang saw him walk out ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ )

and when they all beat the living heck out of each other and are dramatically lying down in different areas of the room

the tv turns on to a council saying “still want to be idols?”

(and remember, the thing they were watching on tv earlier was themselves performing,,,as idols. i cant connect it further than that so lemme know if yall figure smthn out ^-^)

so mayhaps this council is yueyue’s agency and they wanted to turn the trio against each other...? they would have set this whole situation up: they knew ziyang wanted to kill the restaurant “boss”, so they assigned yueyue to take care of him first, which creates conflict between those two. then, they hired ling chao to rig up a phone booth with a bomb; basically setting him up against yueyue

whether this council succeeds with their plan or not is unrevealed bc the film has a “to be continued” at the end, so the storyline still will have more to it!!!

although i would say the council succeeded since they all did beat each other bruised and bloody

that leaves the question: why is the council setting them up against each other?

what are there previous connections beyond them just being friends 👀 ?

and here i shall bring back the “agent buddies” bit i was talking abt earlier, as well as why i linked the agent song in the beginning

near the end of the mv, there’s quite a lot of dialogue between the three of them, and it goes like this:

[robotic voice: welcome agent oner

ling chao (?): check

yueyue: yo what up guys!

ziyang: yo what up bro

ziyang (yueyue?): alright lets take them out

yueyue: okay gentlemen we got a lot to do

ziyang: ey we gotta finish this quick, i got a date tonight

yueyue: really?

ziyang: no hard feelings (couldnt catch the rest)

yueyue: okay shut up

ling chao: hey guys, i saw a hit

(?): copy that

yueyue (ziyang?): hold your breath....now

ling chao: guys watch out

yueyue: okay guys locked and loaded

*single shot can be heard, then the reloading of a gun*

yueyue (?): go go go!

yueyue: fire fire fire!

yueyue: ???? *indistinguishable orders*

ziyang?: i got trouble i got trouble

yueyue: ?? i got ?? lets go

ling chao: stay together

ziyang (yueyue??): okay set to kill

ling chao: damn the truck is (blown?)

yueyue: what the hell

ziyang: okay let me (???) it

*bomb beeping noises*

yueyue: ???? clean this blood on my shirt]

(not sure how accurate my hearing is but its enough to make some guesses 😅)

agent buddies! the three of them used to be agents, as the song is titled, at some agency...and they probably made a pretty strong team together

the agency story would explain why they all seem to be good fighters too!

thats why the council might have wanted to tear them apart. perhaps the council was doing something that they knew would displease the trio, so they needed them separated lest they team up and try to defeat them

i also think this audio could have been describing a mission going wrong for them, possibly their last one as a team. someone was probably hurt (im betting on either ziyang or ling chao), and they quit the agency and aimed to live normal lives from then on

...but old habits are hard to forget, so ziyang starts to kill ppl in his free time, yueyue joined another agency as a spy, and ling chao uses his hacking skills for other purposes

however they all dont tell each other, which could add on to the tension of their fight at the end of the film

now to dive into their individual bits of the film. these all don’t connect much to the main lore, just expands onto their lives with their secret occupations btw!

YUEYUE

his segment details moments in his daily agent life; im guessing he’s not very happy with it judging by his nightmares? or the nightmares are bringing up his past at his old agency which he does not like

he’s also master of disguise woah

personally i think he’s losing “who he is”. he’s always playing the role of another person, always putting on another disguise...so he starts losing his sense of identity (if that makes sense ;-;)

(and if you wanna stretch it and make things wholesome, maybe the only times he [feels like himself] is when he’s around his two friends)

so basically: he’s always filling out other personas to the point where he doesnt know who he is anymore

(this is also the segment where he kills a man in the bar with poison,,,and the man was wearing the same ring as ziyang,,,,which is like Hm. why’d the directors do that 🤔)

ZIYANG

aka the murderer :D

(and not just regular serial killer type, more like joker-esque type where they’re a bit insane,,,)

okay his segment starts of with him dragging a man through a white room, where the floors is covered with plastic, and on the walls are a bunch of clay molds of human body parts

my brain has concluded that! ziyang takes clay and makes molds of his victim’s faces/body parts of who he kills! to make statues!

(i dont even know how i got there aksjdhdh but thats just what i assumed the first time i watched this film thingy)

and to make it more messed up than it already sounds,,,im guessing he’s a famous statue maker too, and holds shows where he presents his works to the public and maybe even bids them off ?

,,,,little did the audience know,,,,

(this kinda remind me of sally and gabe’s statue from the pjo too now aksjhdkdh)

(i got this assumption from 6:50 in the film where he walks out in front of an audience who start clapping,,,and let my brain run wild with the rest,,,)

of course, he probably kills off the people he was the molding the clay off of once he’s done with his works,,,or sometimes even in the middle of his works as shown in the mv (*-* )

but alas that is not all to his story,,,

judging by his flashbacks when he’s beating that one dude to death with a bat, he used to be bullied when he was in school, which seems to be the source of all his anger throughout the film..

( yeah he killed the bullies too (_ _ )> )

its part of his personality to be rough and short tempered - he doesn’t like people looking down on him (as the bullies did)

and,,,if you want to be wholesome again! perhaps he found some bits of happiness and peace when hanging out with the others :]

LING CHAO

cw: animals abuse!!!

his is pretty simple and is already explained in the mv itself! i’ll walk ya’ll through it though in case you didn’t watch the film tho akdjdjkf

basically: he’s just a dude who loves dogs :]

a lot

in his segment, a girl (handong, looking absolutely stunning ToT) approaches him wanting to take home another stray, and when he asks her where how the previous dog she adopted was doing, she says that “my bestie loved him a lot, so i gave him to her” ( -_- )

so...he lets her keep the dog, but also decides to keep an eye on her...to the point where she becomes very paranoid that someone is stalking her (which..she isnt wrong in)(but she doesn’t believe it to be ling chao because they’re..dating? i think? and he lulls her into a false sense of security that he’ll protect her from harm)

and then bam! one day he breaks into her house, steals the dog away, and then,,,,blows her up,,,,,

(i must say as disturbing this scene is,,,,i absolutely adore ling chao’s look here askjdjfd)

(i mean?? look at him?? loving the black lipstick ugh)

(v pale tho ;-;)

okay anyways the next flashbacks reveal that handong was abusing her dogs & starving them, and him being the animal lover he is, decides to kill her for it ig

(also she,,,stabbed the other dog that she “gave to her bestie” so-)

yeahh thats the end of his story; nothing much to take from it except that his hacker skills are still intact past agent days

annnd thats a wrap folks! nothing else to expand on; i’ll definitely make another part to expand on this if they decide to release another mini film in the future tho :]

#violence cw #animal abuse cw #oner #yueyue #mu ziyang #ling chao #ayra goes crazy #so i didnt add much original lore here but...eh...#cant wait to see how qins ent is gonna expand on the onerverse :>#plz tell me if i missed any warnings!!

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littleredlie · 4 years ago

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chaos - part two

chaos masterlist

part one 2.1k+ words

it was three years ago when nyame first saw eren. he was in titan form. she and onyankopon, had volunteered to partake in a mission to paradis island after the warrior unit’s failed attempt to capture the founding titan. but by this time her brother had already recruited her to yelena’s anti-marleyan movement. she was hesitant at first; sure she believed that marley had to be put in their place but she didn’t trust yelena and she definitely did not trust zeke. she refused to even meet the holder of the beast titan.

but the yearn for peace is what really recruited her. nyame wanted to meet the supposed devils of paradis and she believed that no one deserved to be chained from their freedom.

so when the peace of calm ocean water and the sailing of the travelling military ship is disrupted by the roaring sound of waves and the growls of some being that she could not see, she knew that they had made it to where they needed to be. the then seventeen-year-old loses her footing and almost falls down the length of the ship into the water, but onyankopon grabs her arm and her body remains suspended in air as he holds on to some platform.

the ship moves in the air and nyame feels a forceful breeze push against her while the rush of blood pulsates in her ears. when the titan puts down the ship, nyame’s body roughly hits the floor and a dull pain releases from the side she landed on. she helps her older brother up, her eyes only paying attention to him and any possible injuries before a woman’s voice rings out over the landscape.

“hello ladies and gentlemen of marley! welcome to the island of paradis!” nyame’s head snaps to a brunette soldier wearing a cloak and an eye patch, there’s a large smile on their face as they greet the marleyan soldiers.

the excitement the eldian exuded surprised nyame and for a second she thought that their behavior wasn’t necessarily fit for the situation. however, nyame’s thoughts are pulled towards the titan that was towering over the ship. an amazed gasp leaves her throat as she continued to gaze up to him and ignored the situation happening around them.

pushing a curl from in front of her face, her eyes continue to graze up the toned body of the attack titan. raven hair curtained its face, but she could still see piercing eyes and sharp teeth. she’s seen titans before as it was marley’s greatest defense in wars, but none had ever been able to mesmerize her as much as the one that stood before her.

a gunshot is what brings nyame’s attention back. yelena is holding a pistol up and nyame’s eyes sink down to the floor at the bullet’s victim. a strangled choke unwittingly escapes, and kopo gives her a quick look. it isn’t for long though, as he quickly moves to constraints someone making their way towards the tall, blonde soldier.

their motives are questioned by their fellow marleyan soldiers, but yelena makes an announcement to the yelling host. “hange. i’m honored to receive your invitation. now, how about that tea?”

nyame stays planted beside her older brother while the others kneel behind yelena. from the corner of her eye, nyame notices someone abruptly move, making his way towards yelena’s back. and without thinking, nyame runs towards the approaching body and with no ounce of hesitation in her, she raises her leg and kicks the soldier’s throat with her shin. with a swinging movement, she leads the blonde man down to the floor on his back, his breaths coming out rapidly and with struggle due to the force nyame hit him with. her body continues rotating until her leg makes it back to the ship floor with a loud thud and now she was facing her audience. she blows directed at the new curl that obstructed her view and one of her hands comes up to lay on her hip.

onyankopon looks at her with a look of pride, but yelena looks a little surprised, as nyame has never shown that sort of protectiveness towards her before. nyame shrugs and glances up to the person named hange, who also has a look of surprise embellishing their face.

yelena wrenches her head from the combative soldier towards the titan. “i’ve so wanted to meet you, eren...” she says and the name settles in the mind of nyame.

eren.

it was a beautiful name and although nyame had only seen his titan form, she knew he was probably an interesting person. the concept of eldians having the power to shift into titans, astonished her and this was the closest she’d ever been to one. and she wasn’t scared. she couldn’t wait to see his human face.

nyame keeps quiet as she moves beside her brother. the resisting marleyan soldiers are taken somewhere under the guard of some of the paradis soldiers, but she alongside onyankopon and yelena are lead to a tent and offered tea.

she looks at the gloomy man that sat across from her. his face unphased by the conversation happening between yelena and hange. a gun and its bullets are displayed on the table, its nothing nyame hasn’t seen before and at that point all she cared about was the titan and the gear that she saw on their hips when they first were invited. the short man’s voice beckons her and she sees his mouth move barely as he replied to yelena.

“how about that. hmph.”

“that means you’ve killed all the pure titans on the island...isn’t that right?” yelena inquires. the news surprises nyame. multiple countries, including her own, has had trouble battling with the titans. she wanted to learn how to do that. she needed to know.

“we are the anti-marleyan volunteers.” yelena announces and nyame holds her head up high, okay with having such a title bestowed upon her. “our goal... is to free the eldian people.”

hange and the man – who nyame learned was named levi – look between the three of the them, levi’s eyes training on nyame for just a second longer, her actions from on the ship still replaying in his mind. this gives her enough courage to question their techniques and motives.

“i’ve heard about your gear. the ones that can make you fly. is it possible that i have access to it?” the impassive look is still present on levi’s face and hange looks at nyame with a calculating look, before a cheek crushing smiles breaks out onto their face. nyame can feel a little tension rise off of her chest.

“let us first plead your case to our military council and maybe we’ll exchange more information about technology.” nyame doesn’t reply with words, just a firm nod and her eyes are back to the empty teacup that sat on her table.

it takes some time, but the eldians of paradis are accepting the advice the volunteers have offered. yelena helps with luring multiple marley ships into a trap involving either the attack or colossal titan. onyankopon uses his knowledge to help with the development of a port. nyame hangs around him and listens of course, inputting some information her brother didn’t reiterate but this wasn’t her best skill. nyame is most helpful when it comes to the weapons.

it was something that came naturally to her. dismantling them, cleaning them, putting them together, creating new ways for them to function better. using them. she was a phenomenal markswoman and that’s what got her the position to teach the scout regiment how to shoot using rifles newer the ones they already had.

and that’s how she formally met eren.

the volunteers were kept an appropriate distance away from eren yeager. nyame understood, the situation of it all was a mess in the world and she wasn’t gonna try to decipher it.

the two teenagers eyes meet briefly and although they had never spoken words to one another, it was like eren’s eyes saw right through nyame. like he knew all her intentions and fears, like a connection between them was bound to happen. at that moment she was grateful that her skin was darker than her peers, because if the heat that was invading her face could be displayed, she’d be red and embarrassed.

she turns her attention away and instead focuses on sasha, who has picked the technique of marksmanship quicker than her fellow soldiers. she squats next to her, watching her movements as she aims at a target down the field. a wind blows around them causing for nyame’s hair to dance into her face.

eren sees this and the movement of the wind weaving through nyame’s dark coils entrance him. it’s the first thing that has been able to do so in a while. her hair doesn’t move like everyone else’s, but instead in huge heaps that she caresses out of her face, a small grin accompanying the action every time. eren saw that she didn’t seem bothered by the repetitive action, she just looked pretty. a remark made by connie forces him back to the dismantling of the rifle.

“why don’t you tie your hair up?” sasha asks the markswoman, looking away from the rifle.

“my mother used to braid my hair down, i used to do it too. but there’s no need for the occasion, so i leave it.”

“i heard you wanted to use the odm gear.” sasha remarks, a look of curiosity on her face. “if that’s so, it would be best to either cut it or put it up. maybe go back to braiding it down.”

“maybe,” nyame shrugs, lifting the rifle back up and immediately sending out a shot that pierces the center of her target. when the rifle comes back down, sasha is holding out an extra hair tie, hinting that nyame take it. and she does. she gathers as much of her hair as she could and folds it into the tie’s embrace.

when the titan shifter looks up again, he sees that he hair is pulled away opening her face to him more. he notices the beauty mark that sits at the corner of her eye. her eyes squint and a dimple appears on her cheek when she chuckles, a result of a compliment sasha gave her. eren didn’t understand how someone could capture his attention so easily. maybe because she was a new being on the island or maybe because he wanted to know the inner workings of her being.

eren is watched over by his friends and superiors so at first he doesn’t get a chance to interact with her. but when connie has trouble putting together the advanced rifle, nyame has to step in.

swiftly, nyame pulls apart the weapon again and eren watches her move, slender and quick. and although evidence shows that she works with her hands, they look smooth to him. she explains what was missing from their work, but he barely catches what she is saying, hoping that someone will explain it to him again later because all he wants to do is hear he talk.

soon the rifle is put together again and she holds it out to eren, a smile on her face. the gesture surprises him since a lot of the outsiders have only been glancing at him with a look of fear. but in her eyes there was no trace. he could clearly see the amusement in her eyes as wrinkles formed around them.

“eren, are you going to take it?” she asks and the name on her lips is overbearing. he wants to hear her say it again, over and over. in any other way that she could say it and he’d do anything to get her to. wordlessly, he reaches for the rifle in her hand and their fingertips brush, and they both momentarily steal a moment for the touch to linger. his fingers are warm and they compliment hers, sending a jolt to the pits of her stomach.

nyame is sure that he heard the deep breath that she sweeps into her lungs. her bottom lip folds between her teeth as a shy gesture and eren can’t stop himself from looking at the action. pink dusts his cheeks, so faint that jean would not have been able to tease him about it, but from where nyame was slouching in front of him, she could see it. and it is a sight for sore eyes.

and that’s only the beginning.

_______

not gonna lie, i hate the ending of this part. but oh well. next chapter won’t really deal with the manga/anime. we’ll see nyema as her own person and see more of her interactions with other members of the scout regiment and the anti-marleyan volunteers. let me know what you think. like and reblog if you enjoyed it.

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what-goesaround-comesaround · 4 years ago

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Modern!Jack Kelly

"Dreams come true. Yeah they do. In Santa Fe"

Playlist! : Spotify & YouTube

Listens to his playlist : Driving in his car, it makes him feel free and loose. His playlist is also great for carpool karaoke.

Top pics from playlist :

Take Me Home, Country Road, John Denver (no seriously)

The Power of Love, Huey Lewis & The News

Don't Stop Me Now, Queen

Life is a Highway, Rascal Flatts

Stay Alive, José González

Special mention : For What It's Worth, Buffalo Springfield (him and Crutchy love jamming to this together)

Modern Day headcannons :

• Is in a band! Newsies band au! Sarah started the legacy band in her senior year in highschool and left Jack to front it the next year.

• He plays lead guitar and sings. He prefers playing electric guitar but will do whatever he needs to.

• Loves Queen.

• Chose "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen for thr band to preform for their Winter variety. It went down well to say the least.

• Was told to look "appropriate" for a school setting for the show by Pulitzer so he obviously turned up looking like Freddie Mercury.

• Is on student council against his will. (Blame David and Sarah)

• Adopted by Medda at 10. He knows his biological family is Irish but doesn't really regard himself as Irish. However, Medda has told him all sorts of stories from when she toured around the world (Ireland included) and Galway is on the list of places to travel to.

• After Santa Fe of course.

• He is way too over reliant on energy drinks.

• Organises classic 80's movie nights in Medda's theatre with Boots for their friends.

• Especially for Crutchy's birthday (which falls on Halloween). Him and Boots always make sure to pick out the best movies for him.

• Around Christmas every year he and Crutchy watch The Nightmare Before Christmas too.

• Brought Spot into the band as their drummer and the year Sarah left, brought Crutchy in as their keyboard player.

• Knows Spot and Crutchy through the dumping ground (foster care system) but knows everyone??

• No seriously, he seem to know every teenager in Manhatten and even outside of Manhattan (that's impossible though? Not for Jack Kelly)

• Hotshot and Spot helped Jack pick out his car through many scraps and squabbles.

• Loves just driving in his car with his friends in the middle of Summer, long days just taking in the sights and sunsets, jamming to his playlist ect.

• Dated Sarah when they were like 14/15(broke up eventually but the feeling was mutual. Both felt as if something was missing. And they were kids.)

• For Jack's 17th birthday Race and David coordinated a horse riding party. It was chaos but no one was hurt. Too badly anyway.

• Actually likes History class but that's just because he seeks validation from Denton (don't we all?)

• Medda helps run the school musical every year which he first pretended he was embarrassed about but couldn't keep it up.

• Is the best gosh darn diddly doodler in all of New York City.

• Loves Kloppman, the school librarian. Kloppman is frequently exasperated by him but still likes him no matter how many times he seems to muck up the books.

• Has joined Book Club, mostly on the request of David (also yes Jack, you actually have to participate in school life and it's literally your friends messing around with Kloppman for 40 minutes, get used to it)

• Did force Katherine to go with him as Jessie from Toy Story and he was Woody. David was Buzz Lightyear for Halloween.

• Katherine's father, Pulitzer has a special hatred for Jack but I mean.... he did just start kissing her on his doorstep one day...

• Actually she kissed him, a fact they are still both embarrassed about, to this day. Their friends will never stop tormenting them about this.

• Yeah it's a long story which involves Jack's asshole of a father, Sarah and Dutchy hanging out and playing "Dancing In The Moonlight".

• Loves the 70s clothing aesthetic.

• Will find him in the mornings attempting to regain concousnes with Kid Blink, Specs and Dutchy basically dragging him to his classes.

• Is decent enough at school but kind of just does the bare minimum to pass at this point.

• Gets made fun of the most on the meme page Race runs. There's just too much material to work with.

• Is really good at talking to people and just making connections with them?

• Everyone seems to owe him a favour.

• Sarah can always make him smile, even when he doesn't want it.

• Organises New Years Eve parties with Race (and David who can actually keep a schedual)

• Is a great big brother to legitimately everyone who needs one. Probably doesn't leave enough time to himself though.

• Medda uses some really good fabric softener in his clothes which Davey may or may not have noticed.

• Can't remember where his nickname came from. "Cowboy" just appeared in his vocabulary one day and continued to use it.

• Loves the movies Cars and Back To The Future 3.

• Doesn’t really think about dating anyone, it just kind of happens until David, hello David.

• Borrowed David's copy of the Outsiders and has fallen in love with it.

There's probably more but that's all I can think of now!

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roguelioness · 4 years ago

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20 OTP Questions

Tagged by @lechatrouge673 - thank you! ♥ I’m going to do this for Elise and Cullen since their story is complete [for now anyway ;)]

Tagging @kagetsukai, @wickedwitchofthewilds, @laraslandlockedblues, @ma-sulevin, @thevikingwoman, @galadrieljones

(not going to give up the opportunity to include this amazing picture of the two of them done by @designfailure56!)

1. Who can out-drink the other?

Definitely Elise. Cullen tends to stay away from alcohol because it can aggravate his lyrium withdrawal symptoms.

2. Who says “i love you” more?

Cullen, by a small margin. Elise will always return it, but Cullen initiates it more often - Elise often has trouble believing she’s no longer alone.

3. Who has trouble sleeping alone?

When they were single neither of them had any issues with sleeping alone, but it got infinitely harder for the both of them once they got together. Neither of them enjoys being away from the other, even if Cullen’s snoring does occasionally aggravate Elise :)

4. Who swears more?

Elise, without question. She swears in Common, Orlesian and has several choice phrases in Antivan that she’s picked up from Zevran!

5. Who does more of the housework?

So Elise is a slob, and operates in what she likes to call “controlled chaos”. Cullen’s the organized type, so he ends up having to arrange things because he knows if he doesn’t, no one will, since Elise has a higher threshold for a mess (the only exception being her office, where everything is immaculate).

6. Who forgets their anniversary?

They both remember their wedding anniversary, but neither of them really remembers the date when they first got together because of how chaotic it all was. They had to spend their first anniversary apart because Cullen had to attend the Exalted Council, and Elise was very much not happy about it.

7. Who steals the duvet in their sleep?

Cullen. He has a tendency to go full-burrito with the covers, so eventually Elise gave up and brought her own blanket to the bed.

8. Who keeps the other awake at night with their snoring?

Cullen snores, but it usually doesn’t wake Elise (it does make it difficult for her to fall asleep, however). What wakes her are Cullen’s nightmares - the frequency of them decreases the longer they’re together, but when they do occur, it can get pretty bad.

9. Who finds stray animals and begs the other to let them keep them?

Cullen. Elise likes animals, but she’s more pragmatic about being able to care for them. Cullen has a tendency to stumble into abandoned mabaris, however, and she can’t say no to either of them.

10. Who usually makes dinner?

It’s a combined effort. Cullen does the chopping, Elise does the cooking, and they both clean up together.

11. Who plays their music out loud?

Elise is the “always wears headphones” type. Cullen likes to play music out loud, but it’s never overly loud, it’s always at the background-sound level.

12. Who hogs the bathroom?

Neither of them. They both have short routines, though occasionally Elise will take longer if she’s dressing up for a special event or taking a long soak.

13. Who gives the most compliments?

They both give lavish amounts of compliments, it’s disgusting. Elise knows that Cullen’s often haunted by his perceived failings, and likes to tell him all the things she loves about him. Cullen knows Elise is sometimes scared that he’ll leave her, and he likes to reassure her that he’s always going to be there by her side.

14. Who usually starts/causes arguments between them?

Hmmm... Elise. She’s stubborn and has a temper, and she’s not really used to compromising, so she often butts head with Cullen. It’s never for long, and she always apologizes.

15. Who isn’t afraid to embarrass the other in public?

Neither of them like public attention. The most they’ll do is hold hands, or kiss each other when they think no-one’s looking. They both value their privacy, especially due to the nature of Elise’s work.

16. Who gives the other cringe-worthy pet names?

No cringy pet names here, but lots of “sweetheart” and “darling” and “my love”. They’re not the kind to get overly sappy (though Elise comes dangerously close on several occasions!)

17. Who fusses over the other when they get sick?

Cullen, absolutely. Elise has a bad tendency to neglect herself, especially when she gets really into her work, and it often exasperates Cullen no end. Elise does her share of fussing when Cullen falls ill, especially when it’s related to his lyrium withdrawal, because she’s terrified she’ll lose him.

18. Who finds it impossible to stay angry at the other for long?

Both, but Cullen more than Elise. He’s usually the first to seek her out after they argue because she’s stubborn, and can hold a grudge if she wants. But she also loves him and by the time Cullen finds her she’s more than ready to forgive (and apologize if needed) and move on.

19. Who clings to the other for comfort when they’re sad or scared?

Elise, but she’ll vehemently deny it till her dying breath. For all her self-proclaimed love for independence, she finds Cullen to be the one thing she never knew she needed, and now that she has him she worries she’ll lose him. When she gets that way, she usually seeks him out and has to cuddle with him till the insecurities pass.

20. Who is more ‘physically passionate’? (hugs, kisses, or maybe more…)

Both! Neither of them have been in a serious long-term relationship so it comes as a surprise to both of them to find that they really can’t keep their hands off of the other. It’s not just hugs and kisses, but also simple touches like holding hands, or rubbing backs - all touches make them happy :)

#ask meme #otp questions #elise delacourt #this was a long one!

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itsclydebitches · 5 years ago

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RWBY Recap: “As Above, So Below”

Welcome back, everyone. So. Last Saturday I was actually feeling pretty good about RWBY. Not as a whole, but for that particular episode because, as I explained to a lovely anon, not much happened. Sure, there were some semi-important bits in the form of meeting Willow and Weiss discovering the recording, but compared to everything else we’ve gotten this volume it was all around a tame fifteen minutes. Which meant there wasn’t much space for RWBY to mess things up. There simply weren’t any stakes last episode. You don’t like how the group gets past Whitley or the exact words Ironwood says to Jacques? It’s ultimately whatever in the grand scheme of things. Last episode was mostly details.

“As Above, So Below” is not that kind of episode. So much happens and I’m once again left metaphorically banging my head against the wall, not regarding the writing choices themselves per se, but rather at how they’re used and portrayed. There is so much that I want to enjoy about this episode but Rooster Teeth continually ignores aspects of a situation in order to highlight one very narrow, very biased viewpoint. The scenes throughout demand that we conveniently forget or outright ignore certain things in order to immerse ourselves in whatever emotion the writing has decided we should be feeling right now ... and I simply can’t do that. RWBY is a show based on the claim that it’s a bright sunny day, so pay no mind to the rain clouds hovering above your head. It’s the animated equivalent of a Jedi mind trick. These are not the interpretations you’re looking for.

Secrets are finally revealed, folks, and oh boy. It’s a hot mess.

But let’s start at the beginning.

Undermining my assumption last recap that Watts had dismantled something that was regulating just a portion of Mantle’s temperature---something specific to maintaining rain over snow---we learn that all heating has been lost across the city. Which, if you know anything about temperature and the fragile human body, is really fucking bad. Here RWBY actually did a good job of introducing Weiss’ comment early in the volume about how people can freeze to death within an hour or so. We were still left with a few detail-oriented questions like how useful aura is in combating that, why Ruby was still so cold with her, why no one was showing symptoms back during the walk to the farm... but at least the setup is clear here. Civilians don’t have aura so that’s that. They’re dead if they don’t find some way to keep warm (riot fires help...) or aren’t evacuated somewhere else. It’s a big deal, though how exactly this fits into the rest of Watts’ plan and the other bits of chaos he’s accomplished is still unclear. More on that in a bit.

We see Pietro and Maria, but they don’t actually do anything this episode. They just stand around looking scared as people get violent and the city is covered in ominous red lights. At least the show remembers that they exist, but we don’t get to see the brilliant scientist specializing in creating weaponry and the former Grimm Reaper doing something to help. So... B grade on that one?

There’s no time skip this episode so with Mantle unraveling we segue right back to the dinner at the Schnee’s. Ironwood is still getting called out for having too much power. He pushes back that there are checks and balances in place to keep everyone, including him, from abusing that power. This is countered with a broad and not very persuasive claim that they simply haven’t worked. Ironwood comes back with a line about intentions and the nameless (?) council guy goes, “What people intend and what people do are not always the same thing!” Well no shit. If that were the case everyone’s lives would be staggeringly easier. You intend to find the madman who dismantled your army at Beacon? Boom, done. Intend to find the murderer responsible for attacking Robyn’s supporters? Congratulations, you did it. RWBY now has a habit of throwing out lines to remind us that the evil men in power---notably Ozpin and Ironwood---might intend to do good, but look! They haven’t managed it! Which... yes? Sometimes intentions fail, but that leaves the unanswered question of what these characters (and the writing) want them to do instead. No one has the luxury of changing their situation and everyone continues to ignore the fact that there are only bad options all around. I’d rather have someone with good intentions at the helm than, you know, Jacques. It also speaks volumes that as much as the council and RWBYJNR has been criticizing Ironwood lately, everyone still expects him to make the hard call himself. They don’t want that responsibility; they want a scapegoat if and when things go wrong. Just like the group was happy to scream at Ozpin and then get pissed that he left, leaving them to make the hard decisions themselves for once, everyone is screaming at Ironwood and then two minutes later turn about with, “So what should we do, General? What’s your plan? How are you going to fix this?” Though I don’t think any of it is intentional, RWBY has a lot to say about how only good and lucky leaders get to come out of their role unscathed. No matter what you do someone hates you for it and even choosing to abstain isn’t an option, as we saw clearly with Ozpin.

At this point the meeting is briefly interrupted by a waiter who tells Jacques about the heating issue. He responds with a, “My authorization?” before trying to cover things up, awkwardly agreeing with the conversation he just missed. Robyn announces that she’s not done with Ironwood yet though and accuses him of more failures, ending with, “yet you won’t let your own council help you?” which... honestly? Just hammers home how not useful this “Ironwood should trust everyone!” mindset is. Because is Robyn really that dense? The council is Jacques and two of his lackeys. You know, the guy who is about to be arrested for treason and as an accomplice to murder. Even though that hasn’t been revealed yet, Robyn is very well aware of what a corrupt, dangerous individual he is. Remember that she herself is not the council. She was given a “seat at the table” because Jacques wanted to use her against Ironwood. Robyn is sitting here symbolically pointing to Jacques and the two members he has wrapped around his finger going, “Why aren’t you trusting them?” like that’s in any way a sound suggestion. Sometimes the answer to, “Why are you doing Bad Things like keeping secrets?” is “Because people can be unimaginably stupid.” This is an example of that. Robyn wants to know everything and right now she’s willing to risk that information falling into an enemy’s hands to get it.

(Also, that picture in the background? Says a lot that Jacques has a picture of him, his obedient son, and his terrified wife in the room where he conducts business. No Weiss or Winter in sight.)

Ironwood, of course, tells a straight out lie with an excellent poker face. “I’m not hiding anything.” Which inspires Robyn to use her semblance. Oh no! An insanely convenient ability that would undo every conflict we’ve set up for this season! However will we avoid this? Timing, obviously. Weiss, also conveniently, barges in right when Robyn has put Ironwood on the spot. I said it as soon as Robyn’s semblance was introduced: if you give someone that level of power---something that can too easily solve all the problems you’ve set up---then you have to keep coming up with semi-contrived ways of keeping them from using it.

Also, does she need skin-on-skin contact for her semblance to work? I wonder if that’s why she’s got that one random finger missing on her glove.

Wiess plays the recording of Watts and Jacques, giving us the rest of their conversation. We don’t learn anything new. Watts promised Jacques a seat on the council and he in turn (supposedly) would get the satisfaction of ruining Ironwood’s life. Jacques handed over his login information, including what he gained post-election, and now Watts has access to everything he built and then some. To say that’s bad is an understatement. You might be distracted from your worry though by hearing that cake line again as well as the men’s villainous laughs. RWBY really went full cartoon for that conversation.

A detail I really love though? Ironwood’s rhythmic footsteps as he walks around the table. Super ominous and intimidating. Meanwhile, a hilarious detail is how awkward Jacques gets when he’s finally lost that precious control. This isn’t a confident man capable of denying the accusations against him in anything like a persuasive manner. He doesn’t have Ironwood’s poker face. Jacques is a coward who looks like a schoolboy seated in the principal’s office once caught.

He attempts to escape only to find Weiss’ knight blocking the exit, the one we now know was the possessed armor that belonged to her grandfather. In a thoroughly satisfying moment she declares that Jacques is under arrest... and then turns around to ask Ironwood if she can actually do that. I’m on the fence about this. Normally I don’t mind a bit of humor lightening the mood, but in this case we have three things that I don’t think are improving the situation. The first is the sheer emotional impact that should be accompanying this arrest. This is Weiss’ abuser. The man we’ve known about (incidentally anyway) since Volume 1 and who has driven nearly the entirety of her character development from working to escape him pre-RWBY to coming back as a huntress. Provided that Jacques doesn’t pull a Torchwick and escape himself somehow, this is the culmination of nearly seven volumes worth of heartbreaking struggle. There are some things that I think should be allowed to shoulder their weight without undercutting it with a joke and this is 100% one of them. Just like finding out that a friend you thought had been permanently torn to pieces in front of you should generate heartfelt shock and joy, reaching the moment where you finally arrest one of the show’s biggest personal villains should be treated seriously. Let Weiss have this and put the joke later if you still want it. Weiss could be staring hollow-eyed at her father being put in handcuffs and Ruby could try to cheer her up. “So...” she says. “Can we arrest people?” Weiss blinks, coming out of her stupor, and gives a tentative smile. “Don’t know, actually. But it’s working in this case.” There. Serious moment leading to a bit of comedy-bonding. Humor is a wonderful tool, but it also lessens the other emotions of a scene if not used properly.

Potential issues #2 and #3 are smaller. On a personal note, hearing Weiss’ question simply reminded me, again, that RWBY has failed to establish hard rules for its world, including what a huntsmen’s job entails. A few weeks ago fans were arguing over whether Blake and Yang should feel anything in regards to killing Adam because, according to some, it’s already a part of a huntsmen’s responsibilities to arrest and if necessary kill people. Why would they flinch at something they knew they were signing up for? Others (myself included) pointed out that although we see the students sparing with one another at school, no one says anything about them taking out human and faunus criminals. RWBYJNR’s adventures---from Ruby stopping the robbery in her trailer to tracking down the White Fang---are presented as outliers. This is not the sort of stuff huntsmen are meant to get up to. They fight grimm first and foremost. Everything else is a case-by-case surprise. Note, for example, that Ironwood expects his army to keep the peace and presumably the police when things aren’t quite so dangerous. He’s not sending huntsmen out to track down everyday criminals because that’s not their job. Killing grimm is. Weiss’ comment reinforces that. Can I arrest someone? Is that within my power as a huntress? And Ironwood... doesn’t answer. Because it’s meant to be a joke, not a legitimate bit of world building.

And then the third... is just how Rooster Teeth is using humor throughout the entirety of this episode. AKA not well, which makes me less inclined to give this particular moment the benefit of the doubt. We’ll get to that in just a second though. For now I’ve written way to much on a two second scene.

While Jacques’ plans unravel the rioting in Mantle is getting worse and worse. “Atlas killed the heat on purpose! They’ll do anything to control us!” which is very much a conclusion born of panic. It feels like every other episode Mantle is on the verge of collapse and, by extension, all of these moments feel anti-climactic. We’ve watched Mantle rioting over the embargo, and then Penny, and then the election, and now the heat... none of it feels like it has weight anymore. Rioting is just the way we’re ending most episodes now. It also (again) raises that question of what exactly Watts is trying to accomplish, and not in a “Still to be revealed!” kind of way. We do still have an element of that, but at this point there’s also just a, “Literally what was the point?” aspect too. Why is Mantle rioting most episodes? Shouldn’t that be something to build to? More importantly---as I’ve said before---WHY did they frame Penny? We see in the next scene that Jacques’ guilt likewise reveals Penny’s innocence... even though everyone important knew that two seconds after she was accused. There were no consequences attached to blaming her and, as just established, we clearly didn’t need the loss of a city defender to bring that city to the brink. Mantle has been going over the edge for a variety of reasons and the people were at that point before the group even arrived. When Penny was first framed that seemed like a brilliant setup. Now we see definitively that it led nowhere. Why did Watts bother and why did the writers? It’s another case of RWBY chucking in things they think are “cool” without bothering to follow up on them.

So yeah. The Penny situation is done. We didn’t even get any development out of her from it. That really is disappointing.

With everything Jacques did on the table the situation looks bleaker by the minute. What can Watts do with this control? “With enough time… whatever he wants.” The group finds out that the first thing he did with this power is shut off the heat and Weiss has the most dramatic reaction, which makes sense given that she’s the one who best understands the risks here. And then... then.

Oh dear god.

Ironwood realizes that Watts may eventually have access to the Amity info, if he stumbles across it or actively goes looking for things to uncover. This revelation on its own is good. That’s something Ironwood needs to try and prevent, so it would have been an excellent moment of storytelling to show us Ironwood’s moment of revelation, perhaps with a bit of dramatic music to hammer things home. Except that instead of keeping this issue between the people who know about it---Ironwood and Ruby could have exchanged knowing glances like Blake and Yang did when they first started keeping their secrets---Rooster Teeth has Ironwood talk about loud to himself about the major secret he’s keeping. He literally calls it a secret! “No. The secret is safe for now. But if he learns about Amity…” Hello?? I understand that this episode is all about things coming to light, but that moment was an absolute insult to Ironwood’s character. We just saw this man claim with a perfectly straight face that he had nothing to hide. Five minutes later he’s apparently lost so much intelligence he stands in front of four people he’s keeping secrets from, including Jacques Schnee, and starts soliloquizing about said secrets. That is the most stupid and contrived way to get caught in a lie. Oh no! I totally forgot a bunch of people were standing beside me! Now everyone has heard that I’m keeping a secret since I felt the need to state that out loud...

And in case anyone thought this is a case where I’m reading too much into things, Robyn literally laughs and goes, “Yep! Still here, everyone!” Reminding them that someone who is not supposed to know about this stuff is standing... right there... listening in... The writing draws attention to it.

This trumps all other former stupidity. Like the group loudly announcing their attempts to avoid getting arrested in the city covered with surveillance. This is so stupid I want to turn it into a meme. Cleanse this scene somehow.

Anyway. More rioting. More anger. Shock, surprise, that draws a ton of grimm. Take note of the fact that Ironwood’s army is almost useless against this barrage. The missiles from the airships don’t seem to take the horde out. Nor do the guns. Two other soldiers are forced to cower when some pterodactyl-type grimm flies overhead.

I say this not to bash the army itself (they’re doing their best while up against horrible odds), but rather to re-emphasize how not good telling the whole world about Salem is. Everyone seems to forget that, first and foremost, this is the concern that Ozpin dealt with. Even if he was 100% wrong on every other count---no one would lose hope, no one would ever betray him---it is impossible to hear about Salem and not experience negative emotions and those negative emotions draw grimm that kill everyone. Ironwood’s primary justification was that he’ll use his army to protect the people when that happens and (ignoring that his army can’t possibly be everywhere at once) we see here that it’s all but useless. His soldiers may have been able to handle the grunt grimm seen at the breach and the Battle of Beacon, but they’re helpless in the face of anything stronger, the exact sort of stuff that world-wide panic over an immortal woman would draw. Clover makes it clear when he arrives that only huntsmen stand a real chance and huntsmen are few and far between nowadays. They lost an entire school. Lionheart made sure nearly all the huntsmen in Mistral were killed. They’ve reached a point where teens are given licenses at least two years early, without full training, because they need the help that badly. Ironwood cannot protect the people if their fear grows stronger. That’s not his fault, but it also means he can’t afford to deliberately stoke that fear. Telling the world about Salem, whether she’s immortal or not, is a 100% death wish for lots and lots and lots of people.

That’s why I can’t get behind an idealistic view of, “But they deserve to know.” Maybe they do, but if given the choice I’d rather keep people in the dark and let them live their lives than tell them for the sake of the moral high-ground and risk the very likely possibility that they’ll die a horrible, bloody death.

Then, finally... we come back to the group’s secrets.

As established, Robyn is calling Ironwood out on his own secret keeping because he just admitted aloud to having a secret. 100% dodged her suspicion by Weiss’ timely arrival and Jacques getting outed as a traitor, then went ahead and shot himself in the foot. Sorry. I just really can’t stress that enough. Anyway, she’s homing in like a bloodhound, backing him into another corner, and this is the animation they decide to give us.

This is why I haven’t liked the group since mid-Volume 5. Because they’ve become reckless, hypocritical, often incredibly cruel people. Animation is a drawing. Someone had to decide and design this moment. Nothing is left to chance. So Rooster Teeth made a conscious decision to have Ruby almost-smiling in this moment. Looking pleased and happy at the very least. She’s still keeping her own secrets and is taking pleasure in the fact that Ironwood’s are coming to light. This is the exactly the same behavior we saw with Ozpin and (to a lesser extent) Cordovin. The satisfaction this group derives from either seeing or handing out what they perceive as another’s just desserts while they themselves are committing the same or worse sins. Ruby should not look happy here in the same way that she should not have pushed for Ironwood to sacrifice Mantle in the name of finishing a doomed project. And as we’ll see in a moment, she shouldn’t be giggling with Oscar over the shared damage they’ve caused.

At this point everyone is ganging up on Ironwood. Yes, including Oscar. As a preface to all this, I love my farm boy. Just not how Rooster Teeth has been writing my farm boy. Because this is what I meant at the very start of this recap. Oscar and Ruby’s speeches here are only inspiring if you choose to ignore the fact that, in this moment, they’re still keeping their own secrets. I honestly thought Oscar was going to come clean when he approached Ironwood leaning against the wall. Instead he offers his advice which is, straight up, to just stop keeping secrets. Says the kid who is still keeping secrets. Oscar even goes so far as to say that “You already knew that wasn’t the right course” which is the biggest load of BS I’ve heard on this show so far. No! No one agreed that was the wrong path. You all explicitly decided that keeping secrets was the right thing to do. They’re telling him he was wrong to choose the thing they benefited from and continue to use to their advantage in this scene.“Tell the truth,” Oscar insists, still not telling the truth. “You’re not alone,” Ruby adds when she hasn’t trusted Ironwood once this season. This moment is manipulation because Oscar and Ruby both are trying to convince Ironwood to do something using false personas. Ironwood believes that he should listen to them precisely because he thinks they’ve achieved the very thing they’re demanding of him: sharing all their secrets. He thinks they’re models to look up to. When in fact Ironwood is the only one who has ever managed this demand by sharing his plan with them, completely of his own volition.

The fact that they decide to tell him a few minutes later doesn’t matter. They already got what they wanted and the damage is done. I mean that literally. By manipulating Ironwood into spilling the beans, they’ve created a situation where Ironwood revealed the Salem secret to the council and Robyn but not her immortality. Ironwood himself only learns of that afterward, back in the dining room, and you can see the utter devastation on his face.

Is it still a good idea to tell two highly suspect council members and a woman who has been his semi-enemy about Salem given that she can’t be killed? Who knows. We don’t get to tackle that question because Ironwood wasn’t given a choice. It’s too late. He was pressured and manipulated into a making a huge decision without all the necessary information (which, for the record, is still not the same thing as the group deciding to help people and do the job they signed up for without knowing about Salem). Even if nothing horrible results from these three people now knowing about Salem, Oscar and Ruby have created more problems. We hear the council woman ask fearfully whether Ironwood can defeat Salem. The only thing holding them together is the hope that they can still win with their army... but they can’t. What’s Ironwood going to do with that expectation now? Will he tell them about her immortality too? Risk what they might do in response? Don’t you think this is something he should have known about weeks ago, Ruby? “You should know before you make any… sacrifices” Oscar tells Ironwood, completely ignoring the fact that he already made sacrifices. Mantle was a sacrifice. Those resources were a sacrifice. Telling the council was a sacrifice. Ironwood’s ongoing hope that he could finally end this, stretched out far longer than it had to be, was a sacrifice.

What kills me is the casual nature of it all. There was no catalyst here. Nothing new happened to convince the group that they can suddenly trust Ironwood. If they’re willing to trust him now that means they trusted him before and just didn’t tell him because... they didn’t. The defense of “He’s unstable, who knows what he might do to them and Mantle once he finds out the truth!” was a smokescreen the whole time. Because nothing changed. Ironwood said and did nothing in the last fifteen minutes to suddenly cause the revelation of, “Oh my god. We can trust him. Now we finally know we’re safe to reveal this secret.” They could have done it on day two and avoided so much strife. Like, you know, the situation in Mantle that Nora felt the need to scream at Ironwood about. Maybe if you’d told him his plan was doomed he might not have taken so many resources from the people, given that he’d have known there was no longer a justification for that. You had the power to fix the problems you blamed him for from the get-go.

Combine this with Oscar and Ruby’s horrible conversation. Sure, the rosegarden shippers are thrilled, but beyond the fact that I’m personally not shipping Ruby with a boy housing her 1,000 year old headmaster, that (once again) was not the correct emotion to apply to this moment. They both come across as horrendously callous by laughing and giggling through the decision to finally tell Ironwood. It’s not like these secrets have driven this entire volume and are about to absolutely devastate him or anything. Why would you have a serious conversation about this? Why express even an ounce of sympathy and regret for what you’ve done? Nah, better to jump around and give each other thumbs up. Act so proud that you’ve randomly decided to come clean, like you deserve praise for this. Kids, am I right, Marrow?

Seriously. This is how these two treat the situation vs. what the situation actually is.

Which in a horrible way is fitting because there are zero consequences for all this. (Cue my shock...) Ironwood isn’t mad about any of this. He jokes with Oscar! “No more surprises, alright?” Given that RWBY releases weekly and thus there’s plenty of time between episodes, I feel like people forget the expectations they developed months back. The more optimistic side of the fandom (god bless you all, you’ve got more hope than me) keeps insisting that eventually the group’s new behavior will lead to repercussions, but time and time again Rooster Teeth tells us they won’t. Not for putting Argus in danger. Not for stealing an airship. Not for keeping the secrets Ozpin was crucified over a whole volume for. And that’s still going. Alongside Qrow’s talk with Ruby, Ironwood is given the space to blame Ozpin again---“Why? Why would Oz keep this from us?”---and has no desire to blame the group for doing the exact same thing. Oscar is allowed to go, “Sorry! We just didn’t trust you” but the same justification out of Ozpin’s mouth doesn’t fly, despite the fact that he had a hundred more reasons not to trust a bunch of teens. The level of hypocrisy in this episode is just staggering. We all watched Ruby tell Ozpin’s lies and went, “Oh yeah. This is going to come back to bite them” and it didn’t.

There is nothing the group can do to get in trouble, or even a reprimand for. Anything and everything is twisted to praise them:

Destroyed precious military equipment (which this episode’s attack shows that the world desperately needs) and nearly get people killed by attacking an ally? You get a free ride to Atlas.

Broke Atlas’ laws by stealing their property and then avoiding the police? You get hugs from your sister and early huntsmen licenses.

You tell the exact same lies you demonized your headmaster for? You’re so much better than he is and I’m so proud of you.

Keep secrets from Ironwood, making a horrible situation even worse? Haha no more surprises in the future please!

And yes, this also includes: Going behind everyone’s back to spill information to Robyn? No one will even find out you did that. I’ve seen a post going around with people expressing how pleased they are that Robyn didn’t rat Blake and Yang out. That’s the level of bias the fandom and the writers are working under. The group gets away with everything because they’re the protagonists. Everyone adores them unconditionally. At this point I think they could join with Salem and people would insist that it’s the smartest and most badass move they could possibly make. Fans and the writing would praise them for that too.

Ugh. Sorry for the level of salt in this recap. For the record I am glad that others are able to enjoy all of these moments. I just can’t. Oh boy I can’t.

Alright. Close to wrapping up now. A series of smaller things: Oscar has another moment where he draws on Ozpin’s memories of Atlas being built. “You say that like you were there---” Ironwood says. We’ve spent a lot of time theorizing about the merge but in light of this episode... are we really expecting an explanation? RWBY hasn’t adequately explained dust vs. magic, or Qrow’s semblance, or why we should be rooting for heroes who do everything their perceived opponents do. Why would we expect them to explain something as complicated as this merge either? I think we should just expect a continually wishy-washy situation that changes based on the whims of the plot.

Ren and Nora have a moment on the airship that sparks another charged look between Blake and Yang. Are we ever going to tackle the huge concerns Ren had a few episodes back before they were silenced with a kiss? Does he or anyone else know that Oscar spilled the beans? For that matter, did Oscar admit that there’s still a question left in the relic? Does Ironwood actually want to lock it up now like they should have from the start? Did he explain precisely why Ozpin ran off? These answers remain lost to the void.

Jaune looks like he’s going to be sick after the airship is attacked. Nice throwback to episode one.

Whitley is devastated by his father’s arrest, truly alone now. He slinks off with Willow watching him go. Hopefully with Jacques out of the way she and Weiss (and possibly Winter) can start helping him. Show him how to connect with others in ways besides cruelty.

The group then jumps out of the destroyed ship... but not before Elm and Harriet tease each other a bit. In a kind way. One might almost say... a friendly way...

Yeah these people aren’t friends. No way. What an absurd assumption. Will the show ever come back to that assertion, or will it remain another illogical way of insisting that the group is intrinsically better than everyone else they come into contact with? I’m betting on the latter.

Finally, we catch glimpses of a disguised Neo infiltrating the Schnee manor. After everyone leaves she returns to Cinder who says, “Oh, you’re back early. Tell me you’ve found what we’ve been looking for” and Neo gives an affirmative gesture. To which I respond with no emotion whatsoever because this episode has scorched me from the inside out.

1/10 with the 1 given because yay arresting Jacques. Everything else I’d happily put through a paper shredded. I’m gonna go cleanse my mind with more Witcher 3 now.

Until next week! Everyone start praying...

#rwby #rwby volume 7 #rwby volume 7 spoilers #rwby recaps #mymetas

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psyga315 · 5 years ago

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Prelude

With Volume 7 just beyond the horizon, I figured to look back at my thoughts for Volume 5 and, through more cooled down eyes, boil down why I consider it to be the worst volume of RWBY. When I wrote my review of Volume 5, it was literally the night the episode premiered, so I was boiling. But now? I’m going to look through the review with fresher eyes and clarify what sort of problems I had with RWBY.

First, a bit of backstory. There was an interview made during the summer in between Volumes 4 & 5 that had the cast say what sort of themes one could expect for Volume 5. Among these were stuff like “building yourself back up again”, “shouting ‘we’re not done here!’”, “solving problems on your own”, and lastly, from Barbara herself, “Strength” and “Growth”. For someone who was just starting to realize why people were turned off by the darkness of Volume 3, this was uplifting to say the least…

Shorts

The Character Shorts kinda hyped the Volume, though they sunk in their own way. Weiss’s Character Short effectively foreshadowed her loss to Vernal. This tough and talented girl gets her ass stomped rather quickly and needed to be bailed out. Winter’s line about how she “won’t be around to save her” was foreshadowing to her not actually being in the season, but when I first heard it, I thought she meant “Hey, I’m going to die this volume, lol!” and that’s without bringing up how the trailer fails to hype Weiss up like the other trailers did.

Blake’s Trailer was alright, especially in taking steps to address a problem regarding Menagerie, but it felt more like Ilia given the backstory dump we got that feels all the more like mandatory reading. The problem is that, and it’s perhaps the very first problem I’ve heard about RWBY, is that the trailers (and by extension, anything that’s a spin off of RWBY like World of Remnant) feel more like you need to watch this rather than you can watch this. It’s confusing, but let’s use Blake’s Short as an example.

Ilia talks about her backstory as it is contrasted with a chase between Blake and a random dude we never see again. Assuming you’ve never watched the trailer, you’d just get the truncated version of “MUH PARENTS ARE DEEEAAAD!” and not the bits where she was forced to resent her own race because it was easier to blend in to her surroundings, like a chameleon. It’s ironic, since RWBY would do the reverse problem with Adam, where his trailer isn’t mandatory but we barely get a backstory for him beyond “I got branded, but everyone will speculate that it’s because I did something bad and not that it drove me to do bad things”.

Lastly, there’s Yang’s short, which had the minor hiccup of contrasting what an interview said about running out of Aura means you can’t use your Semblance. The Aura thing is something that can be discussed for another day, but the basics you should take away from this is that, for some time, people didn’t know how running out of Aura is symbolized. Most people take the flickering as the signal as the next hit on those guys are usually the one that does them in. As such, you had this huge debate on what kind of flickering means Aura broken and what just meant Aura is low, which, personally, could have been avoided if the writers and/or animators just utilized that Aura dust thing (seen prominently in the Bumblebee vs Adam fight) as their definitive “aura broken” animation instead of just using it some of the time.

First Episode

The first episode proper promised a lot. In fact, a good chunk of the first half promised a lot. However, it became much clear in a second viewing that a lot of it was just padding at worst and showing us where the characters are at best. But what I think was done dirty the most in this episode was introducing Mistral. We were hyped in Volume 4 (thanks to World of Remnant) that Mistral was this dichotomy of rich, cultural people and the seedy underbelly of criminals and that, at least one of the elements would be utilized in Volume 5. Unfortunately, all we got were a few mat paintings that contrast what Lionheart was saying in regards to Mistral being in chaos.

And so, the most we get out of Mistral are those mat paintings and a perpetually raining downtown that we don’t see much of, even when it gets briefly revisited in Volume 6. We’re supposed to be invested in the city and yet all we get are empty rooms and 2D art. They took great steps to improve this in Volume 6 with Argus, though, so if there’s any consolation, it’s that they learned from their mistakes here.

But we now get into the biggest problem of why Volume 5 is disliked. Because of the situation, the group are left to basically wait until Lionheart convinces the council to get them some Huntsmen. The heroes. Wait. In a volume where the writers were talking about the themes of improving yourself and pulling through with your own strength.

Do you guys see the problem here? I know people have bitched about Volume 5 to hell and back and you’ve probably heard the complaints to high noon, but this entire issue is what rots Volume 5 to the core the most. Not the piss poor fight scenes, not the inconsistent characterizations, it’s that the plotting decides to take a back seat when the volume was meant to be about taking action.

As the episode goes on, you see the problem unfold. Ruby and friends hit a dead end until Oscar appears and has Ozpin exposit things to them, Weiss is denied a chance to save people and fight the Grimm until the Grimm come to her, Blake is hit with the dead end of the Albains deflecting blame, and Yang had the chance encounter with Bakugou where he knows the hideout of her mom.

The closest person who is taking action here is Yang, who established that she is actively looking for Ruby (technically Raven, but as we see later on, moot point). Blake’s situation is being handled by her dad, Weiss is sitting in the plane until the Grimm come for her, and Ruby is sitting on the couch that I’m pretty sure has her grooves molded into the cushion with how many times she’s sat there.

Episode 2

A minor complaint before we go to Episode 2, we had the Stinger repeat itself because the crew thought that people wouldn’t see the stingers. This is the show, mind you, that makes a point to include scenes at the end of every volume, regardless of how long they are or what point they serve in hyping the next Volume. Hell, one of the major complaints about Volume 2 was about the stinger not mattering. So why did they suddenly decide that the viewers might not see the stinger in a culture where the MCU exists?

Alright, cooling things down, we have three major scenes in Episode 2. Salem’s chat with Lionheart was meh at best and wtf at worst. I get the idea of Salem using different approaches to get people to do what she wants, but the cool aspect of Salem was that her approach was not what a villain would normally be. Instead of berating or choking her minions should they fail or talk back, Salem instead talks people down like she’s a mother to them. Even when Tyrian fails, she doesn’t hurt him, but rather tell him that he disappointed her. So, having her choke Lionheart, even when in hindsight it made some sense, is kinda an odd thing to do.

But not as odd as Salem’s whole “Not you, Arthur” bit. A lot of people drew points to that and the best I can explain is that it’s either a typo (she’s meant to say not yet or not now) or Arthur and Watts are some sort of Jekyll & Hyde thing. Unfortunately, it seems Watts is more a parallel to Watson rather than Jekyll, so that brings me to believe that it’s a typo and so, rather than have an easy explanation for a problem, we just have a compounded problem. One of many.

And there’s something funny to be said about Salem warning Cinder about Silver Eyes when Ruby barely learns about it this Volume. And also that she wants to speak with Tyrian but we never see what comes of it. At all.

I only have one new thing about Weiss vs. the Bees. Originally, the pilot was supposed to be gay, but held off on it because they’d be killing off their first revealed gay character, something that wouldn’t look good to the fanbase. Now, while I understand the reason behind it, I have to question the logic behind why they think it isn’t okay for their first LGBT character to be offed, but instead be someone who seemed okay with murdering her crush’s parents while sending said crush to her abuser.

But more on that later, we have Sienna to discuss. Now, there’s a lot to dissect. For one, RT has obviously realized that they’ve messed up and brought Sienna back for a bit (while taking the heat for “if she’s so badass, why did she go out like a chump”). However, in hindsight, what purpose did she actually serve outside of some cute nod to Shere Khan?

All she did was tell Adam that he’s going too far and that’s it. And really, it just seems hypocritical for the leader of the White Fang to effectively restructure the organization into a terrorist group, murder tons of people, and then suddenly back away and say “woah, too much” when Adam proceeded to help torch Beacon. It’s to the point where one question most people want to ask at cons is “did Sienna order the hit out on the SDC”, since we don’t actually know and that it could be a radical leader of that quadrant like Adam.

It felt more like Sienna should have been just the leader of Mistral’s White Fang faction instead of ruling over all the White Fang, which would make more sense as Adam would need permission to attack a kingdom that isn’t his stomping ground. Then there’s the introduction of Hazel, who at first is presented to be a pretty decent character, not wanting to kill people if he had no choice, but as time goes on, is basically your stock “big soft guy with a secret hulk side” character.

Unfortunately, this episode didn’t help enforce the theme of taking action when it’s the villains who are doing it and seeming to be two if not twenty steps ahead of the heroes.

Episode 3

Episode 3 has that whole speech thing I overlooked. Barring Ghira’s speech that the crew said is based off Obama’s “we killed Osama” speech (which, if it is, paints the whole situation of Sienna’s death in a rather dark light) before Ilia interferes. Now, I actually liked that Menagerie is hesitant to stand up for Haven. After all, humans hated their guts so much that the island was originally planned to be a place where people could dump Faunus on. There were lynchings and enslavements that are still going on to this day, just in subtler forms, Of course the Faunus wouldn’t want to fight.

Then Ilia swoops in and robs Blake of any agency she has with the scene. If RT wanted to not let Blake convince the people until three quarters to the end, they should have cut the subtlety and have some annoying kid go “IT’S TOO EARLY IN THE PLOT TO DO YOUR SPEECH!”. Hell, let Blake tell her story about her team, but the audience balks at the fact that she’s not only friends with a Schnee, but also a human who crippled a guy on live television. Remember that plot point?

We then cut to Oscar and this is perhaps the reason I decided to do this revisit of Volume 5. The way Ozpin talks of action and resolve, it felt like we’re going to the root of the themes of taking action. No more being subject to the events of the plot like in previous Volumes. Now? Now is the time to fight back! And that built up to… what? One training scene and Ruby learning headbutt?

Granted, we see later on that there was a bit more to the plan, but for the most part, it seemed like an excuse for “character growth” as opposed to actual character growth. A training arc isn’t just some short scenes of a person lifting weights and jogging up stairs. Its meant to be a sort of means of growth for the character. There’s a reason most training montages have the character suck at first, but then get better by the time the montage ends. It’s because it’s the quickest way to show growth. But even without that, you could get some serious mileage for a pulled off training arc.

Rocky IV and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back have some good examples of it. Rocky IV had the titular hero train and work out in the middle of a cold, mountainous range, while his opponent is simply given steroids. It shows the dichotomy between the two and how they view their eventual fight. Empire, on the other hand, had that masterful scene with Luke in the cave, where he has a huge moment of both foreshadowing and character growth.

Here? We just have Ruby learn headbutt like she’s nothing more than a Pokemon. There could have been a lot more done with it, like having Ruby put a lot more force in her punches, causing others to realize she’s extremely angry about what happened to Pyrrha and Penny, or, if the need to exposit about Semblances is needed, bring something new to the table that isn’t going to confuse the fuck out of people… Something like:

“Your Semblance might not reveal itself until you need it most” or something like that. Not “A semblance is someone’s personality, but not. Wow! Exposition!” or “Hey, remember how we said Aura was passive? Welp, not anymore!”

Not to mention that Jaune is seemingly cool with Ozpin suddenly coming back from the dead. Here’s the thing, last Volume had him upset with Ozpin about what happened to Pyrrha, something that didn’t seemed to resolve itself. Keep in mind that, for all rights and merits, Jaune believed Ozpin to have died. In fact, it was that confirmation that Ozpin had lost against Cinder that convinced Pyrrha to kill herself. Now here he is, seemingly stuck in the body of another kid and he just outright said this is a normal thing for him.

You’d expect him to have something more than “golly!”. The fact that he didn’t seem to have any aggression towards Ozpin until after he ran to his hidey hole in Volume 6 seems rather odd given that his entire character is that he’s angsting about Pyrrha and angry at Cinder for what she did. The group seem rather content to just sit back and let the plot happen, which is the opposite of what the crew was trying to convey with their themes.

Episode 4 and Episode 5

I still stand by what I said regarding how Episode 4 was a good episode, finally having a reunion between two members of Team RWBY, but it’s perhaps one of the last good things about RWBY we’ll ever see in Volume 5. Because Raven’s promise to tell Yang “the whole truth” turns out to just be regurgitated exposition at worst.

But first, we need to have Blake, the woman who doesn’t want her race to be labeled, turn out to have labels for her friends. Okay, granted, it’s not that dumb but it is kinda patronizing that we need to have a character tell us what another character is. While the rest of her speech is pretty effective in defining Blake’s character, making her perhaps the only character these themes of growth and strength actually apply to, it still is annoying that the most we take away out of this is her boiling down every character to a single word, then bringing up how Adam is going to ruin everything for the Faunus. You’ll see why this is a problem later. I liked the setting of Menagerie’s Shallow Sea marketplace thing and felt like Menagerie is wasted potential.

Ruby’s whole speech still feels like damage control, but with the added complaint of Ruby deciding to blame Salem for something Cinder did. Now, I heard the common excuse a lot: “Salem told Cinder to do it so it’s all her fault”, but that problem with that? Cinder told Emerald to kill Penny. So… Yeah. It is her fault. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded this if Ruby didn’t word it like Salem personally killed Penny and Pyrrha. Like as in, she just up and appeared out of nowhere and shot both Penny and Pyrrha in the head.

It still doesn’t fix the fact that Ruby is basically “hey, remember how I’m supposed to be upset?”

Lastly for Episode 5, we have the White Fang do the brilliant plant of murdering the chieftain who just spoke out against them. It’s dumb. Extremely dumb. What the hell do they think will happen after they murder the chieftain in cold blood? Menagerie is just gonna magically bend over and obey the White Fang? But perhaps the biggest waste is the White Fang in general.

You have these two sneaky fox brothers who seemingly oversee everything and even state that they’re only letting Adam do what he wants until he’s no longer of use to them, a buff bat dude, and a spider-lady… And they’re never seen again after this Volume. I get the idea, because RT is trying to wrap up the Faunus subplot as quickly as possible, but the problem that you can’t exactly introduce new characters or hidden depths if you’re just gonna throw them out with the bath water.

If they wanted to end the subplot, why did they put all the effort in some random characters that are just gonna be defeated off screen with a tea tray? Then again, this is a problem endemic to RWBY. Introduce this character, then quickly shoo them away before you’re committed to writing a plot for them. If you know you were going to half-ass the White Fang conclusion, why bother with stuff like more White Fang members or the SDC brand? In fact, why bother with the White Fang to begin with if you’re going to do so little with them?

Episode 6

Moving on before I lose my cool, we have Qrow aimlessly walking around downtown Mistral. Now, the crew said that Maria was supposed to be here… But… Why? What purpose would she serve? If she’s just gonna be a “hey, look, cameo to foreshadow Volume 6”, then that’s a horrible purpose. You know how most Cinematic Universes tanked because they spent more time hyping the next twenty movies when they should focus on their pilot? That’s what she would have been like.

Not to mention that she would have been caught in the crossfire of why Volume 5 was bad. “So here we have this random old lady who doesn’t matter at all to the plot so why is she even there” and then “Oh wow, she’s a SEW. They’re doing damage control to justify her unneeded presence in Volume 5”. And, don’t get me wrong, Maria is a fun lady and all that, but there needs to be a reason she was there beyond “hype for next Volume”.

What makes the problem worse was that they’re planning to include Maria so as to have a sort of Yoda to teach Ruby. This makes the complaint of “why didn’t Ruby ask about the Silver Eyes” even more of a complaint because now it seems like they decided “hey, we’re going to address it next volume, so let’s not bother bringing it up here”. Which is even worse than “hey, people noticed we didn’t address this so let’s completely invent this character for the sole purpose of addressing it!”

And then there’s Raven who is all “lol, I know more than you realize but I’m not actually gonna answer anything trolololololol” AARHG!

Okay. Okay. Before I completely lose my marbles, there’s one thing about the scene with Raven that’s stupid.

It’s the “there’s no such thing as magic” thing.

Okay. I get it. Turning into a bird is something that, in the world of RWBY, seems impossible. But there’s a ton of problems with this:

What makes summoning dead Grimm to fight for you so much more different than magic?

You’re willing to believe in magic rocks that augment your fighting style and are in fact part of a company that profits off magic rocks, yet turning into a bird is the messed up thing?

The guy who gave her this ability is currently inhabiting the body of a young boy and has said to basically devour his soul in due time, as well as create the magic that’s responsible for torching your school and your friend… And the BIRD is the most messed up thing!?

“But Raven made it sound like she was forced into it”. She didn’t seem to have any fucking problem with it though. Not only that, but it didn’t seem like a big dark secret that Ozpin wouldn’t want uncovered. In fact, he even said he gave Qrow and Raven the ability to turn into birds in an amused way.

Even more so when everyone but Yang seemed to respond to it with disbelief rather than outright anger. There’s a reason this whole bird issue was made fun of in Jello’s “So This is Basically RWBY” video.

Also, before we move onto Episode 7, I wanna bring up that the scene where Qrow visits the Shields is perhaps the reason why I hold Ozpin’s censorship of Lionheart’s role in the Battle of Haven to be one of the most scumbag moves he could have made. “Your mom’s dead, but don’t worry, the guy who sold her out is a hero!”

Episodes 7-10

Right, back to Episode 7. Okay, I’ll admit, it was a nice reunion scene all things considered, albeit with some rather unnerving things like Yang asking Weiss if she let the Boarbatusk skewer the trophy wife or even the dumb, patronizing “we haven’t made character arcs for us to go through so I’ll just say we had some”, since they had the great idea to use Ren, who is voiced by Monty’s brother, as the mouthpiece for that.

Unfortunately, this is the episode I always think back to when I think of Volume 5. The perfect epitome of a slow, monotonous Volume. The problem I have is that, yeah, it’s meant to be this breather episode, a calm before the storm, but this just feels like a long lull that’s made even more insulting with the cliffhanger. All it has is people dumping exposition that viewers have either figured out or weren’t even burning questions and I think the awkward silence that followed Ozpin saying how he was the wizard that gave the Maidens his power is the perfect epitome for just how boring the volume is. The dude just revealed a massive plot twist and it’s treated as nothing more than a “did you know�� factoid.

While I liked how they addressed that Blake leaving Yang would have had some serious negative emotions in Yang, it felt rather half-assed that they basically resolved it with “hey, my mom’s drunk, so shut up and accept Blake the moment she comes back”, especially since it comes from Weiss, who told Blake at the end of Volume 1 that if she ever runs away again, she best let RWBY know. If they wanted to ship Bumblebee so badly, this would have been a great hurdle for them to come across instead of just “hey, let me resolve this plot for you”.

Now, the whole thing with Ilia… Let’s get the elephant out of the way. The way they revealed her sexuality, I feel, could have been done better. “You wanna know why I’m gonna kill your parents and bring you to your abuser? Because I wanted you to look at me like a lover!” There’s a reason why some fans label her as a “psycho lesbian”.

However, I want to bring up that Rooster Teeth did an excellent job at building tension during the climax of the Menagerie Arc. Sure, the cliffhangers were tiresome, but you couldn’t help but admit you were at the edge of your seat and it even did a good job at subversion. Even if they allegedly didn’t even intend for it to happen.

The constant dryness of exposition and dialogue exchanges is what made Episode 10 so much better than the other episodes. Not just because it’s action-orientated, but because it finally tries to get back to the themes that it was originally supposed to tell. Throughout the entirety of the middle portion of Volume 5, the group basically took a backseat and allowed characters and plots to happen to them rather than advocate for themselves. The closest thing we got to the theme of “building yourself back up” is Weiss talking to Yang about Blake.

In fact, the only actual characters taking action are the villains. Constantly roadblocking the cast, setting them in for a trap, and even aiming to screw each other over. These guys have more advocacy and agency than the main characters. The most any of them did was…

Burn down their own house and blamed everyone else for it, all while saying that the house is the message Adam wants to send.

Use a girl’s unrequited feelings towards them to their advantage, straddle them, and guilt tripped her enough for her to consider switching sides.

Cry about how things are not going their way until their hands start magically glowing.

Yelling at someone until they cry bitch tears and then have them run away without even bothering to close the door leading to the dangerous artifact everyone had been working so hard to keep out of enemy hands.

In the volume where the theme is “solving problems on our own”. Just because Yang drops the word strength a few times when bitching out at Raven doesn’t mean that the theme had been accomplished. In fact, they do nothing of their own accord and just follow a script. Even Ozpin, the supposed smartest guy in all of Remnant, doesn’t even bother to figure out a way to counter the trap. Just instead walk in. Hell, if Yang didn’t spot Raven, they’d be mulched.

But, back on track. Episode 9 was an entire waste that failed to pay off the expectations of what we had with the cliffhanger set up in Episode 7. “But it subverted your ex-” NO. There’s a good way to subvert expectations and being promised a fight after episodes of bland exposition only to have it be “lol, no, it’s just gonna be more talking” is not a good subversion.

No. Here’s a better way. Set up the cliffhanger like normal, but don’t show Cinder’s dragged out negotiation with Raven. Instead, have her “allying” with Cinder be a twist. That way, people’s expectations for what happened are actually, you know, subverted?

The Battle of Haven

But, you know where this is leading to… The Battle of Haven. Really, I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t been covered by someone else. We all know it makes all the Vytal fights look like masterpieces by comparison, we all know the jokes about useless Weiss or Lionheart hogging the staircase, or even the plot holes of Raven knowing Cinder’s arm being Grimm but doing nothing about it or Blake, despite spending the past volume saying how Adam must be stopped, suddenly doesn’t care about him…

So let me cut it simply:

The reason this battle sucks might have to do with the crunch.

We don’t know how long this issue with Rooster Teeth had been going on for, but if it is indeed what people say it is and that animators don’t get paid for the last quarter or third of their work, then that might explain all the cut corners animators and writers made. Why the fights are broken up into one on ones or why fights are cut out entirely. Maybe they weren’t getting paid enough and thus, the quality of RWBY suffered as a result of it.

And that’s perhaps the shittiest thing about the Battle of Haven. It could have been this epic fight that would have made up for all the boring, drawn out scenes of exposition and chatting, but because Rooster Teeth got too greedy or even because of our own impatience (which, again, isn’t helped by the aforementioned long, drawn out scenes), we are treated to a final battle so broken and tiresome that the Battle of Winterfell manages to be a better final battle, with the only thing holding it back being that Haven had a better identity twist.

And if, for whatever reason, it isn’t due to crunch issues, then we have another problem. This was meant to be this hyped up rematch between the heroes and villains, who haven’t seen each other since the latter ruined the lives of the former. This would have been excellent to see how the killers of Jaune and Ruby’s friends would interact with them, how Yang would react to the person who framed her, even how the group had grown since their last battle…

But… if crunch wasn’t to blame for the quality dip and the writers intended for the fight to go the way it went… I have to say… What the fuck were they thinking!? So many moments could have been brought up here and yet they decided that they weren’t important enough to focus on! And now, with this battle over and done with, those moments lost their luster. If they decide to bring them up, it’d be too little, too late at best and “why the fuck are you bringing this up now” at worst.

I’ll deal with one commonly used example to get what I mean. Adam was established in Volume 3 to be a threat only made strong because he uses Blake’s emotions against her and has a Semblance that lets him dish out aura-breaking damage. Blake easily defeats Adam and has him on the ropes, only to let him run with a few excuses that some people have debated to death and back, when it would have been much easier for Blake to have to choose between apprehending Adam and helping Yang. Then, when he inevitably returns to haunt Blake next volume, suddenly he’s a threat that Blake is afraid of again despite Blake having “grown” to oppose him.

They wanted that “triumph” over him, but realize that by doing so, they’ve burned that opportunity to have the triumph be meaningful. Same goes with Emerald and Mercury. They had a good opportunity for Ruby to effectively call them out for their crimes like how Jaune did to Cinder, but instead she just headbutts Mercury. Yang had at least some closure on her arc with Mercury, but it was meh.

The Point in All of This

Hell, speaking of wasted opportunities, the reunion of Team RWBY, something that the opening had hyped and one that the fans had been waiting for since Volume 3 ended, is nothing more than an afterthought. They couldn’t even be assed to show Blake’s first fight back with Ruby and Weiss. That’s how little they cared. It’s like everyone was just wanting to get that paycheck but they needed to rush that final episode out the door and also need to make room for Gen:Lock and Nomad trailers. They didn’t even care about the stinger, as they basically ignored any sort of information relating to the stinger.

Perhaps the biggest reason why Volume 5 sucked so hard was that it was running off the heels of Volume 3. Everyone basically accepted that Volume 4 was meant to be a breather Volume, with lower stakes and lower drama (with the exception of possible death flags for Ren and Nora), but the moment they made Volume 5 the grudge match everyone wanted, then the stakes got raised back to the heights of the third Volume, only for it to fail to live up to the expectations. Sorry, I think I mean to say “subvert the expectations” in this day and age.

Though, I think the huge problem with all of this, and perhaps the biggest bottom line I can say, is that it might be due to Volume 3 going too over the edge. By killing important characters and even dividing the team, the villains had raised stakes up so high, that people began to take the show more seriously. When characters were vaguely hinted to die, be it through threats from the villains or even flashbacks, people fretted that they would die. When the villains go back to striking distance with the heroes, people desired a grand battle. When the show tried to deal with the ramifications that happened with RWBY separating, people wanted to know what was going through the characters’ heads.

And when Volume 5 failed to deliver/“subverted their expectations”, people considered it a bad volume.

But worst of all, it failed to live up to its own themes. Jaune was the only person to build himself back up again through deus ex hands, and we saw next Volume that it needed a statue for him to feel better. No one was in a position of giving up only to be defiant and shout “we’re not done here”, but instead cry “it wasn’t supposed to be like this!”. The big problem of Volume 5, make sure the relic is secure, is only solved because two characters had a catfight in the basement and the survivor didn’t bother to lock up because their daughter was too busy bitching at her. No one really grew or strengthened their resolve. The triumph… wasn’t theirs to have.

Although, it seems Rooster Teeth had learned from their mistakes, with Volume 6 being leaps and bounds better than Volume 5, regardless of what you thought of the latter half. Best of all, the themes promised in Volume 5 were shown prominently in Volume 6, albeit some of the scenes capitalizing on those themes feeling more like a child is having a tantrum because they couldn’t have the airplane.

To close out this rather long winded discussion, and to give people a tl;dr on the whole matter, Volume 5 failed to address the themes it had presented and instead just padded itself out, expecting people to accept it because it’s RWBY.

#RWDE #RWBY #Volume 5

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destiel-love-forever · 5 years ago

Text

The Set-Up

In Claire and Jack Novak's opinion, it's been far too long since their dad went out on a date. Castiel Novak doesn't think it's an issue. His children disagree.

So, they make a plan.

Enter a dating app, a fake profile, and an unsuspecting Dean Winchester. What could go wrong?

Read Below or on AO3: The Set-Up

The Set-Up

The plan is simple. Only 3 steps.

Stage One: Make the dating profile.

The first thing the app asks is what picture or pictures they’d like to include. Claire wants the picture to be more on the attractive side, while Jack thinks it should be goofy. They decide to add three in order to cover all the bases. The first is of their dad when they went on a hike last month. He’s wearing that light blue shirt that makes his eyes bright. It was a weekend, so his stubble is grown in. The smile on his face is carefree, showing off his dimples and eye wrinkles. They both agree that he’s handsome - even sexy, if it were possible for their dad to be sexy - and use that as his main photo. The second picture is of their dad at an outdoor concert. He’s wearing his blackRebel With A Cause shirt and his sock monkey winter hat with the strings hanging down. The third is a picture of the three of them at the ocean. Uncle Gabriel had taken the photo just after a huge wave knocked them over, so everyone’s hair is all over the place. They’re standing together haphazardly, arms wrapped around each other so they can smile for the picture. You can practically hear the laughter.

“Perfect,” Claire announces, clapping her hands together after this part is done. “Now they see he’s a hot, goofy, single dad.”

“Do we want them to know the single dad part?” Jack asks nervously.

“Uh, duh! This isn’t Tinder, Jack. This is looking for a long-term thing. I think it’d be a little hard to do that while keeping his sixteen-year-old twin teenagers a secret.”

Jack shrugs, unable to argue. He clicks the NEXT button and they continue filling out the profile. It takes them thirty-four minutes, and a lot of arguing. It’s a relief when they finally submit it.

“Now what?” Jack asks as they stare at the finished profile.

“Now,” Claire pauses dramatically, giving Jack a crazed smile that makes him wonder if this plan was actually a good idea. “We wait.”

----

When Dean gets home from work after pulling a double-shift, he grabs a cold beer from the fridge and plops down on the couch. He kicks his feet up and turns on the TV to watch the football game that’s about to start. As the announcers go back and forth on what team is going to win, Dean starts messing around on his phone. His thumb hovers over the dating app Sam convinced him to install last week. He hasn’t looked at it since the first night. It’s not that he doesn’t want to find someone, he’d love to, but it’s such a time-consuming process.

After glancing up at the TV to see that there’s still ten minutes before kick-off, he figures he might as well scroll through the thing. What’s the harm in looking? It might even be entertaining.

Case in point: The first profile Dean sees is of a man maybe ten years older than him with a black Santa beard, who has wrapped himself in a strange-looking rainbow towel and is holding what looks like a pet mouse. Dean doesn’t even read the description of that one.

The next isn’t terrible. A younger guy with a cute smile. Dean rolls his eyes when he reads the blurb on the guy's profile. Every achievement in his life is written out for Dean to read - from winning his highschool talent show to getting a masters in business. He then lays out his dating history, in which each situation he was the victim.

Next.

Dean's breath catches when he flicks his thumb to a picture of an absolutely beautiful man. He's standing on what looks like the top of the mountain, grinning at the camera. Despite the hiking clothes and messy, sweaty hair, he still manages to be Dean's wet dream.

Holding his breath, Dean starts to read the blurb on this guy's - Castiel, Age 38 - profile. He's praying this guy doesn't suck like all the others.

I'm a freelance photographer, a terrible singer, and have a set of 16-year-old twins that make my world chaotic. When my kiddos graduate I plan on doing a lot of traveling. My Hogwarts house is Hufflepuff - yeah I'm a 38-year-old man who cares about his Hogwarts house, fight me - and my patronus is a guinea pig. I'm allergic to guinea pigs though, so not sure what that says about me. Message at your own risk if none of that scares you off.

Dean reads the paragraph two more times, grinning like an idiot. He scrolls through the rest of the pictures, each one sporting an equally good looking Castiel, and decides this one is worth a shot.

He opens up the chat feature but then his thumbs freeze. What does he even say? He rereads Castiel's paragraph before typing out what he hopes will be a response the guy likes.

Dean spends the rest of the game checking the app every two minutes. When he finally gets the checkmark that Castiel read it, he holds his breath and stares at the screen. Then it tells him Castiel is typing. Dean's heart races. He decides it'd be a good idea to grab another beer while he waits.

This Castiel guy has him feeling like a damn teenager again. If Dean's being honest, he kind of missed that.

----

"Dad got a new message!"

"Oh god, is it another creeper?" Jack asks, hurrying over to where his sister is sitting on the couch. It's a valid question. They've had some real wackjobs message their dad. One asked upfront for a dick pic. Another told him he'd like to bring him on a walk in the forest at night. Suffice to say, those got deleted.

"No, he's hot!" Claire grins at Jack, showing him a picture of a very handsome man that looks to be a little younger than their dad. He has kind green eyes and a warm smile. The picture shows him at what seems to be a barbecue, people blurred in the background as he stands there wearing a faded flannel and holding a beer. Relaxed. Casual. Not full of himself.

"What's his profile say?"

Claire clicks on the button that makes the profile blurb pop up and read out loud, "I'm a pretty laid back guy, but I still squeeze in adventures every once in a while. Nothing's better than a lazy Sunday on the couch watching football - though kayaking down the river is a close second. If those kinds of things sound good to you, feel free to message me."

"He sounds good," Jack muses.

"Good? How about great. He's perfect. I mean, dad isn't a huge football fan, but he could read a book or something as they cuddle! And dad loves kayaking and stuff like that."

Jack lifts his hands. "I'm sorry. You're right. He sounds great. What does his message say?"

After a second, Claire reads, "Your chaos doesn't scare me. Life should be messy after all, right? Plus, I don't own any guinea pigs, so we're batting a thousand so far. Look at us go - and then a wink face."

"He's funny. That's good! Dad needs to laugh more."

"Dad needs to do what?" Castiel asks, strolling into the living room while looking at his twins suspiciously.

"Oh. Uh." Claire and Jack exchange a look. Then Claire says, "Sleep more. We were just talking about how you're always up late and up early. You need to relax more."

Castiel chuckles. "I'll keep that in mind. Don't worry about your old man, kiddos. I'm fine."

As Castiel flips through the channels on the TV, Claire leans in to whisper in Jack's ear. "He's not fine, but he will be." She shows him the message she sent back to Dean, grinning mischievously.

"Stage two?" Jack asks in excitement.

"Stage two."

Stage Two: Arrange a meeting.

After seven messages stretched over 36 hours, Dean asks if they can meet. He suggests something low key and public, making a joke about serial killers, and Castiel (A.K.A. Claire and Jack) says he knows just the place. They agree on grabbing some coffee on Saturday morning at a little cafe downtown. Ten A.M.

That gives the twins sixteen hours to get their dad to that cafe at that particular time. Unsuspecting, of course.

Stage Three: Get dad to the cafe.

They ambush him at dinner. Claire starts - she’s usually the one to take the reins. Even as a toddler, she was the troublemaker of the two.

“So, dad. What are you doing tomorrow morning?”

Castiel, always very perceptive, pauses halfway through cutting his steak and looks up at his daughter. His eyebrows pull in. “Nothing… that I know of.”

“Perfect! We want to hang out with you.”

“Excuse me?” Castiel looks at Jack, then back at Claire, highly suspicious. “You want to hang out? With me? On a Saturday?” He looks at each of them again. “Without me telling you you have to?”

Jack steps in. “School starts in a week. I’ll be busy with football and student council, and Claire will be busy with dance and drama. We just wanted to spend a little extra time with you.”

Wanting to make this sound a bit more realistic - because they’re teenagers after all - Claire adds, “And we were kiiiiiind of hoping you’d bring us clothes shopping for back to school, too.”

“Ahh, there it is. The motive.” Castiel winks at his kids. “Fine. We can go school clothes shopping.”

“And coffee!” Jack adds enthusiastically.

“Coffee?”

Claire shoots her brother a look for shouting that at their dad instead of being more subtle, then smiles at Castiel and says, “Well, that’s what we wanted to do first. Get coffees and then go shopping.”

“You don’t have to bribe me, kiddos. I’ll take you shopping.”

“It’s not a bribe,” Jack states firmly.

“Yeah. It’s a thing.” Claire shrugs a shoulder. “It’s very New York City. Everyone’s been doing it.”

“Doing what?” Castiel asks, slightly exasperated.

“Getting coffees. It’s way cooler than stupid stuff like bowling or the movies.”

Jack nods. “It’s more sophisticated. Grown-up.”

This makes Castiel smile. “Okay. Grown-up coffee date it is.”

----

Castiel sighs as they walk into the coffee shop. It’s been a morning of overbearing children. First, he planned on letting them sleep-in this morning. What teenagers don’t want to sleep-in on Saturday, a week before they go back to school? Apparently Castiel’s. They made it clear they needed to get their coffee by 10 AM, because the mall opens at 11 and they don’t want to have to wait in lines.

Then what Castiel wanted to wear - old jeans and a hooded sweatshirt - was apparently not cool enough for them, whatever that means. They talked him into his nice pair of dark jeans and a soft grey sweater that’s thin enough for the lingering warmth of summer.

As he started driving them to Starbucks, he was quickly directed downtown instead. His kids love Starbucks. At least, they used to. Now it’s apparently not what everyone is doing. It’s not New York City - something they both keep saying, even though Castiel is clueless what New York has to do with anything.

Now they’re in the coffee shop, and Castiel is sent to get himself coffee while Claire and Jack go talk to a friend. They say they’ll be back in a minute, telling Castiel to just go sit. When he offers to get them their coffees, they both nearly shout at him not to before stuttering something about not being sure what they want yet.

Castiel gets his Americano and slumps down at a table in the corner. He pulls his phone out and opens the chat for Gabriel. He’s the coolest person Castiel knows - which sort of hurts the soul to admit.

Castiel: Do you know what it means for something to be ‘So New York City’? And since when is Starbucks not cool?

"Excuse me?" Castiel puts his phone down and glances up at the man who just spoke to him. He's taken aback. Not only is the man gorgeous - dressed in black jeans and a faded denim-colored button-up shirt that has the top few buttons left open, with a charming smile that involves the prettiest pink lips Castiel has ever seen, a dusting of freckles, and green eyes that feel like they could see into his soul - but he's also standing extremely close to Castiel. Like, if Castiel were to stand up, they'd be chest to chest.

Castiel clears his throat and awkwardly says, "Uh, hey. Can I help you?"

The guy stares at him for a few seconds, then his gorgeous smile fades. "You're Castiel, right?"

"Right." Castiel scans the cafe, confused. "I'm sorry, have we met?"

"Seriously?"

"Well - yes."

The guy huffs, clearly angry now. "I'm Dean."

"Okay." Castiel scratches the back of his head and laughs nervously. "Well, hi Dean. Can I help you with something?"

"Great. I knew you were too good to be true. Just had to be a fucking dick." Dean turns to leave before spinning back around and glaring at Castiel. "Why even show up? Why keep messaging me? Seriously. What the hell is this?"

Now Castiel is really confused. "Messaging you? I'm sorry, sir. I have no idea-" his eyes travel past Dean's shoulder, catching sight of Jack and Claire trying to hide behind a bookshelf. "Oh, Jesus christ."

"What?" Dean growls.

Castiel laughs softly. That's all he can do in this situation. He's so shocked that his kids pulled this off that he can't even be pissed right now. He's sure that will come later, though.

"Let me guess. We met on a dating app or website."

"Dude, what is this? Is this some sort of fucking game?"

"No. Unfortunately, it is not." Castiel points at his twins, who look terrified. When Dean sees them, Castiel explains. "Apparently my pain in the ass teenagers didn't want to accept my I don't want to date right now. I'm assuming they're who you've been talking to."

Dean stares at them before turning to look at Castiel with wide eyes. "You know, it was written on your profile that they create chaos in your life. I was forewarned. Just had no idea I was going to be a part of their troublemaking."

"Okay, I need to see this profile now." Castiel laughs, trying to imagine what his kids would have put. "Can I buy you coffee as an apology?"

"An apology?" Dean scoffs, stepping closer to him so he can speak in a lower voice. "You're not getting out of this one, blue eyes. I'm on their side. You and I are on a date right now."

"We most certainly are not."

Dean winks at him. Winks! "I'm gonna grab myself a coffee. You just stay there."

"But-"

"Need anything? Muffin? Refill?"

"I - but - no." Castiel wipes a hand down his face, suddenly nervous. He's on a date. He's not ready for a date. He doesn't have topics prepared in case the conversation lulls. He didn't ask Gabriel what to do or say in every possible scenario.

Before Castiel can panic further, Dean is back. He puts a gentle hand on Castiel's shoulder and pushes him until he's sitting in his chair, then goes to the opposite side of the table to sit across from him. His grin is even wider than it was when they first spoke. That was a sexy, but nervous Dean. This is a confident, amused Dean.

Great.

"So, Castiel. Let's get a few things straight. Is your patronus really a guinea pig? And how exactly does one get themselves sorted into Hufflepuff?"

Castiel groans. What other embarrassing stuff has his children told this man? He looks over at where Jack and Claire or clearly spying on them from across the cafe. He narrows his eyes and mouths you two are dead while doing a line across his throat with his finger.

When he turns to look at Dean again, the guy is laughing. He's loving this.

"First of all," Castiel begins, letting a large amount of sass into his tone. "If we’re going to try this, you aren’t allowed to bash Hufflepuff. What’s your house anyway?”

“Gryffindor,” Dean states proudly.

Castiel rolls his eyes. “Cliche.”

“Uh, I can’t help that that’s my house!”

“Did you take the official test?” Dean doesn’t even have to answer. The look on his face and the way his eyes awkwardly dart to the side give him away. Castiel points an accusing finger at him. “Exactly. So you’re one of those wannabe Harry Potter guys. No giving me shit for being Hufflepuff until you take the test too, asshole.”

Dean laughs softly, looking at Castiel with eyes that practically sparkle. “Alright. Fair enough.”

“Second of all, that right there?” Castiel points a finger at his twins, then at Dean. “Not cool. Not cool. You’re on team dad if you come around. No joining those two to gang up on me.”

The smirk Dean gives Castiel makes it pretty damn clear this rule isn’t going to be followed, even though he says, “Of course.”

Lucky for Dean, Castiel’s already hooked on this man. He’s laid back. Good looking. Funny. Charming. It’s easy for them to talk and tease each other. He’s making Castiel laugh for the first time in a long time. Plus, he already passed the crazy teenager test. If this guy can handle the fact that he was tricked by the twins to come here on a blind date with their dorky, uncooperative dad, then Castiel can give him a chance.

“What’s number three?” Dean asks.

“Huh?”

“There was a first of all. Then a second of all.” Dean puts his elbows on the table and leans closer to Castiel, almost like they’re sharing secrets. “What’s the third of all?”

“Umm,” Castiel looks at his coffee, feeling himself blush. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t blushed in years. “Third of all - ummm.”

“Can I do the third of all?”

Castiel tilts his head, looking at Dean in curiosity. “Sure.”

“Great.” Dean licks his lips, eyes flicking down to Castiel’s own mouth. When he looks back up at Castiel, it looks like he wants to eat him alive. “I'm bringing you to dinner tonight so we can have a proper first date. One where your two goofballs aren't spying on us."

Castiel turns around, laughing when he sees that Jack and Claire have moved closer now, trying to hide behind an open menu that barely covers one of their faces, let alone two. He looks back and Dean and smiles. "Dinner tonight sounds perfect."

#destiel #fluff #silly #twins #claire novak #castiel novak #Jack kline #jack novak #dean winchester #fake dating #dating profiles #mischief #meddling #teenagers #dad cas

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thegreekgods · 6 years ago

Note

I absolutely love your blog! I wanted to ask if you have any headcannons about how the Olympians interact with each other?

I’m glad you like it! Sorry that it took a while to get this done. I hope this is what you wanted :)

So, having to live with the same people for the rest of the eternity results in a lot of chaos. The Olympus is a big mess.

ZEUS

(Gotta say it: I hate this dude)

+ For starters, Zeus is kind of an asshole with everyone, but we knew that already.

+ He keeps cheating on Hera and acts like it’s the last time.

+ Always fights with Hades and Poseidon over the simplest things but deep down (very, very deep), he loves them.

+ He’s really nice to Hestia, because, you’re a monster if you’re not.

+ Isn’t the best father. He tries saying that he loves all his kids the same but everyone knows he loves Athena more. Some people think that’s because he feels guilty for Metis (including Athena herself).

HESTIA

+ Hestia is like, the kindest person in the world and she loves her family with all her heart.

+ She has long conversations with Hades while they drink tea (she’s his favorite sibling) and spends a lot of time braiding Demeter and Hera’s hair while her sisters rant about Hades and Zeus.

+ She rolls her eyes at Demeter because Persephone is happily married and she wishes her sister would just accept that, and tries to get Hera to divorce her husband because Zeus doesn’t deserve her.

+ Hestia basically loves spending time with everyone in her family. Tea parties with Hades? Yes. Reading books with Athena? Yes. Long conversations with Aphrodite? Yes. Cooking with Demeter? Yes. She just wants them to spend more time together a real family and always tries to make things more peaceful.

+ That’s why she’s always there when they do the council meetings. Things tend to get a little… intense.

+ Basically they would be screwed without her.

HADES

+ If he’s honest, not living in Olympus with the rest of his family is a blessing.

+ He hated being islated at first but her can’t stand all those figths. Zeus and Demeter get on his nerves and wants to throw himself on Tartarus when they start yelling at his.

+ Hestia visits him and he loves her, all the others can choke.

+ (he loves them too but never says it)

+ Poseidon and Hades get along pretty well when they’re making fun of Zeus together.

+ But he wishes they could be able to just be brothers without power always coming first. (yeah, Persephone made him soft)

+ Speaking of Persephone, here are some headcanons of the Olympian Power Couple: https://thegreekgods.tumblr.com/post/180462950560/ooh-ok-got-any-headcanons-about-hades-and

+ His favorite nieces are Athena and Artemis because they never get on his nerves like Apollo and Hermes.

+ Just like Hestia, he wishes Hera would divorce Zeus. Because one: she’s one of the reasons the Underworld is getting more souls, and two: because he knows his brother’s a shitty husband.

+ Sometimes he goes to the Olympus just to see Persephone because he’s really lonely when she’s not there and Hestia can’t visit him.

POSEIDON

+ Poseidon’s chill most of the times.

+ He fights with Zeus and Hades sometimes? Yes, but usually he just likes to hang out with Apollo, Hermes, Ares and Hephaestus. See? Pretty chill.

+ But one thing happened on his life and that thing is the reason he isn’t so chill anymore.

+ That thing is Athena.

+ Ever since they fought over Athens he knew she was the worst child Zeus had ever had.

+ They fight all the time. Every. Single. Day. Over anything.

+ She keeps saying he doesn’t have a brain and that he’s a brute. So he does what no one should do when they’re on Athena’s bad side:

+ He fights back.

+ Aphrodite says it’s love but there’s no way he loves that blonde-emotionless-creature. No.

+ He loves his sisters but he’s not so close to Demeter anymore. He gets why and respects her.

+ When he’s at Olympus he’s usually with Apollo and Hermes. But sometimes with Aphrodite as well.

ARES

+ He’s a piece of work.

+ He tends to act more as The Gof Of War™ than just… Ares. Usually he’ll only show his other side to Aphrodite.

+ He’s not the best at showing his emotions and Aphrodite’s working on that. They might not be lovers anymore, but they’re very good friends.

+ At first it was hard for him, because, he loved her. In his own way, but he did. However, they’re cool now.

+ This also changed his relationship with Hephaestus as well. They never really hated each other but now they’re able to have a nice conversation without start yelling.

+ He denies it but he’ll always be a little jealous of Athena. They hardly agree with each other’s plans and ideas but they’re siblings and as much as he tries he can’t hate her.

+ They spend time training together or playing chess (she always wins).

HEPHAESTUS

+ He’s not close to Hera. Not at all.

+ When your mother throws you out of the house because you’re “ugly” on her eyes, she kinds ruins your relationship forever.

+ Aphrodite apologized for cheating on him and he apologized for not giving her the attention she deserved and they’re trying to fix they’re relationship. They’re friends but he’s still in love with her. He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop loving her.

+ Athena, Ares and Hephaestus always work together when there’s a war.

+ He always has to fix things Apollo or Hermes break.

+ Athena and Hestia are his favorites relatives.

ATHENA

+ Has the best relationship with Zeus. And while she doubts it’s all because of guilt, it’s better to leave it like this.

+ Intense training sessions with Artemis and Ares.

+ Intense reading sessions alone / with Hestia and sometimes Hephaestus.

+ Sometimes Aphrodite annoys her but she loves her like a sister.

+ Aphrodite always enters her temple/library without knocking on the door and at this point, she’s used to it.

+ Always compliments Demeter because Demeter’s coffee is the best and she’s addicted to it.

+ I’m not gonna mention her fights with Poseidon again.

+ But even with the constant fighting, Athena misses the time before the whole Athens and the whole Medusa thing when they were friends.

+ No, she’ll never tell him that.

ARTEMIS

+ Her best friend is Athena. They train together when she’s not with the hunters.

+ Her feelings towards Aphrodite are the same as Athena’s.

+ But her favorite person is Apollo.

+ She’s not close to anyone as she is with him. And yes, he annoys the hell out of her, but they’re twins and his her little brother. She loves him with all her heart.

+ But Artemis is really closed. She doesn’t open up much and tries to keep her feelings to herself so she doesn’t say that to him very often.

+ That doesn’t mean they fight any less than Athena and Poseidon.

+ Usually is because Apollo’s annoys her everytime he gets the chance. Either by calling her “little sis” or hitting on her hunters on purpose.

+ She’ll do anything to protect him.

+ Hermes annoys her too. But she’s not as patient as she is with Apollo. He regrets it first.

DEMETER

+ Persephone is her baby girl. She will always be.

+ Demeter and Hades used to be good friends but it seems like she’ll never get over the fact that Persephone married him.

+ They grew apart and that was one of saddest thing Hestia has even seen happenning with her siblings, because they were really close.

+ She loves Hestia and Hera with all her heart and will do anything for them.

+ Poseidon and Demeter also grew apart, but they both decided it was the best.

+ She loves cooking and sometimes she does it when she’s trying to avoid some feelings (she cooks a lot when Persephone goes to the Underworld).

HERA

+ She spends a lot of time with Hestia learning how to control her temper.

+ She swears she’s getting better.

+ Hera knows Zeus doesn’t deserve her (or any woman), but she can’t divorce him. Something in her mind keeps telling her she should try harder because she’s the goddess of marriage but she’s not enough.

+ Even with Aphrodite, Hestia, Demeter, Poseidon and Hades telling her she’s not the problem, she just tries to control her emotions and be a better wife for Zeus.

+ Is tring to fix her relationship with Artemis, Apollo, Hermes and Dionysus but she knows it won’t happen so fast.

+ Hera knows her relationship with Hephaestus is beyond repair and she regrets what she did to him.

DIONYSUS

+ Always says he hates his family but it’s not (entirely) true.

+ Great parties with Aphrodite and Apollo.

+ Not the biggest fan of Hera.

+ The only person he says he really loves is Ariadne and Ariadne only.

PERSEPHONE

+ Loves her mother but wishes Demeter would stop trying to keep her away from Hades.

+ Probably has the second best relationship with Zeus.

+ Good friends with Hera and jokes about them being The Queens Of The World™.

+ Long gossip sessions with Aphrodite.

+ Basically everyone loves her as well.

APHRODITE

+ Sometimes she’s insecure because there was a time when none of the goddesses liked her.

+ Now she’s good friends with Athena and Hera (she doesn’t want another Trojan War).

+ Really good friends with Poseidon and Apollo. They spend hours talking on her temple.

+ Apollo and Aphrodite love karaoke. They do it every weekend.

+ She hates Zeus. He makes Hera suffer and she can clearly see that there’s no love in their marriage anymore and that their marriage is really toxic.

+ Sometimes the other Olympians underestimate her, but she’s the oldest and most powerful one.

+ She loves cooking with Demeter as well and always asks Athena for new books she might like to read

+ She’s working on fixing her own marriage because she knows she can be really happy with Hephaestus, she really loves him.

+ Gets along with Hades really well, because love and death have always walked together.

+ Here are more headcanons about her: https://thegreekgods.tumblr.com/post/180458963155/aphrodite-headcanons

HERMES

+ Best friends with Apollo.

+ Teasing Artemis and Athena is his favorite thing to do (but he always regrets it).

+ Competes with Dionysus to see who can drink more (which he always regrets as well).

+ Likes to play pranks on everyone. His favorite prank involved Athena and a spider (it didn’t end well for anyone).

+ Developed a nice friendship with Hades (but still annoys him sometimes).

+ Stealing things and blaming Apollo.

+ Doesn’t play pranks on Hestia anymore because one time she scared him so hard that he swore to never do it again.

APOLLO

+ Teases Artemis all the time.

+ Although she doesn’t tell him often, he knows how much she loves him and loves her just the same.

+ They tell everything to each other.

+ Lets Aphrodite braid his hair when she’s bored.

+ Doesn’t tease Hestia for the same reason as Hermes.

+ Loves to hug everyone.

+ But the others get really annoyed with him because he complains a lot when he’s upset.

+ Sings everytime and anything they ask him.

+ The others beg him to stop making haikus because they’re really bad.

+ He never stops.

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mountphoenixrp · 5 years ago

Photo

We have a new citizen in Mount Phoenix:

Set, the God of Chaos, whose origins stem from Ancient Egypt. He is now a City Council Member and the owner of Rip n Rage.

FC NAME/GROUP: leo / vixx GOD NAME: set PANTHEON: egyptian OCCUPATION: city council for egyptian pantheon / owner of rip n rage HEIGHT: 6’2” DEFINING FEATURES:

set has multitudes of scars all across him that vary in shape and size, some with stories behind them and some without

tattoos cover his body, primarily across his arms and chest area, although he holds the ability to shift them to new ones or negate them from his skin completely

his eyes are naturally a simmering gold, but brighten to a more fiery orange color when he uses his abilities

a heavy burn mark in the shape of a scorpion has scarred the inside of his left forearm, something he refuses to discuss the meaning behind to most he comes across

PERSONALITY: set is a troublemaker above everything. his entire existence, after all, is to create chaos and strife. regardless of his approach to you, whether friendly or otherwise, it should be known that there is almost always an ulterior motive. set is not without his inner thoughts, and has a tendency to use his silver tongue to rope one into a contract before they even realize it ― a contract he seldom ever adheres to.

however, even despite his wishy-washy behavior he is not one to be trifled with. set is equally cunning and intelligent as he is strong and well attuned with his abilities. years of watching the human population has allowed him to adapt to their ways and learn their weaknesses, utilizing such in whatever he may need. set is always one to play dirty, and was never shy away from doing the work himself.

still, set is not without his faults, however. while he is strong physically and mentally, he has a problem dealing with new threats. he has a tendency that, if he is unable to properly size someone or something up, he will become irrational and tense. this causes him to close up completely, and more often than not, to lash out. he also is not very keen at making friends out of the blue, so you would need to prove yourself “significant” enough to get to know him. when you do, however, you will find he cares for people in a very ‘special’ way so to speak, rather that the longer the relation between you two is, the kinder he will become.

HISTORY:

I. WARMONGER

The last thing Set would have wanted in all of eternity was to end up on some island surrounded by fog that was filled with the sons and daughters of every deity imaginable, including his own.

And other gods. He hated the other gods.

Time had been unkind to the patron of chaos and creation. He once had power, tons of it, and made the very sands of Egypt quake in fear. He watched empires crumble, kings rise and fall, warriors wet the grass and desert with their blood all in the name of everlasting glory. But they were not everlasting. Nothing was.

Still, Set took great pride in the battles fought over the ages. The trickery and malice caused by him was a trophy in a treasure room- a symbol of his power. He enticed mortals, created pacts which he never upheld, and gave leaders their power in return for blood. War became his symbol, and the chaos that followed was his weapon.

He was proud, he was powerful. But most of all, he was feared.

II. DIVINE

He first became worried when warriors, previously accepting of each other, began to quarrel between each other. Diplomatic disagreements had become history, and soon disputes were solved with blades and arrows. Still, his worry was more a pang of uncertainty that simmered down in his belly. They did not prove to be too meddlesome in his affairs, rather quite the opposite. These warriors brought battles and war, something Set was quite fond of, and in one of the few times in his existence, he simply sat back and watched. It was interesting, to say the least.

Egypt had changed overtime, modernizing and expanding. However, time told that these warriors were not fighting to solve national problems, despite what they told the population, but for the throne. This corruption, enticed by Set, ravaged the population, knocking off more people besides the fighters than he could count. Overtime, and despite Set’s efforts, the fighting began to grow out of hand as distrust and malice plagued the minds of everyone, keeping from a single ruler to be found. Despite Set being a sort of overseer in the balance between order and chaos, it was not his exact domain to rule in, and the other gods had already been working frantically in an effort to keep a hold on the civilization that was quickly unraveling before them. The divine beings were losing their grip, and quickly at that, and to add to the mess the idea of a supposed “single supreme god” had been promoted to the egyptian population, causing the gods’ power to diminish greatly.

Quite frankly, Set understood why most of them chose to lose faith in them, and for once in a very long time he was scared.

In fact, Set, the great god of chaos and trickery, was terrified.

III. EVANESCE

It was 1902 when Set officially left Egypt, and renounced his title as one of the gods overseeing it. The Egyptian population, significantly lessened due to war and disease, had given up by now keeping ties with the old religion save for the small loyal stragglers. The gods had dispersed, not telling anyone of their plans and Set was no different. Whether some stayed and tried to reclaim the people’s faith or not, Set was gone. New religion had wiped him away, and instead of praying to Set to end violence and his malicious intent, the people prayed to an everlasting god high above.

Set was small, and he hated the feeling.

Hypothetically “packing up and moving away”, Set began to wander the earth for a new home. Other gods, present in their respective territories, would not have the god of chaos. No one wanted him, and so he instead went to places that he could practice his magic and control temperament on his own terms. These places were different to what he was used to ― Set had grown accustomed to endless deserts and fertile riverbanks, but he found himself in grasslands and looming hills. He became very territorial over his newfound home, especially since, unfortunately, there were very few of them. This caused a rift with other nearby gods, especially those that controlled certain aspects of the territory Set was in, and small scuffles began to break out. Humans would note the skies darkening at random intervals of the day, the smell of rotting wood plaguing the air, and terrible storms appearing and wiping away people and buildings. Overtime, the conflict between Set and the other gods began to completely change the environment, making it go from lush, green, and full of vegetation, to barren, rocky, and without a single tree in sight.

Even Set, not one of the most “caring” individuals on the planet, knew he had to leave.

IV. ASCEND

He was like an infection when not in his natural domain, and this infection would keep spreading into other areas unless Set did something about it. If anything, he didn’t want to piss off an entire legion of divines who were more than happy to defend their realm and join together in utterly obliterating the god of chaos.

So, he chose to find a solution.

Set started inquiring to many beyond, taking on the shape of different vessels as he searched within the human population. More often than not, these people would know nothing about places empty of other gods and cultures, and so Set was left with no answers. However, over time he managed to catch snippets of information regarding a mysterious place home to deities and their children alike, where any being with ancient power housed in their blood could find a home.

Set, although slightly adamant against sharing the same land as others, took this as a blessing and immediately set off to find this island, called “Mount Phoenix”.

He was not disappointed in what he came to discover.

POWERS: set holds the ability to control one’s mental state to varying degrees, although not to the extent of full ‘mind control’, manipulating fears, worries, memories, and emotions to fit his needs. if he pleases, the god of chaos is able to twist someone’s entire view on others as a whole, and even themselves ― making his own truth out of lies is what set does best, and few are able to withstand his charm in the matter. aside from this, he is able to induce anxiety and even to the extent of insanity if he’d like ― set likes to ‘play with his food’ so to speak, and while he very easily can cause one’s mind to snap, he normally reserves it to be the very last of punishments.

alternatively, set’s passive ability is a subset of his main ones ― those that stand near to him for whatever length of time will begin to feel uneasy, the urge to ‘act up’ filling their veins they can’t seem to kick. the longer one is with him, the more those feelings multiply ― either until they act on the wantings or go insane trying otherwise. while it is passive, set does have some control when it is related to varying levels of intensity, mostly for when he needs to have a serious moment with someone else (that of which is few and far between).

STRENGTHS:

set, innately, is a master manipulator and warrior and over the centuries his abilities have become incredibly strong. the majority are unable to resist his temptations and influence, particularly preying upon the mortal side of demigods that is more easily influenced by his chaos.

if panicked or in a state of urgency, set can ‘overload’ his abilities in a wave of sorts around him ― this effectively destroys the mental state of those within a 20 foot radius, leaving them either entirely insane or in some circumstances, entirely brain dead

in the event that he simply would like to watch and not be directly involved, set can somewhat ‘negate’ himself out of a situation and cause his presence to be entirely ignored. this is particularly useful when there are large fights occurring and he would simply like be entertained, something set often indulges in one way or another.

WEAKNESSES:

when set negates himself from a situation and someone/something outside or within of the conflict causes him to be dragged directly into the chaos, then there can be trouble and the suspicions may be turned on him easily.

when set uses his abilities on more than one person it involves varying levels of focus. doing such upon one person is easy ― almost like breathing to him. however, with groups of 5-10 he must be very focused and have all his attention on those people.

when using his abilities, he must be very careful when it comes to other deities and their reactions, especially considering what they might do if they attack him. asides that, set’s powers are heavily diminished against rather ‘holy’ and ‘innocent’ gods and demigods ― it is difficult, if not impossible, to garner chaos out of something that barely has traces of it within them.

#kpop rp #krp #vixx #jung taekwoon #vixx leo #mp; welcome

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opulentperimetros · 6 years ago

Text

Talon Hierarchy Headcanon

Alright. I’ve talked this on Discord for months but now I have a bit more solid evidence to support my theory about Talon’s hierarchy system moving from sole-leader to council, when, and how it’s been put into place. Read more, super long, kind of rambly.

In Retribution, 8 years ago, we know Antonio was heading Talon at that time based on the in-canon dialogue between McCree and Gabriel Reyes discussing the associates that Antonio had:

The first thing Reyes says is “There’s the one who will probably take over for him...” that is our note that Antonio was the one running it at this point.

In Storm Rising, 6 years ago, the in-canon dialogue between Tracer and Sojourn states plainly that Maximilien is the one running Talon, calling into question why the omnic’s otherwise “tight-ship” had gotten sloppy, stating the new arrival on the scene of Doomfist shaking up the Talon hierarchy was responsible.

I can’t list a screen of that dialogue since the wiki hasn’t updated yet, but it’s standard dialogue that always occurs as soon as the payload leaves the garage door to the outside.

So with this, what do we know? Let’s rehash some things first.

Antonio → Maximilien. Not Vialli After All?

Although Reyes speculated that Vialli would take over in Retribution, this wasn’t shown to be the case two years later with Max being in charge instead according to the Storm Rising lore update. This not only goes against direct information stated in the Masquerade comic where Vialli has taken over, but also against previous stated comments in the Retribution lore as well. The comic also claims the masquerade event was for the “leaders of Talon to meet”, which further contradicts the sole-leadership position the comic also states that implies there’s already a council in place at this time. The new information from Retribution last year and Storm Rising this year just makes that more of a mess with, yet again, another claim to sole-leadership by someone else entirely, minus a council to be seen at this point.

But that’s not surprising for Blizzard so much on lore to retcon or mix things up, it happens.

If Max took over instead (which is what I’m going with as the new event suggests) he could’ve done it via some bartering; this isn’t all that surprising seeing Vialli is shown to be solely interested in money and Max happens to be a businessman who knows how to talk. Evidence for Vialli being money driven below:

Between Storm Rising and present day, Doomfist ends up put in prison when he’s captured by the strike team in Numbani. According to Jeff Kaplan, the new mystery Omnic at the end of the Storm Rising mission is the head of an organization that Doomfist starts working with, one that will be what leads him to be put in prison to begin with. (You can hear that and all the new upcoming fun stuff discussed in OhNickle’s stream with him here). We don’t know what happens and why, but between Doomfist’s time in prison to now, Talon at some point went from single leadership to a council more solidly stated by Blizzard’s lore.

Some personal thoughts on that one as a side note: I fully believe Doomfist was set up, either by whatever Max says to Overwatch, or some other means. For Talon to be shaken up that badly and have whatever it is Max has done at that point be messed up? It makes sense. Especially hinted at further in the Masquerade comic by Max himself who claims not everyone agreed with Doomfist’s ideas:

To state so plainly “some others don’t agree”, then for Talon agents to suddenly strike with an otherwise calm and collected Max? Right after claiming “oh of course I agree with you, but others don’t”? It’s a perfect deflect of blame to someone else, and this part of the comic directly connects to the Vialli piece above, where Vialli plainly states he doesn’t agree with what Doomfist is doing and that Talon is going in a different (read: Not War Starting) direction. Doomfist kills him for that, and if the theory of a Max set-up is correct? Vialli opening his mouth only confirms Max’s deceit as being true with Doomfist none the wiser.

Also note, for Gabriel Reyes to have mentioned Vialli in Retribution, he didn’t know who he was by looking at him. Interesting note to make:

Now, finally, for the headcanon part of this: I personally believe Talon moved from a Sole Command style of leadership, to a council sometime before Doomfist broke free from prison as a way to subvert an otherwise forced control when he came back. I’m basing this off of my ideas for a while now, but also going with the newly released lore and not the previously put in place lore. I made note already between the stated sole-control of Vialli in the comic, and the comment made by Reyes implying someone else is taking over, that Talon at one point was being defined as a single leadership organization. With Max being now stated as the person in charge at this event, not noting anywhere there’s a council to be seen, then I’m continuing with the idea that the council is a newer concept of collected individuals and not how Talon was always ran.

We know currently Talon has an inner council of command of at least 15 people, the 5 known members being Maximilien, Reaper, Moira O’Deorain, Sanjay Korpal, and Doomfist. Now, Doomfist has been listed as the “de facto” leader, and we have to note the definition of de facto means “ in fact, or in effect, whether by right or not”. This is more a statement of a person coming in by force and taking over, not necessarily anything agreed on by anyone else.

It’s a smart move for Max to make Talon a council-based system. It secures his place doing what he does (the business side) while also keeping a level group of peers in place for the sake of avoiding any issues. If a group of people have control over the company, than the absence or loss of one doesn’t shake the system or cause a sudden void of chaos with people trying to fill a leadership hole that suddenly cropped up. In an organization where people have their own agendas and use Talon as the means to those ends? Expecting a leader to be arrested or killed is part of the job description. To avoid those problems, a well-established council coming into place removes that concern entirely: unless a vast majority of the council is removed at once, the organization can continue to operate without concerns or issues they can’t handle over the loss of one person.

Large corporations have bodies of people in charge of different sections that co-run everything to begin with. The CEO/President of a company for example, can’t walk in and make a massive company changing decision without the agreed on consent of the other board members who are also in charge: the CEO can be forced to step down or resign from a company trying to pull sole-leadership stunts or make decisions that effect the outside’s view of a company, it happens all the time. The CEO/President doesn’t own the company, the board does (or shareholders in the case of businesses that offer shares). Setting up a system like this insures a level of security than even Doomfist coming back and taking over, can’t necessarily overrule.

I don’t support nor agree with the sentiment that Doomfist is the sole leader of Talon as-is without anyone elses input. A council would be pointless if his decisions were put down as law, and if someone like Maximilien is capable of pulling strings to have Doomfist thrown in prison to begin with, that isn’t the type of person who would allow himself to be put as “an adviser” of any sort. If Doomfist was sole-leader, I don’t believe Blizzard would have bothered using “inner council” but would’ve went with a less in-charge series of words like “group of advisers”. They make the noted distinction of stating Talon is “overseen”, or ran by, this inner council not stating anywhere that there’s a sole-leader running the show with some fun friends along the way:

In Conclusion, a Summary:

I headcanon, based on the new Storm Rising lore backed up by stated lore from Retribution last year, that Talon existed as a sole-leadership system that moved on to a council-based leadership system sometime after the events of Storm Rising and Doomfist being put into prison.

I support this with what evidence I can that’s stated in the clear distinction of writing that took place prior (noting single members in charge) to the shift of rhetoric at Doomfist’s return (now noting an inner council in place).

Unfortunately, a lot of these ideas are hard to note by the sources that inspired them, especially with the Wiki sitting without updated information on it. Vialli’s page doesn’t reflect the new information about Max being in charge of Talon after Retribution at all, and neither does Max’s page. Talon’s page hasn’t updated, either, with this new information.

I also want to note a lot of the Talon information is also a bit muddled, since Talon’s creation was solidified from the start, and that lore had to be adjusted when new characters were added in at a later date that were never part of the story from the start (Moira and Doomfist both, now including Baptiste, were part of the new character roster and were not part of Talon’s original creation in the beginning. Lore has to change as new characters come in but without proper patching this makes a mess).

#OOC #Talon #Overwatch

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spacebrick3 · 6 years ago

Text

The Malformation AU: Part 8

Slowly but surely, things are coming to a head. Talya and her new ally, preparing to face off against Anechoi plus @writerofwriting‘s incredible entity of sentient magic - the Malformation!

Chapter 8 (Talya):

“Talya Lewis.”

“Syrus Almas-Daviau.” He does look like Anechoi, she notes. The same brown eyes - those that Anechoi no longer has, now that Eris has taken her over - in a different face, frowning as they take in the scene. They are standing on a ridge overlooking the train tracks, Syrus’ flyer resting with engines still glowing. “I won’t say you look terrible,” he continues, “but what the hell happened? What did you say was going on?”

It’s true. Her suit, already torn from the fight with Eris, had been further ripped open by the onslaught of the dust storm. She’s done what she can, but she can barely stand from the cold. A red light has been repeatedly blinking on in the corner of her vision, and she thinks it might be the oxygen light. “It’s - it’s a little hard to explain.”

“Right,” he says doubtfully. “Why don’t we go back to the flyer, then? It’s heated, and I have some food and stuff. How long have you been out here?”

Too long. She nods, grateful. Even just the short walk over there feels like forever, the muscles in her legs aching and protesting at each step. But she makes it, ducking through the door and slumping down into one of the chairs with a sigh of relief. Six Cities, look at this thing. All silver lining and fancy backing. Somebody’s rich. It’s a weak sentiment, ore out of habit than anything. After all, he did come out here, didn’t he?

He doesn’t say anything as he pours steaming liquid into a mug, handing it to her as he sits down in the chair across. She takes a hesitant sip - it’s sweet and hot, and she can feel the life starting to bleed back into her. “What is this?”

“Emerald hot chocolate. They say the Martian soil gets rid of the bitterness. You’ve never had it?”

She shakes her head, wincing as it burns her tongue. “Never - never got the chance. Too expensive.”

“Oh.” He looks away, embarrassed. “So…what did you say was going on? Something with Anechoi, something bad…?”

She tells him. It’s nice to be able to, to finally explain the chaotic mess - chaos, that’s right, because that’s what it wants - that seems to have claimed her friend. And he listens, too, stepping in when she falters or simply can’t find the words for what she saw. “And…that’s when you got here,” she finishes. “An- Eris threw me off the train, I called you, hours passed, you got here.”

Concern creases his brow, and he rubs his nose distractedly. “So…what are we gonna do? It sounds like this…Eris could rip us apart without trying.”

“Well…yeah,” she admits. “But I think there’s a chance, to make it not be Eris anymore, to get Anechoi back.”

“There’d better be,” he agrees. “I’m not losing my sister to some…thing that’s managed to broken-magic its way inside her head. But…sounds like she was pretty far gone, also.”

Talya can’t deny that. But she knows what she saw, too, that momentary hesitation. “I’m still here, aren’t I? Eris didn’t kill me when she had the chance, and she was planning to. Anechoi’s still there.” She sees his doubt and presses forwards. “I fought her, and I made it out alive. You have money and influence - I have magic. If we work together, because we have to to save Anechoi - we can fight her and win.”

He sighs. “I’m probably already losing the company,” he mutters, “so what’s the suicide mission to save my sister matter to that?” It’s not really a question. “Nothing. I’m in.”

“Great!” She offers a small smile, though it’s hard to muster any real feeling behind it. “First order of business: figure out where Eris is heading.”

“Aquamarine, right?”

She shakes her head. “Too late for that. You have the news in here…?” She looks around, searching for a screen that could connect to the satellite network. Come on, he’s rich, he’s gotta have it somewhere…

With a press of a button, one of the panels swivels to reveal a single flatscreen display. It blurs with static for a second, then jumps to the image of where Aquamarine should have been. “-conflicting reports of the attack,” the computerized voice reads, “with most confirming that it was a single attacker who destroyed the outpost, although the damage sustained-“

“Yep. Too late,” she finishes as he turns the news back off. It seems to have shaken him almost more than the news about his sister. “Where is she going next?”

“You said it wanted chaos, right?” he asks slowly. “Then it’s heading to Diamond.”

“Diamond?” she asks. “I would have said Emerald. Take out the water, then the food…”

But he’s shaking his head, running through the options in his head. “No. Diamond’s better. Without water, Emerald is gonna die anyway - why waste the effort? Only thing that could stop that is the import of water, and that has to happen through Diamond. So take it out. And it needs the people here, so killing Diamond kills the evacuation. Without the spaceport, nobody without a private rocket is getting in or out of Mars.”

“That’s…scary.”

“Believe me,” he says with a shrug. “When you grow up with my parents…well, you can see why she left.”

Anechoi never talked about it. Talking to Syrus, she can start to see why. He has money, yes, but…is that money really worth it? Clearly, she didn’t think so, and it looks like he might be having second thoughts as well.

Problems for another time. “Right then,” she says. “To Diamond.”

——————————————————————————————————

They have three days, at most. Aquamarine is around five thousand kilometers from Diamond, a quarter of the way around the planet. But Eris is freshly energized, and she has the pick of any of the vehicles abandoned by the outpost. Seventy kilometers per hour is more than double what most humans can sprint at, but there’s no question that she can maintain it.

As soon as the flyer lands, they split up. He can provide money but precious little else to her efforts, and she can’t help with what he needs to do. He follows the familiar path to the mayor’s offices in the tallest spire, the same route his mother would take every time she came to argue import prices. If only that were the problem they were facing now.

A few assistants try to stop him, but even attached to ’Syrus’, the Almas-Daviau name still carries weight. He storms into the private meeting room, where the mayor is meeting with a pair of businessmen in suits. “Get out,” he tells them, leaving no room for debate. They hesitate, looking to the mayor for guidance.

“Give us a second,” Mayor Rachel Kellstrand tells them, fixing him with a flat glare. “…Syrus Almas-Daviau. What do you think you’re doing?”

He gives an apologetic gesture. “I apologize for the rude intrusion, but it’s important. You need to evacuate the city.”

“…I need to what?” she asks incredulously. “You realize what that means, right? Hundreds of thousands of people-“

“-who could be dead if you don’t,” he finishes. “Look.” He pulls the tablet from his jacket and slams it down on the desk, rattling her computer. A map of Mars is shown, a thin strand connecting the two cities of Diamond and Aquamarine. “Twenty minutes after the attack on the outpost, an exploratory rover began tracking north at a hundred kilometers an hour. Traveling due north, directly towards Diamond. At current speed, she will reach here tomorrow evening.”

Kellstrand takes the tablet, frowning. “She? This is likely just part of the outpost evacuation, anyway.”

“Except no rovers are reported to be part of the evacuation, and all personnel are accounted for. Dead or alive,” he counters. “You saw what happened to Aquamarine. Do you want that to happen to Diamond?”

At least she seems to understand the danger of the situation. “That sounds suspiciously like you have something in mind, Mr. Almas-Daviau.”

“I do,” he admits. “But in case it doesn’t work, people need to get out of the city. I don’t know how much we’ll be able to contain.”

“Diamond has security forces. They could join you,” she says, already starting to tap out orders. “I need to call a meeting…” she mutters, “confirm the sighting and trajectory…but start limiting the inbound flights…”

“No. No security forces. That would just make it worse, and they need to help get people out of the city.”

She nods stiffly. “I will need to convene the council before a decision is made. If what you say is true…well. We will do what we can - including defenses. But they will be instructed not to interfere with your plan. Good luck, Mr. Almas-Daivau, and please try not to destroy my city.”

“We’ll try,” he says, already running out the door.

——————————————————————————————————

Talya gathers a group of engineers from the docks around her. She’d like to say that it was due to the selfless desire to protect their city, but just in case she’s also offered quite a bit of Syrus’ money in return for their help. “Alright. You all know what’s coming, and I need you to help me try and stop it.”

An older man raises a hand in the back. “How the bleeding fuck do we stop something like that?” There is a general murmur of assent from the people clustered around him.

“Glad you asked. I’ve fought up close and personal with it, and I can say definitively that it functions as an anti-magic entity. Thus we can stop it-“ She snaps her fingers, and the tiny bits of metal taped there rub against each other- “with magic.” A blue spark leaps from her hand, bursting in a shower of light. Never underestimate the power of theatrics.

“But we’re not magic,” a red-haired girl points out.

She nods. “Right. Not many people are, and I wasn’t expecting it. I can provide the magic-“ fuck it’s gonna be a long few days, then- “but if I’m doing that then I can’t do much else. That’s where you come in.”

“So what are we doing?”

I’m getting there. She’s reminded why she doesn’t work with many other people. “Right. Anyone here who works with electronics, circuits, all of that?” A few hands go up. “You,” she says, pointing at one. “Go find all the lasers you can and bring them back here, then the others can fill you in.”

The engineer she’s indicated moves to go, then stops. “What type of laser?”

“Um…HeNe or CO2 should work, not anything too heavy-duty,” she tells him. Turning to the rest, she hands the front one a tablet containing a set of blueprints. She managed to sketch them out on the flyer, pulling the LIMES design from memory. “Print or make these circuit boards, then bring them back to me for the Design. After that, you gotta build that there, making sure you connect the wires in that order or it won’t synch. Got it?”

They all nod, trickling out of the group towards the electronics workshop. She takes a deep breath, spinning on her heel to face the mechanics and engineers that remain. “You all, you’re gonna be working outside. Building Designs around each entrance because that might let us trap it.”

The same red-haired girl rolls her eyes. “What part of ‘not magic’-?

“I know you’re not magic!” she snaps. “That’s why I’m here! What’s going to happen is that I’m gonna get beams of metal and carve the lines into them - see, I’m the one being magic - then you are going to go out and arrange them into the Design, making sure the lines connect. Understand?”

I really hope this works.

——————————————————————————————————

“I need your help,” Syrus starts off, not even waiting for the customary greetings. “It’s important.”

The person on the other side of the line sounds annoyed. “I don’t care how fucking important it is, it’s the goddamn middle of the night and I need my sleep.”

He doesn’t have time for this. “You run the ODSF, right?”

“What? Yeah, sure.” The salesman voice comes on. “‘Mars, right next to the asteroid belt, is in constant danger from impacts. For only a small price, you can ensure that your residence doesn’t become the next victim’. God, it’s a load of shit. The chance of anything hitting is like zero, and I don’t even know if we could-“

“Not important. I just need to know if you actually have the orbital railgun satellites.”

“Worst investment ever made, but y-

“Great. Look, I need you-“

His onetime friend sounds annoyed. “What’s going on, Syrus? Why are you calling me from Diamond?”

“Can’t tell. Listen, I need a favor. If you get a message from me, two days or so from now, I need you to use them. Everything that’s in range, shoot at Diamond.”

For once, he’s speechless. “What? You want me to-?”

“I’ll take the blame. The city’s gonna be evacuated, and you shouldn’t have to do it. But…something’s on its way to Diamond, and I can’t risk it getting further than here. For everybody’s sake.”

“…I hope you know what you’re doing, Syrus,” he says before the transmission goes dead. He sighs, leaning against the cool, blank wall that is ubiquitous throughout Diamond. He doesn’t want to do it, but he can’t be sure. He can’t know that they’re going to get Anechoi back, and the risks if they don’t are too high.

He shouldn’t have to use it. But he wants the option.

Well. We’ll just have to see how things play out in the next chapter, won’t we?

Tag list (if you want to be added or removed, just let me know!):

@lady-redshield-writes, @no-url-ideas-tho, @ratracechronicler, @ken-kenwrites, @ravenpuffwriter, @cirianne, @lonelylibrary @maxbeewriting, @endlesshourglass, @thebloodstainedquill, @anip-ocs, @dreamwishing, @incandescent-creativity, @fatal-blow, @danafaithwriting, @wri-tten

#malformation au #:)#some things…are plot important #and some characters…make their return #malformation #anechoic #writerofwriting

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