#“i was an idealist when i was young too but we really can't improve that kind of stuff”

[jewishcissiekj]

Throwing up whenever any of my teachers say anything about Israel

[waheelawhisperer]

Thoughts on Cinder

I liked her a lot during the Beacon era and felt like her whole mysterious villain thing was pretty cool. She had solid potential as an antagonist at that point, but the show took too long to give us any kind of backstory for her while at the same time giving her a bunch of focus as a major villain, so she ended up feeling kind of flat for a while. The writers gave her a lot of screentime throughout the series, but didn't use that screentime particularly well, and thus she committed the cardinal sin of being boring as a major character. She somewhat improved in Volumes 7 and 8 where we got actual insight into her past and motivations and so on, but it was too little, too late for me, and what she got in Atlas wasn't helped by Volume 8's incredibly baffling decision to juggle 3 villains and do little of interest with any of them.

In terms of aesthetic, I really like her Poser look with the long hair and femme fatale vibes. It felt a little bit overblown at the time, especially with the way she was voiced, but her backstory makes it fit a little more. I'm not as big a fan of the short hair looks, and the Atlas one in particular is a fit I do not care for (common theme with Atlas outfits). It's too black and really lacks any sort of color to make it stand out, which is pretty unfortunate in a show that supposedly has a heavy emphasis on color and its use and meaning.

Her fighting style is hella cool, especially her use of glass and her ability to switch between range and melee with her bow blades before gaining the Maiden powers. I think there is a lot that can be done with her Semblance in fight scenes and it's frankly wasted by giving her the Maiden powers, which were a stupid addition to begin with. Cinder tends to get some of the better fights in the series, so she's got that going for her, at least.

I never had as many issues with her voice acting as a lot of others do, but I do think her Volumes 1-3 sultry voice felt like her VA was trying too hard. I do think Nigri, like a lot of other RWBY VAs, improved a lot over the show's run, but I can't say I'm a good judge of voice acting or its quality.

None of her ships are interesting to me tbh. Fallen Petals had potential in a "seductive villainess corrupts young idealistic hero" kind of way, but now there's just no chemistry between her and Ruby (or anyone else, for that matter). She's got the obsession with Ruby, I guess, but that doesn't do much when Ruby literally forgets she exists for large stretches of the show.

[illeoneardito]

“ go, go! save yourself! i’ll buy you some time! we both know i’m not walking out of this one. i've made my peace with that but you. . . go, NOW! “

He wants to scream.

He wants to yell, shout, protest - no, I am not leaving you here, I am not letting this happen again― he can almost see the face of Lilina, her eyes that fought back the tears that threatened, demanded to come out back when― the first time when― he told her;

but as the enemy soldiers pile up on them relentlessly, the planned and ever so desired words of reassurance get stuck in his throat. Not only does he find himself too busy keeping the blades away from his chest and throat to speak them―

but also, can he really? Does he have the right to?

We both know I’m not walking out of this one.

He is idealistic, he knows that. He has had that pointed out more times in his life than he bothers to count. He can't win this war - yes he can. He can't avoid tragic casualties - yes he can. There are limits to his ability, of course - young and inexperienced he continues to be, flaws impossible to repair at the drop of a hat. But he shall continue to train, learn, improve himself - for the sake of Elibe, for his friends, and for the ideals of peace and harmony that he follows.

... But how far can ideals carry him in the face of a tragedy that he knows has already occured?

As he is freed from the onslaught, he throws a look towards Hector, and for a brief moment their eyes meet one more time; as they do, there is no more promise in Roy's eyes, only desperation, a hint of pleading―

a touch of something akin to a childlike tantrum. You think I had FUN telling your future daughter that I failed to save you? You think I WANT to do it again?!

Another foe falls by his blade. Another three fall by Hector's axe. An opening―

before tears can cloud his vision, Roy turns and runs.

[flowerslut]

1/2: hiii, i was wondering if you have the time (and/or patience), could you please explain further about vampire age vs. human age when turned and how that effects how they act and what teenage tendencies the vampires will be prone to? like i get the whole child development frozen. can't be taught. but for like the cullens physical age (17-20s?) you're telling me their 50+ years won't affect them at all? like they won't mature mentally at all? learn? does this make sense? it confuses me too tbh

I always have time to procrastinate my real life responsibilities to talk about twilight are you joking

this is going to be long. so uh, apologies, I guess.

I'm no neuroscientist or anything (fucking duh) and I feel like smeyer makes all of her science-esque explanations vague enough to be left up to some sort of interpretation, but with my understanding it all has to do with what the brain can actually do. so, again, while I’m not a neuroscientist, I am a teacher. I did study child development pretty thoroughly back in school and I work with kids that range from infants to 12 year olds. so I’m going to start with an example on child vampires before I answer your question about teen vamps.

here’s the way I see it:

say you’ve got a two year old. alriiiight, lets make that baby a vampire! now, two year olds are basically large babies who are just beginning to function as people. words are there because vocabularies are being built. fine and gross motor skills are lacking but still being actively improved upon. their understanding of the world as a whole is also pretty basic because they can’t grasp larger concepts. sitting down a vampire toddler—even one who has been a vampire for 5 or 10 years—and saying “hey. you’re illegal. which means we have to keep this on the down-low, meaning you have to like, listen, or both you and I are going to to be straight-up murdered by our immortal lawmakers.” isn’t going to get you any results. your little abomination is just going to ignore you after the first 6 words and start to wonder why you’re making such a funny face.

in the words of Piaget, children aren’t “little adults” and literally cannot function as such because their young brains prevent that. they just don’t have the tools. 

I know smeyer took all sorts of “it’s supernatural!!” liberties with Advanced-Functioning-and-Brain-Development Renesmee but the way I make her existence work in my head canons is by headcanoning the opposite with her: I want to see the vampire side of her show in more realistic (and less idealistic) ways. where her parents are frozen vampires, I want to see her slowly developing, as opposed to the weird hyper-developing thing smeyer had going in order to age her faster to get her with Jacob quicker, but uh *coughs* we won’t go into that nasty fact. I want to see a Renesmee at her 2 year old birthday party and she’s still the size of a 6 month old. (Emmett blows a noisemaker too close to her head and she bursts in to tears; he’s subsequently banned from the cottage for a month but it’s not like he misses out on anything. Next time he’s over Renesmee has barely grown anyways.)

so while we have Renesmee’s frankly disturbing case, let’s go back to the actual topic:

the thing is, vampire children’s brains aren’t developing. they’re learning, as all children do, but what makes (human) kids wild from a general standpoint is how fast they do it. but again, with the rate at which their brains develop and their bodies grow, of course they’d pick up things so quickly. they sort of have to in order to help them navigate this world around them in which most pieces of information they’re introduced to are 100% new concepts to them.

now, the real question: can vampire children learn. yeah, to an extent, they probably can. but they’re not learning the way you and I do, or the way a normal kid might. let’s go back to our hypothetical two year old baby vamp for a second. so this kid is frozen in time, right? so that means that while they might practice or perfect skills that are usually developed as they grow, they won’t be able to build off of those learned skills and advance them into something more or something better.

for example, a two year old who has learned to catch and throw a ball with someone else will eventually learn how to throw and catch the ball by themselves because their motor skills and hand-eye coordination will improve as they develop.

not with our vampire baby, though. imagine anything you can teach a two-year old with one full day of practice: catching a ball. hopping with two feet instead of just one. putting on a hat by themselves. now, imagine anything you can teach a five-year old in the same period of time. how to tie a knot. how to do a cartwheel. how to recognize specific words. so, with a two-year old vamp who is technically 5 years old, they wouldn’t be able to further their skills like a human 5 year old because they don’t have the tools to build their skills. so while you may have a 2 year old who can catch a ball from a literal half-mile away, they aren’t going to figure out how to tie their shoes even if you worked on it for 6 months. it aint going to work. they’re going to be figuratively left in the dust developmentally and they’re going to stay that way because, you know, the unchanging nature of the vampire deems it so........

now with our poor, unfortunate immortal teenagers. oof. I really feel for them. I mean, as a grown woman I think back to seventeen year old me and cringe sometimes. all people do, but then I imagine if her development had been stunted and she’d been trapped in that body and mindset for an eternity. it really gives a gal some fucking goosebumps, that’s for sure.

I know everyone likes to joke about how Esme is the only person with braincells in the family because she’s the only one with a fully developed pre-frontal cortex, but when you think about the fact that developmentally she really is the only one who should be calling any shots for that family it makes you wonder why smeyer didn’t make the Cullens a matriarchal family (I mean, we know why, but I digress...)

since the Cullens are written by an adult (and Bella, too, for that matter) that’s why when we read the books when we were younger we all most likely thought “oh! they’re all so level-headed and mature!” and they are a little bit. but that’s because they’re written like that. if the Cullens were as developmentally stunted as smeyer claims they are then they’d be every bit as chaotic as the fandom likes to head canon them as. poor impulse control. bad decisions nearly every step of the way. and sure, they’d learn from mistakes. but when faced with a split-second to make a decision it doesn’t matter if you have 50 years of lived experience behind you. that 17-year old brain in that head of yours is going to act and react. ain’t nothing you can do to stop it.

that’s why Edward being like “alright. fuck it. I'm killing myself” in new moon makes sense to me. and it’s why Rosalie being angry and jaded for nearly the entirety of the series makes sense to me. combine their ages and their last human moments and look back on where there development was stunted: a lot of the shit that people complain about their characters will feel like it makes a shitload of sense. it doesn’t matter if they’ve been ‘alive’ for 100 years.

(this whole thing is also why I made Esme the head of ‘the family’ in CotN, for all intents in purposes. bc of fucking course she would be.)

but think about how frustrating it would be, even with the super-vampire-memory, to look back at every single time you gave into the same impulses. sure, you’ll tell yourself you’ll do better next time. and maybe you will. but the brain calls the shots y'all. and while you might think you’re fully in charge of what it has to do or say, you really are only a passenger in this thing. along for the ride.

to finally answer your question: I think, yes. you are going to have teenage vampires who give off an air of maturity to them because of all of their lived experiences. but I still believe having even a 23 year old in charge (because now I look back on 23 and I’m like, hm, yeah. still a baby.) of a coven of vampires is fucking foolish as shit. but I mean, if Carlisle were as ‘smart’ as his medical degrees say he is, with him at the helm of the family the Cullens wouldn’t get into half the shenanigans they do. that pre-frontal cortex development is vital in making sure someone doesn’t give into impulse, can make thoroughly thought-out decisions, and has proper judgement in a variety of ways. without that, it’s a recipe for disaster (i.e. see: the entirety of The Twilight Saga.)