#//he just wants to welcome you to his kingdom there's absolutely nothing nefarious going on

[warncdandwiles]

unsaid rule of candy kingdoms, if you eat the candy you end up in an oven.

[itsclydebitches]

With respect, Ironwood brought an army to deal with a covert threat. In his FIRST appearance he'd had ozpin removed from the tournament staff with secret meetings. He was told many times his embargo was hurting the city, he kept a woman on life support prisoner and his treatment of Robyn convinced a technically legal protest into an outright criminal. Not to mention he abandons the best defense humanity has against the Grimm to keep some control. Shooting a dissenter seem very in character

“Ironwood brought an army to deal with a covert threat” - For which he was suitably chastised by Ozpin. It’s a whole conversation in “Welcome to Beacon” and, back when RWBY was doing a better job of handling these complex issues, that conversation gives weight to both sides. Ironwood isn’t trying to, idk, take over Beacon or something with his army. He wants to be prepared in order to help people. “I’m just being cautious.” Ozpin points out that scaring everyone won’t help, but notably the story acknowledges that Ozpin’s preferences are far from full-proof. “Do you really believe your children can win a war?” Can you prove to me that the kids we’re training will be enough when the shit hits the fan? Ozpin doesn’t have an answer. He dodges answering by saying only that he hopes his kids won’t have to fight, not that he has unwavering faith that they will win. Then Beacon falls. Ozpin dies. Ironwood is left alone with an entire kingdom to keep safe and I think it’s worth acknowledging that he did that. Mantle is far from perfect, there’s a lot there to fix, but the people are alive and that’s in part thanks to the soldiers that keep the grimm from eating them all. The rest? That’s due to Penny, a symbol of hope that Ironwood gave to the people. He learned that from this conversation with Ozpin. 

“In his FIRST appearance he'd had ozpin removed from the tournament staff with secret meetings.” - It’s not Ironwood’s first appearance. He meets with the inner circle, has his talk with Ozpin, introduces his Atlesian knights to the public, attends the Beacon dance, discovers Ruby fighting Cinder, later compliments Ruby for her initiative in Ozpin’s office, confides in Glynda that night, and helps defend Vale against Roman’s attack. So your implication that as his “first” appearance this tells us he’s really an irredeemable person is not accurate. 

Second, I’ve seen this claim a lot the last couple of months and I finally went back to find/watch the scene for myself (it’s in “Breach”). These were not secret meetings. Ironwood “reported” to the council which I assume is what he’s supposed to do. Given that he is a Headmaster. And this is the council overseeing the schools. Keeping updated is their entire deal. Were these reports fair to Ozpin? We don’t know. You might assume they’re full of lies and horrible misrepresentations, but that’s not what the text tells us. Ironwood told the council Ozpin’s plans, then the council said, ‘No way are you holding the Vytal festival with those precautions alone.’ Then the council asked Ironwood to provide troops for additional security. Did Ironwood manipulate the council and paint Ozpin as a villain to get what he wanted? Maybe. Did Ironwood objectively say precisely what’s going on - Ozpin thinks his huntsmen are enough to keep everyone safe in the event of an attack - and the council, independent of him, came to the conclusion that it wasn’t enough? Maybe. Again, we don’t know. What we do know is that Ironwood is doing all this because he honestly believes it will help others. He begs Ozpin to understand that: “This is the right move, Ozpin. I promise I will keep our people safe. You have to trust me.” And you know what? He wasn’t entirely wrong. No one could have predicted that Salem’s minions would take control of his army. Ironwood did, however, predict that there would be an attack too large for a bunch of students to handle... and he was right. Beacon fell because a those half-trained kids weren’t enough to hold off a major attack, but Ironwood did everything he could to try and prevent that. In a slightly better world where his army wasn’t unexpectedly taken advantage of, that could have easily been what turned the tide of battle and saved Beacon instead. The world where everyone views Ironwood as a hero for providing those extra forces is just a smidge away from the world where everyone views Ironwood as a villain for inadvertently providing the enemy with those extra forces... but the forces themselves are not a black and white bad thing to have. Not in a world where your festivities are interrupted by the giant bird trying to eat the audience. 

“He was told many times his embargo was hurting the city” - Yes, the embargo hurts the city financially. Ironwood is attempting to keep it from being hurt in the ‘everyone is wiped out’ kind of way. Post the Fall of Beacon he’s unsure if the other Kingdoms will declare war against Atlas or not, so it’s not wise to continue giving them one of the easiest means of attack. That’s the official story, but Ironwood (and the audience) know that Salem has also been collecting dust for a while now... so how about we stop giving her any more? Was this the right move to make? Are short-term economic difficulties worth avoiding the risk of potentially supplying enemies with the means of destroying you? I can’t answer that, but it’s not a clear-cut bad decision like you’re making it out to be. Retroactively we can say that no one attacked Atlas and Salem seems to have stopped collecting dust because the writers forgot about it... but Ironwood doesn’t get to see into the future. He didn’t know things would turn out this way. Once again, he’s trying to prevent tragedies, not just survive them when they come along. The balance between short-term sacrifice and long-term protection is far from an easy thing to strike and a character’s failure to achieve perfection despite their best efforts says more about their luck than their morals. Ironwood is an incredibly flawed man, but those flaws have always shown throw via his attempts to help others. 

“He kept a woman on life support prisoner” - Are we talking abut Amber of Fria here? Either way that’s a gross misrepresentation of what happened and, frankly, does little to make me receptive to your other arguments. Amber was attacked, Qrow brought her back to the inner circle, Ironwood kept her alive so that the rest of the power wouldn’t immediately pass to Cinder (and, I would think, because this group isn’t in the habit of just letting friends die if at all possible). Fria was the Winter Maiden, she got dementia, and Ironwood had her live out the rest of her days in a facility so that a) no one murdered her, b) a Maiden with dementia didn’t wreak havoc on the city (we saw her powers go wild during the fight), and c) the power passed to an ally when she finally died. How do you know Fria was a prisoner? Was there a scene I missed where she said as much or, just as likely, might she have agreed to these precautions once her memory started to fade? Amber, meanwhile, was in a coma and unable to consent to anything. Ironwood did not kidnap her for nefarious experimentation, nor do we have any evidence that he held Fria hostage. That sort of thinking only makes “sense” when we’re already inclined to paint a character’s every action as morally corrupt. Is a 80 year old who keeps wandering into the street held prisoner because they were put in a home where they could be taken care of? That’s this with the added complications of “The 80 year old could kill everyone with magic. Or reveal to the world that magic exists” and “A lot of people want to kill this 80 year old” and “If they succeed the world is #screwed.” 

“His treatment of Robyn convinced a technically legal protest into an outright criminal” - Robyn is a criminal. Ironwood never stopped her from protesting. He required that she a) not spy on a classified project, b) not keep his men from working on that project, and c) not steal supplies meant for that project... all actions that are illegal. Honestly I’m not entirely sure what this phrase is saying. That Ironwood forced Robyn to become a criminal? If so, we once again need to discuss agency and how Character A doing something that Character B doesn’t like does not give Character B blanket justification for every horrible choice they might make. 

“Not to mention he abandons the best defense humanity has against the Grimm to keep some control” - I’m not sure what this is referring to either. What defense? The wall? Amity? Mantle? “To keep control”? That’s another incredibly simplified and subjective view of events. I’ve already done enough work on this blog to explain why, based on the group’s current knowledge, Ironwood’s plan is horrifying but also the best they’ve currently got. It’s not a grab at power, no matter how easy it is to paint it as that and move along. The morality of these actions is absolutely in question, but the motivation is not. We’ve seen no evidence - and a great deal of evidence against it - that Ironwood is simply out to maintain power.  

Nothing here proves that Ironwood would be willing to shoot an allied kid. “Ironwood did controversial things in the name of protecting others” does not equal “Ironwood is willing to murder an ally.” Rather, these things contradict because we’ve spent six volumes with Ironwood pushing every limit possible to help others, not attack them. Lists like these likewise ignore everything that Ironwood did which doesn’t support shooting Oscar: every conversation he’s ever had where he didn’t attack someone for disagreeing with him, every action he’s taken being in the service of helping others (even if there’s disagreement about how to best go about that), him flipping his gun around when Qrow (presumably) attacked him, reassuring the Vytal students that there’s no shame in running from the fight, confiding in Glynda, standing up for Weiss, sending Yang her arm, being overjoyed to (he thinks) see Ozpin again, willingly training Oscar, choosing to trust RWBYJNR with both his plan and the relic, listening to them later about Robyn and telling the council about Salem, destroying his arm to protect the people, choosing arrest rather than, I don’t know, just trying to straight up kill Team RWBY for daring to say no to him. Because isn’t that the Ironwood you’ve described above? Someone who won’t hesitate to do anything to get what he wants, even murder? It’s a compelling character, but I don’t think we’ve seen that character anywhere prior to Volume 7′s finale. That character is the opposite of who we had before. When things get tough, stressful, and traumatic the show has said, time and time again, that this is how Ironwood treats his allies

So it’s a bit jarring to suddenly go, “Never mind. He shoots them now.” 

[wheredidhiseyebrowsgo]

do you know any fics where stiles and lydia (or allison, or erica) have a really intense bond?? like they arent romantically/sexually together, but they do love each other platonically?? just its an intense love. really im just in the mood for friendship fics with stiles and the girls, but i cant find what im looking for so maybe you/your followers know some fics?

Here you go. - Anastasia

Deadly doesn’t have a Gender by artemis69

(1/1 I 2,014 I Teen I Berica)

Erica grows up, like a weed distorted by the weight of their looks.

They trap her in boys’ clothes, boys’ shoes. Inside a boy’s name. They stare at her with expectation in their eyes, waiting for her to suddenly yell, ‘Gottcha!’ and finally start acting like a real boy.

They wait for her to stop ‘joking’.

Make It Count by DenaCeleste

(1/1 I 2,178 I Teen I Steter)

The last thing Stiles expected was for his best friend Erica to trick him into kissing the Sexy Biker Dude. Who would've thought that was the guy manning the kissing booth? He was going to text Erica a piece of his mind!Stiles> HOW DARE YOUErica> You're welcome.

The Amazing Adventures of Batman, Catwoman, and Sourwolf by gryvon

(2/? I 8,128 I Teen I Sterek)

Stiles drags his best friend Erica into the woods in search of a dead body. Things turn out a little different than another trip into the woods.

Stupid Say What? by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

(1/1 I 8,437 I General I Sterek)

Stiles shoved another bite into his mouth, glancing over at Boyd and Erica. Boyd was smiling down into his eggs benedict and Erica was grinning at Stiles.

He frowned in confusion, his chewing slowing. Tucking the food into one cheek, he asked, “What?”

“Nothing. It’s just nice. I like when the four of us come out together. Our little double dates,” she teased, stabbing her fork into a strawberry and putting it between her lips.

Stiles snorted at her comment, since this wasn’t a double date—he wished—but didn’t comment on it because he liked their outings, too. Even if he whined incessantly about it until he got there, it was always a good time.

here is the deepest secret nobody knows by owlpostagain

(1/1 I 22,322 I Teen I Sterek)

“Derek,” Stiles groans. “You have me. You’ve always had me, you absolute moron, how many physically impossible feats of life-saving heroics do I have to perform before you get it?”

Our Kind of Nuts by ericaismeg

(1/1 I 22,553 I General)

Stiles doesn't know that reaching out to Erica, a girl from his Psych class, is going to change his entire life. All he wanted was a quiet place to study. Suddenly, he's becoming best friends with Erica, getting a tutor from Boyd, going crazy over this guy who is quite passionate about Pride and Prejudice named Derek, being supportive to Lydia, finding some weird peace treaty with Jackson, and inviting Erica's best friend to live with him, Scott, and Jackson for a bit.

He didn't expect things to turn out like this, but hell, he's not complaining one bit.

A Healing Silence by HelloWhyTheFuckAmIHere

(28/28 I 36,329 I Not Rated I Sterek)

Stiles is slowly pushed out of the pack following his fight with Scott about Donovan's death. After receiving a phone number from an old friend, Stiles is surprised to find that it belongs to the one person who may be able to bring him back to himself.

Impossible to a Thousand and More by sofonisba_found

(1/1 I 57,092 I Mature I Sterek)

The kingdoms of Hale and Argent have been at peace for twenty-five years, and Lady Lydia Martin and her childhood friend Junior Marshal Stiles Stilinski are chosen to be the diplomats to represent the Argents' interests in a mostly ceremonial renewal of promises of continued peace and cooperation to take place in the neutral Kingdom of Beacon, with Princesses Laura and Cora Hale and Prince Derek there to do the same for the Hale Kingdom. But not everyone wants peace between the two lands, and whether it be a boring treaty affirmation or prelude to conspiracy and war, Derek knows he shouldn't be quite so interested in the Junior Marshal's eyes.

A tale with diplomacy and manners, fights with brigands and other nefarious individuals, conspiracy and treason by malicious forces unknown to our heroes, acts of valor leading to grievous injury, Princes dashing half naked through the woods carrying an injured ally in a bridal carry, blatant flirtations even while one party is semi incapacitated, shirts that are too tight, tender bedside care, declarations of love and passionate couplings, and Royal sisters rather invested in their brother's love life and happiness.

Hallowed Grounds by damnfancyscotch

(16/16 I 109,578 I Mature I Sterek)

Everything in Beacon Hills is the same when Stiles comes home from college.

Well, except for the fact that he's a published author now, Scott is halfway across the world with a travelling circus, Erica's epilepsy has been cured, her boss offers him a job too, and there's this weird black dog that seems to be following him around just to judge him.

Oh, and the murders, of course.

But other than that stuff... totally the same old BH.

When it all comes crumbling down by Littleredridinghunter

(18/18 I 216,191 I Not Rated I Sterek)

Stiles is recovering from the Nogitsune. Erica is the only one that is really there for him, Scott's too busy rekindling his relationship with Allison and Stiles feels like he's falling apart.

When a near-miss with a kelpie results in an encounter that he could never have predicted, Stiles begins to think his life might be getting back on track.

He's wrong.

Stiles' life is so messed up he can't even begin to explain it, maybe it's time for him to finally do something for himself and get out of Beacon Hills. But where will that path lead?

With Stiles involved, no doubt danger and death won't be far behind.

[megashadowdragon]

itsclydebitches

With respect, Ironwood brought an army to deal with a covert threat. In his FIRST appearance he'd had ozpin removed from the tournament staff with secret meetings. He was told many times his embargo was hurting the city, he kept a woman on life support prisoner and his treatment of Robyn convinced a technically legal protest into an outright criminal. Not to mention he abandons the best defense humanity has against the Grimm to keep some control. Shooting a dissenter seem very in character

sent by anonymous

“Ironwood brought an army to deal with a covert threat” - For which he was suitably chastised by Ozpin. It’s a whole conversation in “Welcome to Beacon” and, back when RWBY was doing a better job of handling these complex issues, that conversation gives weight to both sides. Ironwood isn’t trying to, idk, take over Beacon or something with his army. He wants to be prepared in order to help people. “I’m just being cautious.” Ozpin points out that scaring everyone won’t help, but notably the story acknowledges that Ozpin’s preferences are far from full-proof. “Do you really believe your children can win a war?” Can you prove to me that the kids we’re training will be enough when the shit hits the fan? Ozpin doesn’t have an answer. He dodges answering by saying only that he hopes his kids won’t have to fight, not that he has unwavering faith that they will win. Then Beacon falls. Ozpin dies. Ironwood is left alone with an entire kingdom to keep safe and I think it’s worth acknowledging that he did that. Mantle is far from perfect, there’s a lot there to fix, but the people are alive and that’s in part thanks to the soldiers that keep the grimm from eating them all. The rest? That’s due to Penny, a symbol of hope that Ironwood gave to the people. He learned that from this conversation with Ozpin.

“In his FIRST appearance he’d had ozpin removed from the tournament staff with secret meetings.” - It’s not Ironwood’s first appearance. He meets with the inner circle, has his talk with Ozpin, introduces his Atlesian knights to the public, attends the Beacon dance, discovers Ruby fighting Cinder, later compliments Ruby for her initiative in Ozpin’s office, confides in Glynda that night, and helps defend Vale against Roman’s attack. So your implication that as his “first” appearance this tells us he’s really an irredeemable person is not accurate.

Second, I’ve seen this claim a lot the last couple of months and I finally went back to find/watch the scene for myself (it’s in “Breach”). These were not secret meetings. Ironwood “reported” to the council which I assume is what he’s supposed to do. Given that he is a Headmaster. And this is the council overseeing the schools. Keeping updated is their entire deal. Were these reports fair to Ozpin? We don’t know. You might assume they’re full of lies and horrible misrepresentations, but that’s not what the text tells us. Ironwood told the council Ozpin’s plans, then the council said, ‘No way are you holding the Vytal festival with those precautions alone.’ Then the council asked Ironwood to provide troops for additional security. Did Ironwood manipulate the council and paint Ozpin as a villain to get what he wanted? Maybe. Did Ironwood objectively say precisely what’s going on - Ozpin thinks his huntsmen are enough to keep everyone safe in the event of an attack - and the council, independent of him, came to the conclusion that it wasn’t enough? Maybe. Again, we don’t know. What we do know is that Ironwood is doing all this because he honestly believes it will help others. He begs Ozpin to understand that: “This is the right move, Ozpin. I promise I will keep our people safe. You have to trust me.” And you know what? He wasn’t entirely wrong. No one could have predicted that Salem’s minions would take control of his army. Ironwood did, however, predict that there would be an attack too large for a bunch of students to handle… and he was right. Beacon fell because a those half-trained kids weren’t enough to hold off a major attack, but Ironwood did everything he could to try and prevent that. In a slightly better world where his army wasn’t unexpectedly taken advantage of, that could have easily been what turned the tide of battle and saved Beacon instead. The world where everyone views Ironwood as a hero for providing those extra forces is just a smidge away from the world where everyone views Ironwood as a villain for inadvertently providing the enemy with those extra forces… but the forces themselves are not a black and white bad thing to have. Not in a world where your festivities are interrupted by the giant bird trying to eat the audience.

“He was told many times his embargo was hurting the city” - Yes, the embargo hurts the city financially. Ironwood is attempting to keep it from being hurt in the ‘everyone is wiped out’ kind of way. Post the Fall of Beacon he’s unsure if the other Kingdoms will declare war against Atlas or not, so it’s not wise to continue giving them one of the easiest means of attack. That’s the official story, but Ironwood (and the audience) know that Salem has also been collecting dust for a while now… so how about we stop giving her any more? Was this the right move to make? Are short-term economic difficulties worth avoiding the risk of potentially supplying enemies with the means of destroying you? I can’t answer that, but it’s not a clear-cut bad decision like you’re making it out to be. Retroactively we can say that no one attacked Atlas and Salem seems to have stopped collecting dust because the writers forgot about it… but Ironwood doesn’t get to see into the future. He didn’t know things would turn out this way. Once again, he’s trying to prevent tragedies, not just survive them when they come along. The balance between short-term sacrifice and long-term protection is far from an easy thing to strike and a character’s failure to achieve perfection despite their best efforts says more about their luck than their morals. Ironwood is an incredibly flawed man, but those flaws have always shown throw via his attempts to help others.

“He kept a woman on life support prisoner” - Are we talking abut Amber of Fria here? Either way that’s a gross misrepresentation of what happened and, frankly, does little to make me receptive to your other arguments. Amber was attacked, Qrow brought her back to the inner circle, Ironwood kept her alive so that the rest of the power wouldn’t immediately pass to Cinder (and, I would think, because this group isn’t in the habit of just letting friends die if at all possible). Fria was the Winter Maiden, she got dementia, and Ironwood had her live out the rest of her days in a facility so that a) no one murdered her, b) a Maiden with dementia didn’t wreak havoc on the city (we saw her powers go wild during the fight), and c) the power passed to an ally when she finally died. How do you know Fria was a prisoner? Was there a scene I missed where she said as much or, just as likely, might she have agreed to these precautions once her memory started to fade? Amber, meanwhile, was in a coma and unable to consent to anything. Ironwood did not kidnap her for nefarious experimentation, nor do we have any evidence that he held Fria hostage. That sort of thinking only makes “sense” when we’re already inclined to paint a character’s every action as morally corrupt. Is a 80 year old who keeps wandering into the street held prisoner because they were put in a home where they could be taken care of? That’s this with the added complications of “The 80 year old could kill everyone with magic. Or reveal to the world that magic exists” and “A lot of people want to kill this 80 year old” and “If they succeed the world is #screwed.”

Nothing here proves that Ironwood would be willing to shoot an allied kid. “Ironwood did controversial things in the name of protecting others” does not equal “Ironwood is willing to murder an ally.” Rather, these things contradict because we’ve spent six volumes with Ironwood pushing every limit possible to help others, not attack them. Lists like these likewise ignore everything that Ironwood did which doesn’t support shooting Oscar: every conversation he’s ever had where he didn’t attack someone for disagreeing with him, every action he’s taken being in the service of helping others (even if there’s disagreement about how to best go about that), him flipping his gun around when Qrow (presumably) attacked him, reassuring the Vytal students that there’s no shame in running from the fight, confiding in Glynda, standing up for Weiss, sending Yang her arm, being overjoyed to (he thinks) see Ozpin again, willingly training Oscar, choosing to trust RWBYJNR with both his plan and the relic, listening to them later about Robyn and telling the council about Salem, destroying his arm to protect the people, choosing arrest rather than, I don’t know, just trying to straight up kill Team RWBY for daring to say no to him. Because isn’t that the Ironwood you’ve described above? Someone who won’t hesitate to do anything to get what he wants, even murder? It’s a compelling character, but I don’t think we’ve seen that character anywhere prior to Volume 7′s finale. That character is the opposite of who we had before. When things get tough, stressful, and traumatic the show has said, time and time again, that this is how Ironwood treats his allies

iron-and-ice I never thought I’d see people referring to Ironwood providing comfortable protected residence to an elderly woman in possession of magical WMD powers as ‘imprisonment’. Fria, unlike other ‘good guys’, understood what her duty was. Vol 7 MVP, undisputed.

[the-roanoke-society]

How did Mothman come to Roanoke? What was his beginning like?

that’s an excellent question! let’s talk about our boy joseph moretti.

joe, unlike some of our other members, didn’t develop his abilities until a good decade after puberty hit him like a freight train.

he was in college in southern florida when he first began to notice with not a small amount of irritation that he seemed to lose everything he put his hands on—only for it to abruptly reappear in his hands either hours or sometimes even days later. this went on for about a year before one of his rooomates—joe was a member of the alpha phi alpha house on campus, so he had plenty of roommates in his time living in the frat house—suggested that he try to control it.

“dude, dude just—like. focus. do like mr. miyagi said.”

“what did mr. miyagi say that would help in this situation, chris?”

“uh—something something balance?”

“excellent, thanks for that contribution.”

“i’m trying to help you bro!”

it took practice. a lot of practice. joe had to learn how to meditate, how to train his mind to keep things very separate and aimed in specific ways. he’d never sent a person into the nowhere zone (as chris stine had so christened it around 1985), and it wasn’t something he necessarily wanted to try.

but he, like almost all of the men and women who would go on to be members of the roanoke executive board, eventually did learn to bring his abilities under his own control. … at least, for the most part. he would be a grown man before learning the more intimate secrets of the strange unseen universe that was tied to him.

now, all this wasn’t super great for his dating life (he accidentally bopped a few dates in the back of their heads with books, mugs…), but it was stellar for his frat brothers.

you need booze but don’t have an id? you need to sneak something into or out of somewhere? joe was your man. his abilities won him the coveted title of worst-kept secret on campus. worst-kept because chris couldn’t keep his mouth shut, but even with his wide-eyed insistence and stories—most of the student body shrugged it off.

physics doesn’t work like that. impossible. absolutely not. not real.

but the people who believed, the people who saw? they didn’t know it was a peek into something bigger. they just thought joe was—gifted.

and thank god that chris stine had a huge mouth, otherwise it wouldn’t have to led to one joaquin foster—at the time, roanoke’s mothman—to finding him.

of course, it wouldn’t have led to paul todd finding him, either.

once joe graduated, he had already been on the radar for some—we’ll say seedier groups of people. people familiar with drug-running, the business of underground narcotic trails and cartels.

the money was hard to say no to.

joe has not always been as… upstanding, as we know him to be. he thanks all the gods he knows that he didn’t meet louise until later in life, after all of this was nothing more than a shameful closed chapter.

and he decided that chapter would have most likely been titled ‘joseph moretti - the single greatest drug smuggler in the history of mankind.’

he doesn’t like to talk about it much. and even though it was something he was technically good at (and that paid exceptionally well in pretty much every single way you can think of), it didn’t exactly leave him feeling fulfilled at the end of the day, no matter how many people were in his bed with him, how choice the drugs, how luxurious his surroundings.

paul todd was an excellent boss. do what he said, don’t ask questions, and your reward is getting to be a mule and not having to help draw lines through the names on a chalkboard paul kept in his office.

but joaquin would prove to be a bit better.

he trailed joe for a while. a few months, at least. got to witness how easily he committed felonies, the party boy lifestyle that had become the bow that wrapped up his life. but more importantly joaquin knew that once every few weeks, joe would go to the beach all by himself around midnight and stare out into the ocean for hours at a time.

so. he waited until joe was at his usual spot, and silently walked up next to him. his face caught the orange glow of a cigarette. “… penny for your thoughts?”

looking back, joe couldn’t tell you why, exactly, he proceeded to unload every single thought he had onto this man he didn’t know.

but he reckoned that maybe it had something to do with the fact that no one had asked him even a simple ‘are you all right?’ in a very, very long time.

by the end of the word vomit that joe couldn’t quite seem to stop, the stranger had gone through his cigarette and an entire second one.

“… uhm. i’m uh.” there was no easy recovery from this one. “sorry. about that. i’ll figure it out. nobody’s problem but mine.”

and for a beat, joaquin didn’t say anything. until: “… what do you call it?”

“… what?”

he repeated. “what do you call it? the place that you keep the drugs in.”

all the color drained from joe’s face and he found himself rooted to the sand in fear.

this was not one of his college friends, this was not anyone under paul’s direction, this was someone that he’d never seen before in his life and he’d somehow pieced together his biggest secret--which joe was, y’know, pretty sure he hadn’t explained in explicit detail. his existential crisis, yes, but his powers, absolutely not.

but joaquin smiled. he looked like a wolf and joe wasn’t exactly comforted.

he watched joaquin walk closer to the water and realized this guy had no shoes on, and that his pants were rolled up and cuffed just below his knees. then he—started doing tai chi?

joe frowned, staring. nope, not tai chi. what was this dude—

he almost screamed as a glob of saltwater hit him scare in the face, sending him to his knees reflexively. it was so dark that he hadn’t seen it. but when he opened his eyes again, sputtering and tearing up, he did see a second ball of water, rotating in perfect peace a few inches above joaquin’s open palm.

“… please don’t throw that at me.” was what came out.

but what he had meant then, was oh—you’re like me.

“i have some people that are very, very keen on meeting you. and i’ll be upfront, they’re just as interested in what you can do as who you work for now. but could i perhaps take advantage of any curiosity you have in being on the right side of the law?”

“but i can’t—“

“yes you can.”

“but paul w—“

“we can take care of it.”

“but what ab—“

“joseph.” that stopped him. “… we got you.”

joaquin put a broad hand on joe’s shoulder. joe didn’t shake him off, and it felt more like a burden being lifted than a weight being set down.

of course, it took a little bit more persuasion than one inspiring speech on a dark shore. but joseph was instated as agent cambrion before the year was out.

given the space to grow upwards and outwards, he absolutely blossomed under joaquin’s mentorship.

sometimes to get the best out of a person, you just have to give them the circumstances to prove that they can be good. joseph understood that his jagged path had been his own choice, but he’d been walking around completely unaware that there were groups of people—good people, even!—who not only accepted him for who he was and what he could do, but celebrated it. they taught him how to use his abilities for the benefit of others (not the same-shaped benefits from his previous line of work, either—better. much, much better).

he didn’t like to contemplate for too long why he went with paul.

paul had given him an opportunity to be his truest self. in the wrong direction, sure. but joe at the time hadn’t seen any other alternatives, beyond getting inevitably squared into a safe, 9-to-5 cubicle job.

he chose being able to use his powers for nefarious reasons over living a life where he wouldn’t really get to use them at all. he didn’t like what it said about himself as a person, but there had to have been a point, he thought, that he was who he was. there had to have been a reason.

when roanoke found him—the reason found him, too.

of course, there remains the question: how did joe inherit mothman’s title?

joaquin got the honor of being one of the executive offices chosen to go on an initial trip to a new gateway, gate point ninety-three point one, in the early 90s. a kingdom, not too far off from earth’s own medieval history—but with the elements of magic and fantasy that roanoke was familiar with. he tagged joe to come with him.

joaquin, to make a long story exceptionally short—fell in love. both with a place, and a person.

their first diplomatic visit was a success. as were the next two.

but joaquin couldn’t bear to make the trip of a fourth time, mostly because he couldn’t stomach the thought of having to keep making returns trips to a timeline where impa never existed, nor her people, or the royal family they served.

joe was very, very lucky. a lot of agents inherit handles from mentors due to death afield, or other violent circumstances.

joaquin was granted permission to remain a permanent ambassador of roanoke to the kingdom of hyrule. this title translated to captain of king’s guard, which meant that joe wasn’t just given the name mothman in some boring way lined with paperwork—there was an entire knighting ceremony. lilith and the white lady had been one of the few human witnesses.

so. all in all. it’s sort of a good beginning and a bad beginning all in one. joe’s made peace, for the most part, that he needs both parts to make up the whole of who he is today.

and who he is today is pretty damn great, if you ask me.

not that it’s very important to this story, but i would like to point out that almost three decades later, another set of roanoke agents walked into that same castle without having any idea who joaquin was.

“welcome, travelers! i can see by your dress you’ve come a long way. tell me, who sent you?”

“oh! uh—hi! i’m agent seraphim, of roanoke. and this is agent nova and agent zenith. we caught word that something was happening in the far reaches of the kingdom. we’ve come to help. it’s nice to meet you, sir—?”

“joaquin. sir joaquin. … formerly of roanoke.”

[aion-rsa]

The Walking Dead: What the Commonwealth Means for Season 11 and the Ending

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This article contains major spoilers for The Walking Dead comic and potentially season 11.

The end is nigh for The Walking Dead.

And we’re not just talking about the news that The Walking Dead season 11 will serve as the final season of the long-running zombie drama. We’re also referring to the fact that the show will soon no longer have any material from the original comic series to draw from. 

Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead comic lasted for 193 issues and 32 volumes before concluding in July of 2019. The Walking Dead season 10 finale, in which the Whisperers are dispatched and Eugene arrives at a powerful new community called The Commonwealth, takes the show’s story up to around the start of Volume 30: New World Order.

In many ways, this final Commonwealth arc is the comic’s biggest storytelling gambit yet, with lots of new concepts and moving parts. The Walking Dead TV show now only has 30 episodes (6 remaining “extra” season 10 episodes and 24 season 11 episodes) to tell the whole thing. 

So in the grand tradition of our comic book catch ups dating back to season 8, we will give you a fair share of Walking Dead season 11 spoilers here by detailing what is yet to come in the final arc of the comics and therefore what is what yet to come in the final arc of the show. Read along to find out how what The Commonwealth is and how The Walking Dead will end.

What is The Commonwealth?

When Eugene, Yumiko, Ezekiel, and Princess arrive at the train depot rendezvous at the end of season 10, the armor on the soldiers that accost them leaves absolutely no mystery as to where they are. Eugene and company have arrived at The Commonwealth. What exactly is the Commonwealth? Well to put it in the simplest terms possible: The Commonwealth is a community…a big, big, big, big, big community. 

In the comics, The Commonwealth exists somewhere in Ohio. In the show it’s somewhere in West Virginia. But if this show Commonwealth takes after the book Commonwealth, then Eugene and friends can expect to have just encountered a community of 50,000 people. 50,000! That’s an above-average sized suburb just about anywhere in the U.S. in normal times. In the context of the zombie apocalypse, it’s a super-city. For comparison’s sake, the combined population of Alexandria, Hilltop, The Kingdom, The Sanctuary, and Oceanside numbers in the hundreds.

As evidenced by its highly organized and heavily armored soldiers, The Commonwealth is an extremely advanced society. It has a functioning government led by Governor Pamela Milton. It has distinct military and police forces to keep people safe. It even has a thriving restaurant scene and recreational activities like baseball games held in stadiums. All is well at The Commonwealth. But also, like…is all well at The Commonwealth?

The Rotten Core

The penultimate volume of The Walking Dead comic series is called “The Rotten Core” for a reason. Nobody at The Commonwealth is purely evil like The Governor of Woodbury, nor does any one there exhibit the sheer savagery of a Negan or Alpha. But that’s not to say that Governor Pamela Milton and the political and social institutions of The Commonwealth aren’t flawed.

The goal of The Commonwealth was to build something that would resemble the world before the zombie apocalypse. And they did so. The Commonwealth rebuilt the world as it was with all its conveniences, safety, and unfortunately: inequality. Eugene and his crew (which includes Michonne, Siddiq, Magna, and Yumiko in the comic) soon find out the drawbacks of The Commonwealth’s highly-civilized lifestyle. Instead of being celebrated like a hero for making first contact with a new society, Eugene’s new friend Stephanie is chastised and punished for acting above her station. Stephanie and Michonne’s long-lost daughter Elodie then begin to let Eugene and co. in on the various rules of The Commonwealth.

Citizens of The Commonwealth are assigned jobs and statuses based on the jobs and statuses that they enjoyed in the “before world.” When the Alexandrians are brought to meet Governor Pamela Milton, Milton is thrilled to discover that Michonne was a lawyer in her previous life. Michonne is almost immediately welcomed into the community and given a grand apartment befitting her status as someone who can help judicate matters in The Commonwealth. Eugene, despite being the most brilliant individual in his community, is not afforded anywhere near the same level of respect due to his modest high school teacher background.

One thing that is important to note is that, even though the core of the Commonwealth is rotten and the behavior of its politicians is unfair, it’s not necessarily seen as wildly nefarious. People are allowed the opportunity to “move up” to a new social caste once per year. The system makes the Alexandrians uncomfortable, but no one appears to be so weirded out by it that they feel the need to intervene. Princess even says she thinks the system of social advancement seems fair to her. 

But not everybody at The Commonwealth is a fan of the current state of affairs. 

Alexandrian-Commonwealth Diplomacy 

A Commonwealth soldier named Mercer is one of the most important characters introduced in this final arc, and he (or a character like him) is almost certain to make an appearance on the TV show. Mercer is a physically-imposing specimen of a man and one of the Commonwealth’s most impressive soldiers. Mercer is also, quite frankly, sick of The Commonwealth’s shit. Governor Pam Milton isn’t a despot. But that doesn’t mean she’s a particularly inspiring or effective leader either. Milton lets her spoiled, truly awful son Sebastian treat Mercer like a personal lapdog. Mercer has his eye on starting a coup to overthrow Pamela, and the introduction of these Alexandrian strangers who live freer lifestyles seems to accelerate Mercer’s desires.

Eventually Milton, Mercer, and Eugene return to Alexandria so that The Governor can see where Eugene comes from and meet the great Rick Grimes. Upon seeing Alexandria, Milton calls it a “shithole” but eventually warms up to it and is tremendously impressed by Rick. Rick gives Milton and the Commonwealth community a tour and the two discuss their political philosophies. 

This is another area in which this arc of the comic is pleasantly non-confrontational. The Commonwealth is definitely the “antagonist” of these final batches of issues, but Rick Grimes and Pamela Milton don’t really have an antagonistic relationship. Upon finding out how The Commonwealth does things, Rick makes it clear that he doesn’t approve of that approach, but he also says he cannot begrudge them their successes. When Rick, Eugene, and the Commonwealthers return to the massive community, Rick is absolutely enchanted by what he sees. 

The relative peace and stability of The Commonwealth is mind-bending to Rick. He literally cries when having dinner out on the town with Michonne as he wishes Andrea could have been alive for this. The Commonwealth, in many ways, is the end game that Rick has been striving for. Unfortunately, that rotten core cannot be ignored much longer. 

Revolution!

Perhaps it’s because of Rick’s presence and the knowledge of what kind of community he leads, or perhaps it’s just because they can’t handle any more bullshit – whatever the reason, the lower class of the Commonwealth eventually erupts in glorious revolution. In what is certain to be a disturbingly familiar moment when it airs on television, a Commonwealth soldier beats a citizen into a coma after finding the citizen had an affair with the soldier’s wife. The people of The Commonwealth have themselves a lengthy, destructive riot. 

After the riot dies down, Rick embarrasses Pamela by helping to clean up all the debris. It’s an act that doesn’t go unnoticed among the people of The Commonwealth. Both Dwight and Mercer now see Rick as an important figure to their respective causes. Mercer believes that Rick can be the key to leading a bloodless coup. Dwight also wants a coup but not a bloodless one. He wants Alexandrian and its 100-something people to violently overthrow The Commonwealth…because Dwight is a moron. Things get so tense that Rick sends a message back to Alexandria and Hilltop to Maggie to prepare for war just in case. 

Ultimately, however, Rick wants nothing to do with either plan and he is eventually forced to kill Dwight when Dwight pulls a gun on Pamela. The damage, however, has already been done. Pamela’s political powers and influence are at their lowest and the citizens’ frustrations are at their height. Mercer enlists the help of Dwight’s old girlfriend Laura to recruit other Commonwealth soldiers to their cause. The military rises up and Pamela and Sebastian are forced to flee to neighboring city Greenville.

There’s now a leadership vacuum and you just know who loves stepping into those…Rick Grimes once again accepts the burden of leadership thrust upon him and announces that there will now be democratic elections held in The Commonwealth. All is well…except…

Rest in Peace

Before we discuss the very final arc of The Walking Dead comic and The Walking Dead TV show, let’s take a brief moment to remark upon just how much has changed here. In the lengthy plot description above, you may notice that many characters involved are no longer on the show. The Walking Dead will have to try out the comic’s final arc without Rick Grimes, Michonne, Siddiq, Dwight, or Laura. Thankfully, in many cases that won’t be a big issue. Daryl and Carol can step in for Rick and Michonne pretty easily in most cases. Siddiq and Laura don’t play too significant of roles and Dwight could be really anyone from Alexandria who is annoyed with the current state of affairs (Alden maybe?).

But the lack of Rick is really going to be apparent for this final arc to the extent that the show will likely have to go in a completely new direction. Volume 32: Rest in Peace is all about the sad death of one Rick Grimes. Hammering home once again how civil this whole arc is, Rick visits Pamela in jail where she says she has no hard feelings about how things went down. Unfortunately, her son does. And that’s how one night, the mighty Rick Grimes is shot and killed in his home by one privileged brat. The penultimate issue of the comic deals with the heartbreaking fallout and with Carl Grimes (who is also dead in the show) making the magnanimous decision not to kill Sebastian. The final issue of the book then rolls right into an extended flash forward that you can read more about here. 

Of course, The Walking Dead TV show doesn’t appear in a position to pull off a similar arc here. Rick is already off the show and has movie plot armor anyway. Neither Daryl or Carol will step into Rick’s death mask as the pair is getting their own spinoff. Perhaps Maggie could step in and take the bullet for Rick but even that doesn’t have the same oomph. 

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No, it seems likely that the conclusion of The Walking Dead TV series will deviate from the comic significantly. That doesn’t mean we won’t get a lot of The Commonwealth arc up to a certain point. But at the very end, The Walking Dead will be on its own…just like how it started with a first season full of Darabont deviations. 

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