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headspace-hotel · 3 years

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I know it’s an old convo, but I’m wondering if the reason why white SFF authors prefer to write about fantasy races to real ones is 1. The fear of getting punished for getting it “wrong” and 2. The fact that there is a subculture of BIPOC authors who will punish white people for anything they do, including stuff they made up on the spot.

I agree with this partially, but it also radiates the assumption that the problem with homogeneity in fantasy is a result of something people of color are doing wrong and not a problem that’s been baked into the fantasy genre’s history, and I’m going to shut down that idea up front.

The prototypical fantasy setting is European. The vision of “fantasy” as a category that we know is derived from source material that has some pretty racist stuff in it. Tolkien was one of the biggest influences on the fantasy genre and some of his descriptions and characterizations of his “evil” races were...racist. Another huge codifier of a lot of fantasy tropes is D&D, and I don’t know much about the past versions but it has been criticized lots for racism in its worldbuilding.

Younger fantasy readers might look to Harry Potter as a foundation, and it is, again, overwhelmingly white and has a race of slaves that love to be slaves. The later Narnia books have a “Fantasy Middle East” country that is clearly meant as an allegory for the Islamic world and just reads like a bad, disrespectful parody. I’m not “cancelling,” it’s just not right to pretend that these things aren’t there.

You mention writers being criticized for things they “made up on the spot,” but nothing is really made up on the spot. Books are derivative from other books, art is inspired by other art. And fantasy fiction has a history of being ridiculously Eurocentric and incorporating racist assumptions into its worldbuilding. Think about the tropes, the typical patterns of fantasy. Fantasy settings are often really, really white and European, and even when other lands and countries exist, they’re Over There, they’re Other, they’re not the ones we as the readers are supposed to identify with.

But also think about how “fantasy races” are so ubiquitous themselves, and how a person’s “race” is seen to affect their character and personality, and how there’s often a such thing as “inherently evil” races. It’s a staple of the genre that fantasy worlds are made of groups of people divided along objectively real, biological lines—in the same way white supremacy holds humans to be.

Is having “fantasy races” inherently bad? Of course not. But what function are they serving in the worldbuilding and story? Where are you getting the stuff that determines how they work in the story and world and are thought about by the characters?

It’s just…once you go to the effort of seeing it you can’t stop. Think about popular recent YA fantasy—Leigh Bardugo’s world is Eurocentrism incarnate; she has a variety of analogs for European countries, an analog for Asia In General, and an analog for...everything else. In fantasy you start with Europe and everything gets more simplified and unimportant the farther away you go, it seems. Throne of Glass supposedly has non-white civilizations in its world, but it has, like, one person of color in the first two books and she dies in the second one.

I don’t hate all the books I listed. I love some of them. But they’re flawed.

And imagine me, a white fantasy writer, trying to come up with my own fantasy. Off the top of my head, or whatever, except nothing really is. If the vast majority of things I’ve read and find influential were written by white authors and are full of these baked-in racist assumptions and tropes, it’s going to be easier to copy them (without even meaning to!) than not.

All that to say, criticizing racism in fantasy is super legitimate. It’s almost part of what makes Fantasy, Fantasy. White authors defined so much of what we recognize as “fantasy” and all lived in a racist world that affected how they thought. It would certainly not be better if the authors of color weren’t there. And it took a long time for me to see this. People of color who are fans of fantasy are seeing this stuff and being affected by it.

Are white authors afraid of criticism? Absolutely. And it...isn’t totally unfounded to fear concrete consequences for making mistakes; a couple years ago there was at least one book pulled before it were even published because a couple YA authors with substantial followings on Twitter took issue with the way race was handled. I have distaste for the treatment of other writers by some of those writers and the way they’ve used their influence on social media to rally followers against people. That’s true.

The crucial thing about the specific incident I’m remembering, though, was that the writer whose book got pulled was herself a woman of color writing about a topic that affected her personally. And, unpopular opinion, but this is kind of the sense in which I believe “cancel culture” is, to some extent, a real and harmful thing—not the phenomenon of “cancelling” so much as the idea that “cancelling” will fairly administer justice. The fact is, people who are privileged to a significant enough extent can brush off being “canceled,” no matter how horrible they are, whereas people without that combination of privileges may well face real and hurtful consequences.

Obviously this doesn’t translate to a straightforward “white author=not harmed by cancelling” rule, but like…the big name writers who are writing the most harmful and bigoted shit don’t seem to have the slightest fear of consequences, nor even the slightest dent in their careers, no matter how much people talk about how gross their writing choices are!!! It’s easier to see results when you’re targeting some random lady trying to debut in an industry that already discriminates against her. Or maybe it just happens randomly when then stars align and outrage gets focused on said random lady by chance. I guess the intentions were good? I don’t know.

It remains that the vast majority of racism in fantasy fiction barely gets any attention. Even fucking Lovecraft hasn’t stopped being influential because he was racist. I think that most white writers probably don’t fear concrete impacts to their careers so much as just the mortifying ordeal of being criticized itself. White people are notoriously bad at handling being called out and writers are notoriously bad at handling criticism in general.

But, in both senses, those things are just…things you have to work on, even though they are both things you’re kind of predisposed to take personally. Because it is impossible to avoid criticism entirely, and very often writing things that open you up to more criticism will be better for you as a writer. That’s not just true of writing about race, that’s true of any writing at all, ever.You can be like “I don’t want to include racial diversity in this book because I’ll make mistakes and be criticized for them” in the same way you can be like “I don’t want to write poetry because I’m afraid I won’t be good at it.” A lot of writers do things like that. Our resistance to facing criticism holds us back.

There have already been a lot of posts that address The Fear of Getting it Wrong when writing racially diverse characters. I won’t bother to say what has already been said all over again, but it’s a general principle of writing that fear of criticism isn’t a good reason to not write. “The people criticizing me are just wrong” is a common defensive reaction, but it doesn’t help you grow.

“How to not be defensive and make it all about you when something prejudiced you said or did is pointed out” has been written about a lot; so has “how to take criticism as a writer without having a complete breakdown.” What can I say? It’s important to learn those skills.

But also, it’s not really as if white writers are being dissuaded from writing the diverse characters they already would write if people weren’t so harsh in criticizing them. Because fantasy is already a super white genre, and it still would be if there weren’t active efforts to change that, active efforts by authors of color to break into the genre. (Read authors of color, check their books out at libraries, et cetera et cetera. There are some mega detailed book recommendation posts out there.)

It also deserves mentioning that if you include people of color in your fantasy novel, a shit ton of the criticism will be coming from people who are just pissed that you’re trying to be “politically correct” or whatever. Maybe less so in YA, but adult fantasy writers get this shit a lot. People are going to criticize you and it’s going to hurt. That’s just fundamental to the job.

#random #racism in fantasy #writing #writeblr #writing diverse characters #fantasy writing

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qwanderer · 3 years

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What makes a Loki a Loki?

Loki is called upon to be a lot of different people. He’s been raised on Asgard, and that’s formed some of the more basic aspects of his personality and values, but at the same time he has attributes that have been consistently discouraged and pushed down by that culture, and we can see them step forward as he moves into situations where they are encouraged.

Throughout the canons, there are a lot of Lokis. Siege Loki, Lady Loki, Kid Loki and his murderer, Ikol, King Loki, and the God/Goddess of Stories. The earlier aspects I know only by secondhand information, but I’m very familiar with Loki from Young Avengers and Agent of Asgard, some of my favorite comics of all time. But I know some basic facts - the way the earliest Loki was a quintessential comic book villain full of pure simple theatrical mischief and ridiculous schemes, the fact that Lady Loki was a somewhat more sinister appropriator of bodies for her own use.

In my view, MCU!Loki has, at the very least, the same capacity to shift personalities depending on the circumstances, and I haven’t yet seen anything in the Loki show that’s thrown my suspension of disbelief with regards to his characterization.

I’ve seen some people rebel at the idea of Loki gleeful over the destruction of Pompeii and the causing of chaos it allowed, but it reminds me of some meta I wrote very early on in my years of meta-writing in the MCU. The values Loki was raised with, Asgardian values, sometimes treat death very lightly, especially death in battle, especially human or otherwise non-Aesir death. In the Aesir context, at least to a certain extent and certainly in terms of what we’ve seen Odin teach his sons onscreen, violence is honorable, fighting is an adventure, lives are cheap and Valhalla is the ultimate goal.

I think a lot of the central conflict of Loki’s character is that he follows some of these principles to their logical conclusions in situations that Aesir values never meant them to cover. If life is unimportant, then it won’t be so bad if I tell Thor that Odin is dead. If the throne of Asgard has dominion over all the Nine Realms, then why shouldn’t I rule Midgard?

But he also shifts the way he acts to suit the situation. He is a shifter, it’s what he does. On Asgard, he is expected to be a warrior, a dignified prince, a companion and support for his brother. The values are bravery and dignity, and so a lot of what he projects there is bravado and elegance, which are close enough for him to get by.

When he is taken by Thanos, the only things Thanos wants and values are power and death. So Loki becomes an avatar of power and death. He carries that with him to Earth, because he is still very much under the jurisdiction of Thanos. But he very quickly learns how to use and manipulate Earth values, like wit and pathos. They seem to fit him better than the others, and he carries them through the other movies and the different frameworks he finds himself in.

He also tends to carry Asgard with him, the knowledge that he’s a prince, destined to be a king, that he needs to carry himself a certain way, with that elegance, dignity and bravado.

When I see Loki in the first episode of the show, I recognize him as some of the deepest, most quintessential parts of Loki that have only been allowed to peek out on occasion before. And that is due to manipulation on Mobius’s part - Mobius makes it very clear what he expects of Loki. To get down to the very basic levels of him and find out his motivations, what makes him fundamentally himself - “What makes Loki tick?” There’s a quiet void there, and the only thing that’s being asked of Loki, for once, is that he sit down and fill that void with words - the truest and most sincere words possible.

There’s a clear and interesting divide between that phase for Loki, and the phase we see in episode two - Mobius has stopped providing that space, and in the interim, he’s made it very clear what he expects Loki to be like, what mold he’d prefer the trickster to fit into.

The hard-working, lovable scamp.

Loki is hiding his deepest self again, which we all do most of the time. Loki can’t feel that deeply and express that freely all the time. Because of the environment he’s in - which may not be any more or less free than any of the other environments he’s experienced - he expresses himself in a particular way. He is the hard-working, mischievous scamp Mobius has been pushing him to be.

I don’t think he’s any more or less himself than he’s ever been - he’s simply responding to different pressures. And the pressures of this episode press him very hard into the Neal Caffrey mold. Which is an interesting mold in itself - when I was writing White Collar fic, I made a point to distinguish who Neal was when he was with Peter and who he was under different circumstances - prison, witness protection, with Mozzie, with Kate. (I wrote an autistic Kate, and had him most freely himself when he was with her.)

Like Neal Caffrey, the Episode 2 Loki is treading a line between behaviors that will get him things because he’s useful and compliant, behaviors that will demonstrate that he’s into minor trickery for fun now and might not be getting up to anything bigger, and those bigger tricks that are definitely still running in the background. It’s the obvious balance for a trickster on a leash with an indulgent bureaucrat.

You can see that it’s a facade in the way that he is near tears when he sees the Ragnarok paperwork, but when he brings it to Mobius’s attention and Mobius expresses his sympathies, Loki says “Yes, very sad,” and then dismisses it in favor of moving on to his mischievous enthusiasm over the resulting theory he’s had.

Like all good lies, it’s built out of truth, so when I see this Loki, I see pieces of the Loki I know, just put together a little differently, which is how Loki seems to do it.

Although he’s not free as he might hope to be, and in fact threading a narrow path between a very constricting set of pressures, I do still think he’s enjoying the dropped expectations of dignity and elegance. I think he’s enjoying being in a culture that encourages him to be a geek. To go on about the things he’s passionate about and his areas of expertise. And I think that’s a lot of what unsettles people about this Loki, because that elegance and dignity have carried everywhere else with him. And I’m not going to argue that the TVA are doing anything nice for him - quite the contrary - but I still do enjoy seeing him able to be the geek he’s always had the inclination to be, in the right circumstances.

It makes me wonder, a little, how much his mother is on his mind right now, after the first episode, because if I had a guess, the last time he’s felt free to be this enthusiastic and expressive about his interests is in magic lessons with her as a child.

So. The other variant.

We know from the Lady Loki comics arc that Loki can possess other people’s bodies over the long term, and we know from kid!Loki and his murderer interacting in YA that the original occupant of a body can sometimes hang around and talk back, if only as a figment of his imagination. We know from most incarnations that Loki can go to a lot of dark places if the circumstances push him to it.

As I’ve said before, I’m intrigued by the question the difference between the two variants poses - how much different can two Lokis be before they are no longer meaningfully the same person?

We’ve got clues on both sides, of course - our scamp on a leash saying “I wouldn’t do this to myself” on the side of them being not the same person, and the vengeful goddess he’s chasing saying “I was afraid they’d found a better version of me” on the side of them being the same person.

The more I think about it, the more I’m willing to predict that this vengeful goddess is, in some way, an incarnation of Loki. But (be warned, I’m going to reference Stephenie Meyer now) it could be in as small a way as something out of The Host - a stolen body’s original personality fighting dirty against the invading spirit.

If this is something based on the character of Sylvie from the comics, it could still be anything from a person - human or Asgardian - chosen and manipulated by Loki to do his bidding, to a full-on possession, or even a body constructed for a specific purpose but developing its own personality traits.

We know this variant is a body hopper, and Mobius’s briefing mentioned that it’s an inherent ability of most Lokis to shapeshift, so there are a lot of potential explanations for this unfamiliar shape.

But the differences between the variants could also stem mostly from different experiences.

The only thing I’m at all sure of is that this variant has also been tortured by Thanos. It’s possible that she branched earlier - that the wild desperation of having freshly escaped Thanos translated into being dragged into the TVA like a cornered wildcat, on the raggedy edge and desperate enough to go all-out to get out of the collar while still in the custody of the minute men. Then, as she became familiar with the TVA in concept and execution, developed opinions and built a personality around taking them down, taking them apart the way she wished she could do to Thanos, the way Thanos did to her.

But she could also have branched later - after the destruction of Asgard, or when Thanos appeared on the refugee ship. After the worst has happened to her people. With some preexisting notion that time could have gone differently, that some things that had happened should not be allowed to happen.

I have a weak spot for interactions between incarnations of Loki in the comics, so I am incredibly eager to see the MCU’s take on this.

#Loki meta #the loki show #loki spoilers #loki laufeyson #loki #meta #marvel #comics #616 #white collar #the host #sylvie #loki s1e2

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heyitssmiller · 4 years

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Clandestine: Chapter Six

We’re baaaaaack!

Thank y’all for being so patient! I’m really excited for you to read this one <3

Characters belong to the lovely @lumosinlove

@donttouchmycarrots is forever my hero for proofreading, dealing with way too much of my own self-doubt, and being the best friend anyone could ask for. My dude, my pal, my babe! I love you more than words can say. <3

Clandestine Masterlist

Previously:

Logan was still biting back a smile when someone slid into the seat next to him. His smile faded instantly. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, not right now. And especially not a Snake. The night only got worse when he looked over to the newcomer to face eerie, yellow eyes. He froze, unsure whether to stand his ground or run as fast as he possibly could.

“Enjoying the party?” Riddle asked coolly, swirling the glass of whiskey in his hand.

Logan couldn’t decide if the better plan of action was to hold his ground or to run. He stared into creepy, soulless eyes, frozen in place. The voices over his comms and the music of the band faded out to white noise, leaving him to face down Riddle alone.

“Mr. Riddle.” He finally managed to say, keeping his voice even and taking a sip of his drink. “This is a nice party you’ve got here.”

“Thank you. It’s been a long time coming.” Detached, sunken-in eyes regarded him coolly. “I don’t think I've seen you around before.”

“I’m a reporter,” Logan relayed their cover story without hesitation. “Just here getting information for an article I’m writing.”

“Nothing bad, I hope.” Riddle said. There was nothing inherently dangerous about his words. His posture was completely relaxed, his tone even and calm. If Logan didn’t already know his face, he wouldn’t think twice about him if he passed him on the street or saw him in a store. It was eerie how someone with so much blood on their hands could act so… normal. As if he’d done nothing wrong.

Logan itched to take him down. His concealed gun seemed to burn a hole into his dress shirt. He could do it. One quick, well-placed shot and he could end this. He wouldn’t make it out the door and countless gang members would get away, but Riddle was right in front of him. It would be so easy.

“Now, what kind of reporter do you take me for?” He asked instead, pushing the thoughts down. They could get him later when he had an actual plan and backup. As much as he wanted to, this wasn’t the time or place.

Riddle hummed in thought. “You know, I’m not really sure. An unprepared one, I suppose. I don’t see you writing anything down.”

Logan, although his blood had just turned to ice in his veins, had just opened his mouth to lie about a recording device in his pocket when a new voice cut in.

“There you are!”

Logan’s shoulders tensed at the all-too-familiar accent and he turned, his heart plummeting like a stone in his chest, to see Leo standing there. Tall and bright and too precious to be staring danger in the face like this.

“I should’ve known you’d be here.” Leo teased, looking over at Riddle and brazenly greeting him with a fake smile. “Riddle.”

Riddle glanced between the two of them, as unflappable as ever. “Your boyfriend?”

“Coworker.” Logan quickly corrected, ignoring the way his stomach flipped at the misconstruction and sending Leo a warning look. “A coworker who won’t leave me alone tonight, apparently.”

Please take the hint, Nutty. He silently begged. Get the fuck out of here.

Leo shrugged, absolutely remorseless, that little shit. “Well, I’ve got some questions for you. You know this is my first big article and I want to make sure I’ve got all the information I need.”

Oh. Now Logan understood. Leo wasn’t vying for a way to get the flash drive he knew Riddle kept on him, he was trying to get Logan out of there. Before this moment, Logan had never thought of Leo as an intimidating person. Sure, he was big, but he was also soft and gentle and kind. Looking at him now, though, there was this glint in his eyes, this undercurrent of danger that Logan quickly recognized as protectiveness. And frankly, it was a little terrifying.

Was that how people viewed Logan on a regular basis?

Not having time to think too hard on that, Logan nodded. “Sure, I’ll help you out.” He set his unfinished drink on the counter and nodded at Riddle. “Enjoy the rest of your party, and congratulations on the twenty-five years of your organization.”

Riddle seemed to intuitively know something was going on, but he also didn’t particularly seem to care. He was well aware that no one could touch him, especially not at this party. And not without a substantial amount of evidence, which they still didn’t have. Not yet, at least. But Logan couldn’t wait for the day when he got what was coming for him.

He followed Leo across the ballroom without another word to one of the side doors – their planned meeting spot in case things went south – where Finn was waiting, shuffling on his feet and looking a little like he was going to be sick. The tension he was carrying in his posture seemed to ease when he caught sight of them and there wasn’t even a split-second of hesitation before he was herding them out the door, down the lavishly decorated entryway, and towards one of the taxis waiting out front. Logan noticed the way his hands shook as he opened the car door for the two of them, glancing over his shoulder before ducking into the back seat with his partners. Logan wanted nothing more than to reach over and grab hold, to settle those tremors with his own steady hands, but they still weren’t safe yet. Who knew who could be listening in at that moment.

The ride back to the hotel was stilted and hushed and more than a little shell-shocked as they processed the events of the night. They’d been in a den of vipers that were capable of horrific things and they’d somehow managed to get out unscathed, plus they had one more flash drive to add to their growing collection. It almost didn’t feel real.

However, the longer Logan sat in that taxi, the angrier he got. And that definitely felt real. What the hell was Leo thinking, running headfirst into danger like that? Of all the people on this mission, Logan was the most capable of taking care of himself in tense situations like that. Leo had been brash and thoughtless and risky - acting like a true rookie - but Logan couldn’t exactly chew him out in the back of a taxi, so he sat there and fumed. He was sure it was written all over his face for anyone to see, but he no longer cared.

The taxi parked outside their hotel. They paid the driver in silence. They got out in silence. They rode the elevator up to the third floor in silence. They unlocked their door in silence.

And then the dam broke and a tidal wave crashed over it, loud and roaring and livid.

Logan whirled on Leo, not even caring that their door was still open. “Don’t you ever pull something like that again. I had it covered.” He hissed, yanking his earpiece out with one hand and jabbing Leo in the chest with his finger. He hoped the single point of contact it bruised from the force he put behind the motion.

Leo wasn’t backing down easily, though. He stood to his full height and loomed over Logan, anger radiating off him in waves. Apparently he’d been seething in the taxi, as well. “You’d do the same thing if it were me. Why is it ok for you to do it but wrong when the roles are reversed?” He demanded, letting the door slam behind him. Logan saw Finn flinch out of the corner of his eye.

“Doesn’t matter if it’s me, I’m just a grunt. We lose you, we lose our chance to take down the Snakes.” He said the words plainly, cut-and-dry. He knew his place on this mission, and it wasn’t the most critical. He could live with that fact. What he couldn’t live with was losing either of them.

This was exactly why he’d wanted to get off this mission and take another job. If this was what the rest of the op was going to be like, constantly stressing over the two of them but still having to painfully distance himself, he wasn’t sure he could do it.

All the fight seemed to leave Leo in an instant at Logan’s words. He stared down at him with a furrowed brow and wide, sad eyes. “You can’t believe that.”

Logan was left reeling by the sudden change of pace, the rough waves flattening out to a calm sea in the blink of an eye. He just shrugged as he tried to formulate any kind of response. He wasn’t sure what Leo wanted him to say so he just stood there and stared at him, completely at a loss.

Finn cut Leo off as he started to speak, looking firmly between the two as he loosened his tie – still crooked, even after all this time. “Enough. Both of you. Leo, you were out of line. Logan had it handled. I know you meant well, but you know the code word if we need help, so let him do his job instead of prematurely rushing in to be the hero. Logan, if I hear you talk about yourself like that again – well, I’m not actually sure what I’ll do. But it won’t be pretty.” He shrugged off his jacket and hung it up in the closet, haphazardly kicking his shoes off and pushing them with his foot until they were snug against the wall and out of the way.

“We need to talk about tomorrow.” He continued curtly as he rapidly started undoing the buttons of his shirt.

“What’s tomorrow?” Leo asked from his perch on the bed as he toyed with the laces of one shoe. Logan followed their lead and started getting ready for bed. His head shot up at Finn’s next words, though.

“My date with June.”

“Who?” He asked, although he knew full-well who she was. He just wanted to be contrary. He knew he wasn’t a good enough actor to pretend to be indifferent to the idea of Finn going on a date with a near stranger, so this was his next best option.

Finn took it in stride, though, not even blinking an eye as he headed for the bathroom. Logan could hear the sink running a second later. “She’s the one setting up my meeting with Lestrange. We’re going to a coffee shop down the street in the morning.”

Leo, clad in the most ridiculous pair of Cookie Monster pajama pants that were too short for him, crawled into bed and shimmied over to be in the middle. Logan felt any residual anger dissipate at the sight. What a dork.

“Do Loops and Sirius know about this?” Leo asked as he fought back a yawn.

Finn poked his head out of the bathroom, toothbrush still in his mouth and managed to get out a garbled ‘yeah’ before disappearing again. Water could be heard running again, then the light flicked off. The redhead checked to make sure both partners were in bed before turning off the main lights and blindly stumbling his way towards the bed.

“Sirius heard everything, gave me the all clear. Loops was…” Finn trailed off into silence, dampening the mood again as they thought of their coworker.

“Yeah.” Leo said quietly, shifting from his back to his side to give Finn more room. Logan could just barely make out his face through the shadows, illuminated faintly in yellow by the lights of the parking lot outside their window.

“We’ll come with you.” Logan was saying before he realized just what that entailed. “Neither of us met her at the gala, so we can hide out in the corner of the shop or something and keep an eye on you.”

Finn snorted half-heartedly. “She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“We’re not taking any chances with these guys, and you know it.” Logan rebutted, leaving no room for argument. “You’ve got an alarm set?”

“Mmmhmm.” Came the sleepy, mumbled reply. Logan smiled, not bothering to hide the affection on his face. The shadows did that for him. He lowered his voice to a whisper.

“Get some sleep, then. We can go over details in the morning.”

The only response he got was slow, even breathing.

***

Remus felt one of the couch cushions sag next to him as Sirius sat down, the old wooden supports creaking a little under their combined weight. He turned his distracted gaze from the miraculously revived plant on the windowsill to the man beside him when he felt a gentle nudge against his arm. There Sirius sat, gray eyes calm and free of pity – thank god. Remus wasn’t sure he could deal with people being sorry for him anymore. In his hands was a cup of tea, steam swirling over the brim and disappearing into the air. Remus huffed out a faint laugh, all he could muster at the moment, and gave Sirius a dubious look.

“I only added, like, a spoonful of honey this time. That’s it.” Sirius vowed, holding the cup farther out for Remus to take. He grabbed it, warmth finally reaching poorly-circulated fingers, and took in the faint smell of apple.

“Thanks.” He murmured before taking a cautious sip. The tea hadn’t been steeped for long enough, but at least this one was drinkable. Sirius, who was eagerly awaiting his verdict, seemed to glean all the information he needed from Remus’ face. He smiled and relaxed back into the couch, looking extremely proud of himself.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Remus said as he took another sip. “You’ve still got a lot to learn about brewing tea.”

“Well, I've got a good teacher.” The combination of the words and the tea infused Remus with warmth, and he finally smiled for the first time that night. Sirius seemed to slump further into the cushions, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. Remus peered over the top of his teacup at wild black curls and just a hint of a five-o-clock shadow dusting across pale skin and figured he should get rid of the elephant in the room. He hated to ruin the peacefulness of the moment and there was nothing he wanted less than to bring up this conversation, but he felt like it had to be said.

“So about earlier-”

Sirius was quick to cut him off, which grated on Remus’ nerves. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“No, I just wanted to apologize. And to say thank you.” He looked down at the cup in his hands and forced himself to continue. “As a handler, I’m supposed to be able to keep my emotions in check and focus on the job. But every single time someone brings him up…” Remus shrugged, fingers itching to reach up and clutch at his shoulder as feral eyes and a gnarled smile haunted his mind’s eye. He gripped his tea tighter instead, hoping it would hide the tremors in his hands. “Seeing him in pictures is one thing. Hearing his voice in real time and knowing he’s right there, I just – I freaked out.”

“I can’t say I blame you.” Sirius said, then winced. “Sorry. I, uh, I read the report. And judging by your face you don’t want to talk about it, which is fine.” He rushed to say and then sighed, rubbing at his forehead. “Wow, I’m bad at this. I’m just – I’m here for you, ok? In whatever way you need.”

Remus couldn’t help but smile at his awkward attempt at comfort. He wasn’t exactly good with words, but Remus would give just about anything for one of those hugs right then. He took a sip of tea instead. “Right back at you.”

Sirius flashed a warm, albeit surprised smile in return. They sat like that in companionable silence for a while, Remus drinking his tea and Sirius sprawled out on the couch, kicking one foot in a varying rhythm. It was odd for Remus to think about, even though Sirius had shown up months ago. He technically had a criminal living with him. He never thought he’d be happy about that fact. But here he was, wanting nothing more than to cuddle up next to him and get to know every different facet of this ex-Snake. What made him tick, what kept him up at night, what he dreamed about when he finally went to sleep.

But at the end of the day, what difference would that make? Sirius had made it abundantly clear he wasn’t sticking around when this mission was over. Remus wasn’t about to go and get more attached when the outcome wasn’t going to change. Remus would be left alone, again, dropped right back into his old life as if nothing had ever happened. Back to his small apartment with his dying houseplant, scrambling around in the mornings to get a cup of tea before work, sitting on the ratty couch and suffocating in the silence and loneliness. Sirius entered his life like a fog rolling in on a dark night, and he would leave the same way – without a trace.

***

Logan was drumming his fingers on the tabletop as Leo sat down across from him, cups of coffee in hand. The line of impatient customers inside the coffee shop was long due to the morning rush, but most of the tables were deserted. Logan had his back to the wall and full view of the rest of the shop, ready to keep an eye on Finn and his new friend as soon as they got there.

He tried his hardest to ignore the jealousy that coursed through his veins at the thought. This wasn’t going to be fun.

A hand covered his on the table, stopping his frantic drumming. Logan looked up into a steady blue gaze with depths that seemed to know exactly how he was feeling. He almost seemed to empathize with Logan, and that made him pause. He thought back to the very beginning of all this and focused on his partners’ interactions – cinnamon muffins and fingers brushing as Finn handed one to Leo, Leo sprawled out in the backseat after his first heist with Finn smiling back at him from the passenger’s seat, Leo worriedly staring at the bruise blooming across Finn’s cheek, the looks on their faces as they danced to a slow song.

Oh.

Logan had just opened his mouth to ask Leo about it when the bell on the shop door sounded, signaling the arrival of new customers. He looked up from his caramel mocha and his gaze flickered. “They’re here.”

Sure enough, Finn and June were making their way to the counter, deep in conversation. June said something to make Finn laugh, and Leo’s shoulders tensed at the sound. He took a calm, measured drink of his coffee and didn’t look over his shoulder at their partner. Logan was looking similarly miserable across the table from him, swirling the contents of his cup dejectedly.

“We’re really bad at this.” Leo stated plainly. Logan’s eyes shot up to meet his and he let out a surprised laugh, shifting in his seat.

“Yeah, we are.” Logan responded, eyes flitting from the partner directly in front of him to the one still in line, then back again. Leo seemed to belong in coffee shops, all golden and warm and comfortable. Sunlight from the large front windows illuminated him from the back, making him seem to glow like some mystical faerie. Normally, Logan wasn’t a fan of mornings but if this – not the spying, per se, but the sleepy jokes over coffee cups and the soft smiles and the calm assuredness that always seemed to surround Leo – was the result of getting up early, he’d get up at the crack of dawn for the rest of his life.

A glint of dark copper caught his eye and he looked over Leo’s shoulder to see Finn sit down at one of the empty tables, pushing a coffee cup over to June. She smiled and wrapped both hands around it, looking up at Finn with a smile.

Logan had been shot before. Multiple times. And stabbed, and punched more times than he could count. There was once an incident involving barbed wire (don’t ask). But watching Finn with this girl he’d just met last night, smiling and flirting and seeming to be over the moon, was a new kind of torture. And all Logan could do was sit there and watch.

His eyes snapped back to Leo, who was already watching him with a steady, pensive look. “Need a distraction?” He asked simply. Logan appreciated that. He wasn’t forcing Logan to face his thoughts or – god forbid – talk about them. He let Logan have his space to decide how he wanted to move forward, to process these overwhelming feelings in his own time.

“Please.” Logan managed to get out, pushing his unfinished coffee away from him. So Leo talked. He told stories about his childhood, how he grew up, how he got into pick-pocketing and how he got caught doing it by his Mama. Logan kept a watchful eye on Finn, making sure he was safe, and let Leo’s stories wash over him, calm and steadying. It was a bit of a strange juxtaposition, the soft voice warring with the potential of being in danger, but it soothed him all the same.

Finn was enjoying himself. June was awesome, and she had a lot of insight on Lestrange and the Snakes, although it was clear she despised them. He wasn’t sure how she got tangled up in this mess, but he hoped he could get her out of there when they finally took the gang down. But as fantastic as June was, he couldn’t keep himself from bouncing his leg under the table or sneaking surreptitious glances at the far corner of the room, where a blond and a brunet were leaning towards each other across the table. Logan smiled at something Leo said, nose scrunching as Leo gesticulated wildly about whatever he was saying. Finn so desperately wanted to be there with them, to tease Leo for the story he was telling and to kiss the laugh on Logan’s lips. He looked away quickly when green eyes met his and tried his best to refocus on June.

She gave him a knowing look, then glanced at his partners. “You’re in love with someone else, aren’t you?”

Finn froze, trying to come up with some sort of excuse, then sighed and gave up. This was June. And they’d only just met the night before, but Finn knew how to read people. It was literally his job. She wasn’t going to tell anyone. “Something like that. It’s complicated.”

She smiled. “Does it need to be complicated, or are you just making it that way?”

He couldn’t help it. He laughed, a hint of hysteria sprinkled in. “Oh, you have no idea.”

“But you want that.” She said, jerking her head towards Logan and Leo. For a split-second, Finn thought she knew that he wanted them in particular, but then she continued. “Being able to be with the person you love, out in the open, with no obstacles in your way.”

If only she knew how spot-on that statement was.

“Yeah,” Finn said quietly, wistfully. “I really do.”

He watched as Logan grabbed one of Leo’s moving hands, narrowly keeping him from spilling one of the mugs on their table. Logan’s posture showed exasperation, but his eyes... his eyes told a completely different story.

Finn spoke again, more to himself than to June. It was a vow, a hope, a rose-tinted dream of the future. “Maybe someday.”

***

Logan wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but after what felt like way too long – who stayed at a coffee shop this long, anyways? – Finn and June seemed to be wrapping things up. They returned their mugs to the front counter and headed towards the door, but not without Finn glancing over his shoulder at his partners, an indecipherable expression on his face as he stepped out into the sun.

“They’re headed out now.” Logan stated, looking back to Leo. “Want to get back to the hotel?”

Leo gathered their mugs and got to his feet. “How about a walk first? We could be tourists for a while, see the sights.”

“It’s a big city, Nut. They all look the same.” Logan flashed a smile of thanks at the barista working the counter as Leo passed over their mugs. They stepped outside into the cool morning air and got hit by the sound of traffic echoing from the streets to the tall buildings around them. Logan sent Leo an ‘I told you so’ look, but still followed after him as he walked in the opposite direction of the hotel.

They ended up wandering around the streets of downtown Slytherin for about an hour, getting very lost (“don’t tell Finn”), and giving up. Even then, it was fun. For the first time in what felt like years, there was no ticking clock, no pressure, no imminent danger. It was simple, it was easy. Their own little adventure without the stress. Logan eventually had to fish out his phone to pull up directions back to the hotel, doing a full one-eighty in order to start going the right direction. The app led them through several back alleys and side roads, which made Logan a little uneasy. Leo didn’t seem to mind.

“I wonder if the Chopped marathon is still on TV.” Leo mused absentmindedly as he dodged a trashcan obscuring the alleyway. Logan laughed and bump his shoulder into Leo’s as they walked side by side.

“You’re something else, Nutty.”

“I hope that’s a good thing.” Leo said, unconsciously slowing to a stop. Logan followed suit, a smile tugging at his lips.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, eyes drifting from Leo’s eyes to his lips, then back again. “It is.”

Leo met his steady green gaze, much closer than he was used to. This was normally where Leo would hesitate. There would be a moment, a flicker of interest, and Leo would freeze. There were usually so many things racing through his mind and he would overthink everything and then the moment would be over.

He didn’t give himself the chance to do that this time.

Leo stepped forward to stand toe-to-toe with Logan, his thumb gently tracing those lips that had plagued his thoughts so many times before until he couldn’t help but swoop down to finally kiss him decisively, leaving no room for uncertainty or backtracking. He was done hesitating – he was going after what he wanted for once. And oh, how he wanted this. Judging from the way Logan pulled him that much closer so that Leo could feel his chest pressed against his and how he tilted his chin up to kiss him back, he wanted this, too. A hand reached up to tangle in Leo’s hair and tugged slightly to pull Leo down more, closer to Logan’s level. He smiled into the kiss, racing thoughts being replaced by the taste of caramel, the feel of slightly-chapped lips against his, and the little unknown intricacies that made up kissing Logan – the way his breath hitched and the consequential sigh after the fact, the soft sounds he made as if he simply couldn’t get enough. Kissing Logan wasn’t anything like he thought it would be; it wasn’t showstopping, or earth-shattering, or mind-melting. But it was warm. And everyone knew Leo was always cold.

“Leo,” Logan mumbled an undiscernible amount of time later, barely pausing between one kiss and the next. Not Nutty, or Nut, or any other variation of his nickname. Leo. There was something so personal, so intimate about the way Logan said his name, the way it rumbled in his chest and got muffled against Leo’s lips. Leo shivered.

“Hmm?” He asked, refusing to move away until Logan did. Even then he chased after him for a split second… until he saw the look on Logan’s face. Brow furrowed, face closed off. Leo was used to seeing that expression when Logan was avoiding his feelings for Finn, but he’d never really seen that look directed at him.

“We shouldn’t.” Logan’s voice was quiet and full of regret, and that only made Leo’s heart drop more.

Leo looked down at his own hands, still fisted in Logan’s jacket. He couldn’t bring himself to move them, ingraining the closeness and warmth to his memory. “I get that the timing is bad – like really bad, oh my god. But I’m not imagining this, right? I know I’m new to the whole espionage thing, but there’s no way I’m making this up.”

Please tell me I’m not making this up. He thought desperately.

“No,” Logan said forcefully, reaching up to tilt Leo’s chin up to meet his eyes again. “No, you aren’t making this up. But we are in the middle of a mission. And then there’s-” He stopped short with a grimace. And if Leo thought it was complicated already, he was worried that this was where it would get even more intricate.

“Finn.” Leo finished for him, watching his eyes widen. He took several steps backward, forcing Leo to finally relinquish his hold.

“You know?” His voice wavered, but his eyes were intense. He reached for Leo again, grabbing his cold hand and gripping it tightly, as if trying to instill his conviction through the touch alone. “That doesn’t mean I care about you any less, Leo, you’ve got to understand that. It’s just-”

“I know.” Leo took a deep breath, squeezed Logan’s hand, then pressed on. “Me too. I like Finn, too.” He laughed a little at the grin that blossomed across the brunet’s face. “I thought I was being so obvious about it.”

Logan stepped closer again, eyes alight with unbridled excitement. “Are you kidding? I literally wanted to kiss him so badly that I used it as a means to get us arrested.”

Leo groaned, but was smiling all the same. There was something so cathartic about finally being able to talk about this after keeping it all bottled up for months. And Logan felt the same way? Leo was giddy with the realization. “You have no idea what that did to me.”

Logan grinned, looking lighter than he had in a long time. “That’s rich, coming from the guy who cuddled with him all night last night.”

“Unintentional,” Leo said with a shrug as he gently combed through brown hair, watching fondly as Logan eagerly leaned into the touch and closed his eyes. He was like an over-grown cat, and Leo couldn’t get enough of it. “But definitely a highlight of this trip.”

The grin dimmed a little. “What are we going to tell him?”

Leo paused, mulling it over. “The truth? The timing is still bad, but we’re spies.” Leo looked down at their joined hands and traced a thin, silvery scar on the back of Logan’s hand. He wondered what it was from. “Will there ever be a good time?”

Logan hummed, but stayed silent. It was like he knew Leo had more to say, but was still thinking of the right way to phrase it. Leo felt himself fall just a little bit more. It wasn’t love – not yet – but damn if it wasn’t close.

“I’m tired of waiting, aren’t you?” Leo finally asked, meeting green eyes again. “Just sitting there with all those feelings and not being able to act on them. If he feels the same way, that’s great! And if he doesn’t, then yeah it’ll hurt and it might be a little awkward, but at least we can move on. I don’t think that’ll be the case, though.” Leo ruffled that thick brown hair. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

“Leo, he’s a conman. One of his main jobs is to act.”

“Sweetheart, there is no universe where the way he kissed you could be an act.”

Logan smiled faintly, seeming a little lost in thought. Leo was pretty sure he knew what he was thinking about. He tugged on Logan’s hand, finally getting them to start walking through the alley again; he’d kind of forgotten they were still standing there. His vision had narrowed down to the spy walking by his side and nothing else.

“He likes you too, you know.” Logan said after a few minutes, swinging their joined hands as they walked. It was unfairly adorable. “I think we should at least wait until after we get the drive from Lestrange to talk to him, though. We all need to be on our A game for that.”

Leo nodded. “Yeah, that’s going to be a nightmare.” Even the thought of dealing with the Snake made Leo’s skin prickle.

“We’ll be fine.” Logan reassured as they reached the hotel, getting blasted by welcome warmth as they entered the lobby. “We’ve come this far.”

And I have a feeling the worst is yet to come. Leo thought, but kept his mouth shut and followed Logan to the stairwell, choosing instead to say, “I’m surprised you’re willingly taking the stairs-” he stopped short with a laugh as Logan forcibly backed him up against the wall, staring into the depths of those green eyes.

“Not as many people take the stairs.” Logan mumbled, tilting his head to place a kiss to the hollow of Leo’s throat, then another, then another. Leo arched his neck to give the brunet better access and smiled up at the flight of stairs ascending over their heads. He felt like he was floating right along beside them.

“Including you.”

“I can’t believe you’re teasing me when all I want to do is make out with you.” Logan grumbled in between kisses, punctuating his complaint with a nip at Leo’s pulse point. The blond hummed happily, letting his eyes flutter shut.

“I’m willing to negotiate.” He said, running a hand through Logan’s hair again and getting the same response as before. Leo mulled it over for a few seconds then tugged experimentally, causing Logan to groan and lean back to meet Leo’s eyes, pupils blown wide.

“Persuade me.” Leo stated simply, a wicked glint to his sweet smile.

And Logan, after a long string of inarticulate French, did.

***

Later that night, after calling Loops and relaying the details of their meet-up with June and their plans for Lestrange, Finn heard the gentle clicking noise of a lock being picked from beside him and smiled at the nature documentary playing on the cheap hotel TV. It was a cute habit. The clicking used to drive Finn up a wall, but now he found it strangely reassuring. It meant Leo was nearby. It meant calm, it meant steadiness.

He turned the volume on the TV down and turned to face the blond, watching the light bounce off of blond hair and a sweet profile. Leo seemed to notice eyes on him and looked up from the small lock in his hands, arching an eyebrow expectantly.

“Can you teach me?” Finn asked, motioning to the lock.

Leo stopped fiddling his fingers. “To pick a lock?”

“Why not? Seems like a good trick to learn.” Finn held his hand out and wiggled his fingers at Leo, who shrugged and handed the lock over.

“He’s going to be so bad at this.” Logan predicted, not taking his eyes off the TV. Finn scoffed and punched him in the arm.

“Rude.” Finn groused as he spun the dial on the lock and looked back to Leo. “Teach away, Nutter Butter!”

Leo scooted over on the bed to get closer to Finn, thighs brushing and a warm weight against Finn’s shoulder. He looked over at Leo as he spoke, getting hit with a sudden flare of wistfulness. He wanted this for the rest of his life.

“Ok. So this lock has a possible of 64,000 different combinations-”

“Holy shit.” Logan whistled lowly with a quick look over at them. His posture was completely relaxed - unusual for the fighter. His normally sharp, attentive gaze was sleepy and calm. It absolutely melted Finn's heart. He wanted this for the rest of his life, too.

“It’s not too bad once you’ve got the basics down.” Leo reassured, tapping on the curved handle at the top. “This right here is the shackle. You’re going to apply pressure to it while you turn the dial counterclockwise – no,” Leo laughed and put a hand over Finn’s as he turned the dial, slowing down the redhead’s movement. “Slowly. You’ve got to be able to feel the sticking points.”

“Sticking points?” Finn asked, hyperaware of the feeling of gentle fingers against his. He was far more interested in watching he blond as he demonstrated instead of actually paying attention to what he was doing.

“There’s going to be points where the dial jams and you won’t be able to freely rotate it anymore.” Leo explained, watching as Finn moved the dial at a much slower pace. “Sometimes the sticking point is between two numbers and then you have a sticking range, which complicates things.”

“It gets more complicated?”

Leo just laughed, stretching his long legs out on the bed and relaxing back against the headboard. “Just wait until we get to the math.”

“There’s math?”

Logan watched the two of them with a smile, picturing day after day of moments just like this – enough to make up an entire lifetime. He knew their lives would always be complicated; the three of them had found themselves intertwined in an elaborate tangle of threads that bound them all together, and Logan wasn’t sure they could separate themselves even if they tried. That was fine with him. It was messy and difficult and convoluted, but so many of the good things in life always were.

Logan was never one to back down from a challenge, anyways.

#lumosinlove #sweater weather #coast to coast #coops #sirius black #remus lupin #o'knutzy #finn o'hara #logan tremblay #leo knut #clandestine

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eirenical · 3 years

Note

I am dying to know about all of your guardian wips 👀👀👀

[In response to this post.]

(And anyone else who would like to ask about a WiP, please do! ^_^)

I AM SO GLAD SOMEONE ASKED ME ABOUT THESE. ^__________^

OK, getting these out of the way first, because they are no longer WiPs...

cheng jie KNOWS: This is the fic that became This is Not a Shovel Talk. ^_^ This is the fic set right after Zhao Yunlan loses his sight and Shen Wei brings him to Dr. Cheng. Set in a much broader universe (the universe tag is “college shen wei fic”) where Dr. Cheng and Shen Wei were good friends in college, and she had taken bb!Shen Wei, fresh-faced from Dixing (and millenia underground OTZ) under her wing and he imprinted on her like a baby duckling. ^_^

FEET: I’m sure anyone who’s been following me for a hot second recognizes what this must be. ;D It’s the fic that became The Inherent Intimacy of Walking Barefoot Around Someone Else's Home... which is NOT a foot fetish fic, no matter how much Zhao Yunlan thought it might be. XD It’s about the INTIMACY.�� The YEARNING. FINDING HOME IN EACH OTHER. It’s about the DOMESTICITY OF IT ALL, OK? ...also a ridiculously hot picture of a barefoot Zhu Yilong looking like an absolute thirst trap, BUT WHO’S COUNTING. XD (...you’re welcome. ^_^) All fic notes and posts can be found under the tag “the foot fic,” because I’m just original that way. ;D

And now on to the actual WiPs! ^_^

...but behind a cut because this is getting long.

buried and stabbed bookjoyworm: OK, so this one actually... may be self-explanatory. XD I reblogged this writing meme yesterday, and bookjoyworm was RIGHT THERE with this suggestion: “trapped under something and stabbed/impaled for weilan.” (I’m still taking prompts for this writing meme, BTW, if anyone is interested. ^_^) And my mind IMMEDIATELY latched on to the idea of some kind of a car accident or cave in where Shen Wei got everyone else out, but was then crushed under the debris/trapped in the crushed car himself. And he’s half out of it because a piece of debris is literally pierced through his body and he’s slowly suffocating, and he’s the other half out of it because he’s flashing back to the millenia he spent trapped and buried alive and his brain just kind of shut down in panic. Of course, they’re eventually going to get him out and he’s going to be fine, but HE IS NOT HAVING A GOOD TIME, IN THE MEANTIME. And I know this is weilan, but I’m on a Shen Wei and Da Qing kick atm, so there is also going to be a little bit of “even as rotund as he is, Da Qing can squeeze through the debris and reach Shen Wei and helps act as a lifeline when Zhao Yunlan has to stop talking because he’s going hoarse.” ^_^

Shen Wei college fic 01: ...exactly what it says on the box? ;D This is the first snippet of what will eventually become the larger universe from “This is Not a Shovel Talk.” Takes place the first day of orientation with Cheng Xingyan taking a bb!faced Shen Wei under her wing. First bit is actually posted here, if you’d like to read it. ^_^ Labeled “01″ because I see this being a series of shorter fic, much like the “Care and Training of a Former Megalomaniac” series. ^_^

Mirror Mirror (x this short film that Z1L did with Li Bingbing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48K8Q7JyrNU): Oh, I am EXCITED ABOUT THIS ONE. I am... currently in the process of taking a lot of it apart and rewriting it, but I’m still very excited. ^_^ First of all, I recommend watching the YouTube link. It’s a short film (~6 minutes); it’s set in the year 2084 on the Moon. But here is the gist of it: a woman (LBB) has come to see an art installation of multiple mirrors. The exhibit is about to close, but the curator (Z1L) keeps it open for her, conversing with her as she looks at the mirrors, but eventually becoming too overcome with emotion to continue talking. She eventually follows the exhibit around to the stairs that lead up to the office and confronts the curator. It turns out they have a history. By the end, you get the definite feeling that there is a reconciliation (...and maybe more?) in their future.

So of course, I IMMEDIATELY went... omg... what a GREAT concept for a Guardian reincarnation story. *_* So, the basic premise is that drama canon pretty much went as drama canon goes. Some 30-40 years later, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan are reincarnated. Shen Wei doesn’t remember anything at first, but he’s haunted by his image in the mirror, convinced that the boy he sees in his reflection isn’t him, but is instead someone else. (Spoiler: Because it is. Two guess as to who and the first one doesn’t count. ;D)

He has... a rough go of it. He starts pursuing art as a way to try to purge the half-memories and images that haunt him, eventually fleeing for the isolation of this installation on the moon, because he can’t handle the oppressive concern of everyone around him for his sanity.

Zhao Yunlan, OTOH, was orphaned as a child, but found and adopted very quickly by Da Qing and Zhang Shi. I don’t think he remembers his former life, at all, but most of the major players are there; it’s only been 30-40 years and even the humans could still be alive by then. He’s been following Shen Wei’s art for a while, fascinated by the young brilliant recluse, some nagging sensation of familiarity telling him that this person is special, and more importantly, special to HIM. He eventually saves up the money to go to the Moon and see the mirror installation. (By this point, Shen Wei has his memory back and he is absolutely floored that Zhao Yunlan just... waltzed into his exhibit like that, and he doesn’t even know how to begin to process it.) The rest of the fic follows the short film canon, only this time it’s Zhao Yunlan seeing Shen Wei and just... KNOWING. And then they live happily ever after. ^_^

#guardian #college shen wei fic #the foot fic #eirenical writes things #shen wei #zhao yunlan #shen wei x zhao yunlan #weilan #da qing #cheng xingyan #eirenical.fic #thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk about these!#especially that last one!#^_^#bookjoyworm #conversations through replies #wip meme

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

Text

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Witch”

Happy Saturday, everyone! Well, it's perhaps happier provided you didn't watch today’s episode lol. Getting through these 18 minutes felt like watching an extended version of a CinemaSins vid. I heard a little 'ding!' every time something nonsensical, contradictory, or just downright stupid happened. My mind became a pinball machine.

Which, in the interest of being fair as opposed to just snarky, only matters if you're looking for something resembling emotional depth in this show. RWBY, for all its faults, is enjoyable as a mindless spectacle. It's when you expect — or simply hope — for anything more that this very fragile house of cards comes tumbling down.

If it’s not clear already, today’s recap contains copious amounts of salt. Fair warning.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s dive in. Episode nine is titled "Witch," which is fitting since many members of our group go toe-to-toe against Salem herself. The narrative issues inherent in having your heroes fighting their final boss years before the series is meant to end might have been avoided if it weren't for Oscar's ridiculous, sacrificial attack... but we'll get to that.

We open with a sweeping shot of the Atlas battle, as hundreds of dead soldiers segue into endless grimm. Hold onto that image for a bit. At the end of this carnage is, of course, the mouth of the whale. We cut to Jaune, Ren, and Yang already safely inside.

"Well," says Yang, "that was harrowing."

I'm on the fence about this choice. On the one hand, yes, it's good that RWBY knows it can skip over extraneous scenes. We have NINE characters to keep track of and develop, fourteen if you count Ozpin, Maria, Winter, Ironwood, and now Whitley. Plus villains. There simply isn't time to show every insignificant moment... but was this insignificant? Obviously finding Oscar and escaping Salem's clutches is the true hurdle of this mission, but that doesn't mean getting through an entire army of grimm is in any way a cake walk. I'd be more willing to ignore this time skip if it weren't likewise presented as such a challenge for Winter's team. They have to "clear a path" to the whale, but our trio got there unscathed and unnoticed? The obvious implication here is that Ren just masked them the whole way — supported by his aura breaking later in the episode — but it still feels like we missed an important chunk of this task.

I'm nit-picking though. As said, I’m straddling the fence on this one and, given that, I'm inclined to settle on a, "Good job, RWBY. You're keeping the writing tight," if only because I don't have much else to praise about this episode. Throw the poor, struggling show a bone lol.

Now that they're inside, they realize they haven't the slightest idea how they'll find Oscar. “Like finding a needle in a giant…whale… why did we think this was a good idea?!” Because you and your friends are idiots who no longer bother to think about a situation before throwing yourself straight into it? This isn't me being mean to Yang, she literally says as much later on. Our heroes no longer get by on intellect, strategy, and skill, but rather plot armor and a staggering number of coincidences. For example, Ren.

Yang: Wow, it sure is lucky for us that on our way to this incredibly dangerous mission Ren inexplicably developed a new part of his semblance. Now he can not only mask peoples' emotions, see the true emotions that someone is feeling, pull thoughts out of their head about what they believe about a situation, but can also track someone across long distances through their emotions alone. Even that doesn't actually help us find Oscar, we just got lucky again when, in this maze of a whale, he ran right into us!

Me: So what were you going to do if this meta-world stopped giving you the most contrived solutions in Remnant history?

Yang: Die gloriously, I guess.

What Yang actually says is, "Okay. That's new!" and they enter the literal belly of the beast wielding a shield of convenience.

Jaune is also being awkward again because remember, RWBY doesn't know when to incorporate humor and when to treat a situation seriously. He reminds Ren not to "drain [himself]," he'll help him, and it's clear the scene is hinting at their earlier fight. There's a lot to unpack there, but I want to save it for the second conversation.

For now, we cut to Oscar, curled up in his cell, repeating stories to comfort himself. Yeah that's fine. I could use a broken heart right before Valentine's Day.

“She brushed off her bumps and bruises, for nothing hurt worse than the loneliness in her chest." It's a line from The Girl Who Fell Through the World, which Ozpin recognizes given that he's "lived through" a fair number of fairy tales. He immediately asks how Oscar is holding up — because he's a caring person! — and Oscar admits that he never understood why the girl of the tale was sad upon reaching home again. Now he does: she wasn't the same person anymore. I don't think the fact that Oscar has had both a metaphorical fall — leaving his farm to 'fall' into this war — and a literal one — falling through Atlas to unlock his magic — is lost on anyone. This is a nice allusion to our themes. Yang's speech to Salem later on? That’s something else entirely.

Storytelling done, Ozpin says he thinks "this plan to divide might have run its course” and it's time to try and find a way to leave. I'm sorry, I love my farm boy, but what plan? He didn't do anything. At least nothing that could remotely be termed an intellectual plot. Oscar convinced Ozpin to try and turn Hazel by telling him the world would end under Salem's rule and the only reason that worked is because the story decided to chuck out Hazel's entire character. You know, the one that hates Ozpin above all others, wants the world remade into a non-Academy horror show, can't understand that people make their own choices, is terrified of Salem, and has no reason to trust a prisoner he's currently torturing. Oscar's "plan" hinged on his writers erasing a great deal of work to build a new story that fits said “plan.” He didn't even get Emerald involved, she just — again, conveniently — eavesdropped outside their door at just the right moment.

To be clear, I'm not against a story being written to work in the hero's favor. Of course things are going to be convenient in a happy-ending tale. Someone manages to hold out just as long as they need to, a sword is lying just within reach, you, yes, happen to run into the one person you're desperate to find. This kind of stuff is reassuring, telling its audiences that sometimes things do work out for the best. It's enjoyable... but only provided the hero's entire success doesn't hinge on fate being shockingly kind to them. That's what RWBY has become. A world where Salem doesn't attack Mantle, Amity Tower is suddenly finished, the group can charge into any deadly situation they want to and bank on destiny twisting around itself to ensure they come out of it safely. A hero finding a convenient weapon nearby to defeat their enemy with is only reassuring after we've seen them implement a brilliant attack, struggle, nearly win, but then suddenly be faced with failure, necessitating that little push from coincidence. They earned it. The hero doesn't get to run in blindly and find a Defeat Bad Guy plot point gift wrapped for them at the first sign of trouble. They just die.

RWBY used to be a better written show because that's precisely Pyrrha's story. She charged a Maiden unprepared, without a single plan or hope for success, and she died. That's what happens in a dangerous, internally consistent world, but RWBY has since lost the second half of that formula.

I'm harping on this because this entire episode is built on that foundation of coincidence, something that shouldn't be happening at all, but especially not when you're pitting the heroes against Salem herself.

So yeah, it just gets worse from here.

Back to Oscar. Without the cane magic is the only weapon they have at their disposal, but he's reluctant to use it because every time he does, they merge more quickly.

They... do?

Okay, there are three major problems with this announcement:

I'm pretty sure we've only seen Oscar use magic once: creating that barrier to survive the fall through Atlas. That was the point of his near death experience, to unlock something that had previously been unavailable to him. Yet if he's only used it once, why is he so sure that it hurries the merge along? What's this "every time" business? This confusion could have easily been avoided if the show had just let Oscar use his magic this volume, tackling some other questions and gaps in the process. Let him use it to fight off the grimm in Mantle, giving him the opportunity to admit to at least Jaune, Ren, and Yang that Ozpin is back. He could have used some magic against the Hound with Ozpin's encouragement, answering the question of why he was entirely silent while the two of them got their ass beat. Give us a moment where Oscar uses his magic against Hazel, nearly escaping in the process, but is captured again at the last moment. Basically, his line makes it sound like magic has been this ongoing resource with an established downside when... it hasn’t.

Coinciding with all of the above, how is it that Oscar can suddenly use magic at will? Yeah, yeah, he unlocked it during the fall, but really? You open up the magic gates and from then on out it's as natural as breathing? This is the same issue with Ruby's silver eyes. The story gives these characters incredible powers, but never has them talking about how they work, let alone training them. They just exist, perfect in execution, as soon as the plot needs them. (See: the final shot of this episode.) At least Weiss had to practice her summoning for multiple volumes.

Finally, the question of how Oscar instinctively knows how to use magic could easily be answered with, "Well, he's kind of Ozpin now," but that would require the story to actually explain what the merge is. "We merge faster," Oscar says, but what does that mean? The Ozpin and Oscar we see in this scene are fundamentally indistinguishable from the Ozpin and Oscar who existed at his aunt's house, four whole years ago. They're still separate people, with one controlling the body and the other existing as a consciousness he can talk to. Nothing has changed. The show keeps insisting that Oscar is going through this deep and painful arc of losing himself to Ozpin... despite the fact that he has yet to lose a single bit of Oscar-ness. Has he changed? Well of course, but anyone going through these experiences is going to change. Remove the "merge" aspect and Oscar's confidence or power up is likewise indistinguishable from any of the other characters' developments. Nora is becoming more of an individual this volume. Ren is becoming more powerful in his semblance. Neither have an Ozpin to force that change, it just happens on its own. So what separates Oscar from every other character going through a formative experience? When is “I’m not the same person anymore” due to unnatural magic vs. just growing up?

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy our boy is getting more screen time — and that the cast is actually being kind to him now — but overall his arc is objectively terrible. He bought some clothes, told Ironwood he was as bad as Salem, told Hazel how to access the Relic, and then asked him not to be a villain anymore. Somehow these things are presented as significant moments of growth while the real questions surrounding his merge go unanswered.

“Honestly, I think you’re doing just fine on your own," Ozpin tells him, but he's not. God knows our boy is trying, but this is a moment where Ozpin's self-hatred (and the story's insistence that the younger generation is intrinsically better than the older) is blinding him to the situation. Oscar has made terrible decisions lately, in as much as he's been able to decide anything at all, and now he's rejecting escaping captivity because he's terrified of a concept he doesn't even understand yet. None of that is fine. Reassurance is one thing, but painting this situation as Oscar making better choices than he would with Ozpin's input is insane. He literally just decided to keep them in Salem's clutches indefinitely because something something magic is scary, I guess. Oscar doesn't need a, 'You're better than me' speech, he needs a reality check so they don't both die. Remember back in Volume 5 when Oscar, a brave but idiotic 14 year old, insisted on fighting someone entirely out of his league and Ozpin was like,

then saved him from getting his head crushed in like a cantaloupe? We need more of that. Our teenage heroes need guidance, but because RWBY keeps insisting that every adult they encounter is corrupt or incompetent, that hasn't happened in three volumes. They're just aloud to decide things like, “Let's tell our captor the Relic's password because UwU ~trust~” and then the story bends over backwards to make that work. Instead we could, you know, let characters learn that they can be wrong.

The snow scene was the beginning, but RWBY really went off the rails the day it let Qrow warn the group against stealing from and attacking an allied city, only for them to call him an idiot for doubting them. Now, Ozpin doesn't even get to warn Oscar about stupid decisions, he just agrees with them, reassuring and passive. Never mind the complication of whether Ozpin is even emotionally capable of providing guidance after they labeled him the worst thing to ever happen to them.

Why does RWBY keep ruining my faves 😔

Anyway, we’ve got to stay on track. Oscar has decided to just lie there but, luckily for him, Hazel's redemption — I use that term so loosely — has begun. He drags Oscar out of his cell before we cut to Winter.

She's leading a portion of Ironwood's army, trying to get things ready for when the bomb arrives. Neon and Flynt are a part of her team, sharing scared glances and trying to remain optimistic. It's a legitimately hard-hitting moment, striking that balance between horror and hope. Funny though, I wonder that RWBYJNOR would think of their friends fighting for evil Ironwood...

Marrow, continuing the tradition of insisting that our heroes be both adults and kids simultaneously, looks sadly at the soldiers heading into battle and goes, "But... they're just kids." I would like to remind everyone reading that Ruby is younger than them. Anyone who thinks that these teenagers shouldn't be fighting grimm — the thing they have been training to do as their professional career, during an unprecedented attack on their home — should not simultaneously be looking to the girl who is two years younger as his savior. (Something that, while not overt yet, is very much where Marrow is heading as he continually doubts the Ace Ops and looks to RWBY's group as his new, moral leaders.) I'm glad that, for once, this perspective is firmly called out. Elm arrives to tell him point blank that he needs to figure out his personal ethics later. It doesn't matter because there's an army of grimm out there and monsters aren't going to spare anyone, adult or child. Quit philosophizing and kill some already.

Back to Hazel where we get the doorway shot from our trailer. He's taken Oscar to the Relic, because of course he has. Do I really need to list how convenient this is too? Apparently, "the moment we move that thing, this place goes on high alert," but there’s no alarm for when Oscar is taken from his cell, they enter the Relic's room, or when they use it. What does a movement alert matter if someone can just waltz in and waste the last question themselves? Put some of those endless grimm in the room to guard it, Salem!

Just assume that I am, at any given point in this episode, letting out the longest sigh my lungs are physically capable of.

Emerald shows up, demonstrating both the convenience of everyone arriving when they need to, and the very real danger that Salem herself could come in and discover what they're up to. Hazel has Oscar summon Jinn, only to immediately say that “Actually, I think all my questions are answered now.”

I'm sorry, how does this answer any of Hazel's questions? His driving question was not, "Is the Relic actually a magical object capable of doing magical things?" but rather "Are you telling me the truth about Salem's plans to summon the Gods and destroy all of Remnant in her quest to finally die, thereby changing who I'm going to support in this war?" Seeing a naked, blue djinn does not answer that question.

Hazel's "redemption" is non-existent. He — we — learned about Salem's death wish despite how that contradicts previous lore, then he trusted Ozpin despite that contradicting his entire character, now he joins the heroes because, literally, he sees Jinn floating there. It’s bad enough that Hazel goes from clear villain to sacrificial hero in a matter of in-world hours, but we don’t even get a reason for why that change occurred.

Oh, there's also this:

So Jinn doesn't come out of her lamp unless someone intends to ask a question, but does it for Ruby because she's special, yet still reiterates that this won't happen again. Then Oscar summons her without intending to ask a question, she comes out anyway, confirms that none of them seek knowledge from her, and happily pops back inside her lamp because eh, it’s whatever.

If RWBY had any courage the three of them would be cursed now for toying with a powerful, magical object. Remember the days when Jinn was a little terrifying because it felt like she was warping her answers and we had no idea what she might do to someone who used her carelessly? When she felt like a djinn? Good times.

Or better times, at least.

So Good Guy Hazel and Good Gal Emerald promise to get Oscar out. Never mind all the horror they caused, the people they killed, and that for Hazel, at least, this defection is coming out of nowhere.

Anyone remember that Emerald orchestrated Penny's death? No? Just me?

As they leave it turns out Neo was camouflaged against the wall, because she was also precisely where she needed to be. Does everyone just periodically pop into the Relic room to see what’s going on? At least this time it's not working in the heroes' favor. Remember when I said it's beyond idiotic for Oscar to just hand out the Relic information to known enemies currently holding him captive and torturing him?

Yeeeeaah.

So Neo's got the Lamp. Funny how all of this could have been avoided if Ruby had just put it in the vault like she came to Atlas to do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We return to our trio where Jaune and Ren need to rest because their aura is giving out. Good! These guys fought a battle, fought Neo, fought more grimm, fought the Hound, traipsed through the tundra, presumably fought through more grimm to get to the whale, and have been using both their semblances to look for Oscar. It's about time their reserves started to falter.

Jaune decides to scout ahead a bit, leaving Yang and Ren to talk about nothing of importance. I mean that seriously. Remember a few days ago when I spoke about how, if the snow conversation does come back up, Ren's points would be entirely ignored for a nonsensical “I’m glad we’re friends” speech? Remember how I also spoke about how every emotional beat now is entirely generic and you could replace any character with another and not a single thing would change? Yeah. This is both those arguments in one. Nothing is said about the points Ren made. His problems with how the group has been acting lately and the very real, very deadly consequences it has had are flat out ignored. We went from

"But these aren't the kinds of decisions we should be making because we have no idea what we're doing!"

"Forward, no matter what!"

in a matter of hours, with precisely zero insight into how Ren went from one perspective to the exact opposite. Kind of like Hazel. Because see, RWBY doesn't write arcs, it just writes one thing until it decides to switch it up for something else, with the opposite idea presented as a “resolution” or a “twist.” Our creators writes scenes they know the fandom is begging for without considering how to get a character to that place, let alone how to get them out of it. That's all Ren's speech was, the equivalent of moral fan service. Here's a glimpse of actual character depth and a morally gray situation... now forget it ever happened because we're back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Instead of working through the laundry list of issues Ren raised, Ren instead accepts Jaune's aura help — something they've been doing since Argus — and tells Yang it's okay to be scared. These moments are meaningless and, as said, could have been between anyone in our cast. Ren could have told Nora she doesn't have to use jokes to cover up that she's scared. Jaune could have reminded Ruby that she can depend on him. Yang could have tried to keep Blake and Weiss' hopes up. This scenes ignores the individuality of the characters, like the fact that they just fought over very different world views, to instead favor any dime-a-dozen moment of support. The number of times this volume has rejected the conflict and resolution the group needs for bland, generic reassurances staggering.

Also, apparently Jaune isn't scared at all? I don't think that's as good a thing as Ren seems to think...

Then Jaune immediately rounds the corner, terrified lol.

One of the seer grimm is on its way and he tells Ren to mask them. Apparently he had been masking them before — one of the reasons he's so tired now, trying to do two things at once — but it's only here that they go black and white again. Ren manages to keep it up for a little while, but his aura breaks before the seer passes and they're spotted.

Hark! A consequence!

That was well done. It makes sense and it adds to the stakes. We've seen the insane amount of fighting the group has done since Volume 7, we just established that they're at their breaking point, and then Ren's aura fails him right when he needs it the most. Add this to the miniscule pile of things that were well done this episode.

Salem runs into Emerald and Hazel, the former of which is acting very suspicious when asked if he's made any headway with Oscar. The seer's alarm interrupts them though and... okay. Was I the only one who cackled during this moment? Between Salem's voice acting and the fact that she just yeets herself down the hallway, it came across as really funny to me.

Either way, it is a bad situation. Our trio is trying to figure out what to do, to which Yang responds, "Do what we do best… charge blindly into danger!!”

Ren's aura is broken. Jaune barely has any left and it’s unlikely he could heal right now even if Ren had any aura to amplify. If Ren takes a single hit anywhere important he is dead.

Me, on my knees, surrounded by the ashes of the Hound, the last bit of serious storytelling we had: "For the love of God, the kingdom is on fire and simultaneously dying of cold. There's a grimm army decimating hundreds outside. Half their group is missing and they're wandering lost inside a devil whale, about to have the most powerful being Remnant has ever known personally try to kill them — can we please have their attitudes reflect that?"

The answer, in case you were wondering, is no.

Back to the bomb. Whatever scientists were given this task have completed it and Marrow watches as it's flown out towards the whale. "Come on, Juan" he whispers and I'm all, "Juan?" Apparently it's a callback to last volume when Marrow couldn't remember Jaune's actual name, but it took me hopping onto the RWBY wiki to remember that.

As death via explosion inches closer, the trio runs into Hazel and Emerald. Turns out though that Hazel is really Oscar, disguised through Emerald's semblance. Nice trick! Jaune immediately drops both weapons to hug Oscar and, while that's nice and all, it's also the stupidest thing he could possible do in enemy territory. Also, Oscar has been beaten up by the Hound, tortured with magic, and likewise beaten bloody by Hazel. I was hoping for a tender hug like the one Nora gave him, not a giant squeeze for more comedy purposes. It just feels like RWBY has no idea how to manage the tone of this volume, let alone the torture of a child...

There's the obligatory, "Why should we trust you?" from Yang regarding Emerald joining the team, to which Ren responds, "Because she's scared, just like us."

That doesn't prove anything. Literally everyone is scared right now. There is a war going on. I really cannot emphasize enough how RWBY throws out Deep™ sounding lines that are, upon inspection, absolutely nonsensical. Nora reminding Penny that there are different parts to her personhood, Hazel saying that all his questions have been answered, Ren announcing that Emerald is scared... it's all worthless chatter that has no bearing on their problems: How do I keep from being hacked? How do I know you're telling the truth? How do we know you're trustworthy after you spent years trying to kill us? But of course, because it's RWBY, Ren's announcement is treated as some sort of secret truth that everyone accepts. Emerald joins up.

As they head for an exit we return to Marrow who, frankly, is getting on my last nerve. I know the fandom loves him because he's clearly leaning towards Team RWBY, but does anyone actually listen to what he says? He starts yelling at Winter for sending in the bomb because the trio might still be alive in there, despite:

Seeing for himself the hundreds of soldiers that have fallen trying to keep Atlas safe

Knowing and hearing again from Winter that the only way to stop this carnage is to take out the whale. Given more time, the whole city falls

Sadly announcing to the world that children shouldn't have to fight in a battle, rather than just joining the fray and helping to keep those kids safe

How does Marrow think those kids are going to be able to stop fighting? How does he think he'll get a city to return to? It's no wonder that he's drawn to Ruby because both characters stand around twiddling their thumbs, mourning that things are bad, and blaming others for imperfect solutions rather than doing something to make the situation better. Marrow's disgust at Winter over the bomb is precisely the same as Ruby's disgust at Ironwood over Mantle: how dare you not have a plan that results in both victory for us and zero sacrifices? They want perfection which, yes, is an admirable trait, but their problem is they refuse to do anything until that perfection appears. They’re paralyzed, a trait that’s particularly dangerous when your story insists that perfection will never appear: it’s not a fairy tale. So they just continue to get mad at others for the fact that they live in an unfair world. You want that perfect solution? Think it up yourself. Otherwise, stand aside and let those coming up with something do what they can to make things better.

Marrow goes so far as to drag Weiss into things, trying to guilt Winter with the knowledge that she'll have to relate the death of her sister's friends back to her. Winter, because she's a badass who isn't in denial over the situation, tells him that yes, she will shoulder that responsibility. To Marrow's credit he backs off then, but man. RWBY has legitimate moral questions here — when is holding out for a few worth risking the many? — but they go about exploring it in the most frustrating way possible. I personally have no respect for the guy who wants to announce that Children In War Is Bad instead of, you know, using the power he currently has to protect those kids already neck deep in a battle.

Because John Mulaney remains relevant:

"There shouldn't be a horse in the hospital :( "

"We're WELL PAST THAT."

Marrow is the one going, "There shouldn't be kids in a war :( We shouldn't have to kill a few to save the whole kingdom :( " and everyone around him is like, "No shit, dude! But this is the hand we were dealt! You going to help us, or what?"

Literally all of these characters could have been so much more than what they currently are.

Except Winter. She's doing great.

Now for the final scene. Our group nearly manages to escape the whale, but is incapacitated by some sort of screechy power that Salem employs.

She contorts her body, stretching out her arms to snag Emerald, and the others have a brief, but intense skirmish. Jaune manages to block a blast of magic aimed at Ren with his shield — nice — and Yang dots Salem's face with a bunch of bombs before blowing her sky-high — double nice. Oscar shoots out some magic of his own because, yeah, I guess he can just do that now? It really feels like it came out of nowhere after eight episodes of being the punching bag.

Of course, Salem immediately reforms. She traps the group with grimm arms that come out of the whale, interrogating Ozpin about why he bothers to keep coming back. There's a very sad answer there of, "I don't," referring to his lack of choice in reincarnating to fight her.

Yang interrupts their little tet-a-tet to throw the question back in Salem's face, calling her out on her choices. A great idea but, as always, execution: "because something bad happened to you once upon a time? No one gets a fairy tale ending."

I’m sorry, but that dialogue had me cringing. Like I said before, way too on the nose. There's keeping with the fairy tale theme, and then there's shoving the viewer's face in it. More of Oscar's musings on how he relates to the protagonists of fairy tales, blurring the lines between storytelling and reality, which in turn encourages the viewer to consider how they see themselves in the RWBY cast. Less... whatever this is.

Yang goes on to talk about how many people Salem has taken from her, which upon reflection makes a certain amount of sense if you toss in all the people who are here, but changed somehow due to Salem's influence, as well as acquaintances who died as a result of her meddling: Raven is scared off, Tai suffers as a result, Pyrrha dies, Penny dies, Yang loses her arm and her school. I think the dialogue could have been revised to reflect that better though because what Yang implies is that Salem has killed countless of her loved ones, yet what she says is, "Summer Rose. My mom." Honestly, for the few seconds this exchange was happening my thoughts weren't even on Summer. Yang calls Salem out for killing loved ones and my brain went, "Pyrrha??"

That's how little they've done with Yang and Summer. I know in the past I've argued that RWBY has a "better late than never" situation going on, that I would praise them for making the right writing choices even if they arrive years too late... but now that we're here, I find that it's a hard problem to overlook. Summer is Yang's mom? When's the last time we heard that? Volume 2? Whenever the conversation with Blake was. Since then Yang has called Raven "Mom," focused on that emotional connection (or lack thereof), was excluded from the conversation with Qrow, comforted Ruby after she was blindsided by Salem's taunt, and otherwise hasn't mentioned Summer at all. There is no foundation for this accusation except a few lines about getting cookies as a child and the fact that we're tossing references in now makes me worried that we'll indeed get a grimm!Summer reveal. Better remind the audience that she exists before the twist arrives! Honestly, as much as a part of me wants to praise RWBY for trying to get things back on track, moments like this just ring hollow now. They waited years and now it’s too late. It doesn't help that this is the episode where we shrug off Ren's speech. What will Yang's cutting admission amount to based on this trend? Probably nothing. Summer will become Yang’s mom again in another six seasons.

Salem, obviously, doesn't care. The real Hazel arrives and she orders him to take Oscar back to his cell. Instead, he gives him his cane with a whispered, "No more Gretchens, boy."

Behold, another meaningless line. Hazel hates Ozpin for "forcing" Gretchen on a mission and "getting" her killed. The whole point of his villainy is that he doesn't understand the concept of choice and that bad things can happen to good people with no one able to prevent it. Not every loss has a responsible party attached (outside of, you know, Salem/the grimm). So what is he even demanding here? No more huntsmen schools? That's what you wanted Salem for. No more "forcing" people to fight for you? Ozpin never did that in the first place. Or is it just a strange promise that no one else will die here? RWBY seems to be under the impression that they can just name drop dead family members — Summer, Gretchen — and that's that. Emotional depth created, never mind a lack of buildup or clarity.

Then Hazel punches Salem across the room and she releases every single hero from their bonds. See the theme of this episode: convenience. Hazel shoves a whole bunch of dust crystals into his shoulders and yells that he's doing what Gretchen would have wanted, clearly sacrificing himself so that the others can escape. The battle between him and Salem is pretty decent. I enjoyed the dust vs. magic creativity and the sheer damage Salem can take before reforming. This fight really showcases how not human she is.

It does, however, bring into question Hazel's reveal about her needing an hour to heal at the longest. I mentioned how unlikely it would be that our heroes would get the chance to "kill" her multiple times, yet here we are, just a few episodes later. They got that opportunity and... does it matter? Salem's reforming doesn't appear to slow down at all, despite her head getting obliterated at least three times, so at what point does she need longer than a few seconds to heal? If this was meant to be a potential weakness the group would eventually exploit, we needed to see it here, both for that setup and to keep it consistent with Hazel's story.

Regardless, they fight and at first it looks like a pretty straight-forward sacrifice on Hazel's part, giving the group their chance to escape. Except... Oscar.

"She'll just come after us," he tells Jaune, turning away from him to fight.

I need a list for this:

Of course she's going to come after you. This is not some shocking revelation. At no point has anyone thought that escaping the whale is the answer to all their problems, it just creates one less problem to deal with. Namely, the problem of "Our ally is captured, being tortured, and may give up important intel to the enemy. Oh, also he's about to be blown up with a bomb." Salem coming after them doesn’t matter. What matters is making her plans as difficult as possible as you work to come up with more solutions of your own. This is just a smaller version of the Ironwood conflict: “Well, Salem will just follow Atlas into the sky so it’s useless to attempt escape, or to buy ourselves time.” It’s really not. I know I’ve used this ridiculous comparison before, but if you’re ever chased by a horror movie serial killer hell-bent on your destruction and your reaction to this problem is, “Why run? He’ll just chase us. The only possible choice is to fight him with a 99% chance of our death,” then I beg you to re-evaluate things.

What was the point of coming to rescue Oscar if he was just going to stay behind? The whale is about to be blown up by a bomb and the trio risked their lives ten times over to get to him. If I were them I would be pissed. We went through all that to get you out and now you’re refusing to leave when we have a chance? Thanks for that.

Same with Hazel. Not that I care about the guy, but if I was sacrificing myself for others to escape I'd be pretty annoyed at them randomly deciding not to do that.

What does Oscar even think he's going to do? Kill the immortal witch? The entire point of our series is that they can’t do that (yet).

However, if he is able to do something significant via Ozpin's magic, why didn't Ozpin do that generations ago? Somehow I don't think a younger Ozma closer to the height of his power was in a worse position to attack Salem than a tortured, aura-less kid who unlocked his magic yesterday. The more RWBY reveals about Salem, the more I go, “Okay, but why didn’t his happen [insert any number of years] ago?”

Did Jaune actually leave? I assume he's just grabbing an airship or something before coming back to drag Oscar away, but seriously where did he go?

There's no way I can approach this scene without throwing up my hands and going, "What? WHY?" Which is a real shame because we finally get to see a bit of what the cane does and it’s... precisely what Ozpin's magic has always done? I mean, we saw that green shield five years ago and now there's a giant white beam. Okay.

If the beam just hits Salem with Generic Magic Power then there was never anything secret about the cane, it’s just, you know, Ozpin’s weapon. If the cane does something significant to hurt her we're left with the question of why it took literal generations to use it. Nothing is making sense to me and the only way I can think to salvage this scene is if Jaune runs back in, snags Oscar like a sack of potatoes, and runs out yelling about how he's clearly suffering from a concussion because what are you trying to accomplish here?

It doesn't help that this moment feels... final. Hazel has managed to hold Salem in place. Oscar has unlocked his cane and lands some mega hit right before Hazel passes out and looses his hold. Not only does this feel like a scene that should be at the end of the volume (we've still got five episodes), but also the end of the series. RWBY is building Salem into an unbeatable enemy by giving her more and more powers, and simultaneously eliminating the stakes by having our currently weakest character (in terms of exhaustion/injuries/aura/training) landing a shot like that. Why would you nerf Salem's threat level like that in the middle of a volume? Especially with a tool our group has had available from the start? If the cane does damage, maybe lead with that in the, “Here’s why we should stay and fight” office conversation.

I assume that Oscar's hit will obliterate Salem to the point where both he and Hazel have time to escape, or he obliterates both of them (“Do it”) and that's somehow presented as a better choice than just running while Salem is captured, or the bomb will interrupt things somehow... but it's just so shoddily done. At the very least, if they were going to have Oscar refuse to let someone fight alone, have it be an actual friend he's staying to assist. Having Oscar refuse his own rescue to help Hazel has more than one problem attached to it. We can say what we want about RWBY's themes of forgiveness, but this guy was torturing him just a few hours ago while serving Remnant's version of the devil. Just let him sacrifice himself and move on.

And that's where we end. Oscar powering up, the cane getting all magic-y, and him shooting a crazy big blast that engulfs both Salem and Hazel. I can't believe how not excited I am about my farm boy doing something badass, but here we are.

Overall I think this episode was way worse than last week's. We absolutely had problems in "Dark," particularly when it came to the Hound and the group's blind devotion to Ruby, but at least those moments were cushioned by an otherwise decent episode. "Witch" felt like I was watching something closer to a parody of RWBY, one deliberately poking fun at the fandom's desires: erase all conflict for awkward silly times, your favorite villains are instantly good now, the heroes go toe-to-toe with the main antagonist because why not, throw a bunch of magic in there for good measure, and wrap it all up in some over the top "this isn't a fairy tale" lines. I can see the pieces of a much better episode here — Emerald sneaking Oscar out with her semblance, Neo snagging the relic, Flint and Neon, Hazel attacking Salem — but it simply didn't come together.

I know I said this last time, but I have no idea what we're going to do for another five episodes. Salem slowly reforming from bomb damage as the group tries to keep Penny from opening the vault? The grimm attack halted with the whale gone so Qrow can go after Ironwood? The longer this volume runs, the more I think it was a mistake for them to introduce Salem as a fightable antagonist now. RWBY doesn't know what to do with her besides have her inevitably fall in the final season, so until then she's left being stupid (Relic), passive (Mantle), or, likely, written out of the story temporarily so the heroes can turn their attention towards smaller conflicts and weaker foes. They literally can’t beat Salem yet, but they can’t focus on other problems when she’s around without coming across as negligent, so if you have to find ways to erase her to make room for that... what was the point of bringing her here in the first place? We could have established that Salem is bound to her realm and had her send the Hound and whale to attack Atlas. There, all the fun parts of the volume without her complicated presence.

Well, the next five weeks will certainly be interesting, at the very least...

Until next time 💜

[Ko-Fi]

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby witch #mymetas #rwby recaps

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beautifulterriblequeen · 3 years

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B2:S - Chapter 4

Much of this series will be about the differences and additions in the novel version, and how they contribute to my understanding of story canon. But there will be character appreciation, the odd theory and headcanon, and suchlike as well.

Here be Viren being villainous, Rayla, Claudia, Soren, and Callum, and tons of culture clash themey stuff

and a tw: animal death, Claudia why

Spoilers for Book Two: Sky below.

Viren's scenes in Book Two: Sky are all amazing because they're full of worldbuilding and character building details. I love to study the word choices used from his perspective. They're so tasty. Like how he forced a servant, and also Soren, to carry his messages to the rookery, so that he never had to go himself. I'm really curious why Viren is forcing a servant, whose job is literally to serve, here. He really only has to ask. Maybe he was mean about it on purpose, or maybe he picked a servant who was afraid of birds just to flex on them. Whatever the reason for the word choice, Viren doesn't seem to like servants' jobs, it seems, especially when they take him somewhere with poop on the floor. It makes it all the more ironic that he sweeps Runaan's cell clean himself, then, humbling himself before he finally figures out the mirror.

Viren's secretive, right down to his very carefully chosen words to those around him, but his true thoughts shine through even more clearly in the book than in the show. He knows he's been sneaking and hiding stuff, and he knows that some of those actions would be called treachery. Stealing the king's seal to forge royal documents is up there on the treacherous list, but it's apparently not there alone. Ah, Viren, such a villainous delight. What have you gotten up to?

The way he thinks of and treats Crow Master is ageist and classist, but certain lines also hint that Viren has spent a lot of time memorizing the finer points of proper courtesy, and he expects others to have done the same. There are many reasons someone might put forth such effort: a commoner trying to better himself to be noticed by a kind prince is a nice version. A sociopath learning to fake caring about rich people so he can blend in with them is less nice. Superconveniently, the skills a young, earnest Viren might use to feel worthy of Harrow's attention will serve him just as well when dark magic ravages his empathy and he has to lie to everyone about how dead he is inside in order to keep his position of power. Until he's not lying anymore and he straight up threatens poor Crow Master with death unless he sends illegal mail for him. There's the Viren we know and uhhhhhh

Rayla and the blue rose! It's so fun to see inside her head here. She acted swiftly in the last chapter to save herself from Claudia's sleep spell, but now that she has to lie there, that thorn really hurts! She wishes she maybe had a different plan instead of playing asleep.

I hope Rayla only calls Claudia's voice "awful" because of association. I love Claudia's raspy voice! It's so neat! Rayla immediately recognizes it as Claudia's, from the castle and identifies her as a dark mage, with a clanky-metal warrior beside her. She gets mad at Soren for apparently calling killing a sport, even though that's not what he said at all. Soren's using an unfamiliar, maybe old-fashioned term, and Rayla's taking it very literally. It's like Viren and Runaan are arguing through them. A fun little example of culture clash.

Also digging the fact that Rayla knows what sleeping breathing looks like, as opposed to awake breathing, for the purposes of faking someone out. Did she just. Perch in a tree over Runaan and Ethari as they napped after a picnic and watched them sleep, or did Runaan help her sneak around the Silvergrove to spy on sleeping elves for training purposes? Also, raise your hand if you've faked sleep breathing to fool someone. that's not just me right

Rayla's sass is a constant delight. Whenever she's up against an enemy, she is outwardly fearless and full of witty taunts and comments, and I love her so much. where could she have learned this from I also love that she can't help but flex on Soren about her technique. It seems that her attitude is part "never show fear" and part "humans are liars."

Claudia and Soren were trying to kill Rayla to save the princes from her. But Rayla was also intent on killing both of them right back. And she wasn't ever gonna tell Callum and Ez about that. Woah. First Harrow, now this. That whole "death and secrets" thing really sank in with her, didn't it? Crack voice in the back of my brain: Ethari does know Runaan stabs people, right, he does know that?

Interesting change of detail from show to book: in the show, Claudia overheats Rayla's swords with some green splattery goo from a little glass jar. In the book, uhhh. She grabs a live bird and squishes it to cast the spell. Eew. Really making a point of dark magic's inherent violence today, I see. Got it.

"Rayla, pipe down." Callum still has a ways to go on how to win friends and influence people here. Everyone's shouting, he's interrupted to save Rayla's life (or so he thinks), and when Rayla shouts that his friends tried to kill her, he tells her--and no one else--to pipe down. Followed soon by "but a 'good' elf." Ahgod. He doesn't think he's taking sides, but he's got two humans versus one elf, and he's a human himself, and his underlying biases are showing. He's 14, and he's willing to learn, though--and he really does learn and grow over time. But this version of this scene was just. So. Painfully. Awkward.

I feel like this version was part of a larger theme I'm seeing throughout the first half of the book, emphasizing that Callum comes from years of having a crush on Claudia, and it takes many scenes with Claudia and with Rayla to shift through several gears with each of them in order to facilitate the possibility of breaking with Claudia and then also of falling for Rayla, in a way that feels organic within the structure of the story being told.

Also Callum super has a type and it's Girls Who Will Commit Murder. I don't make the rules.

Rayla's defense just attacks Callum's word choice: "What do you mean, 'but a good elf'? Do you know any bad elves?" And I just. Rayla, honey. You're not in any better of a spot than Callum right now. Your mentor literally stabs people to death. You're both literally assassins. Some humans could accept most elves, but they might draw the line at assassins.

But this tiny clash in the midst of this war, this single exchange of words, is such a great microcosm, the war made personal. It's early enough in their adventure and their growth that they're still sounding a lot like their parents. And that includes Claudia! She demands to know how an elf can be good, and Callum allows that it's possible for good elves to exist, but he has to be the one to say it, not the actual elf behind him. And the actual elf behind him insists that her kind are all good, thank you very much, and implying otherwise skirts very close to "humans are liars."

It's quite a tangle, but having the main characters tangled up like this shows us that as they untangle themselves in their own personal situations, they're learning things about human and elven hearts, about relationships and family, and those things are universal truths which they can use to help them understand other people's troubles, as well as the larger issues involved in the war they're trying to stop.

Callum assessing--and then reassessing--his confidence level. It's adorable, and it serves to show that his first scrambling attempt to make peace, in which he messed up a little but at least no one died--won't be his last. He's not really sure how this is gonna go. Everything is new. But he's dedicated to peace, and he's not giving up. He did just run in between Soren and his target while Soren was holding a sword.

He keeps doing that. Standing in front of people who have their weapons raised in his direction. And he does it with a ridiculous amount of chill. Is this Sarai's influence on him? Considering that Harrow has kept his distance, maybe so! I'd love that.

This chapter ends with some fun relationship drama when Callum gets butterflies in his stomach at being around Claudia again. She tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, and he forgets all about telling her about smashing her primal stone. He instantly worries that Rayla saw her gesture, which of course she did. Callum's nervousness and Rayla's glare feel to me like they're supposed to fit into a tactical box instead of a romantic box, but I can see how it could be interpreted the other way. Callum just intervened in a fight that Rayla completely intended to end by secretly killing Claudia and Soren, so in Rayla's mind, she's probably convinced that Callum intervened to save his girlfriend's life, while he's sure that he just saved Rayla's. She's probably angry because Claudia's gesture is making her think that Callum only seemed to be trying to save Rayla when his true intention was to save Claudia all along.

Dun dun dunnnnnnn.

#b2:s #book two: sky spoilers #book two: sky #tdp spoilers #tw: animal death #soren #tdp claudia #rayla #callum #runaan #ethari #viren #sarai

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palmett-hoes · 4 years

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7 for Andrew??

( ask game )

7. Exists as a pretext for the intellectual exercise of seeing how much textual support I can find for something patently absurd

okay well this isn't patently absurd it's actually a very sad and sadly very common story for a lot of kids, but i did spend a lot of time combing the books for evidence of andrew’s relationship with books and reading. him being a big reader is a super common headcanon in the fandom, and im sorry to tell yall that we pulled that one out of our asses. from what’s available in canon andrew hates reading and refuses to do it in front of other people. so, i concluded that andrew is in fact, dyslexic, and that reading is difficult and frustrating for him. he avoids it whenever possible, instead relying on audible information that seems to work best for his memory. it also tracks that he wouldn’t read around other people because it would be displaying weakness in his eyes for people to see him struggling

so, the evidence. i’ve searched the books by appearances of words like “book” “read” “paper” etc. most things i can think are related to reading yknow? and there’s not one instance in the entire trilogy of andrew reading anything, ever. in fact, he canonically hates libraries and refuses to go in them. one time he’s handed a packet of an opposing team’s stats and he crumples it up and throws it in his locker immediately.

to put it in perspective, most if not every other characters is shown reading at some point or another, it’s just in very short, missable scenic descriptors. aaron buying a book in the airport. kevin reading a magazine in the dorm. the upperclassmen hanging out and doing homework together. neil reading foreign news sites. it doesn’t seem like much but the fact that andrew is never actually seen reading anything at any point ever,, is actually somewhat conspicuous if you pay attention to the fact that well,, everyone else does.

there’s a handful of other details, mostly andrew’s phone. he has an older model that both essentially forces him to use it slower to type, as well as disincentivizes other ppl from texting him and expecting a quick response. he doesn’t text neil at any point except for the essentials of setting up the phone, and it doesn’t seem like he texts with anyone else either. he specifically tells neil to call him, not text.

so let’s backtrack. let’s talk about what it means for andrew to be dyslexic.

(um,, a lot of this is gonna be based on articles and studies i’ve read but i don’t really wanna make this an Essay i want to cut through the explanations and background info so i’m gonna be making some Statements. if you’re curious or confused pls send me a message and i’ll tell u what i had in mind/what i was drawing from)

thematically, when thinking about andrew’s background, the most important thing i keep in mind about andrew is that he has never been lucky, ever. he is consistently, over and over, handed the worst cards. he is born and raised in the foster care system, and even within this (basically inherently traumatic system) he is ONLY placed in bad homes. he says so. maybe they vary in their methodology, but they’re all bad. so then i have to extend this reasoning to the other parts of his life. he has bad teachers, bad foster siblings, bad case workers. no one CARES about this boy, no one looks at him, no one asks why he behaves the way he does. he gets written off, over and over and over again, in every part of his life. that is FUNDAMENTAL to who he is and what has shaped his views and personality as a person

growing up, no one helped him with his homework, no one read to him at night. probably he had very limited experience with books before he entered school. if andrew is dyslexic he would have struggled in school from very early on, and he would not be receiving any help or support at home. he never learned any skills or coping mechanisms for dealing with the fact that he mixes up his letters or that his head hurts when he looks at them too long, because no one is paying attention to him to notice these things. if he’d received help, if people had been patient with him, he probably could have learned to read just fine and could have done well in school with some accommodations. instead, he just learned to resent reading, to hate books, because people were always trying to force him into it the wrong way, when he was a square peg in a round hole and he needed to approach reading differently from the other kids. but no one saw that there was a problem that could be helped, they only saw HIM as a problem, so no one helped him. not his foster parents, not his foster siblings, not his teachers. so he has no positive associations with reading, it’s just a continuous negative in his life

his teachers especially saw his outbursts and his resistance in class. they didn’t see that he was an abused, traumatized (autistic) child with a learning disability who couldn’t convey to anyone that reading was frustrating and physically painful for him, that he only needed a little more time and a little more support. they only saw his “attitude” and the fact that he took longer than his classmates. so they labelled him a “bad” kid, a “stupid” kid, and they didn’t question that judgement further

no one saw that, if he was given that extra time to read and think at his own pace, that he was brilliant. that he remembered everything that was ever said to him, word for word. they didn’t notice his self-discipline. his skill at puzzles and mind-games. the way he could see right through people and predict with uncanny accuracy how they would act and react. how good he was at putting clues together. his incredible spatial reasoning. they didn’t start conversations with him long enough to realize that he was incisive and observant and clever. they didn’t notice that he was bright and inquisitive, if reserved. that because no one ever answered his questions he learned how to answer them himself. that he started trouble because he was bored and under-stimulated. all they knew was that he never finished his tests and that he couldn’t read aloud in class because everything in schools is levels and data and test scores and working under ridiculous time requirements.

so i don’t really like that common characterization of andrew as a bookworm who does well in school. we know that andrew is intelligent, it’s so obvious that he’s brilliant to us from reading the books, but that’s because we’re seeing him through neil’s eyes. neil who looks at and understands andrew more than anyone else ever has, who sees in him the things that other people miss. and that’s important, because people have missed the fact that andrew is smart. but reading books, getting good grades, eloquent essays, that’s all one of the most typical, the most universally recognized ways to be smart. and i think that’s an injustice for andrew as a character and what his story represents, because he represents all the kids that got missed and passed over and thrown aside for not operating “correctly,” for reacting to things the “wrong” way

there are so many ways to be smart, so many different kinds of intelligence that get dismissed and written off for not being successful in the very narrow set of skills the school system teaches. giving andrew the most classic and conformative and universally recognized signs of “being smart” (actively AGAINST his passive characterization in canon) is honestly a disservice to him. and that’s what i like about him being dyslexic, of him struggling in school, because he can still be smart, be BRILLIANT (because he IS brilliant) but in non-conventional ways

#txt #andrew minyard #my posts #im talkin #anon #anonymous #ask #ask game #cw ableism #dyslexic andrew minyard

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thxngam · 4 years

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i think being a ww fan means recognizing the inherent flaws in its story and characters. for every amazing character moment, theres the fact that the show has a lot of misogyny, both from its male characters and how its female characters are written and treated (ex. the whole laurie and sam arc. some of the stuff that josh says to donna). for every istotg moment, theres the fact that charlie was literally written in bc the show was considered too white (and for most of its run, was). for all the awesome political moments, for all the show presented bipartisanship, and had republicans that were sympathetic, three-dimensional characters, theres the fact of ainsleys entire introduction to the show. it has issues, real issues, and highlighting its high highs should also come with acknowledging its low lows.

Absolutely! I couldn’t have said it any better (but pls watch as i proceed to make your point bc i feel like i should respond).

For any of yall saying the moments i talk about don’t rlly matter, please notice that even if it didn’t bother you, it might have bothered other ppl/enforced steroetypes/etc.

For example, there’s one super misogynistic line that josh says that still sticks with me? as a woman, i think most times the show was sexist/anytime anybody was sexist i tend to notice in a way men probably don’t, the same way white ppl don’t notice when everybody in a room is white. it’s just something you notice. but anyway, there’s that one thing with the economy/china-us trade relationship or something in season 5 or 6 and they talk about bras, which is this whole comedic moment. but i remember donna telling josh this, and then josh going “do the Chinese even need bras?”

and i’m not Chinese, i’m desi and i don’t know what it’s like be Chinese and i’m sure there are cultural beauty standards i’m not aware of, obviously. but hearing that line made me so uncomfortable. ig it was supposed to be funny, and donna sort of reprimands him, but it made me so uncomfortable! and there are so many moments like that on the show.

there are maybe 3 recurring black characters (charlie, fitz, nancy mcnally) and that’s it. there’s angela blake, but she wasn’t there for you to like her bc she was “replacing” josh after that whole carrick business. your point about charlie being the point of diversity saddens me. i saw one asian person on the show, cathy, for like two episodes. that’s all.

and also, sam, despite being my favorite, says some sexist things! i’m gonna talk about sam because he is my favorite, but moments of casual sexism are true of just about every character on the show. the bit about “leggy blonde republicans not knowing anything”, he condescends connie tate (i thought that was kinda funny but it was in poor taste bc connie--despite not seeing much of her--was incredibly intelligent and sam speaking down to her did rub me wrong), the bit about “baton twirling” when he talks to ainsley (tho she gives a great quip back and abt five minutes later he calls her intelligent), that borderline savior mentality with laurie (i (not being a sex worker, someone pls let me know if that was more problematic than the way i saw it) would’ve been fine with that whole storyline if they just kept her on so we could see laurie put sam in his place some more. bc i liked that they said that sex work was real work and that she liked what she did and didn’t fall to some trope about being abused as a child/crazy/etc but then they straight up never mentioned her again. she was smart and she could put him into his place and i liked her enough that i wish we saw their friendship). also he hears from this one weather person/air force person, and when he sees her he goes “you look exactly how you sound on the phone” and yuck

all the same, i like sam! he was idealistic and incredibly smart and i loved all his little impromptu speeches and he had great chemistry with everybody. i was so sad when he left the show and so excited when he came back (even for like two scenes). but i know he’s problematic. knowing he’s problematic and liking him as a character can happen at the same time.

also cj and relationships is weird on this show. that whole episode where she goes back to visit her ailing father there’s this weird romance with that one guy and it’s so weird. also bill? that we never see? the ranger or whatever? i like that cj had emotions (to be strong does not equal emotionless, i appreciated her appreciation for a pretty dress/shoes/jewelry bc that’s something i wish i knew when i was younger) but that was ridiculous. when she gets promoted to chief of staff, this was a great moment to mention sexism in the workplace/the sad rarity of women in power and i honestly don’t think they did, at least not meaningfully enough that i remember it.

also there’s this whole ridicule of the michigan’s women’s caucus? not important at all, but it’s a sad how they talk down to an organization that isn’t there for mockery just because it’s full of women. it’s a legitimate thing, and because it’s full of women they constantly talk down about it.

i don’t know, but as i type this, i keep noticing more casual sexism and racism on the show. but that doesn’t mean i don’t love the show anyway. government can be optimistic (it’s not right now, but it can be) and it brought me out of a funk and i love it so, but like you said, it has its high highs and its low lows and we, as viewers, should acknowledge this.

#the west wing #josh lyman #donna moss #ainsley hayes #sam seaborn #jed bartlet #leo mcgarry #cj cregg #tw sexism #tw racism #toby ziegler #ask

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princeescaluswords · 4 years

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All You Could Want

I couldn’t help but think of @alan713ch ‘s post here that I reblogged. I have no doubt that it is utterly true, but I always think that these things can be better with a concrete example. And there’s no better example than how the Teen Wolf fandom totally slept on the Scott and Kira romance.

Oh, yes, it had it’s adherents, but it was never passionately embraced by the fandom. Scott and Kira, if you count them being together from their first date in Galvanize (3x15) were a couple for forty-two episodes, longer than any other relationship on the show. And yet they have less stories on AO3 than the Canon relationship of Boyd and Erica, which lasted at the most like 8 episodes (and that’s stretching it) and ridiculously fewer stories than the big three white m/m relationships -- Sterek, Steter, and Thiam.

(And before anyone gets their undies in a bundle -- I’m not excluding myself from this criticism. I’m not pointing at any individual person and saying you should write Scott x Kira. I’m talking about numbers. I’m talking about trends.)

But if you look at it closely, the canon relationship touched on every single major romantic trope that populates fan fiction. You can barely read a Sterek, Steter, or Thiam fiction that doesn’t incorporate one of these tropes. Let’s look at the list:

Opposition from friends: “ Scott, no way. Until we figure out if she's just another psychotic monster that's going to start murdering everybody, I vote against any and all interaction.”

Opposition from family: “Foxes and wolves tend not to get along, not just in fables and stories.”

Inability to express their feelings: “So if you die down here, are you going to regret not kissing your girlfriend?”

Obstructive trauma from the past: “I guess it's supposed to be part of her. But now it looks... Differently. Almost like it's taking over. I don't know. Something's happening. And to be honest ... I don't know if I could trust her anymore.”

One lover forced to torture the other: “ Your hand goes here. So, let me explain what's about to happen. This one, the fox, has an immunity to electricity. So she's going to turn the dial on the Alpha."

Mind-controlled lover trying to kill the other: “He's been through quite a lot without ever having to kill. I think it's time to change that.”

Fortifying belief: “Me again. I have to leave. But I'm coming back to help. I promise. Because you're right, Scott. If anyone's going to save Mason, it's you. It's us.”

Unwilling separation: “I made a deal with them. And I need to. It's not for my parents. It's not for you. It's for me.”

It’s like the Greatest Hits of Romantic Plotlines. And yet, something about this relationship didn’t spark the fandom’s imagination. You see the relationship isn’t just seriously neglected, it’s disparaged. The criticisms run like this:

Kira is a replacement for Allison, even though the dynamic wasn’t the same and her actions weren’t the same.

Kira is a “placeholder for a certain type of villain.”

Scott isn’t over Allison. (This is one of the favorite of the Sterek/Steter crew because they fixate on Scott’s supposed obsession with Allison because it’s how they attack Scott’s decisions in Season 1 and 2. If Scott was able to move on from Allison while not forgetting about her, their claim that the only reason Scott didn’t bow to the Hales was his obsession with a hunter’s daughter gets undermined. If they can’t blame it on Scott’s hormones or stupidity, they have to face the fact that the Hales were violent thugs, and Scott was right to tell them to get lost.)

Kira is boring, because dealing with the fact that she’ll outlive everyone she knows and can drain the electricity from an entire city doesn’t seem interesting.

Their relationship is saccharine. (Note that when Liam breaks Theo’s nose three times, it’s passion, but when Kira throws Scott in The Maid of Gevaudan, it’s ... missed.)

Scott spends too much time pursuing Kira and not enough time doing his job. Which isn’t his job.

They don’t have chemistry. Yeah, sure.

Kira doesn’t give Scott what he needs. (I still don’t truly get this one, but I think it means that Kira was supportive of Scott when he needed it without sarcasm or helpful criticism of how he could be a better alpha, as every other person he loved constantly gave him. The idea that someone could just have faith in Scott without questioning his competence just doesn’t fit -- though blind faith in Derek’s leadership, Peter’s competence, or Theo’s inherent goodness is a major part of the big three romances.)

I’m citing this, not to tell people who to ship, but to support the argument that minority ships -- especially where both participants are minorities -- tend to be overlooked and neglected, most often for the two closest white people. That behavior and tropes are recognized in ships in which both participants are white. It’s simply another fandom thing.

BUT IT’S NOT RACISM.

#scira #scott mccall defense squad #scott mccall #kira yukimura #teen wolf racism #fandom racism #fandom problems #teen wolf fandom problems

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conspirwbytheorist-inactive · 4 years

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Some Cinder Thoughts

So I saw this post from @hoepunkausta a while back and was going to reply. Then I realized that this was the first time I’d actually sat down and taken a good look at Cinder and holy cow is there a lot to this character. Anyways, it got me thinking about Cinder's potential background and, while I've always seen her as a foil and tied to Ruby, I never realized how she could potentially tie in to ALL of team RWBY. Which is. . .pretty awesome from not only a narrative point of view but in regards to character redemption as well. Full take under the cut.

TLDR: If we assume Cinder’s backstory is in keeping with the popular version of the Cinderella tale, it ties-in to a lot of the our heroes’ traumas, giving each of them a reason to relate to her. Currently, Salem maintains control over Cinder by presenting herself as the fairy godmother, because were Cinder to see her as the stepmother she was, she would potentially leave. Were she to break away from Salem, recognizing her shared traumas with the members of Team RWBY could provide her with the connection needed to grow and heal as a person.

***Content Warning: Mentions of abuse/abuser tactics***

Intro

The post itself is pretty simple. Do we think Cinder came from an abusive background or do we think she came from a normal family that died under tragic circumstances before she met Salem? I’d always gotten the vibe that Cinder came to Salem searching for power after a life of rather horrific abuse similar to a more traditional Cinderella story.

The way she craves power, not just as a resource but as something she desperately needs for her own survival (her line about Pyrrha “taking her fate into her own hands” in V2 and the “I refuse to starve” of V7 come to mind), leads to believe that she came from a home that didn’t allow her much freedom or agency. She seems to know exactly what it feels like to not be in control of her own life and, now that she has found her escape from it (Salem), refuses to ever go back.

But how does this translate into ties to Team RWBY? She obviously has been foiled with Ruby, but the other 3? Kind of a big leap to make. Well, stick with me. Naturally, when thinking of a Cinder backstory, it makes sense to look at her main allusion, the Cinderella fairy tale.

A Cinder Story

Cinderella doesn’t start her story with an evil stepmother and step sisters. By most accounts she started out fairly privileged. With that in mind, imagine this woman, who we have come to know as a murdering power-driven villain, as a small child with seemingly everything she needed. A loving family, relative financial stability, decent social standing, etc. until one day, out of nowhere. Her mother dies. And suddenly she finds her world turned upside down. Her father remarries to a woman who loathes her and, who, after his death, does her best to control her, isolate her. Everyday she is told she is lesser than her sisters, meant to act as a servant. To cope with the difficult circumstances, she daydreams about a perfect place (in the main story, the ball/landed nobility but in Cinder’s case perhaps the opulence of Atlas) where if she can just prove herself good enough, endure enough pain, she can finally earn a happy ever after.

Now, what’s interesting here is that in just this bare bones outline of the Cinderella story, we touch on the key traumas of each of our four protagonists. Ruby and Summer’s death, Weiss’s isolation and molding under Jacques, Blake’s experience of racism as a faunus and abuse under Adam and Yang’s attempting to live up to Summer’s ideal to cope with abandonment. Which is really fricking cool because it means if ANY of this hypothetical backstory were to come to light, at least SOMEONE if not EVERYONE from the team has a potential point of empathy for where Cinder is coming from.

Something I love about RWBY is how it (for the most part) does its best to show how people are not inherently good or evil, but rather products of their circumstances and environment. So imagine the narrative and thematic potential of a villain for whom each of our cast could theoretically look at and think “Wow. That really could have been me” instead of “look at this monster”. A moment where they realize that, had things gone a bit differently, had they not been a position to cope with their traumas and actively choose to love instead of being engulfed by their pain and anger, they very much could have been this story’s villains rather than its heroes. A moment where, through Cinder, they concretely realize themselves as products of choice rather than destiny and, in that same vein, perhaps Cinder can see the same for herself.

Okay, but what about the Salem part? If we reduce “badness” all to a matter of choice ignores another key theme of RWBY: the importance of an awesome support network and team to back you up. At every point of the series our heroes have had someone to help them. Ruby had Yang and Qrow growing up before her team and JNR after Beacon, Weiss had Winter and Klein, Blake Ilia and Sun, and Yang had Ruby growing up and Tai after Beacon. But who did Cinder have to help her through her darkest times? No one. Except Salem.

The Case of the Fairy Stepmother

That brings me to the second part of the question: Is Salem the stepmother or Fairy Godmother? Honestly I think it’s both. The real question (and what I think will be the biggest obstacle for Cinder growing as a character) is how does Cinder see it?

In the Cinderella story, the Fairy Godmother and Evil Stepmother play opposing roles. Stepmother does all that she can to keep Cinderella underfoot and away from realizing her full potential as a person while the Fairy Godmother steps in when Cindy is at her lowest and uses her magic to give her all that she needs to get that “Happily Ever After”. In theory it should be impossible for one person to be both at the same time, but turns out it’s a matter of perspective.

Imagine Cinder at her lowest point. Maybe she was a no-name seamstress in Argus who daydreamed about being swept up into the glamour of the Atlas elite. Maybe she was a scared kid who saw becoming a huntress as her ticket out of poverty and into a life of adventure. Imagine her getting that wish of her own accord. Playing the game, doing everything right, biding her time until finally, she escapes - only to find herself trapped in a new way. (a Prince Charming who controls her as a plaything, a student not willing to be a child soldier, there are so many possibilities here). Only to see that the system was stacked against her in way where she could never escape it under her own power. That’s. . . a lot to process and a feeling of hopelessness that I think a lot of us can relate to (especially in our current world-state).

Then Salem comes in and not only promises Cinder the power to create her own destiny, but delivers it. Cinder goes from having almost nothing to magically receiving the means to accomplish anything she desired. All because of Salem. I see a lot of people question why Cinder is so loyal to Salem, but given this view, it’d be very difficult for her not to feel indebted to her savior in some regard.

Furthermore, Salem seems relatively fond of Cinder. She defends her from ridicule in Volume 4, goes out of her way to praise her strengths and, honestly, seems to have more patience with her than the rest of WTCH. Given her backstory, I wouldn’t even be remotely surprised if what drew Salem to Cinder was the chance to give this angry young woman the power she wished that she had had prior to her curse. It’s almost. . . motherly. In a way I would expect a millennia old woman driven mad by isolation and Grimm Lakes and a very traumatized Cinder to view motherhood.

But, that doesn’t mean that the two have a healthy relationship. We as the audience see how Salem’s “love” comes at a price. She never hesitates to keep Cinder underfoot: oscillating between praise and threats of punishment, criticizing Cinder’s discomfort in Volume 4 as weakness, and making it clear that Cinder is only important to her insofar as her usefulness. The whole “Without you I am nothing” really illustrates how far out of her way Salem goes to make Cinder painfully aware that all that she has, all that she has accomplished is because of Salem’s magic. Salem hasn’t helped Cinder as a benefactor. A benefactor would let Cinder proceed to live her own life. Salem has instead taken advantage of Cinder’s lack of any support network and feelings of isolation to establish herself as Cinder’s sole source of support.

While we as an audience can see how abusive this dynamic is, Cinder can’t. Right now, she’s more or less fully embedded in Salem’s manipulation tactics - Salem’s narrative is her truth. And, even if she does come to see it (don’t think I missed the hints of resentment in the trailer), there’s nowhere for her to go. What can she do? Go rogue? The woman has an entire Grimm army! Turn to Emerald, Mercury, or Neo? They’re all either children or also in on all this! Just like the Stepmother, so long as Salem keeps Cinder feeling isolated, the chances of her escaping or changing remain slim.

Seeds of Support and Redemption

So, that leaves us with two things Cinder needs in order to break away from Salem:

Recognizing Salem as a controlling/toxic “Stepmother” figure instead of a “Fairy Grimm-Mother” and that this is NOT what she wants out of life.

Finding connections/a support network she can go to after leaving

This is why Cinder having parallels to all of Team RWBY is so frickin cool. I’m still not 100% certain of a full Cinder redemption. Like, I love her as a character. But part of the reason I love her is that she is a hot mess who will go full ride or die no matter the situation. So getting her to even pause and go “is this what I want out of my life?” is probably going to take something pretty drastic to rattle her current convictions.

However, that being said, I find it really suspicious that the team would take a character that could be used to parallel the traumas of all four main heroes and just hang her out to dry. In a different show, I might think they could set her up with a death as a warning for our protagonists. But, that doesn’t make sense. Every possible warning I can think of motivating Cinder’s death is already being conveyed by another character. The dangers of falling to spite? Adam. Isolation causes only weakness and pain? Raven. Sacrificing humanity for the sake of power is a crap idea? Ironwood.

Instead, these seems like a great way to set up a situation where Cinder can find connection. After all, if our team could potentially look at Cinder and go “This could have been me”, what’s to stop Cinder from looking at them, seeing their pain and how they support each other, and going “Huh. Maybe this could be me?”. Especially if something radical has just happened to get her to want to break away from Salem for whatever reason. Maybe I’m just crazy, maybe I’ve been sitting on this too long, but I think that that would be really cool for a show about the power of love and connection to have its longest-term “villain” illustrate how, given support and humanity, victims of abuse can grow and find genuine connection with people.

#cinder fall #rwby #rwby analysis #rwby theory #cw abuse #cw mentions of abuse #This thing took me over a month to write #but i regret nothing #all of this is speculation btw #feel free to comment thoughts!#salem #salem rwby #long post

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