#but foreshadowing exists

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

Sometimes people will go like “ugh, the author is just catering to the fans by confirming that fan theory” and it’s like, there’s a reason fans had that theory. I’m not going to claim that fans never make up some crazy shit, but sometimes there are actual hints, there is context, dropping it out of nowhere would be weirder.

[notbecauseofvictories]

Watching this again, it becomes incredibly clear in s3 that Nate is teaching Parker how to run her own crew. He fully anticipates that she will be his legacy, and more than anyone else---more than Sophie or Hardison, more than Eliot (though I would argue that Eliot never even slightly wanted it)---he is teaching her how to take over, think like he thinks and plan like he plans. He fumbles some of the emotional stuff, never actually tells her explicitly...but by the time you reach s3 he's clearly all-in. He's decided. Parker is going to be Nate 2.0, with different more exciting bugs than the 1.0 version.

[shitpostingkats]

Beginning to suspect Klavier has mild prophetic power but can only access it via songwriting.

[pitruli]

I wanted to draw them playing my favorite game together, based on how much time i spent playing Pokemon White in the weird corridors of my highschool (while my friends were actually talking about AoT funny enough)

[lsunstreakerl]

darkbull daniel pov! this pre-kidnapping, but like. barely. 1.1k words. yes hello hi: darkbull verse, proceed accordingly.

Simon sets his drink down and nudges at Daniel's shoulder, smile playing at his lips.

"Incoming."

Daniel looks up, and sure enough, Max is slinking his way through several people at the bar, headed in a beeline for Daniel.

"Where did Carlos go?"

Daniel is half watching Max, half listening to Simon.

"No idea. Need anything?"

Daniel is going to be stuck for the foreseeable future if Max decides to settle with him here.

"Maybe another appetizer, if you don't mind."

Simon claps on him on the shoulder as he stands.

"Cheers. Appy for you, water for the lad?"

Daniel grins at him.

"Add another bourbon to that, mate."

"Heard."

Simon leaves, and Daniel sips at the last of his drink while he keeps an eye on Max, who's gotten slightly distracted chatting with two strategists. There's a good chance he's drunk already, cheeks flushed and talking with his hands. The strategists are listening attentively, despite the fact that he's probably not even making sense anymore.

He clears his throat, setting his now empty glass onto the table. He's not too loud, but he raises his voice just enough.

"Maxy."

Max's head snaps around, and he breaks into a bright grin when he realizes it's Daniel, abandoning his previous conversation and coming right into the booth.

Daniel leans back a bit so Max has space as he swings one leg over his thighs and settles onto his lap, and then he is the proud owner of around seventy kilos of drunk Dutchman.

"Danny!"

Definitely drunk.

Daniel lets one hand splay wide over the soft meat of his thigh, digging his fingers in while his other hand settles in the curve of Max's waist. He's so sweet like this- if Daniel laid him flat on his back on this table and took a bite out of him, all he would taste is honey and syrup, sticky sweet and trusting.

Max would let him.

Max would let the whole team come over and take pieces of him, laid bare in a bar, and he'd probably fucking thank them for it, happy to be of use.

Daniel leans forward and kisses at the curve of Max's neck.

He'd never take a bite. To mar Max like that, to leave an indent of self-possession on team property- he knows better. Max wants him around, so Daniels seat is protected, but the team could still make his life hell for that.

So he's content with this, mouthing at Max's skin as he shifts in his lap, needy and sweet.

"Danny-"

It's a half sigh, and Daniel brings his head up, grinning at Max.

"Having fun?"

Max's eyes crinkle up at the corners as he drapes his arms around the back of Daniel's neck.

"Yes! The mechanics are losing another darts game, and I of course lost a drinking content with Elliott-"

Daniel snorts, because everyone in the team would lose a drinking content with Elliott. The dude's a powerhouse, and he's Irish.

Max tries almost every time anyways.

Daniel's grip on Max tightens in surprise when he grinds his hips down into Daniel's lap, head dropping back a bit with a half moan.

He has to fight not to buck his hips up, and he immediately loosens his fingers- no bruises.

"Max, babe, we're in the bar still."

Max frowns at him, and Daniel is so bad at saying no to the pout, genuinely terrible-

"But I am- Danny, I want."

And there's the problem. They're in a Redbull bar, at a Redbull party. Honestly- Daniel's not entirely sure he'd even get in trouble for it, if he got Max off in the shadowed booth of the bar.

"Weren't you with Carlos before we got here? He didn't take care of you in the hotel room?"

This partnership works because Daniel and Carlos both pull their weight, so if Carlos has suddenly decided he wants to fuck off and not help anymore- before they've got a fourth- Daniel's going to be a bit pissed off.

Oh, this is a different Max pout now. This is the guilty one.

"I was supposed to be, but Charles wanted to talk after the race, and it got very long, and then I only had a few minutes to change."

Something ugly twists in Daniel's gut. Charles has become a problem.

He wasn't an issue before, but lately...

It seems like he's around more. He's always trying to ask Max about qualifying or the race, managing to catch his attention on the grid where the rest of Redbull can't protect him.

Of course, Max is thrilled as always to have a new victim to listen to him go on about tire wear and track distance, but-

It's making Daniel uneasy. The rest of the team as well. Charles is Ferrari, through and through. He has constellations inked into his skin, signet ring firm on his finger. They're grooming him to take over, Daniel can tell.

For him to be paying attention to Max...

He tightens his grip on Max for a second, letting his teeth nip into his neck slightly. Light enough not to leave a mark, but it's out of their normal routine, enough that Max shudders under his hands and moans.

Daniel wouldn't normally even risk it, but they need to cut this Charles thing off before it gets worse.

"What's so good about him anyways?"

Max rests a hand in Daniel's curls, nails softly scratching his scalp.

"You do not need to be jealous Danny- it is of course not like that. It is just nice to have another friend, yes?"

"Sure. You seen the way he looks at you?"

Max's grip tightens in his hair.

"Danny. He is being friendly."

It's the closest Max gets to trying to throw around any real authority- normally he's perfectly content to lay belly up for the team, let them dress him in their brand, lock their names across his wrists.

He doesn't usually try and actually put his foot down. That he's doing it now- it's not a good sign.

Daniel tucks his annoyance away carefully in his head. They need to be careful about this. He can bring it up to Christian later, but for right now, in this moment-

He pulls Max further into him, one hand slipping up his shirt and skating across his abdomen to grope at his chest, Max shifting in his lap.

"How about we talk about something else, yeah?"

He says it kindly, but Max isn't going to be good for coherent thoughts for very long, pupils already blown as he licks his lips.

"Yes, I- I like that."

[tategaminu]

Rayla and Callum were willing not to see each other again and sacrifice their happiness to save everyone else

This is exactly the reason I need them to be selfish and choose their happiness together over the greater good‚ let them be selfish

[adamanteine]

sure shams dies in every verse but have you considered that she was literally born into existence to die

[urproblematicfav-arsonk]

I keep going through some of Elsie Lovelock's old covers (that SO OLD BTW MAN LIKE WHAT THE FUCK IS TIME) and every day I'm reminded of how robbed we were. So its rant tim babey.

Elsie really embodied that old Disney era princess vibe for Charlie perfectly. She nails the dainty, soft and sincere tone and every time she plays Charlie in a fansong or just the pilot, she is a PRINCESS in every sense. I think her heavy background doing Disney covers, and essentially playing nothing but princesses for these videos gave her a lot of support for playing Charlie. Because of Elsie's vocal background, and the genre of character Charlie is, it all wraps together to create a very specific energy for her that feels cohesive and gives her character so much depth.

Charlie's aesthetic is all very classic Disney. She has the big black eyes that are very Betty boop, early days of animation. Her vocal style, her personality is very reminiscent of Snow White and Aurora, and I mean FUCK. The first song she sings is fucking Judy Garland.

Charlie is meant to embody this sorta, ditzy but kind hearted young protagonist era of female characters, specifically from the 1930-1950s, with her visual style and with her musical choices.

It's something that ties to her Alastor, actually and helps imply this developing relationship dynamic that was...supposed to happen and was essentially completely cut with the overhaul on Alastor's motivations that they did for the series.

It gives her a direct artistic connection to him, something that subtly shows that there is SOME common ground between them, and there is understanding. Its similar to how Husk's ears used to have Angel's stripes, and Angel's gloves are a pop of red like Husk's wings(this was also cut)

(I'd actually argue that the Wizard of Oz/50s aesthetic is foreshadowing for some kind of parallel to Vox. Obvi, this is also cut concept and isn't anything. I will use it in fic tho.)

Elsie will always be my Charlie at least

I think 60% of the problems with the hh series honestly come down to casting and direction. Watching dubs of the show and going "ohhh so the scene wasn't actually THAT BAD, the actors were just explicitly forced to a bad job." I can not stress enough to you people that JJ was not doing his best work, and its because the hh crew is deeply unprofessional/actively mean and terrible at their jobs. Genuinely why the fuck did Blake Roman give a stronger performance in his original music than in hh??(hint: its cuz he was directing himself and could perform to the best of his ability)

Anyway, its just that Erika Henningsen sounds like, zoey deschanel adorkable but also extremely annoying because of the adorkable. There's no soft sweetness. There's no heartbreaking sincerity. She does not give any princessy fairytale energy at all and her Traditional Broadway singing style completely strips Charlie of sounding unique or again,,,,, like a princess.

Its not her fault, she's just a Broadway baby doing her thing. She's just the symptom of a larger problem at the core of hh's design.

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

wait actually - not sure if someone else has already pointed this out - but there was something I noticed while relistening to part 21 for the first time after getting caught up on to part 49 of Malevolent--

In regards to that moment at the end of part 21, when Arthur recites the "I am the captain of my soul" poem for Yellow, and then shortly afterwards Yellow says "this too shall pass"

Because first off, there's obviously the question of How The Fuck Did Yellow Know That Line. Arthur has only ever said it to John before, and just next episode Yellow clearly states that he hadn't just happened to see it on the lighter either. He Just Knew It

But also. that's the only time Arthur recites the entirety of that poem. I scoured s1 and s2 for it after listening to part 49 when John recites it for Arthur. John shouldn't know that poem, because Arthur has only recited it for Yellow. And Yet Here We Are

And the fact that Arthur questions it both times makes me think we're supposed to notice that that's odd, and maybe even connect the two moments. either way, it has intriguing implications to me

[synthaphone]

do u have any opinions on the voidling designs from the new plot?

I have opinions on practically everything relating to neopets, lol

I don't hate them, but I definitely have critique for them. I think the main problems I have are that their poses are stiff (the 'neutral' poses in particular), and their faces feel flat in a way that feels unintentional- the line drawn above the bridge of the nose is used to imply depth, but if the mouth and nose are placed on the same plane as the eyes, the illusion of dimension doesn't work. The lines not having much variation in thickness also seriously contributes to the flat feeling.

did some rough sketches to illustrate how i'd personally tweak them- maybe i'll finish these later to take a stab at the line weights.

Conceptually, cat-based imps are a decent enough enemy type, but I do think that they're too close to wraiths visually. Not sure if they're planning on connecting these with those or not in the story, but as of right now they feel a bit redundant. It would maybe be fun to have more of the round shapes from the little floating molecules reflected in the designs, like if they were more liquid than gas? idk

[bestworstcase]

Anything from Volumes 1-3 that is setup that you don't think is given enough attention or respect for good setup?

Sidenote to this:

Open seat with no person in it + Salem having someone looking for the Choice Relic was hinting at Summer Rose. Did we have anything hinting at her pre Beacon's Fall or just things that she fits given additional context?

regarding summer specifically, while i wouldn’t call them hints per se, there are a handful of beats in v1-3 that smell like foreshadowing to me:

the first is “she was right about you; such arrogance.” – cinder might well be referring to salem here, of course. however. what strikes me about this remark is that arrogance is not a characteristic that salem seems to perceive in ozma; rather she describes him, in her soliloquies and songs, as a self-destructive, deceitful, manipulative fool blinded and trapped by his faith in the old gods. cowardly. fallen from grace. think of what she says to oz in 8.9—look how you’ve diminished, how you’ve lessened yourself—she sees him groveling at the feet of tyrannical monsters and sees debasement.

does it follow for salem to characterize ozpin to cinder as, primarily, arrogant? i’m not convinced it does. but summer rose? well… hm. consider, also, that the full line is “this whole time, right beneath our feet… she was right about you; such arrogance…” <- i think it is more likely than not that “she” is someone inside the brackets of “our,” and in context “our” is either [cinder + ozpin] or [cinder + her associates physically present at beacon].

in the event that “she” is not part of “our” the more naturalistic phrasing is “beneath our feet… salem was right about you” – because “she” otherwise has no antecedent. of course, some allowance here for this to be a narrative choice not to name salem yet, but we’re one (1) episode off from revealing her face and by this point we’ve known for a while that cinder works for someone else, so the choice to drop the name here or in the volume credits is of fairly trivial importance. unless of course cinder isn’t talking about salem.

second: “Oh! We've also stopped some bad guys, too! I guess it's like they say: "like mother, like daughter"! I still wonder why Ozpin let me into the school early…” [laugh track] – obv this part of ruby’s address to summer’s memorial headstone foreshadows ozpin’s conspiracy and team strq’s involvement therein. but it also foreshadows this exchange:

RUBY: We don’t have to kill you to stop you, and we will stop you. SALEM: Your mother said those words to me… she was wrong, too.

and i think it bears pointing out that ruby is wrong here, and later in the volume qrow specifically calls attention to this and lays out why she’s wrong. team rwby didn’t stop the bad guys; they cut off one avenue of attack and cinder circled around from a new direction that took advantage of torchwick’s imprisonment, and this also resulted in the public break between ozpin and ironwood which eroded the cohesion of the inner circle. ergo, ruby thinks she stopped the bad guys but in the long run the consequences of the breach all benefited salem.

looks into the camera like im on the office.

like mother, like daughter!!!

further, that sequence of events ultimately leads to the final confrontation between her and torchwick – wherein he declares “if you can’t beat them, join ’em,” and shortly gets eaten by a grimm right after making it clear that he intends to kill her. torchwick’s death is thematically motivated – a narrative rejection of his cynical every-man-for-himself, dog-eats-dog outlook – but consider that:

summer rose, if she is indeed salem’s willing agent, is certainly at beacon tonight – because she’d be the one who stayed behind to hold the fort.

summer is thus the one salem instructs to “reinforce our numbers at beacon,” meaning the grimm; that instruction only makes sense if the person receiving it can communicate with or command grimm. ergo, summer must have some degree of control over grimm.

ruby is disarmed and on the ground getting beaten by a man who fully intends to kill her, and a grimm swoops down out of nowhere to eliminate him faster than he can blinks. and then… the grimm rears up, roaring at her, and comes down with a sweep of its wings that creates a blast of air that pushes her away. that isn’t aggression!! that’s a defensive threat display!! (the feilong in v4 does the exact same thing – trying to push the boat away). it’s ruby who charges the gryphon, and while it lunges forward in reaction to her charge, all that happens is she gets her feet on its head and pushes off to leap over it, and the grimm goes fucking flying so hard it crashes into the ship’s interior and never emerges. the point being,

math.

it’s plausible that the grimm was drawn to torchwick’s murderous rage. but the way it behaves immediately after it swallows him – that very clear “get away from me please” body language, and ruby -apparently- kicking a grimm the size of a goddamned clydesdale dozens of feet and then through the hull of a literal warship? ruby is strong, but she’s not… that strong. but if the grimm didn’t want to engage her and propelled itself under and past her at the same time as she vaulted off its head? that would explain what happens perfectly – ruby’s kick altered its launch trajectory just enough that it crashed.

minutes later, someone loyal to salem scraped a very badly injured cinder off the top of beacon tower and left ruby alive where qrow would find her. salem’s vested interest in keeping ruby alive is VISIBLE throughout the battle for beacon, and notably include a perfect opportunity to capture her while she’s in a coma atop beacon tower that isn’t taken – suggesting that salem makes her singular attempt to capture ruby solely to reassure cinder that Something is being Done.

and if summer rose has command over grimm and was at beacon that night… the gryphon’s behavior is exactly what i’d expect if all the grimm had marching orders to insure this one girl in particular – the spitting image of their commander – doesn’t come to serious harm. there’s a nonzero chance that gryphon did in fact save ruby On Purpose!

…and that happens in the context of a fight between ruby and the bad guy she thought she stopped (but she was wrong), who joined salem because “if you can’t beat em, join em.” (salem voice) she was wrong, too…

also

<- like mother like daughter. summer had a nevermore’s eye view of the battle for beacon, in this essay i will –

third: this one is something i didn’t really Think About until v9 and specifically the v9 ost dropping, but some of the things cinder says in v2-3 strike me as like – she got that from summer im sure of it. for example, in midnight, cinder’s view of huntsmen is that they’re free, they have power, they can go anywhere and do whatever they want, and rhodes never contradicts this. where did she get “huntsmen and huntresses should conduct themselves with honor and mercy”? who taught her the aspirational moral ideal?

summer rose, maybe.

but in the deeper sense,

where did cinder get the ‘destiny’ conceit? her underlying beliefs about how the world is are a product of her childhood, but the overt framing of fate/destiny isn’t present in midnight; nor has salem ever spoken of destiny and her philosophical views are in many ways a rejection of destiny – salem does not believe in fate, she is the woman who dedicated her life to toppling the gods.

and on close examination this looks like yet another suspiciously summer rose shaped hole!! “you’re special, ruby […] special the way your mom was special […] it was said that those born with silver eyes were destined to lead the life of a warrior.” – in after the fall, ozpin gives coco an entire pep talk whose central conceit is embracing and submitting to the turns of fate – sacrifice “show them gods and deities/blind and keep the people on their knees” & guide my way “you were born to hypnotize them all/they all said their prayers/can you hear me up there?”

cinder, of pyrrha: “people assume she’s fated for victory, when she's really taking fate into her own hands. interesting. add her to the list.” & “it’s not about overpowering the enemy; it’s about taking away what power they have.”

<- that second statement is salem’s strategic doctrine, through and through. but the ‘power’ cinder is talking about here is derived through manipulating the perception of destiny; the self-fulfilling prophecy. the invincible girl cannot be touched because she makes subtle adjustments to insure that no one is able to try. it is pyrrha’s belief in destiny that destroys her, as it destroys ozma. ozpin invokes fate to justify and explain his choices. those born with silver eyes are destined to lead the lives of warriors.

summer rose was destined to live and die fighting the grimm – so the world promised her. maybe she believed, maybe she felt like she had no choice but to accept her prescribed fate. until she met salem, and took fate into her own hands. made a choice. broke the chains. it’s about taking away what power they have, like salem did when she tore the scales from summer’s eyes, like summer did when she refused her destiny and joined hands with the grimm instead.

what does summer rose look like through cinder’s eyes? she was a huntress. she was literally destined to be one of the greatest huntresses in history, a hero, the shining pillar upholding the world order that chose the enslavement of children as a fair price for peace. fate dictated that she be the icon, the idol, the embodiment of the system that brutalized and subjugated cinder – she had every privilege cinder could ever dream of, freedom and security and a home, a loving family – and she chose to walk away.

and if they talked about that like, ever, and specifically if summer talked about that warrior’s destiny as a cage, a curse she had to escape – is it any wonder that cinder would adopt that framing to make sense of what happened to her? if summer rose was fated to stand at the pinnacle, then does it not follow that cinder fall was fated to be ground into the foundations? and likewise, if summer rose can shatter her pedestal and fall from grace, then cinder fall can shatter her chains and rise. summer proves that the idea of destiny is powerful but not inviolate. and it is hollow, it is a lie, a fiction, and that means it can be taken away. revealed as a deception. destroyed.

anyway

to the broader question

i think people really, really do not give the jaundice arc enough credit for the long-term set up it’s doing.

(or the very overt textual statement from THE HISTORY PROFESSOR! placing the blame for the violent radicalization of the white fang squarely on human bigotry and persecution of faunus in general; the white fang arc is clunky and hamstrung by the inadequacy of its vocabulary, but the fandom talking point that the narrative perspective on this subject has “evolved” or “improved” is just. not true. v1 is very emphatically clear that 1. terroristic violence is not activism, 2. ascribing the terroristic violence of a few to an entire minority group to rationalize bigotry is bigoted in and of itself and completely unacceptable, and 3. violent radicalization is created through relentless discrimination and hate, which creates a self-reinforcing circle wherein the justifiable outrage of the persecuted outgroup and the extreme violent reactions provoked by the persecution are distorted into a justification for further persecution by those of the in-group who materially benefit from perpetuating this cycle!!! all of this is explained in an almost afterschool special manner by the main character faunus rights activist and the history professor!!! in volume one!!! what changed is that the writers developed the skill and vocabulary necessary to weave these ideas into their storytelling in a more effective and more cogent way!!! literally begging the rwby fandom to start listening to the actual words the characters say)

ahem. the jaundice arc lays so much of the groundwork for jaune’s and ruby’s character arcs reaching all the way to v9 and undoubtedly beyond; it sets up the first pieces of the ozlem fractal; it foreshadows the white fang arc and sets up blake’s character arc of self-reclamation and figuring out how she wants to use her voice as an activist; it draws attention to the misogynistic cultural norms that define and are defined by the history between ozma and salem; it lays the foundation for the scene in v2 where ozpin questions blake, which hits the way it does because we have the context of anti-faunus harassment occurring openly at ozpin’s school and nobody doing anything about it, and by extension is the first stroke of the salem-faunus connection that is almost certainly the keystone holding the entire narrative together because it is her relation to the faunus that provides the key to decipher the lost fable.

the jaundice arc is a crucial load-bearing pillar that supports the entire narrative and people revile it because nobody in this fandom can be fucking normal about jaune. lmao

[heyclickadee]

I know I’ve said this before, I just can’t remember if it was on here or on discord and I don’t feel like scrolling back through my posts, so: We got the full and complete journey

of the specific shipment of spice

that the Martez sisters were carrying around in season seven of The Clone Wars

continued over into The Bad Batch. Just because.

I really don’t think that we’re leaving Rex, Echo, the clones as a whole, or even Crosshair, Wrecker (or, yes, Tech) dangling forever.

[oshiawaseni]

Well, well, well... doesn't he look awfully happy.

Who are you looking at, Izuku?

[writing-is-hard-af]

Adore the little details and bits of foreshadowing hinting at Sam being set to be a future president sprinkled throughout the show. Like it's so subtle but also so clear. It's so important to me for whatever reason.

[florshedworf]

whoever wrote this sequence was sick and twisted and evil

[katisbadatnames]

MACHINE. I HAVE BEEN TURNED INTO A ‘GINGER BREAD’ COOKIE.

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