#i mean i put oscar in that army so why do they need anyone else LEL

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

man i rly wanna like... write fics for my part 4 army choices in radiant dawn but like... would anyone even read that lol

it’s just so subjective to each player, like, nobody is going to have the same armies. we all put the characters in different armies

and i’m sure not everyone runs on the same “do not separate” policy that i have when it comes to splitting characters up from each other by putting them in different armies 🤣

[itsclydebitches]

I’ve been seeing an uptick in “anti-RWDE” posts lately  — which is a phenomenon I’d like to comment on at a later date  — but for now one of them (quite unintentionally) made me realize something about the finale that I haven’t seen others discuss yet. 

So RWBYJNOR saves everyone, right? Let’s just put aside the animation for a moment  — which didn’t show any army members making it out  — as well as the forgotten side characters  — Maria, Pietro, Qrow’s group isn’t forgotten, but still left behind  — and take things on good faith here. We’ll read the finale through the thematic intention: RWBYJNOR saved “everyone” in the Kingdom of Atlas in Volume 8, deliberately contrasting them with Ironwood who was willing to sacrifice a chunk of the Kingdom in Volume 7. Forget all the messiness and just accept that regardless of the consequences  — like a destroyed Kingdom and a “dead” team  — the heroes are heroic because they didn’t give into a “lesser evil” thinking and managed to save everyone. 

Now, how was that possible? 

Let’s go back to the beginning of the seventh episode of Volume 8, “War.” Salem’s grimm have just burrowed through Atlas’ defenses and taken them out. The shields are gone. She flies Monstra into the fields and releases an army of darkness that immediately heads for the city. What’s the very first thing Ironwood does? 

Soldier: Yes, sir?

Ironwood: I am evacuating all citizens to the subway. Prepare Manta Squad Omega, and dispatch to every part of Atlas.

Soldier: But sir-

Ironwood: Now!

He evacuates the people, with “the people” meaning all the Atlesians and however many Mantle folk got to the city prior to Salem’s arrival. When this episode aired I mentioned being confused as to why the soldier was so hesitant. Why wouldn’t you want the people to get to safety when a grimm army is heading their way? Fans against Ironwood took the soldier’s side, claiming that Mountain Glenn proved that any underground evacuation is a death sentence and thus he obviously doesn’t really care about the peoples’ safety. Fans in support of/neutral towards Ironwood pointed out that this is a pretty big leap, no one is coming up with a better idea for what he should do instead, and that within these circumstances it reads like the soldiers is illogically against this idea simply because everyone is against Ironwood now. The show wants characters criticizing his decisions and making him out to look like a crazed dictator... even during moments when it doesn’t make any sense to be upset with him. Shooting the councilman yes, trying to keep the people safe no. Basically, this small exchange was a mess, but the rest of the volume proved that this was a sound call. The subway never collapsed and no grimm ever made it to that enclosed space to pick the civilians off like fish in an underground barrel. 

So, why didn’t that happen? Well, one answer is because Oscar and Ozpin destroyed the whale. But how did they have time to do that? Without the people dying while they were being tortured, talking to Hazel, escaping with Emerald, fighting Salem, etc.? A lot happened between Salem starting her attack and Oscar ending it, so why wasn’t 2/3rds of the Kingdom’s population decimated during that time? 

Because Ironwood sent his army out to keep the grimm occupied. 

Outside of Ironwood’s cartoon villain actions  — random murders and bomb threats  — which get the most attention due to how deliberately, over-the-top horrific they are, these are the two actions that get the most negative attention from both the story and the fanbase. The soldier seems horrified by the order to evacuate. Marrow is devastated that young adults are fighting in this battle. The fandom is disgusted by both aspects of Ironwood’s character: giving orders that, as general, he expects to be obeyed and having an army that follows those orders. Putting side that cartoon villainy, this is what supposedly makes Ironwood the antagonist here. These are the qualities that have existed since Volume 2, resulting in a “he was always a bad guy” interpretation. These are the qualities that have resulted in anyone who likes his character being labeled as a “bootlicker.” We know these qualities make the fandom hate him because otherwise, more people would be confused as to why a presumably heroic character randomly shot Oscar. Orders, armies, and general military associations are at the heart of Ironwood’s presumed villainy. 

So let’s remove them. 

Ironwood has no evil army. Ironwood gives no evil orders. Power and control lies solely in the hands of our non-military heroes. Everything is better! 

...well, no. Because we saw in Volume 8 precisely the choices our heroes made when the attack started: half of them focused on saving a single individual (Oscar) and the other half kept to the sidelines. At no point did our RWB group act after sending the message and prior to securing the Staff. AKA, during the attack of Salem’s army. We got a very explicit moment in which Ruby looked out the window at the battle going on and turned away from it, continuing to discuss ethics instead of joining the fight. The people of Atlas (which, again, includes many Mantle citizens) had no one but Ironwood and his army because a third of the group was trying to rescue Oscar (they never even had a plan to blow up Monstra — that was also Ironwood), a third of the group was up in Amity, and a third was sitting in the mansion. They did nothing to help the people of Atlas being attacked by grimm. 

Thus, if you remove Ironwood’s actions, everything goes to hell. There is no longer an order to evacuate to the subway. Maybe some people go there anyway. Most probably don’t. They run in a panic wherever they can. Hide wherever they can. Go back home for some semblance of safety. 

There’s no longer an army. Either it doesn’t exist because we’ve determined it’s simplistically bad despite RWBY’s grimm-specific context, or Ironwood likewise never gives the order to protect Atlas’ border. Salem’s army moves unimpeded through the city, killing countless people as it goes. How do we know? Because they’re civilians who can’t defend themselves and there’s literally no one else to help. Remember: Ironwood is not giving orders, there is no army, RWB is in the mansion, YJOR is in the whale, Penny is out of commission, the Happy Huntresses are in Mantle. Those in Atlas are entirely alone. In time, Oscar destroys the whale, but by then it’s too late. There’s no concrete way to theorize how many have died, but it’s inevitably a lot. Everyone else is scatted across the city, trying to survive. 

So this scene 

no longer exists. 

When the group gets the Staff and creates portals for “everyone” to escape through, Mantle is ready to go. They’ve gotten everyone into the crater and can funnel them straight to Vacuo. Atlas, however, is in chaos. When Jaune enters the subway there’s only a few people there, many of which may be wounded or dying. He’s right back where he started, in Mantle at the beginning of Volume 8: needing to go door-to-door to find where people have hidden themselves, trying to convince them all to follow him (remember Oscar commenting to Ozpin about how difficult that was?). Except now, he and Nora are the only ones trying to get people to safey, the city is filled with far more grimm, a significant amount of time has passed for people to be killed or injured (making evacuating them even harder, both due to injuries and an unwillingness to leave hurt/dead/missing loved ones behind), he’s trying to convince these panicking people to go through magic portals, not just walk to a crater, and he’s aware that there’s a very short time limit for this task. 

Jaune returns in a panic of his own, explaining how difficult it will be to get that 2/3rds of the Kingdom to Vacuo. How many are already dead. Barricaded. Missing. Closeup on Ruby looking horrified, but then she rallies. They can do it. Atlas is falling, but residual dust gives them just enough time to find, calm, and evacuate those people. They’re heroes after all. Beating the odds is what they do. 

Then Cinder attacks. 

Suddenly, the group can’t evacuate people because they’re trying to keep themselves safe from her. Maybe Cinder gets the powers because Jaune was off looking for civilians, leaving Penny without a mercy kill. Maybe Nora dies because she’s still trying to help people on the city that plows into the one below. Regardless of how details might change, they’re not getting a spread out, decimated population through those portals before Cinder changes the wish and makes them disappear.  

In this version, the story starts with Ironwood wanting to sacrifice 1/3rd of the population to save 2/3rds and the future of the war. It ends with 2/3rds of the population dying instead. 

This is what I mean when I say the majority of the fandom wants to view a very complex situation through a ridiculously simple lens. The fandom wants to denounce every bit of RWBY’s fictionalized military, the context issues of that aside. The story wants to paint RWBYJNOR as the only heroes, in part because they succeeded in saving everyone (“everyone”) in the Kingdom when Ironwood gave up. 

But they only managed to save everyone because of Ironwood. Because he kept fighting for his people to the bitter end. This is why, though his horrific actions obviously exist in the story, they make no sense (he’ll threaten to kill his people so he can... save his people?) and mess up what little is working in the finale. The story wants us to celebrate the group for evacuating Mantle and Atlas, but the Atlas evacuation would not have happened if not for Ironwood’s actions  — the actions that are ignored in favor of having Winter blame him for everything and then killing him off. The rescue of “everyone” was very much a joint effort. RWBYJNOR’s win is not actually a contrast to Ironwood’s intended sacrifice, for the simple reason that their win depended entirely on Ironwood’s actions. 

If we’re going to celebrate the group getting everyone to safety, we should probably also celebrate the guy who got them all to an easy evacuation point and ensured they weren’t eaten before then. Does that mean Ironwood never did anything wrong? Of course not. As established, the story went out of its way to make him into a villain. Rather, it means that other parts of the story failed to maintain that black and white view, complicating the heroism of RWBYJNOR in the process. If we want Ironwood to be incapable of heroic action, always the bad guy, nothing good to say about him whatsoever... then we likewise need to accept that the group is rather unheroic in many regards too. That, on their own, they would have failed to save everyone, just as Ironwood’s plan failed to save everyone at the end of Volume 7. Because they chose their friend over a kingdom. Because they sat around in a mansion. Because by the time they took action again and tried to escape, without Ironwood’s help they would have lost a larger majority than they originally insisted be saved. 

[teatitty]

Fuck it it’s gone one in the morning so here are my thoughts on Fionn and Diarmuid canonically, in myth, internalising everything that happens to them and repressing the fuck out of their emotions (specifically the negative ones)

Fionn is the most depressing so lets start there! I’ve mentioned before that he’s only cried in public twice in his entire life; once when Bran died and once when Oscar did. Given that Oscar died in the middle of a war we can probably infer that Bran also died during some kind of fight, which makes sense since wolfhounds were both hunting dogs and war dogs, trained to take people down off their horses. Now the thing about Fionn is that he always puts the needs of other above himself. Every single time, no matter how trivial, he will prioritise the people around him before he ever thinks about himself, which is both his best asset and his biggest flaw

When Sadhbh was kidnapped he went dead silent, thinned his lips tight, and locked himself in his room for the rest of the day, not once coming out, not even for food or water. When Oscar died, he broke down on the battlefield there and then before completely ripping the opposing army a new arsehole. So why does he repress those emotions and bottle them away until he’s in a situation where that’s not possible? Easy! Because he’s not just the leader of the Fianna, he’s not just the Seventh King of Ireland, he’s also Ireland’s pillar, their protector, hell he even operates as a therapist sometimes

Fionn takes on everyone’s burdens, physical or emotional, literal or metaphorical and because of that he cannot afford to let himself get caught up in negative emotions like anger or grief or bitterness because everyone looks to him for help and guidance and if he falls they will have no-one. He’s basically the mythos version of Superman and Captain America - a symbol for his people that has to put aside all of his own personal shit to ensure the livelihood, safety and continuing peace of the masses

He internalises and represses so that nobody else has to. As long as he is standing - as long as he is smiling - there is hope

With Diarmuid the reason is much simpler; Fae experience emotions far more intensely than humans do. This is a fact of their lore, it’s why any small slight against them can have them turn into the most vindictive shits you’ve ever met and why when they fall in love they can become near obssessive with it. A good example of how strong their emotions are is when Brigid’s son died during the war between the Aos Si and the Formorians; she broke down on the battlefield and her grief was so strong that not only did she invent the ritual of keening there and then, it was also the first time grief had ever been felt in Ireland

And I don’t mean that in a “oh Brigid was the first one to feel it” way I mean it in the “Brigid’s grief over her son was so fucking strong everyone in Ireland, including her fellow deities, could feel it” way. Diarmuid represses his emotions because he is keenly aware that if he didn’t he could seriously fuck up all the humans around him. Unchecked joy and happiness could at best be too intense for humans to deal with and at worst it could charm them so severely that they die from grief the moment he leaves (yes there is quite a bit of folklore of humans being charmed by a fae - usually because of their singing which they do mostly when they’re happy - and then dying of grief or heartbreak when they can no longer hear or feel their presence anymore)

His grief could tear someone’s heart to pieces in such a way that they never fully recover and his rage may rival even Cu Chulainn’s riastrad. These are all hypothetical scenarios. Diarmuid is half human himself and so there is no proof that his emotions could affect anyone this strongly. But the one time we know of where he got genuinely angry, he put the fear of the Gods themselves into Conán mac Morna for the first time in his long lived life and during the Gowra battle his glee and bloodlust was so strong that everyone left himself and his opponent completely alone to tear eachother to pieces

So yeah. There you have it. “I repress shit so I can put the needs of those around me above myself” VS “I repress shit because if I don’t there’s a chance I might accidentally kill you or something”

[x0401x]

Violet Evergarden Movie Summary

The initial plan was to make this a short bullet-point thing, but I felt like there was too much to clarify and I had no choice but use novel references to explain certain parts, so I decided to just write a normal summary. Many thanks before-hand to my friend Yuuki, who gave me all this info.

Apologies for taking relatively long with this thing. Not even I expected that I would end up writing this much. Buckle up for the ride, ‘cause it won’t be fun.

Nope, not kidding. It really won’t.

First thing I need to make clear is: this movie is one and a half hour long and divided into three parts and two different timelines: the times when Violet existed and the times after she dies. Already in the beginning of the movie, Violet is dead.

Yes, you read this right. She’s dead.

Now, I don’t mean that she’s dead in the literal sense. This is 60 years in the future. She might be alive or not, but it’s never said. However, the timeline of 60 years later is considered an era without Violet, apparently because she has retired and her “legend” is over, so to say. It’s also a time where Auto-Memories Dolls don’t exist. That’s one good punch in the face. Let’s keep counting.

The movie is sort of like a tale being read by someone else, which at some point goes into Violet’s first-person POV. The whole thing is kind of a look back on Violet’s life tragectory and how it took a new turn when she decided to continue looking for Gil despite all the mess of the TV series.

The era where Violet exists is an era where telephones are being introduced to the people, so Auto-Memories Dolls are starting to become unnecessary. I would argue that the creation of the telephone isn’t enough for an entire occupation to start disappearing so quickly, since new inventions are normally extremely expensive and not everyone has access to them (or even knows about their existence) so immediately after their conception. Realistically speaking, ghostwriters would still be important as long as there were still so many people unable to buy phones. Not to mention that this is a steampunk world where compulsory education doesn’t seem to be a thing yet, so even in the off chance that everybody can buy a phone, there would still be a lot of people who can’t read or write on their own. But all of this clearly went over the animators’ heads, so not only ghostwriters but also the mail business in general are nearing their doom in the movie.

The one looking back on Violet’s life was Ann, who was telling it all to her granddaughter, Daisy (who, by the way, is voiced by Morohoshi Sumire, the same girl who voiced the seven-year-old Ann). Ann had kept all the letters that Violet ghostwrote for her mother, as well as the newspapers about the CH Postal Company. Looks like the article was printed after Violet left CH, since she isn’t in the picture with everyone else.

In this era, CH’s main office has been turned into a museum. Nerine is shown working in it. Of course, she’s a grandma by then. Speaking of the CH personnel, Erica also quit being an Auto-Memories Doll and became a playwright like Oscar. She appears in the newspaper, though, so she probably a while left after Violet did. Taylor also appears there.

Back to Daisy, she was writing a letter to her parents, in order to learn how to properly convey feelings with written word. The message of this scene seems to be that, no matter the tools, what’s important is that we convey our feelings to the people we love.

As we see in the trailer, Gil’s mom has passed and Violet runs into Dietfried when visiting her grave on the anniversary of her death. To anyone who is wondering: yeah, Gil never went to see his mother and she died thinking that he was dead.

Nobody knew that Gil was alive. Not his mother, not Dietfried, not the Evergardens and not even Hodgins. No one.

Here’s what happened to Gil in the anime: he survived the incident at Intense, of course, but got separated from Violet in that explosion. His tag miraculously stayed on the same spot, though, as we saw in the TV series. Now, since this isn’t explained in the anime at all, I have to make it clear: the tag is that necklace the soldiers wear. It contains their names and ranks, so that their bodies can be identified even when they’re irrecognizable. Without the tag, the people who rescued Gil had no idea who he was, so he was sent to a different place to get treated. He ended up at a monastery hospital instead of the one in Enchaîné. I would debate that his uniform alone is enough to identify him as someone from the Leidenschaftlich Army, or maybe they could’ve just asked him which troop he belonged to after he woke up and relocated him to where his fellow men were, but who even cares about all these plot holes anymore? Definitely not me.

Anyway. After Gil was discharged, he ran the fuck away. Like, literally.

If anyone out there was hoping that Gil would finally have his moment to shine as the self-sacrificing, thoughtful and ridiculously kindhearted character that he is in the novel, I have bad news for you. What we had here was even worse than it being Gil’s excuse movie. It’s like the whole thing was made to drag his character so deep through the mud that he’ll never be able to get up again. There’s pretty much nothing in this one and a half hour that actually justifies what he did to Violet. I’ll elaborate on this as we go on.

Anime!Gil became a nomad and went traveling. He offed his ass to the island where that lighthouse displayed in the most recent official art is located (that’s why Gil and Violet were at the beach on the movie poster). He doesn’t have a prosthetic in the anime because, apparently, he was more worried about disappearing as fast as possible to somewhere he would never be found, and never attempted to contact anybody. So nobody knew that he was alive, hence the grave, which, as we feared, was not a fake one. His family really did think he had died.

This is a point that I have already addressed before, but that also means Gil really did abandon Violet to luck. If anything dangerous ever happened to her (as it did, and it was always very obviously likely to happen, since she was the southern army’s most outstanding soldier and quite literally fled from the military), he wouldn’t even know. If word ever got to him, it would probably be too late. And even if it weren’t, he wouldn’t be able to do anything to help her. More than allowing her to live freely, it felt like he was running away from his responsibilities regarding Violet.

Punch on the face count is currently at six.

By sheer coincidence, Violet learns that Gil is living in that island. She goes to see him and Hodgins goes with her after trying to stop her at first. When Gil finds out that they came to see him, he outright refuses to meet them. It pretty much takes the near entirety of the goddamn movie for them to see each other face-to-face. I say face-to-face because all of the following shit happens:

Hodgins goes to talk to Gil. It lasts about 20 minutes.

Gil talks to Violet from behind a door. This one is about 10 minutes.

Dietfried also comes to the island to talk to him. Also about 10 minutes.

At long fucking last, Gil goes to see Violet. But that, too, is only for about 10 minutes.

Hodgins gives him a speech very similar to what happens in chapter 8. Now get ready to fall back from your seats: Dietfried basically goes there to tell Gil that he won’t run away from taking over the family anymore, so Gil can live freely. Yes, Dietfried is officially a better Gilbert than Gilbert himself. I crave death.

So, after much ado, they come to a conclusion: Gil will stay in the island. In order to completely free himself of the shackles of his bloodline, he stays behind, living the way he wants to. ‘Cause all anime!Gil wants is to rot away alone by the sea, apparently. Now prepare yourselves, for it gets worse. Ready?

Violet stays with him in the motherfucking island.

That’s right, ladies and gents. Another fear became true. She quits her job at the CH Postal Company and goes to live with him. Well, at least, not as a housewife. She starts working with mail services in the island, and Gil helps her with it. Her life goes on like this and she dies in the island as well.

This is where the timeline after Violet passes away comes into light, parallel to the era when Violet was alive. Daisy talks about what happened after Violet left CH, as if it were a tale from the distant past.

That’s it.

The movie paints this as a happy ending. I can hardly see it as one. I know it almost looks like everything was solved, but it just got swept under the rug.

The main point that makes me sad in this ending is that Violet’s character development did a 360 degree flip. In the end, she threw everything to the air and went to live in someone who she always put before everyone else, even herself, but who didn’t do the same for her (in the anime). She’s gone to a crammed little island, where she led an uneventful life away from everyone and everything that’s ever had a positive impact on her. All she has is Gil.

Of course, he’s all she needs, but he isn’t all she should have, and that was the entire point of pushing her to go live on her own. Which is exactly what she earns in the novel: two loving parents, a father figure, a brother figure, a best friend and several other friends and acquaintances whom she formed a bond with. She has all she needs, so she doesn’t have to cling to Gil for any reason. There’s no emotional dependance on him anymore. She doesn’t need him to be whole. She just wants him because he happens to be the best person she’s ever met.

Anime!Violet is most definitely not whole. She almost got there, but then she backtracked completely. And anime!Gil... in my friend’s words, is a weakling. There’s nothing in him actually worth all this undying blind love. Sure, he’s full of regret and shit, but it’s too easy to only act upon it now, by vanishing into thin air like a coward.

The deal with novel!Gil is that he looks around at everything he has, everything that had been burdening him and killing him on the inside all his life, and decides to make use of it for Violet’s sake. He continues being family head and working in the army, amassing money and connections in order to have every means possible to protect Violet should anything happen to her. And as it turns out, he does end up having to use those means, more than once, but he will keep this up for as long as he needs to, because he lives for her now. That’s what makes him worth all the blood, sweat, tears, mental sanity and even body parts that she gave away for his sake: he pays it back. Every cent.

Punch in the face count ends at twelve. Thirteen if I include the fact that the movie ends with a last shot of Violet after she and Gilbert do a pinky swear. Looks like they were really trying to buy everyone with tears.

Oh, well.

I hope this has been a good enough summary. Sorry if I rained on anyone’s parade. I’m pretty sure we won’t get a remake ever, so I really wish we all can get over this soon.

[nexyra]

Okay so This is just a way to let out some frustration so I can put it out there and stop mulling on it bc I'm bad at this sort of stuff - Feel free to ignore it

I'm putting this under Read More; if your fav past-time is to call anyone who likes Ironwood's character or was disappointed by his V8 turn to villainy a stupid bootlicker who "should have seen the signs he was always a tyrant !!" please don't interact with this post. You're ultimately free to think what you want but honestly I see enough of that in the main tag when left alone, I don't need it on my blog it doesn't make me feel good.

Anyone else... well you can read if you're interested but you don't have to either. Feel free to respectfully disagree though, I'm not that bullheaded that I can't partake in a friendly argument =) I'll just be listing some things about Ironwood's reading by the FNDM who get old or draining as someone who doesn't like the V8-characterization they went with

Can people please stop just... copy/pasting real world issues on a world/characters that have nothing to do with them or a completely different context ?

Like,, I genuinely try to educate myself on real-world issues. I know I'm rather privileged so I try to listen and hear out people who speak out about the issues they live through day by day. I know why the "ACAB" moniker exists. I understand the problem that lies within the american police system (and likely other countries as well). I see why the army, on our blue planet, is criticized & its many failings. Etc, the list can go on...

But I'm sorry to say, Remnant isn't OUR Earth. Their Army's primary job is to fight actual evil soulless monsters, not people. The Ace Opps or Huntsmen are not an organization directly inherited from slave-hunting groups. James Ironwood isn't the US army general bombing Middle East. Clover Ebi isn't the racist cop you want in prison. So WHY are they treated as such by so many people ? Stories are not a 1-1 where you can take everything you know and just apply it to a completely different world.

Has Atlas been presented as a country that suffers from racism & classism ? Certainly. Has it be shown this way ? That's already more debatable since the only racist arguments we got were in Mantle (which is the city we're supposed to be rooting for so that's a weird choice but eh it's whatever). Are the characters, as persons, shown to evoke these issues in a way that deserve our scorn ? Not really.

Is Ironwood depicted as particularly racist for example ? I wouldn't say so seeing as one (or more considering Tortuga) of his Ace-Opps are Faunus & it seems perfectly accepted; and he hates Jacques Schnee's guts. So why does he get to shoulder all of our real-world issues as if he was responsible for them, in a context where (pre V8) his army had most likely never killed anything else than Grimm and was shown to elicit very positive reactions from most of the population (V3) ? (In direct contrast to the polarization that the US army might evoke for example.)

You can totally hate Ironwood because of the feelings he evoke, the trope he stems from or the parallels to be made. That doesn't mean however, that he IS truly guilty of every one of OUR world issues (pre-V8)

Just because classism is prevalent in Atlas society does not make Ironwood the figurehead & leader of this issue.

Is classism an issue in Atlas ? Yes. That's been made clear because of Mantle's state as well as Jacques Schnee entire existence & even Cinder's backstory. Does that mean every single one of Ironwood's decisions reeks of classism ? NO

Trust me, as someone who found Ironwood's V8 characterization not... well-executed & too much; there's nothing more annoying than being assaulted by posts about his fall going "it was so obvious !! look at -" only for them to then list reasons in a really biased way or even headcannons based on (again) irl problems. An exemple...

Reasons his turn was good that I see thrown around : "Ironwood left Mantle behind because he only wanted to save the rich. He's a selfish coward & an asshole !"

What we were actually given : "Ironwood suffers from PTSD, and faced with Salem's imminent arrival, he tried to save what he was CERTAIN to be able to protect aka the flying city and all the people on it including Mantle evacuees. There is absolutely no text backing the idea that he wanted to leave with Atlas because it's rich. We could even suppose that he would have left with the 'poor' Mantle if it was the flying city and rich people were hanging safely on the ground. There is indeed an issue with Atlas & Mantle disparity, but Ironwood isn't directly responsible for it."

Does that make his decision to leave Mantle behind a morally right one ? That's of course NOT what I'm saying. The situation is still very ambiguous. But the classism theme has NO place here.

"Ironwood leads Atlas & Mantle. As such, he inherently holds responsability for the issues plaguing it." THIS is an acceptable reading according to me. I would probably argue that even if Ironwood's the only Atlas leader we're shown; he actually only oversees the military & academy (where we haven't ever seen classism issues), so putting Atlas' classism issues on him still doesn't sound fair to me. However the idea & argument is sound.

Acknowledging only how his actions look/the tyrannical surface reading and not the reasonnable justifications or glimpses we were given (pre-V7) of Ironwood being more than his trope

I'll probably stop after this one, but the last thing that is both tiring & annoying after too much of it; is seeing people boil down all of Ironwood's character to the most basic summary, inherently written to paint him in a bad line. And then saying that everything led up to his downfall by using these watered-down versions of the show's events to justify it. Or worse (imo), saying that people who are not satisfied with his V8 characterization that THEY don't understand how good a character he is and don't really appreciate him.... All the while only ever highlighting his characters flaws. Please stop this.

"Ironwood brought an army to the peace Olympics why are you surprised he turned out this way ?" ==> Ironwood brought an army to a country where the civilians visibly have no issue with said-army, to protect a peaceful event that he KNOWS to be targeted by foes. It's definitely overzealous & his conviction that threats should be dealt with by blunt force IS one of his flaws; but pretending that he did it for fun or because he's a tyran is just as misplaced.

"Ironwood said he'd shoot Qrow if he were one of his men why are you surprised he shot Oscar ?" ==> Do I really need to flip through every joke in this show and consider it as absolute truth & proof that the character would enact these words if given the occasion; even when we're shown with certainty that they actually don't mean it ? (IW hugging Qrow to welcome him, refusing to attack Qrow when he's certain Qrow IS attacking him...)

"Ironwood has his military all over Mantle, there's a curfew, all of this is tyrannical why are you surprised he's also down for genocide" ==> Damn, it sure is criminal to have Mantle defended from the litteral monsters roaming inside & out, and to make sure with a curfew that the people are not at risk during the night. I wonder if any recent events could make us reconsider our stance on how evil a enforced curfew is. Mhmmm maybe a pandemic ? Nah I must be imagining things. For real though, at what point did Tyrian's framing/lies (IW has his soldiers all over Mantle because of politics/he's a tyran who refuses opposition) became the truth of the situation for the FDNM too ? Again Mantle's situations SUCK, and that's a problem in itself. Making up problematic reasoning for the situation is dishonest though.

To end this, I'll just make clear. I do not condone any of Ironwood's actions post-V7. I don't think he had to be the big hero of the Atlas arc. Nor that he was without faults. I merely think that he'd have been a better antagonist than villain. And that it'd have been nice to keep the ambiguity/morally greyness that surrounds him; the knowledge that he's TRYING hard to do what's best for everyone; that he has good intentions. That he cares about individuals too to a lesser degree, and that he had people who cared about him as a person.

For short... Ironwood as an antagonist with understandable issues, flaws & failures; making questionable choices but with good intentions ? Hell yeah. Ironwood as a villain, more irredeemable than Hazel, willing to kill people for NO reason or even wipe out a city ? I'm not convinced.

[afoolforatook]

Oh look... another rant about James Ironwood.....

I’ve gotten into this some before but I’ve been thinking about it a lot since Witch (I wrote most of this like that day, but then put off ever really finishing it, but in light of the preview for tomorrow’s ep…….I feel like I need to get this out, so…)

(still not 100% on how I said all of this but I’m making myself finish it even though I’m kinda foggy headed before the ep, so apologies if I missed some poor wording in anything)

So, Fear came on while I was in the shower and… Honestly, I’ve had a bit of a roller coaster with Fear over the past 12 months. I love the song, but something about it didn’t sit right with me at first to be honest, though I wasn’t quite sure what. 

It’s a gorgeous song. And the message seems like such a staple, good moral. It’s the whole  ‘the greatest thing to fear is fear itself’ idea; that we have to stand strong against fear; fear is the true evil and can cause even the best intentions to go wrong. 

But, the thing that always bothers me about those messages, or at least how a lot of people tend to interpret them, is the idea that we should judge a person’s morals ultimately by their reaction to fear. And specifically by them not handling their fear well. The idea that how we act in the face of fear is who we truly are deep down, that being truly ‘good’ means never letting that fear win, and if you do, then you must be weak, or a villain, or selfish, or a coward. 

And that has never sat right with me. 

(got long so rest under read more)

In a tags rant a while back I got into how, to me, James Ironwood is Qrow’s foil.  In the sense of ‘a character who chooses to be kind despite all their pain’. 

Qrow is that character people tend to love, who is torn down over and over and still pushes himself to be good and kind, and —that we have seen— he usually wins that battle. He has backsliding moments of course (the entirety of V6 is a good example) but even then, he doesn’t really fall into the deep end as far as letting his pain and fear turn him mean or controlling. He might not be particularly pleasant, he might be listless and blunt or even grouchy, but he still cares and he tries to keep to himself and keep his mood from making him outright mean (aside from hitting Oscar, which I’m not gonna get into here cause that’s a whole thing on its own and this isn’t about Qrow)

But here is James as a foil comes in. 

Qrow is the character who is pushed to his breaking point over and over, who hits rock bottom.  But he has the support around him to be able to keep getting back up, to keep having the emotional ability to choose to be good, to do the right thing. 

James? He doesn’t have that support. He has Winter and the Ops and an entire army under him, but he doesn’t have any real personal support. The closest we’ve ever really seen to him having peers or friends, is the hug with Qrow in V7, and Clover’s comment about trusting him with his life (and calling him James, which we’d just been told is only what his friends call him). 

And I don’t mean support as in someone telling him what he’s doing is right, someone backing him up in his decisions, making him feel better. 

Qrow’s support that got him back on track? It was Ruby standing her ground and telling him to stop treating them like kids he had to protect; to trust them to be able to do the right thing; to stop putting all the blame and responsibility on himself. It was calling him out on how he was letting his personal struggles affect how he treated and ultimately viewed the kids. 

James needs this too. He needs someone he trusts to tell him that he’s wrong, but that he can still try to make it right. (RWBY doesn’t count because, at the time that they stood up to him, he had just found out that Blake and Yang had, in his eyes, betrayed his trust. And for a man who is in a sharp spiral of having all his worst fears and paranoia confirmed, that means they can’t be trusted at all.)

We love the character who pushes and continues to be good and kind through hardship.  Who continues to do the right thing with the strength they have left. 

But everyone has a true breaking point. A point where they have pushed for so long and tried so hard, but then one thing goes too far and they don’t have the support to lean on, to help them keep fighting. And, despite having tried so hard to do the right thing, even thinking this still is the right thing, they react out of fear and pain. 

Ren called out Yang on her fear, and her masking it. 

We love the character who stands in the face of their fear, who meets it head on and doesn’t let it rule them. We love the character who gets back up over and over and chooses to keep fighting, their enemies, and their own fear and pain. 

But, what if one day, after years and years of fighting and pain and loss and paranoia and hard decisions, what if Yang gave into that fear, even just once? What if any of the kids did? What if they reached their limit and, even without realizing it, made the wrong choice because they were tired and afraid and hurting? And people got hurt because of it? Would that undo all the times they’d been ‘strong’ before? Would they be selfish, villains, cowards? Would they be weak?  

This is the problem when we see ‘giving into/reacting out of fear’ as a definite moral indicator. When we say that who you really are deep down is shown by the choices that you make when you’re afraid. 

Because it’s not.  

And that idea doesn't take into account all the times you’ve fought through that fear before. It doesn’t allow for the inevitability of being pushed too far, or the ability to come back from that breaking point. 

Yes fighting that fear, facing it head on, is brave. 

But no one, no one, can do that indefinitely, especially when they are doing it alone (emotionally).

Fighting that fear takes a lot of strength, that’s why it’s admirable, why it’s brave. It’s not easy.  But pushing yourself over and over, until that strength is completely spent, and then having to face that fear again when you genuinely have nothing left?

That doesn't make you evil or cruel or weak or a coward. It makes you human. 

James Ironwood broke. Not because of the machinery that is half his body; not because he doesn't have a heart; not because he’s selfish and thinks he’s infallible; not because he’s obsessed with power and too proud to admit he’s wrong, but because he pushed himself over and over until he had nothing left, and had no one to stop him, no one to snap him out of it. 

James Ironwood isn’t a coward. He isn’t just power hungry and unwilling to compromise. He isn’t incapable of compassion. He’s tired (I mean, look at all of V7), traumatized (his comment to Oscar in the vault about seeing things, and multiple other examples), a bit awkward (Penny telling him he was getting better at giving speeches), vulnerable (the hug with Qrow), understanding (telling the kids they didn’t have to stay at fight at the Fall), loyal (flipping his weapon around and refusing to attack when he thought Qrow was attacking him at Beacon). Not to mention still undoubtedly reeling from the pain and trauma of losing his other arm. 

He has fought his fear. 

Over and over. Until it wore him down completely. 

And we’ve seen nothing to make us believe he’s even properly addressed that trauma, let alone had proper time to process it ( and the conversation with the Ops about Tortuga all but confirmed this)

And the thing that I hate? That just really bothers me?

Yes. James is making awful, callous, choices that are costing lives. And he needs to answer for those choices. And he’s doing them because he is absolutely terrified, and he’s let that fear overshadow all other options. That fear has made him paranoid to the point that he trusts no one but himself to do what must be done to try to save anyone he can, even if it means abandoning others he’s meant to protect.  

But I hate the attitude I see from far too many people; that his fear,  and this inevitable loss to that fear, makes him weak, makes him a villain, a coward. That his reaction to that fear proves that he is just a power hungry dictator. Seeing people wanting to see him be shamed him for it, to laugh at how weak he really is for letting fear control him. 

We commend characters who push through trauma. We want representation for those who have fought trauma themselves. 

But real life? Actual people struggling with PTSD and paranoia, and just everyday fear?

They’re going to break. They’re going to wake up one day and be too tired to fight it, and if they don’t have the kind of support to help them get back to a place where they can fight, and think clearly, again —they’ll make bad, even hurtful, callous, decisions. Not out of malice or selfishness, but simply because they are afraid and unable to see the full picture clearly. 

And the way to help them isn’t to mock them for not being infinitely strong against their fear. It's not to tell them that, by submitting to their fear —no matter how many times they've beat it in the past— they have shown their true colors. 

The way to help them is by showing them that, even after their missteps, even IN the deepest part of their fear, they can find that strength again. They can come back and try to make things right. 

Fear is the enemy, maybe. But being afraid and not having the unending strength to fight that fear, does not make you an irredeemable villain. 

James’ flaw is that he sees himself as the grand hero. Not in the sense that he is infallible or better, but that he thinks it's his responsibility, his duty, it’s something he’s ready to make sacrifices for. And, with Oz gone, and RWBYJNROQ apparently against him, he has to believe that he can do it —he can save people— because if not him, who else can he trust?

And that kind of paranoia, on top of trauma, and unacknowledged fear, is so hard to fight on a good day, let alone after physical trauma, and under extreme stress, and having paranoia be proven right multiple times, triggering past trauma. 

People in power are still people, and will still have their own psychological reactions to trauma. Acknowledging that trauma and how it affects their decisions (and the reality of the nuance beyond ‘good’ and ‘evil’) and holding them accountable for their decisions are not mutually exclusive. (I’m not gonna get too into a whole thing about direct ties to real world politics and leaders, because I honestly don’t have the knowledge or energy, but let’s just settle that the fictional circumstances are completely different than real world, and that characters and actions have a narrative meaning and importance that is not how real world people and motivations work. Me saying that Ironwood’s trauma and how it affects his decisions is an important part of his narrative and the theme of trauma in RWBY is not saying that we have to take into account every trauma or psychological motivation behind the actions of real world leaders. ) 

The fact is that James shouldn't have had so much military power, or at the very least, not such seemingly unchecked control, since at least since the fall of Beacon (likely before as well, but we don’t know how much things changed). The fact that things were able to get so far without another military official of similar authority having input is a flaw in Atlas’ structure (not counting counsel members since it’s been made clear that IW is the military leader). 

I don’t in any way say that in a ‘traumatized/mentally ill people can’t ever be trusted with power’ way, but rather, that this is a man who has shown obvious signs of PTSD for years, with no apparent attempts or even opportunities to address and process his trauma, or likely even acknowledge it at all. 

Trauma and the lasting effects of it don’t automatically make someone unfit for leadership, but that is only as long as it is being addressed and managed properly, including having other people on the same level as you, so that your judgement alone does not control entire groups and their safety (that applies regardless of mental state but, my point here isn’t to get into complicated, real world accurate government debate)

My point is, I know how hard it is to, day after day, fight back that kind of looming fear and paranoia. How hard it is to tell yourself over and over that it is just that: paranoia. How hard it is to keep doing that, when even one or two things happen to seemingly reinforce that paranoia. Let alone when it’s huge things one after another after another. 

I know how exhausting that is, and my circumstances are infinitely less dire and large scale than what James has been facing for the last few years at the very least, likely much longer. 

The man broke under the pressure. And I don't fucking blame him. Of course he did. 

But he happened to also be in a position of power, in a system that did not have an appropriate distribution of power in place (really not just ‘happened’, because a large part of the stress that fed into this was feeling, and actually being responsible for countless lives, maybe even the entire world.)

James sees himself as a hero. Not in a bragging, overly confident way. But as his duty, his purpose. In that he must be unbreakable, he must be able to protect whoever he can at whatever cost. He has to win, or everything will be lost. It’s not arrogant pride. It’s twisted, tunnel vision, dedication. 

So, when everything depends on him, and giving into fear is unacceptable, even acknowledging his own breakdown would mean he failed. 

He doesn’t just think he is a hero, he thinks he has to be. But really, he’s just a man. And, anyone who refuses to even admit to their fear, who sees their fear as something to be ashamed and afraid of itself, is eventually going to lose that battle. 

And laughing at him for that weakness? Wanting to rub it in his face just how scared he really is? 

Like I get it, It know its fandom and we can joke. And honestly I'm not really talking about the jokes and memes (though I personally don't like some of them, but I’m not going to just say their inherently awful altogether) or the excitement to see the drama and action of his confrontation with Qrow. I’m not meaning the cathartic tension and messy emotions. I’m meaning people actually wanting to see this all be completely shoved back in his face and watch him be brought down a peg, watch him be humiliated or killed or whatever as a way of him ‘getting what’s coming’. Or just wanting to see him beaten and made to pay for being some power hungry cruel dictator, genuinely reveling in his falling apart.  

Like, y’all. It’s not going to be dropping him down a peg, or destroying some power grab. He is literally at rock bottom, backed into a corner. 

It’s just honestly very disturbing seeing people so ready to revel in the complete breakdown and possible demise of a (disabled) character with obvious and intentional signs of PTSD, who had previously always been shown to be a good, if somewhat short-sighted or misguided, person. 

And think about it, if you were dealing with that kind of overwhelming fear; if you were trying to keep fighting it off, and you saw someone having it shoved in their face just how scared they were, and how much damage that had caused, would you be willing to admit your fear? 

Or would you become even more afraid of not being strong enough and giving in to it. 

It's all cyclical. You’re afraid. You’re afraid of giving into that fear. You’re afraid of letting people down, of being hated, of being wrong, of hurting people, of becoming the villain in the end if you slip up even once and let that fear win. 

In essence you're afraid of being afraid. 

Yang has someone to acknowledge her fear in a safe way, she has the ability to admit how scared she is, and keep fighting anyway. Not denying her fear or feeling guilty for it, but accepting it and still moving on 

It's not that bravery is just being afraid and fighting anyway. It’s also admitting how scared you really are. Letting yourself be afraid, be terrified. And admitting when you've reached a breaking point. 

James isn't just not acknowledging his fear because he's too proud, or doesn't want to admit he is wrong, or give up his power. 

He thinks he can't afford to be afraid. That just being afraid, just admitting it, means he is too weak to do what he sees as his biggest role: be the hero. Just admitting how scared he is would mean that he's failed. 

Bravery isn't just being afraid and fighting anyway. Bravery is admitting that you are afraid and allowing that fear to be there as you keep fighting, without being ashamed of it. 

People aren't either just ‘brave’ or ‘cowardly’. Being brave takes something extra, something intentional. So does being cowardly. Not being able to do the ‘brave’ or ‘right’ thing, not being able to even tell what that is, or even doing the ‘wrong’ thing because it seems like the only option, or even the ‘right’ option,  doesn’t automatically make you a coward or evil.

Just because you aren't able to be brave, to be the hero, just because you make the wrong decision in the moment when you are terrified and alone, doesn't mean you are just a coward or the bad guy. That doesn't mean you've shown your true colors, and deep down you really are heartless or cruel. 

I'm not the biggest fan of the entire ‘Fear is the enemy’ thing. 

Because, if fear is the enemy, then how is the answer to then be afraid of fear? Fearing fear is still giving it power over you. If the worst thing you can do is give into fear, then the bravest thing you can do has to be allowing yourself to be afraid, working to keep that fear from making decisions for you, and forgiving yourself when you fail, and then just trying to do better. 

Everyone is going to be afraid. Everyone is going to make the wrong decision at some point because they made it out of fear. 

You aren't just allowed to be afraid. You are allowed to not be able to beat that fear 100% of the time. Hitting your limit, especially when you feel like you're doing it alone is okay. You can still come back. You can still try to do better next time, try to make amends for the mistakes you made. 

That doesn't mean you don't have to face the consequences of your actions. That doesn't mean the people directly hurt by your actions are obliged to forgive you. It's not an all or nothing thing. 

And none of this is to say that James is not at fault, that he isn't and shouldn't be responsible for his actions. That he shouldn’t face consequences. 

But his fear, his trauma, matters. It’s at the core of his entire character.  

At first, I was somewhat uncomfortable with Fear, because I thought it was saying that James was weak, wrong, the villain, for giving into his fear. That he was an example for RWBY about the dangers of letting your fear control you. That he was already lost because he had given in to his fear. 

And maybe it is, I don't know. 

But listening to it the other day, I noticed something hadn’t occurred to me before. 

‘But our greatest fear will be realized/ when we fall and lose ourselves to fear/ we become what we’ve feared all our lives’ 

Now, yes, this is all about looking ahead, about being ready to make the right choice in that coming moment. About being prepared ahead of time, and thinking about how you will act when you’re afraid. 

But this, and the chorus, also seem a bit reflective almost. It’s posed as future questions, but for James, he’s there already. He’s made the wrong choice. If you look at the lyrics from his perspective, it’s not about if it will happen. It’s about confronting yourself when it already has happened. 

James’ greatest fear is to realize he took the wrong path, he lost sight of everything but the most basic goal, he got so caught up in trying to be the hero that he missed how much damage he was really causing. In trying to be the hero, he became a villain. 

And, since the end of V7 he’s been having to face his worst fears (likely longer, but Gravity kicked it into high gear that pushed him over the edge). 

He’s faced (or believed he has) betrayal, physical trauma and further ‘loss of humanity’ and is almost certainly still in shock and/or pain from the injury and the brand new (likely rushed) prosthetic, not having Oz there (or ‘on his side’), events of the Fall reoccurring with the chess piece and the school being infiltrated, seeing Salem in his office and the loss of anywhere feeling protected, losing a trusted soldier/friend, Salem attacking, the world finding out about Salem and the possible aftermath, Atlas’ defenses failing.

He’s shut down, reacting out of desperation and fear, trying to salvage whatever he can (not to mention his semblance just making it easier for him to ignore his feelings or doubts and put blinders on). 

He’s alone, losing soldiers and control and protections and options. 

So, him truly realizing his mistakes, and having to face the reality of what he’s done, and try to fix things? 

That is the fear he has yet to face. He’s already met his first breaking point. Maybe this realization is the next, but maybe this time he’ll have someone support him enough to hold him accountable and help him come back. Give him the choice: prove he’s still capable of doing the right thing, and accepting his own weakness and need for help, or refuse to admit to his fear and truly become a ‘villain’.

--------------------

Also, at the end here I’ll tack on this total stretch of a theory that I couldn’t stop thinking about after Witch. 

Oz, Leo, James, Theodore (I don’t know how Qrow or Glynda would fit into this theory, just the headmasters.)

We say Leo fell to his allusion: he was cowardly and chose to protect himself despite the cost to others. 

So people think that James will fall to his allusion: He’ll be heartless. 

But it still to me just feels too straight forward for the Oz characters to just all fall to their original vices. 

But, in a way, Leo’s end (not his death, but his choices) was reminiscent of the wizard. He was being puppeted, hiding himself and the person really running things for his own preservation. 

So, if Leo fell to Oz’s flaw? 

Oz. Well, Oz was standing to protect his home, was caught up in sudden chaos and wounded (in his case killed) and flung into a new life.  

So.. if it’s a cycle… Oz got a ‘second’ chance, an awakening like Dorothy. Leo got the reveal of the wizard’s lie. 

What if James got the lion’s confrontation of his fears (not necessarily, and hopefully not, by dying. Also, James not dying could feed into a different progression than just the ‘headmasters dying’ pattern; Oz handed the reins over to Oscar, Leo acted to protect himself and died, maybe James is the one to have to directly face the consequences of his actions, including giving up his position). And then Theodore somehow getting a decision of heart. 

The other thing with Oz being ‘Dorothy’ in this pattern, is Oscar bringing up the ‘girl who fell through the world’ myth. Which feels very much like Alice in Wonderland. And L Frank Baum was influenced by Alice when creating Dorothy. So, what if Oscar’s allusion, at least in part, is Alice.

It’s all a stretch and I don’t know what it could eventually mean but, it’s just something I couldn’t stop thinking about last week. 

[snowe-zolynn-rogers]

Pairings: None Yet

Word Count: 1,838 Words

Summary: With the evacuation of Mistral and Atlas successful, Cinder's attack, team RWBY and team JNR get to Vacuo.

Warnings: Food Mentions, Fighting Mention, Yelling Mention, Muteness, Disowning Mentions, Death Mentions, Dead Body Mention, Near Death Mentions, Stabbing Mention, Grieving, Abandonment(?Sorta) Mentions, let me know if I should tag anything else.

Notes: Sign Language looks like ‘this’.

Light The Beacon: Chapter 2

It was about halfway into the flight to Vacuo, May called them yelling that someone from Salem's group had invaded the airship Qrow was fighting her the best he could with the civilians onboard while May herself was taking over as the pilot.

"The only ones who can fly between planes are Ruby and Oscar." Yang announced as Hazel was already shaking Oscar awake.

"We have a situation on Qrow's ship. Salem's group has infiltrated and he can't fight them." Oscar got up, activating his semblance and jumping from the airship to fly to Qrow's airship where Qrow, in bird form, was luring Cinder away from the airship to protect the civilians onboard.

Cinder finally managed to land a hit on the crow and Qrow was suddenly falling.

Oscar was about to go get him but a flash of rose petals meant that Ruby was catching her uncle and another flurry of them meant she was back on the team's ship with him while Oscar took his turn to lure Cinder from the airships.

The fight was easy once he spotted the Grimm arm she had. He took the opportunity away from the airships to use the same feeling he had during the fight with Salem and he heard her screaming when he regained his wits on his descent to the sea.

He reactivated his aura and flew back up to the airships, Ruby's petals guiding him back to the team's airship as he watched Cinder plummet into the ocean and the splash that came with it.

Their flight went unimpeded from there, no more of Salem's allies apparently aboard the airships or those who were there were just smart enough to not do what Cinder did and risk their life.

Landing outside Vacuo wasn't anything but a grumbling mess as they got everyone off the airships and a few in the group went to meet with Theodore, the headmaster of Shade as he came to greet them on the edge of town. Ruby brought Yang and Blake.

"Hello, Sir. My name is Ruby Rose, I hope you don't mind but we've brought the people of Atlas and Mantle here temporarily because their cities were destroyed just last night." She explained.

"It should be fine. We got your message from Amity Tower and we made room for any hunters to stay in the Shade dorms while the rest can stay in the hotels of the city."

"Thank you. So much. It means a lot that you'd help on such short notice." Ruby told him.

"To be truthful, I was rounding up for an army to send to Atlas. They would've gone out this morning." He told them.

"Thankfully, it didn't come to that." Ruby smiled a bit.

"Yes, thankful. Your people look famished. When we saw your aircraft coming, we started making food for those onboard." Theodore alerted them.

"Hell yeah, I'm starving." Yang muttered. Theodore chuckled and smiled at the girl.

"Sorry, she means that she hasn't eaten since yesterday. I don't believe anyone has, to be honest." Blake shoved Yang with her elbow a bit to quiet her complaints.

"Of course. With all that horror around, it must have been difficult, no doubt. Whenever you're all ready, brunch will be at the Shade dining hall for everyone, no need to rush yourselves." Theodore smiled fondly at them and then made his way off to Shade academy, the majority of people of Atlas and Mantle following him as the teams stayed behind to recuperate.

"That was horrible." May lamented.

"I know." Emerald sighed.

"We made it, though." Hazel told the girls, patting their shoulders.

"We did. And we can be proud of ourselves. We saved both cities, guys. That's nothing to scoff at!" Ruby practically jumped for joy.

"We know it was good, Rubes, but it was bad. And it's still bad. She'll only be gone for so long. Who knows when we have to do that again. We can't just forget about her and pretend to live normal lives like we did before." Yang pensively spoke as Hazel finally got Oscar, still asleep, from the airship.

"But Yang-"

"We basically hinged everything on Oscar. We basically piled work on him when he just unlocked his semblance. He's only fifteen, Ruby! He's a child and we brought him into the forefront of a war that we can't win! He's a kid, he can't fight a war, it's not possible!" Yang snapped.

"Did you think the same thing when I was fifteen? That I was incapable?" Ruby asked, eyes glaring at her older sister.

"No, but I hoped you wouldn't take after me or mom or anyone in our family! I wanted you to be different so I never had to worry about you maybe getting killed on a bloody battlefield for a war you can't win!"

"I'm sorry I'm not what you wanted." Ruby bit and turned, walking to Shade academy.

"Yang." Blake softly whispered.

"Don't...Don't yell at me. Please. I know that was wrong of me." Yang whispered.

"I was going to say it's okay. We're all stressed. We all need a break. Maybe we can take a day to all calm down. Everything is a lot right now and I get it. So just calm down and try to talk with her later." Blake assured her.

"Okay. Thank you, Blake." Yang smiled a bit. "How's our collective adopted son?" Yang asked.

"Oscar's fine. Still sleeping, actually. We should probably wake him before we head to Shade." Hazel told them softly, trying not to wake him.

"He's been asleep for about six hours and he was asleep for about six before that, are we sure he's okay?" Penny asked.

"He's fine. The semblance just takes a lot from him." Jaune told them, boosting Oscar's aura so he could regain his aura faster.

"So his semblance really was that thing flying around?" Robyn asked.

"Yup, looks like I’ve got a new flying buddy." Qrow smiled.

"Great, new bird child. Now you’ve gotta make a nest and shove him into it." Robyn joked, elbowing Qrow.

"Marrow, you okay?" May asked as he finally came out of the aircraft.

"I'm just really tired and in pain from Harriet trying to break my ribs during the flight." He heaved, glaring at the girl still tied up even while Elm and Vine no longer were. Vine was looking over Harriet and Elm was shaking that cloaked figure.

"Alright, come on." May started leading him to Shade. "When we get there, you're eating and laying down." She muttered to him.

"I know." He mumbled as he let her lead him.

"Alright. We should all eat. We need to wake up Oscar on the way there." Weiss told them.

"Yeah, I'm starving, let's get going." Yang told her, happily swinging her arms around Blake and Weiss and beginning to walk to Shade, everyone else following.

"Oscar, wake up. We're in Vacuo." Hazel jostled him slightly.

"Hmm?" Oscar grumbled.

"We're in Vacuo. We're going to eat at Shade academy and then you can sleep more if you want." Hazel told him.

"I'm up." Oscar tried to move to get up only to find he was being carried. "Can I walk?" Oscar asked.

"You can. I suppose I can't carry you like a ragdoll constantly." Hazel smirked, setting him on the ground softly and Oscar followed after Hazel and Emerald, while Neo held a full conversation with Emerald in sign language.

'Roman loved it here. He always liked the sand.' Neo signed to Emerald.

"I suppose it is rather pretty. I can see why he liked it so much." Emerald smiled.

"Why did he go to Vale then?" Oscar asked.

'He left Vacuo after his family threw him out. He didn't have a semblance so they thought he was worthless.' Neo signed sadly.

"That's horrible." Oscar muttered.

'I know. But that's how life is. At least, after he got shunned from the Torchwick family, he travelled the world. He found me in Anima after a hunter raided the place my Master kept me.' She explained.

"So you are from Anima?" Oscar asked.

'Yes, I lived in Sayuri before my parents sold me. After that, I lived in Azami until Roman found me.' She signed, Emerald rubbing her arm as she held her against her side.

"Roman would be proud of you." Oscar smiled.

'I know he would.' Neo smiled back at him. Elm was guiding the cloaked figure to Vacuo, which made a large number of the people in the group confused because they'd all thought it was a body, not someone alive.

"Am I delusional or is that corpse walking?" Qrow asked the girls.

"Corpse? No. He was just severely injured. Marrow wanted time for him to heal and come up from the heavy sleeping medication he was sedated with on the flight and didn't want you to freak out or cry on the airship." Elm announced, pulling Qrow over to hug and showed him the cloaked figure.

"You got really lucky, huh?" If Qrow was crying hugging Clover, nobody would mention it.

"You made it." Qrow whispered in disbelief.

"I lost a lot of blood and got a pretty big scratch, but yeah, I made it. And I'm sorry for putting my orders over you." Clover hugged him back, making Qrow give a watery laugh.

"Scratch? Harbinger skewered you." Qrow sniffled, finally managing to wipe his face.

"I think of it as a scratch. Because it missed every vital organ. I guess my luck saved me in a way." Clover began leading Qrow after the group, keeping them moving toward Shade.

"Stubborn." Elm smiled, patting Clover's shoulder as she walked with Vine to keep Harriet under control.

"Can you let me go now? I get it now." Harriet asked.

"Get what, Hare?" Vine prompted.

"Don't follow the orders of a tyrant." She sighed and Vine finally took the cuffs off her.

"I'm sorry for basically going rogue." She apologized.

"It's fine, you didn't do much harm. It's been hard for you and we never actually made sure you were okay after Tortuga died. She was your sister but we all got so caught up grieving we never helped you grieve when you lost her the most." Elm explained.

"Even worse, we barely made it a week of mourning her before we practically replaced her on the team with Marrow." Clover admitted.

"We have to remember Tortuga as she was, not mourning what she is now. She will always be a part of our team. Bringing Marrow in was never replacing her. She could never be replaced." Vine assured Harriet.

"We're sorry we never took care of our own and leaving you to grieve alone, Hare." Clover brought her in to hug her.

"Thank you." She whispered, staying quiet for the rest of the walk to Shade. Oscar was happy most of his friends were getting along. he wasn't sure how long that would last, but he wanted to cherish it while he had the time.

[rwbyvein]

Firen Lhain: Chapter 605: Smouldering Embers:  Part I/III

Cinder opened her eyes. She was in a bed, and aside from the sheet and blanket, she was naked. It seemed liked a small cottage and there was little natural light.

"Oh, you're awake." and old woman stated, and as Cinder looked to her left she realized two things, one that the old, hunched-over woman seemed to have gossamer wings, and two that she was not wearing her eye patch. "Are you feeling all right, dear?" she asked. Cinder just scowled at her in reply. "You are such a beautiful girl, you shouldn't be making faces like that."

Cinder put on a fake smile, "Thank you..." she huskily voiced, "Where... am I?.."

"That doesn't matter as much as how you are feeling." the old woman stated. Cinder's eyes opened widely with shock. She.. was... feeling good. "Other than a couple scars..." the old woman stated, "I heard that there was a miracle healer at the Battle of Haven."

"That - blond - dufus?.." Cinder's gravelly voice asked.

"That's him." the old woman said.

"You - have - to be - kidding." Cinder grumbled.

"I don't know what a beautiful woman like you was doing in a dangerous place like that."

"You... wouldn't?" Cinder asked.

"Maybe I was a young woman at some point." the old woman said with a smile, and Cinder just stared at her. She already knew way too much. "But, you still have a chance to make another choice."

"What does that mean?" Cinder slowly asked.

"Whoever you were fighting for likely thinks you are dead." the old woman stated.

"And, if I was fighting for myself?" Cinder slowly asked her.

"We both know that not true." the old woman said. "Now, who ARE you fighting for? What - are you fighting for?" Cinder could feel the anger overtaking her, but, in truth, she had no answer. "Well, for right now, all you need to do is rest. You did have an exiting night, after all."

"My... dress?.." she asked.

"It didn't survive as well as you did," the old woman said with a sigh, "so, I've commissioned a new one. It should be ready in a couple of days."

"And, just what do I?," she asked, "in the?.."

"Rest, of course." the old woman stated.

With this Cinder sighed and relaxed in the bed. It had been too long since she had just relaxed.

* * *

Jaune slashed his sword at Yang. Yang blocked it with her gauntlets, but a wave of Aura pushed passed the blade.

"Wind slash!" Nora exclaimed, and Jaune stopped to look at her.

"Not wind." Jaune said.

"Then what was it?" Yang asked.

"Aura, I think." Jaune said to her, and Blake screamed bloody murder.

"What was that?" Ruby asked.

"AURA?!" Blake shouted, "Do you have any idea what you are doing?!"

"Just?," Jaune teppidly asked, what Pyrrha taught me?"

"THAT'S AN AURA SLASH!" Blake exclaimed.

"Will you calm down?" Yang asked, "I mean, it's not..."

"THAT'S WHAT ADAM USED TO TAKE YOUR ARM!" Blake shouted, and everyone paused, staring at each other.

"O-kay." Jaune voiced, "Aura is... the only thing... that can cut through Aura." Blake just scoffed at him

"Yes," Qrow voiced, and walked into the centre of the gymnasium, "Aura slashes are incredibly dangerous, but they are one of the best weapons we have against the Grimm."

"And Yang?" Blake asked through her fear and anxiety.

"I trust Jaune not to cut me in half." Yang said.

"Maybe I should practice a bit," Jaune voiced, "on something else?" Blake looked a lot less nervous.

"That does sound like a good idea." Weiss stated.

"I TOLD YOU Glorious Leader was wicked-cool." Nora stated.

"Indeed." Ren added.

"Why don't we have Oscar fight Blake?" Qrow asked.

"I..." Oscar voiced, "get the impression that wasn't actually a question."

"I don't know," Qrow replied, "WHAT - gave you - that impression. Now, Blake fights differently from everyone else here. Could you pull it out?"

"Like this morning." Yang said, and Blake just glared at her as she pulled out Gambol Shroud. She pulled the pieces apart and showed it to Oscar before putting it back together and away.

"Like the rest of RWBY, she doesn't stand still, and uses her line to grapple and swing." Qrow continued, "Keep your head up, and eyes and ears open. And don't worry, she is going to go easy on you."

Oscar nervously drew his cane. It felt so natural as it expanded.

"Remember," Qrow said to him, "Oz said you'll get his muscle memory. That's why it feels so natural in your hand. You just need practice and fitness to use it properly."

Oscar breathed in deeply before looking Blake in the eyes, wo then turned dark. Blake passed a few inches behind him, and he could feel the wind as she passed. He turned to look where she had been, only for her to disappear and pass behind him again. This happened a third and fouth time before Blake stood still, and the two just looked at each other.

"Alright," Qrow voiced, "now it gets interesting. She's actually going to try and hit you."

Blake turned black. Once again she passed behind Oscar, swiping with her sword. The edge couldn't have actually hit him, but he still felt the Aura. Blake stood still, Oscar looked at her, and Blake disappeared once again. Once again she swung without trying to hit him, and once again he only felt the Aura of the attack.

"Alright," Qrow stated, "when I said try to hit him, I meant ACTUALLY TRY TO HIT HIM!"

Oscar audibly swallowed as Blake disappeared again, this time coming from the side. Once again she swung without trying to hit, and Qrow audidbly sighed.

"I was afraid of this." Qrow voiced

"Of what?" Ruby asked.

"She's too much of a softy." Qrow said.

"Do you know how much I've fought?!" Blake asked him.

"Fighting can mean different things." Qrow stated, "In this case it apparently means to not actually try and hurt anyone."

"She was one of the best fighters of the White Fang." Ilia stated.

"Is that so?" Qrow asked, and then turned to RW_Y, "Have you ever seen her try to hurt someone?"

"Of course we have." Ruby said, "Haven't we?.."

"I don't know..." Yang voiced, "bots and Grimm, yeah, but an actual person?"

"Why would I want to hurt people?!" Blake asked.

"I'm not faulting you for it." Qrow said.

"You're not?" Ruby asked, "Because it kind of sounds like you are?"

Qrow then pulled out his weapon as it fully extended into a scythe. "Do you think this is all that useful against Humans?" he asked, and Ruby looked about nervously.

"So?" Nora asked, as Qrow put away his weapon, "What do you do, then?"

Qrow then held up his right hand, "Use these."

"Your... rings?.." Weiss asked.

"Exactly." Qrow stated, "I pump them full of Aura, and... blondie?.." he said, and looked at Jaune.

"Me?" Jaune asked.

"Yang's Firecracker." he stated.

"And Weiss?" Nora asked.

"More of a platinum... ehn..." Qrow voiced, "Look, no offence, kiddos, but I don't really have a good track record with Schnees..."

"Pardon me?" Weiss asked.

"I... guess... I never told you?" Qrow asked, "Your sister is part of the, whatever the hell we are?"

"Fellowship." Ren stated.

"Yeah," Qrow said, "she fell pretty hard to the tinman's rhetoric."

"...rhetoric?.." Blake asked.

"Oh, you know, he's the only one that can save the world, big armies with shiny coats, that kind of thing." Qrow stated.

"You... are saying he can't?.." Weiss asked.

"I'm saying that maybe even he can't do it." Qrow said, and shrugged, "And does anyone think that shutting down the borders will stop Salem?" Qrow asked.

Yang and Nora nervously raised their hands.

"It won't?" Ruby asked.

"Aside from the fact that some Grimm can fly," Qrow voiced, "shutting down the borders only stops the people who are stopped by asking. Smugglers are still a thing, and he's assuming that the criminal/terrorist sort will only walk into Atlas in the most uptight, law abiding ways. He thinks Atlas is a fortress, but... it really more of a shiny prison... something the little bird," he said, pointing to Weiss, "can probably undestand."

"Me?" Weiss asked.

"Is it better than Ice Queen?" Yang asked, and Weiss looked down, unsure whether it was or not.

"Songbird?" Jaune asked, and Weiss felt her heart leap. She looked up at him, unsure if it was true or not.

"Linnet." Blake passionately said, but then looked down, as apparently not everyone knew songbirds as well as she did.

"A songbird?" Jaune asked.

"Resident of the the Mantle Coast." Blake soulfully said, and shrugged.

"Did you hear the passion in how she said it?" Yang gleefully asked.

"Not that I am opposed," Weiss voiced, "but I would like to remind everyone I am a Heron."

"Heron's beautiful coat," Jaune said, "And songbird's enchanting voice."

Weiss felt weak the knees, but bowed only momentarily before standing back to a proper attention.

"I think she likes it." Yang stated, and Weiss nervously looked downward. "Alright, Kitty-Cat and Songbird, and, what I am? Something big-titted and babelicious."

"Maybe a swallow." Nora said, which cause Yang to start snickering.

"We can work on nicknames later." Qrow stated, "But for now, my point was that maybe Blake should get something she won't be afraid to hit people with."

"Like what?" Ruby asked.

"Or get better at hand-to-hand combat." Qrow added with a shrug.

"You are a cat," Yang said to her, "do you have claws."

Blake rolled her eyes, "You know how Faunus work, we only get one visible trait... and my father had the claws."

"And what does your mom have?" Yang asked.

"Ears like me."

"Are they as adorable?" Ruby and Jaune asked at the same time, causing her to blush and looked down and away.

"Alright," Qrow said, "lessons over. You guys can all think about it. NORA, you want your chance to see if you can beat up a scruffy old man?"

"DO I?" Nora eagerly replied.

[megashadowdragon]

ironwoods tragic fall from grace

comments on youtube

When a hero becomes the villain, all hell breaks loose. Especially when the fallen hero is general of the Atlesian army.

The only thing that I noticed was that Ironwood has constantly grown a Beard as time passes. He's slowly decending towards from Hero to Villain as a "Fallen Hero" Catagory. James Ironwood WAS a good man, utterly dedicated to protecting his people. It was with the best of intentions that he charged down the path he’s taken... but you know what they say about good intentions.

I didn’t think his semblance was much of a factor into his decisions before Vol 7 but now as he’s become more unhinged every chapter, it’s becoming even more strikingly obvious that he’s become a slave to it. The fact that his semblance increases his resolve to go through with bargaining with Watts, willing to blow up Mantle just to save Atlas.

He's like the antithesis of Leonardo Lionheart

You know, this is a really good counter for all those people saying Ironwood is suffering character assassination. He's not. He's giving in to fear and letting his worst aspects take command.

I’m personally asking again why would the writers talk about something like Ironwood’s semblance outside the show when for the most part the majority of people only watches the show, that’s like how the Russo brothers (the writers and directors of Avengers Infinity War and Endgame) choose to answer the hows and why on Twitter when the majority of people are only watching the movies I personally love those movies but it also would’ve been nice to see those things get explained or talked about in the movies just like how it would be nice to at least mention Ironwood’s semblance in the show

Honestly, I love what they're doing with Ironwood. His slow, inexorable descent into extremism is a wonderful exploration of how an idealistic person who believes themself to be the hero can tumble into villainy without trusting others to keep them grounded. It's the very real problem of the philosophy of "The ends justify these particular means;" if you can justify one morally gray decision to achieve a good goal, it gets easier to justify the next, darker gray decision. Without someone outside to call you on your bullshit, you're eventually justifying genocide because it will be for the "greater good."

Ironwood is literally the Darth Vader of RWBY. He starts of as a respectable character, commanding his own army for the good of all. But he gives in to all of his fears, looses a limb or 2, and slowly turns misguidedly evil, willing to kill ANYONE who stands in his way.

I've said before that Team Rwby is a foil to the Headmasters. Ruby keeping secrets like Oz, Leo/Blake, the faunus who ran away when things got hard, and Ironwood's parallel is Yang.

Not just obvious stuff, like both having metal arms. But both of their semblances are double edged sword. Yang get stronger taking damage, but if she leans on it too much, an enemy that takes one hit just destroys her since she can't fight back. Volume 4 has her training with Taiyang to correct this flaw in her thinking, leading to her overcoming Adam in her rematch in V6.

Ironwood's semblance can be incredibly powerful. Just off the top of my head, he basically no sells the Apathy, which is an incredibly dangerous Grimm in a group with other, stronger Grimm. But it has downsides, and we're seeing it. The correct way to use it is after you've made a choice, to focus on the task at hand. But making large choices while under the semblance is not smart. He's too focused on one action to see others that have opened. Atlas has to be raised, because that's what he's already decided to do. The idea that they've made contact with the world and reinforcements might be coming never entered his mind. Similarly, he's so focused on forcing Penny to heel that he's not seeing he has a chance to have her come willingly by aiding in Mantle's rescue.

He's so focused on winning this one battle (Having Penny raise the city to escape Salem immediately) that's he's making choices to doom the larger war (defending the kingdom's people, defeating Salem, reuniting the world).

He clearly knows that it isn't smart to rely on it this way, since he's shown the ability to take criticism and adjust his thinking in Volume 7 (Nora would've been Slate'd if he couldn't). But the combination of Yang/Blake going behind his back to tell Robyn, Ruby/Oscar not telling him the truth, Qrow seemingly killing Clover, and, right when he thought that he'd saved everyone, the idea that every single thing he's done might've been exactly what Salem wanted has fairly understandably shaken his faith in the others around him. He can't rely on them to rein him in, he has to do that... which is exactly the problem with his semblance. If the only person who can stop you is yourself, and you're convinced you're always right, you've doomed yourself.

I'm assuming that he could probably be talked down by Glynda or potentially Oz or Qrow (fat chance of that one) if they can break his aura, but as it stands, unless someone beats him down, he's not going to be able to stop himself.

With Ironwood I am reminded of a very profound quote from CS Lewis, that I feel summarizes him very well: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."Show less

Dude Ironwood didn't have a problem with trusting people and didn't have a mentality of not being able to trust people. He trusted to much and trusted people who both betrayed his trust (Yang/Blake) and didn't reciprocate the trust he gave them (Ruby and the rest of the main cast). Honestly, he would have been perfectly right to have immediately put the relic of knowledge into the vault at the start of v7 and then send the students on their way and have nothing more to do with them.

Ironwood saw Atlas and his fleet as a way to inspire hope. It's ironic that his plan was one of lifting them up so high that nobody would ever be able to see them anymore.

My only criticism with Ironwood is that I really really wish his semblance was brought up in the show. Are they ever going to bring it up? I absolutely LOVE how he has been written and watching his tragic descent into becoming a villain but having his semblance mentioned in show would be great. Is someone going to have to break his aura or something before he or someone else mentions it?

In a way he is. His semblance is a double edge sword, as someone in Ironwood's position is all about making calls. Ironwood was able to climb through the ranks because his semblance allowed him to follow through with his actions to save people (I also still wonder what happend to halve of his body as he already had a metal leg and arm in volume 2, we can asume the paladin project, but some confirmation would be wonderfull). Now he's following through on his words agains Salem, that Ironwood isn't going to let Salem take the relic of creation. Ironwood essentially only has this thought he is focused on and is disregarding everything else. Right now Salem is piecing herself together again and Penny is going to the vault, if Ironwood semblance of Mettle wasn't interfering he would be able to see the bigger picture of let Penny open the vault, take out the staff of cration and chuck whatever goop Salem is right now with the bit of land she is piecing herself on right now and throw that into the vault and close it for good by blocking off the entrance with concrete. Voila. Ironwood doesn't notice at this point his actions as he even thought councilman Slate, who was asking Ironwood to explain his action got put down by Ironwood himself. Same for Marrow later on, but Winter was able to step in. Ironwood needs to be saved from this mindset and I think the team up of Qrow and Robyn (also who ever was on the elevator, I think it was Winter and Marrow as Winter was taking him away to be put in jail) could save Ironwood to the point of breaking his aura that way the influence of Mettle will loosen.

Gonna be honest, I dislike the whole concept of his semblance and it being what's driving him to this is just dumb to me. I loved him as a character and this entire volume feels like every bit that made him an interesting character has been ripped away. It's likely just me, but prior to Oscar using the built-up magic to beat Salem it felt like they had painted themselves into a corner. Either Ironwood was proven right that some sacrifices had to be made for the good of the people, or Salem was going to be beaten and even if she can come back, she no longer feels like a huge threat to me. I loved Ironwood in volume seven and many of team RWBY's choices have infuriated me for how contrived and stupid they manage to be while also contradicting themselves so easily. To be frank, I feel like his semblance was just an excuse for this utterly stupid character assassination they're trying to justify.Show less

I kind of feel like the writers 'forced' Ironwood to become a villain. Some of his decisions just don't make sense.

[dreamofragtime]

Are you ready guys? Because I’ve just watched the final episode of season 4 😍 well...let’s start from the beginning...bear with me 😄

So Lucien got himself a gun and obviously he can use it...I’ll try to keep in mind never to cross him because “angry Lucien” is really scary.

Now we have Major Alderton threatening Mei Lin, Lucien’s daughter and Jean

Not even 5 minutes and I’m already dead

Alderton has plans for our favourite country doctor. He wants him to join the Army once again for the war in Indochina and Lucien isn’t that kind of man anymore.

Oh look look Sergeant Hannam is back and Alderton is dead...Lucien’s hand is full of blood, though and he fired the gun...

Why does he leave the crime scene? Lucien what are you thinking? I get it...he’s worried for his wife but it doesn’t look like the great idea to me

Back at the house my brave Jean goes to open the door with Lucien. They are both trying to protect Mei Lin and I’m sure Jean is there to protect Lucien should he need it!

Oh now things are getting worse by the minute for Lucien, of course Frank asks about the shooting 🙄

Who’s this DI Sullivan, then? And why is he there?

Back to Mei Lin’s room...what?! Well, of course they find the murder weapon in her mattress They’re trying to frame Lucien! Come on anyone can see that!! Ohhh my poor Lucien...treated like some common criminal.

The scene moves back to the house and we can see Jean and Mei Lin in the sunroom. Jean is an angel but Mei Lin’s presence is really uncomfortable to witness there. I’ve come to think of the sunroom as Jean’s kind of sanctuary and seeing her face when she hears the question “do you hate me?”leave the other woman’s mouth...well my poor heart....what kind of question is this?

And as if that were not enough, Jean is also attacked by Hannam himself! I, for sure, was more scared then she was because I could have thought of anything to say to him apart from “you should make an appointment” she is so brave and determined to protect Lucien! I’ve never seen a love like this!

Charlie calls Jean because now Lucien is in jail and being the “son” that he is for them he just knows naturally what the Doc needs and what he needs is Jean ❤️

The scene with Lucien behind the bars was beautiful (I wouldn’t know how else to describe it) . She knows him so well that she brings him the chalk to distract him (so that he can work on the case) and he’s worried that Hannam could have hurt her. “I’m sorry about everything” he says (such a powerful meaning in so very few words) and then those hands reaching for her...no words needed!

The little piece with Alice barging in because she wants to speak with Lucien. That woman definitely knows what she wants!

Frank doesn’t seem to trust Sullivan...well that’ll make two of us now!

Charlie trusting Lucien when he asks him to believe in him what a wonderful wonderful thing!

Trying to solve his own case while he’s staying in the cell behind the bars with the chalk and the bed as a blackboard is so much Lucien’s style!

So now Alderton was killed with a piece of the telescope... that was a surprise!

Ohhh now we discover that Lucien killed two men during his service and Sullivan asks how he could leave everything behind. “I love what I do”...is Lucien’s reply and that he surely does!

Anyway, it seems to me that Lucien is too clever to trust this Sullivan guy who wants Lucien to get some sleep! You don’t know him at all! Lucien Blake does not sleep! 😂

Jean and her plan to protect Mei Lin and herself by going at the Colonists’ club with Cec is brilliant and we can also hear Mei Lin speaking about the occupation.

What is she doing at the police station now? Does anyone know where she is?

Omg now she’s just dropped the bomb! Mei Lin had an affair with Alderton before the war whaaattt??!!!

Soon followed by bomb no. 2 “Lucien doesn’t love me, not anymore”... I mean it’s not a surprise but having someone saying it out loud it just makes it more real. The thing is, I don’t think that he doesn’t love her, because I’m sure he does. But it’s not the all encompassing romantic passionate love he feels for her. He’s changed and so has she. They are now two strangers with a shared past. A past that weights heavily on both of them, they love one another but it’s more “affection” than romantic love and Mei Lin makes sure to point that out! Then she confesses, she wants to save Lucien as he saved her when he put her and their daughter on the boat. She knows that if Lucien is free, he has probably more chances to solve the case.

In the meantime we are transported back to Lucien study with Rose, Charlie, Jean and Alice all engaged in a brainstorming session about the case.

Lucien at the end sends everyone out of the house and the he even has the nerve to try with Jean. “Get yourself to the club! I’m staying here” that’s all she answers and he accepts that. She doesn’t want to leave him. They both know Hannam is coming!

And of course he comes. Jean even offers him a cup of tea and her face when Lucien reveals that Mei Lin had been unfaithful to himself worth 10 Oscars!

I knew this Sullivan guy was no good...Mei Lin hanging from that window was really scary I honestly thought the worst!

So at the end it was Sullivan and Lucien figures all that out and then bang... Hannam comes and it’s a bloody awful mess in a span of a few seconds.

Lucien explains the camp experience to Mei Lin over a cup of tea and the reasons why Derek hated Lucien so much.

Lucien’s facial expression and his eyes full of tears when Mei Lin leaves the table to go outside are the death of me...it’s just a couple of seconds but there are so many different, conflicting feelings in there and then Mei Lin is going away.

Jean says her goodbyes and then becomes uncomfortable witnessing Lucien and Mei Lin’s goodbye...I loved how she twists her hands!

And then....well...are there any words to describe what comes after?

That kiss OMG... I just can’t! So beautiful, so passionate ❤️ I wonder if the car has already reached the end of the drive when they kiss

Aaannndddd Jean I’m talking to you now...you’ve just kissed a married man on the front lawn!

AAAAAHHHHHH!!!

And then she walks back to the house and he calls her and I swear I got worried for those 3 seconds that Lucien needs to take those 2 steps toward her and then he goes straight through my heart “there’s something I need to ask you” and my heart is so happy I’m still crying and grinning like a fool

OMGGGGG!!!!

[yue-muffin]

I finished Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for the first time and wow, am I impressed. Having only played the 3DS era games and started Sacred Stones recently, I came to expect a certain range of quality and reach in terms of story. There are games that I found not overly complex but executed well (Echoes) and ones with a good premise and sloppy execution (Fates). Sacred Stones, so far, is one I find with a simple story done well. I’m not terribly enthralled with it, but there’s nothing there to annoy me either.

Path of Radiance is one of those games that takes the ‘simple/standard FE plot’ path, but the execution is brilliant, filled with both depth and heart despite the story having the same basic beats as many other FEs. I was really impressed with the worldbuilding, the character writing, the gameplay/story integration...

My biggest gripe with Awakening and Fates was that the characters were colorful, but few of them were compelling and many lacked the depth to take them beyond their archetypes. Path of Radiance did a good job making me feel that its characters all had a stake in the outcome of the battles, that they had an actual cause to fight for and didn’t just join the army just because. There is always a bit of contrivance in an FE game, but the quality of the writing can lessen or emphasize that feeling.

The gameplay mechanics change from game to game, and I find it really fun to test out the unique features of each installment and see how they influenced each other. the shoving animations are amazing

People also say this is one of the easiest FE games and I have to say, the bonus exp mechanic is probably why. I love this mechanic because of the way it allows the game to reward the player for taking certain actions encouraged by the story (like wanting to spare as many of the enemy as possible = we’ll give you bonus exp if you do). I, uh, am never doing a stealth run of the prison break chapter again though.

I went ultra vanilla and restricted myself to using only the Greil Mercenaries for this run, and I’ll leave my impressions on this post because half the fun of a FE game is building up your team.

I went with the Greil Mercenaries (+ Mia, because she joins them for the second game) for my first playthrough because otherwise I would have no reason to use both Rolf AND Shinon at the same time and Rhys would just warm the bench the whole game lol. And I was really curious to see Rolf and Shinon’s support line and actually have a use for all of those light magic tomes.

Ike: My Ike didn’t get screwed over in any stat, so absolutely no complaints other than the fact that he refused to proc Aether more than once in the Black Knight fight, making Nasir bail him out at the end of the allotted turns. I supported him with Soren because I wanted to see their support line, and have to say that it worked out really well. I was between Soren and Oscar, but it worked better this way because Oscar was always riding off with Titania at the front and Ike just lags behind unless you dedicate several units + Reyson to shoving him to the frontline. And when you’re using Mist, Rolf, and Soren, that really cuts into the units available for shoving.

Oscar: He, uh, ended up the MVP and netted the most kills in the run. Oscar can become an amazing paladin, but mine was so screwed in the strength stat for much of the early game that I had to abuse the bexp mechanic at the base to ensure he didn’t keep lagging behind. His defenses were super good by the end, and the little damage he did take was mitigated by activating Sol every other hit. Also, I have a bias for calvary units, so. Oscar. Loved him.

Titania: I...I love Titania. I love her character. She plays her role perfectly as the super strong unit who is there to support you in the beginning and falls off a little towards the end. She can still hold her own in the endgame, however, and I have no regrets for relying on her early on. There is so much experience to be had in normal mode that she doesn’t really rob anyone else of it unless you go ham and let her destroy everything. In the end, I gave her Savior so she can help deliver chip damage and save Shinon’s ass, I mean, rescue drop people.

Boyd: Super frustrating and nerve wracking to train, super hard hitter who still keeps you on your toes by the end. He is the most lopsided unit I have ever used (comparatively low defenses, speed, and skill compared to his attack and HP) but he was definitely fun and made sure I didn’t get too complacent. I don’t normally use fighters/axe units in the modern games because their accuracy is shit, their defenses are even more shit, and why bother with the headache. Once you can forge Boyd a good iron axe, though, his performance becomes more consistent. I did keep Tempest on him for a while, because I find it fun to use the skills a unit comes with, but I took it off eventually. It does help in certain situations when his hit rate isn’t so good (having the biorhythm doubled then is helpful).

Soren: I have a bias for this little asshole, lol. He’s a standard mage, basically. Kind of annoying to train in the beginning because he can barely take a hit, his movement is low, and MAGIC MAKES THE EMULATOR CRASH SOMETIMES, but if you can stick it out, you’ll be rewarded in the end with a unit that doesn’t care about how physically bulky any enemy is and can take down dragons with ease (plus, he heals A LOT because of his high magic stat even with a basic heal staff). I will admit, he’s a walking liability if Ike isn’t his support partner and magic in this game is slightly annoying because each element has its own weapon rank. He basically ate all of my Arms Scrolls because he has FOUR ranks to build (including the staff rank) and all of them have their uses, so I didn’t have him concentrate in one or the other. Although he gets weighed down by a lot of tomes because he is a twig, mine capped speed and didn’t have a problem doubling the dragons in the endgame with Thoron.

Rhys: One of the reasons I did a Greil Mercenaries run haha. He’s not a bad healer. It’s just that there’s benefit to training Mist as your main healer for that one fight later on, and having a team with THREE HEALERS is overkill (unless for whatever reason you made one of your mages use knives...). The problem is that while Soren can take a hit and Mist can run away, Rhys can do neither. His magic stat is very good though, and he was objectively better than my Mist by the end except that he wasn’t on a horse. He was really useful for the endgame since I gave him the Purge tome. Finally, he didn’t have to risk his neck to actually fight. I lowkey love his character though. 

Mist: She is so cute, but mine was so screwed in the stats department. If not for bexp, it would have been a nightmare to train her and Rhys at the same time. I early promoted both of them, but getting her to level 10 was hard. Mine ended up getting magic on so few level ups, that I gave her two spirit dusts by the endgame and it was still amazingly low. Her strength stat was 13. 13!! I love the horse, though. Makes her a lot easier to use once promoted. She has no shoving capabilities, though, whereas Rhys (frail, sickly man he is) can shove like half the army. Go figure.

Mia: I love Mia. She can have my heart and run with it. In newer games I tend not to use mercenaries/swordmasters because their movement is kind of eh, their dodge-tank capabilities are not that impressive, and I don’t like relying on crits too much, but Mia was such an awesome addition to the team. It can be a bit difficult to train her in the beginning given her low defense, HP, and strength, but once she gets going, she wrecks things like nobody’s business. Would have liked to do some Wrath combos with her, but mine had Vantage and Adept and that worked just fine with a Killing Edge or a forged sword of some sort. The only issue is her super low strength cap (22?? really??) but the reliability of her crits and/or skill procs make up for that if you can get her past the early game.

Rolf: ROLF. Literally only viable because of bexp. I actually really love how they wrote his character, but what were they thinking by making him join so late, with such low bases AND his strength growth isn’t even that good (40%, less than Oscar’s). All else could be forgiven if his strength growth was at least 50% like his speed. If you can’t actually do damage, there’s no point. Once you pour exp into him like nobody’s business, he can actually be a good unit. I do really like using him, and mine got enough defense and resistance that he wasn’t a liability, but he definitely needs investment. On the other hand, his hit rates were so good that Gamble actually worked well on him.

Shinon: The racist asshole whose only redeeming quality is his relationship with Rolf. I loved their support chain, and actually I do like how the game put him on our team (after giving you a hard time recruiting him) because of how it brings an element of realism makes these characters more human, but yikes he’s potentially worse than Rolf to train because of how long he’s gone for. If you put aside the need for even more bexp to use him, he’s a pretty good crit unit. And he can surprisingly take a hit once trained. I left Provoke on him and BOY he nearly got himself killed in the endgame, but it is pretty nice to draw aggro in order to get some enemies closer for the foot-locked units to kill.

Gatrie: I miss tanks. Newer games make them so much less fun to use because they don’t tank very well (I’m looking at you, Fates...). Gatrie can’t get places fast and only laguz can shove him, but it was fun having someone who can take a million hits and soften enemies up for the others to take care of. He can’t really one round anything because he can’t double and leaves them with a few hit points left (except if he procs Luna) but he’s a worth while addition to the team. Takes a bit of bexp though, since he often doesn’t get as many kills as the rest.

Reyson: Not a Greil Mercenary, but like I was going to pass up a dancer singer who can refresh FOUR units. It was a pain in the behind to get the Knight Ring, but he does make really good use of it. He can also use the Full Guard ring so he can enter certain areas without being murdered by ballistas. I love his bird form, and the fact that frail heron man can SHOVE people who the tiny people in my army can’t (Mist, Rolf, Soren, I’m looking at you). no but really, Reyson’s character is actually really good too, I like him. 

It was, uh, interesting getting through some of these chapters without a flier. Absolutely not necessary to have one, and if it was a chapter where I kind of needed someone, I just used Tanith or Janaff (the Naesala chapter was the only one that was annoying without a trained flier).

I genuinely had no idea who to stick skills on, haha. This was an interesting system where you really had to think about who to give a skill since they’re like old TMs in Pokemon...one use only. I like to have some limitations in the skill system though, unlike Awakening and Fates where it’s a free for all. I just like the more limited set of options.

[itsclydebitches]

The post about how characters don't connect to the setting is one of the reasons why the beginning of V7 frustrated me so much. James gives this plan of telling the world about Salem, Weiss rightfully points out their will be panic everywhere and NO ONE connects that with the very real fear that this plan could put all their families in danger. Nor does anyone get excited about the Amity project potentially allowing them to call home. Ruby's been away for A YEAR. Doesn't she miss her dad at all?

Exactly! This isn't a bad faith criticism where we're demanding the show do a ton of emotional work that there just isn't time for in the fighting focused plot; a claim that it's awful because it's not functioning as one genre (like a drama, soap opera, etc.) over another (action/adventure, fantasy, sci-fi)... I mean we get nothing in regards to this issue. Not even crumbs. And these connections are, supposedly, at the very heart of the "trust love" narrative. I think it's easy for people to forget what happens between volumes — especially given the "Only the latest volume is canon" mentality — but we literally had Ironwood announce to Ruby that he'd need to use his army to keep the grimm attacks at bay once the Salem secret was revealed and then a volume later Ruby reveals the Salem secret (along with a whole lot else that is scary, horrifying, and generally negative-emotion educing) after she's cut all ties with Ironwood and his army is fully engaged in keeping Salem at bay. There is no discussion, let along concern and worry, about how many people she just got killed for an announcement that the show has failed to justify. Why is telling the world about Salem worth the casualties it will cause? What is the world going to do against the immortal witch? Ruby doesn't know. That's her whole dilemma this volume: wanting easy answers and then crumbling when she can't think of any. Problem is, she endangered the whole world before admitting, "Oh, I have no idea how to stop all this awfulness."

I mean, I understand on an emotional level why the hypocrisy of Ruby's lies and secrets don't land because most people in the fandom dislike, or outright hate, Ozpin. That's really going to color any reading there, when suddenly the beloved hero is mirroring someone you despise — you'll do whatever mental gymnastics are necessary to keep them separate. But Ruby has no evil contrast here. This is all her. We watch her make a decision that she knows will endanger the entire world, including her loved ones, and it's never even raised as a concern. The same way no one raises concerns about going to Vacuo. Yes, supposedly escaping was the only option available (I say "supposedly" because the plot did a terrible job of convincing us that evacuation was still necessary with Salem currently exploded and it having been established that she's only after the Relic on Atlas), and in a crisis situation they aren't necessarily thinking about long-term survival (that's my own stance regarding Ironwood's desire to rise high: he's not thinking about how to live there indefinitely, just how to survive the next few hours), but why send them to the Kingdom they know Salem will attack next? The Crown is hidden. You have the Lamp and the Staff. You know Salem is after all the Relics, so of course she's going to Vacuo. And so you dump however many refugees there, in the city she's gunning for next, intentionally setting up the next Fall of Atlas? Yeah, we all know it's because structurally the story hasn't been to Vacuo yet, but in-world it makes the characters look incredibly stupid. Why dump an entire Kingdom's worth of people in the most hostile environment, with the most wary citizens, a place you know the Big Bad is heading to next, when you could instead split them up and send them to safer Kingdoms that aren't currently in Salem's path? "Oh, it's because Vacuo still has huntsmen and they need huntsmen to combat all the grimm." There wouldn't be a massive grimm problem is Ruby hadn't told the whole world about Salem!

And this problem of not thinking through actions in a way that demonstrates real care for the world is just compounded over and over on a personal level. It's the same way Ruby doesn't care about what happened to Qrow until she hopes he can fix everything. The same way she doesn't react to Yang "dying." The same way Yang didn't mention Summer for five volumes. The same way Jaune, Yang, and Nora rejected Ren until he fell in line. The same way Blake is trying to inspire Ruby when they've barely exchanged a handful of sentences since Beacon. The same way, as you say, no one has made mention of the family they've left behind, let alone considered how building a communications tower might be a way of reconnecting with them, especially when at least two of them — Ruby and Oscar — left completely out of the blue. Are they presented as caring about how that inevitably hurt their care givers? Nah. The fandom gives Tai so little slack, but at least the story showed him watching Ruby's message and being upset at the danger she's in. When was the last time the girls mentioned Tai?

... have they mentioned him since they left home?

The show has done a terrible job in the last couple of years of showing that these characters actually care for one another, beyond a superficial level, especially when all the cute friendship moments that function as filler are obliterated the moment one of them disagrees about something (see: Ren). There's no sense of place and little sense of real family, from Weiss doing multiple 180s with Whitley, to Blake being the only one who reacts to Yang's "death." It all rings so hollow. I'm supposed to believe that Ruby is still the one to inspire the world towards unity when she, at the point of her speech, still hasn't even tried to reconcile with Ozpin, has been betraying Ironwood this whole time, insta-turned on the Ace Ops for trying to make her face consequences for the crimes she knows she committed, fought her way into the kingdom because she didn't like the peaceful solution Cordovin offered (send Weiss), hasn't made mention of her father, collapsed over hearing her mother's name only to get over it seconds later, at this point in the volume barely interacts with her sister, and is leading a team whose attitude ranges from "Glares at Marrow for daring to suggest she works with anyone other than Yang" and "Points a weapon at her baby brother because she, apparently, can't even manage to work with a minor civilian family member." This is the team who is going to inspire Remnant to unify against Salem, the group who keeps not unifying with everyone they need to work with? There is a serious disconnect here. You can't tell the audience to "trust love" while failing to show basic love and support among the cast, and you can't try to make Ruby the poster child for unity when she has, since Volume 6, has consistently failed to unify with anyone: not Cordovin, not Qrow until he agreed to stop questioning her, not Ozpin, not Ironwood, not the Ace Ops, not even Robyn considering that was all Yang and Blake. Ruby's struggle right now is an inability to work with people who don't agree with her 100%, her biggest flaw is an all or nothing attitude, and the writing is failing to see how that might just be a problem when she's telling everyone else to put their differences aside to work together. Having Ruby actually try to connect with people more, worry about them, express love for them, etc. — both family and allies — would at least help soften this issue, but without it her characterization has severely tanked in terms of the compassion the show wants us to believe is still there.

[lovelytonys]

PLEASE GIVE ALL OF YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS AFTER FFH

I LITERALLY DON’T THINK I CAN DO THAT BC IT’S WILD UP IN MY BRAIN RN BUT LET’S ATTEMPT SOME BULLET POINTS

•it was SO fun. Everyone got me so scared to go see it but instead I had a blast. Sure the emotional parts were a little rough but what no one told me is that the movie put the pieces back together too! It felt very healing as far as Endgame sadness and no one told me it would be like that. Plus I thought it was so funny and Peter & his friends & teachers were GOLD

•I love this MJ. GOD do I LOVE this MJ. Zendaya is wonderful. “Awkward teen” is such a common archetype that it never seems to feel real and miss zendaya waltzes in with her impeccable acting instincts and realistic quirks and mannerisms and just nails this teenaged character with complete authenticity.......wig

•in the same vein I’m head over heels for this version of petermj GOD YES I don’t want perfectly romantic high school couples because things don’t WORK like that!! Why did things ever work like that!! Plus like every version of Peter Parker is a big nerd anyway it’s just unrealistic to expect him to have any game, you know? I love watching Zendaya & Tom play off of each other bc they both have SOLID instincts honestly they’re a joy to watch when they share the screen

•jake gyllenhaal man,,,,,jake gyllenhaal,,,,I don’t even know where to go with this. Mysterio was a cheesy level of evil, like he was ridiculously theatrical, and it would have been cheesy and ridiculous in less skilled hands but INSTEAD mr jake SNATCHED my WIG. He was so goshdarn charming in the first half that I caught myself wanting to like him (when I wasn’t mentally challenging him to fight me in a Walmart parking lot for being such a huge jerk) and that was all well and good but once he got to let his villainy loose? WOOOOOO okay first of all that SMILE that goshdarn SMILE the second Peter left the bar haha oh MAN he just, like, flipped a switch, you know? WILD. Riveting. mr jake’s teeth get 20 Oscars ALSO his villain speech? I can’t get into it there’s a lot to unpack but his delivery was so great. SO great. I loved how he was generally reserved and charming even when evil so that the moments when he had an outburst were scary. Like any time when he got angry and started yelling felt like a Moment bc of how he held back for the rest of it. He was always so deliciously menacing too like ugh sometimes I just love a good old fashioned villain, you know? He’s not terribly complicated, he’s pretty much just evil! Simple as that! Woohoo! And his dying line gave me CHILLS it wasn’t even just the line even tho the words are chill-enducing enough but it was his DELIVERY that just SENT ME like the way he’s trailing off and ESPECIALLY that creepy & deranged little smile AAAAHHHHHHH

•while we’re on the last line I get chills when I think about it bc when remembering the moment you fit the mid credit scene in with it and it’s like,,,,so THAT’S what that means,,,,THAT’S what the smile is for,,,,,THAT’S why you’re so pleased that anyone will believe anything,,,,,W I L D

•and I thought it was so cool how they updated Mysterio. He’s a special effects guy, right? That’s how the story goes when you look back at his origin comic, yeah? So to see him working with modern special effects instead of the practical effects of the era of his debut was so cool. Seeing Jake Gyllenhaal walk around in a Marvel movie wearing a morph suit was kinda meta and I kinda dig it. I thought it was all very creative

•if you had told me years ago that Back in Black by AC/DC would be the thing to set off an emotional outburst for me I literally would not have believed you but here we are

•no joke I was doing a relatively good job of holding it together (and relative is good for me) until AC/DC started playing, then I kinda lost it

•TOM HOLLAND SMASHED IT

•HE JUST SMASHED IT IDK

•THE SCENE IN THE PLANE. YOU KNOW THE ONE. 3000 OSCARS FOR MR TOM real talk I would kill to see him do a legit drama piece and I also can’t even imagine what he’ll be doing when he’s older. I mean. He’s pulling this out in a summer blockbuster of all things before he’s 25.....imagine what he’ll be doing if he gets to the point of having, like, decades of experience behind him

•the part when he was building his suit.......I cried

•as far as the plot...on one hand? Predictable every step of the way. On the other hand? I find a weird satisfaction in watching a movie that flawlessly fulfills basic beat structure and yeah it would be boring if every movie did that but it’s okay sometimes

•the first scene. the first. goshdarn scene. I have never truly known what it was like to laugh and cry at the same time

•MJ AND A MACE!!!! YEAH!

•I like how this movie begins with the question “is Spider-Man the next Iron Man” and proceeds to answer it with “no. He’s Spider-Man and that’s more than good enough.” Tony’s shadow is a huge one to live under and I love that the movie explicitly places Peter outside of that shadow. Like, yeah, he’s similar to Tony in some ways but at the end of the day? He’s his own hero. It’s highlighted even more by the fact that Mysterio is his foil and Mysterio wanted to be the new Iron Man.

•I don’t know what I was expecting from the second credit scene but that......wasn’t it. The two credits scenes threw me through more loops than the entire actual movie did

•J Jonah Jameson got a bigger reaction out of me than anything else in the movie by far

•I swear to you the words “pizza time” were uttered in this film I just don’t remember where

•I literally thought I was going to die when looking at Peter immediately after he got hit by the train

•the consistency with the limp throughout the whole second half really heckin Got Me and also how he touched his ribs in the final battle bc they were injured from the train accident. It’s the little things like that that make Peter seem more human & genuine

•WHEN HE SAW HAPPY AND WAS AFRAID OF HIM BC HE DIDN’T KNOW IF HE WAS REAL,,,,THAT HURT MY GUYS,,,,POOR BBY BOYYYYY but then when he hugged Happy I thought I was going to have a meltdown don’t worry I didn’t

•the scene where Mysterio seriously gets in Peter’s head, you know the one, good golly was that overwhelming. Like. I was feeling the need to jump up and start pacing the floor, you know? It was really well done and it stressed me outtt

•Iron Zombie had me feelin a little queasy if I’m being totally real here lol I was not feelin good about that one

•it took me the whole 2 hours to bounce back from “even dead I’m the hero” oh my god that was SO Tony. I can hear it in his voice. I miss him.

•can’t believe Tony is still out here fully protecting Peter with a whole army of drones from beyond the grave wow the irondad JUMPED out

•BUT OVERALL I FEEL SO GREAT AND EXCITED ABOUT THIS MOVIE WOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[marithlizard]

Thoughts on RWBY v7 finale, “The Enemy of Trust”

Okay, finale, it's you and me.   I've heard some eyebrow-raising things.    Let's see what you've got.  

Neo vs JNRO!   My money's on umbrella girl, even at four to one.

Oscar's really getting along with this team.   I won't be surprised if sometime next volume they officially invite him to be the P(ine) in the reborn JNPR.

Yep, short and sweet.  She had a bit of fun there, and she was never in any danger.

I'm really appreciating the option to watch the fights at half-speed on the RT site and actually catch some of the clever moves.

Cinder's fighting style is quite different here than it was in all previous volumes. Remember the bow, the telekinetically controlled black glass shards,  the Maiden fire and the giant sword?   Right now she's leaping about acrobatically in melee with two short swords. If the face was different everyone would take this as an entirely new character.   I get that it's cool to try new things, writers, but I miss the consistency.

So she specifically despises the privileged elite of Atlas. Can't blame her for that.

Okay, consistency or not I have to admit the aerial combat is visually fantastic. Winter's gryphon and Penny charging Cinder from opposite sides, followed by  fire and ice colliding, wow.

Background music also doing its usual stellar job.

Penny says "I...disagree"  in exactly the same tone of voice Adam used, and for exactly the opposite reason.  That's a cool parallel and I'm sure it was intentional.

Oscar lagging behind out of breath. He's smaller and younger and is years behind everyone except Jaune on training, it makes sense.  Also probably not using Aura to recharge stamina like the others. 

Oooh, I knew it wasn't Nora instantly by the body language. Neo moves very distinctively, it's great.  

And she's had lots of practice in imitating the person you love at the right instant to make you hesitate. Poor Ren.

You don't normally yell "Drop your weapons!" and simultaneously open fire unless you are intending to kill rather than capture. I guess the soldiers are assuming that Huntsmen will survive any kind of damage a normal person can dish out.  Which is...not a safe assumption for Oscar I don't think.  Ugh Ironwood your stormtroopers are dumb.

Ren is crying oh no

Annnnd Neo just toddles off with the lamp. I love that short officer with short ponytail look on her.

FRIA WAKES

and she is  AWESOME

(Her eyes are the same blue as Ironwood's,  it does make you wonder. We never learned her last name. )

Ren with an understandable lack of perspective. He's thought of Huntsmen as the pinnacle of combat badassery all his life, when really it's just a benchmark  of competence along the path.   I suspect there aren't many people alive who could defeat Neo, outnumbered or not, and most of the people who can are god-tier.

Maria's kept a low profile all volume because she has no patience for the high-level strategy and arguments and politics,  she sure as hell isn't going to run grunt missions, and she'd last ten minutes in a room with the General before smacking him in the knees or possibly the nuts.  But she was ready to charge in with the logistical support the instant that arrest order went out on the net.   I just...love her.  She is the best.  

"I was supposed to protect the power of the Maiden until I was ready.  I worry I may have lost track of time...but you can tell James that I'm ready, now."    People were worried that Ironwood was holding Fria prisoner, forcing her into a sacrificial death. But the way she says that makes it very clear that she wasn't pressured.  He specifically told her when you're ready.   And he waited as long as he could.  

Ironwood apologizing to Winter with so much regret in his voice.   Look, you may hate him,  but the writers don't, that's abundantly clear.  And I don't either.  This is a classical Greek-style tragedy unfolding before us, a good person being destroyed as their inherent fatal flaw meets the worst possible circumstances for it.  

Oscar descending in the elevator, standing just like Ozpin.  That is an eerie sight.   He's going to imitate Oz as much as he can because Ironwood has been asking for Oz all along.   ...and it's going to backfire as a strategy, isn't it.

"And....whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?"  "Still just me."  But you're leaning on your cane as you walk just like Ozpin did.

Someone suggested applying Blake's "embodiment of a word"  idea to all the characters, and the word I thought of at first for Oscar was innocence....but it's not, is it.  Oscar is the embodiment of sincerity.  He means every word of his offer to reconcile.  How could anyone resist?

...Apparently Ironwood can.   And I see it, I do.   If this is a chess game, then protecting the king - the relics - is ultimately the only thing that matters.  All the other pieces are expendable. Oz and Oscar and Ruby represent the opposite approach:  every piece matters, and what's most important is not to win the game but to preserve the board, to keep it all going.    

(If they'd told Ironwood all the way back in ch2 that as far as they know Salem can't be killed, would he have adjusted his perspective?   I believe he would have,  but not all the way.  There's a fundamental difference in mindset.   Lois Bujold talked in one of her books (Brothers in Arms I think) about how people are drawn to the romance of the hard choices. If you've believed all your life that hardship and painful sacrifice are necessary and inevitable, you get proudly attached to them in a way, and you tend to be skeptical, at best, of anyone who claims they can be avoided.  I've been thinking about that a lot this volume.)

Uh.

WHAT.

You were having an argument,  a heated but peaceful one.  Why would you suddenly draw your weapon and shoot a teenager off the edge of a cliff?   One who was offering no physical threat to you at all and who you could certainly have overpowered and arrested?   You arrested Watts, who was trying to kill you, nearly destroyed your kingdom, and made you nearly tear your own arm off.   Why would you murder Oscar?

You wouldn't.  This makes no sense, just like Clover and Qrow fighting each other instead of teaming up against Tyrian makes no sense.  I was hoping there'd be context in this case but there just isn't. The RWBY writers wanted dramatic scenes here and they didn't think the fans would care about anything else as long as it looked cool.

And this is new in v7, IMO.  While I've certainly had some quibbles with the writing in past volumes, I don't remember anything remotely like this.  Nothing so huge that I can't handwave or rationalize or say that it's a minor story element.   I'm a Watsonian, not a Doylist; I hate having to say that something is just plain bad writing.  

Ugh. Okay. Moving on.

That's a fast-regrowing Grimm arm.

I was expecting Penny to say "No, it's not me, it's supposed to be Winter," but she's really hesitating.  After the conversations they've had she's not sure the power should go to Winter.    There's nothing personal about it, no ambition.  Penny has been acting exactly as a Maiden should from the moment Fria first saw her, her every instinct to protect and help.

Uh, y'know, Winter, you could SHOOT CINDER during the many seconds she's writhing in helpless agony there.   You don't have to stand there and wait till she's ready to fight again.  Sigh.

That said, the sequence of Oscar falling,  power building in him and Penny,  the silver eyes etc is stunning.

(that little twirl Oscar does, like a shoujo magical girl.  cute)

holy carp there are still ten minutes left.

I don't think you're correct about fear being the common denominator, Oz, but I'll shut up and enjoy your very fine speech.

Winter makes her choice...and she's not surprised that Penny chooses differently.    Opposed to the heroes or not, I do think it's a good thing for her to stay at Ironwood's side.  Somebody sane needs to be ready to take over there sooner or later.  

Penny getting support from Ruby and Weiss,  yay.

This can't be easy for Pietro.  He's loyally helped Ironwood for decades, and he's not exactly in good shape to live the outlaw life.

Cinder, continuing to piss off her only ally.  Despite being the antagonist in a boss fight she felt...weirdly irrelevant at the end of it.  So much so that she just quietly left when no one was looking. 

"It's gone."  Well, now that's an interestingly vague way to put things, Winter.  Are you protecting Penny?   Withholding information from your boss is, as we've seen, not something he reacts well to.

Watts has an implausibly nice cell with a beautiful view.  

I think that's a quarry Oscar has fallen into, or perhaps the outskirts of a mine.  He and Oz have a LOT to talk about and I would really love to actually see the conversation next volume, writers.  For a change. 

ooooookay yep that's a flying murder behemoth whale.   I was expecting to be reminded of FFX's Sin, but it's got a vibe more like the whale from Pinocchio.  My vote for a name is therefore Monstro.   

Someone's dressed to impress her ex.

....Hmmmmm.  You know, I didn't see an actual army of flying monkeys.  Is there one? Is it inside the whale, or in that black cloud?  Or does Salem have something else in mind?  

"Fear" does seem like a song from Oz's point of view, but I don't feel it expresses his - or their - personality.  It's not the image song I'm still waiting for.  But then, quite a  few characters still haven't gotten theirs.  

Well. I'm on board for volume 8,  hopeful the writers will make better choices, and curious to see how we're going to START a volume with an ultimate boss encounter.  That's not a thing I've seen a story do before.

[littlemisssquiggles]

Another question that has been floating in my mind for quite some time now: what do you think is Oscar's Semblance (aside from Magic since I consider that one something different - I mean, Raven is able to wield Magic and a Semblance after all) or in which direction could it go? And another question on top of that: since Oscar's soul should be the combination of many different souls after the merge, do you think he might be able to wield multiple Semblances? ... Okay, that was long, sorry :x

Hello Mizu! Believe it or not, another FNDM fam member asked me this type ofquestion before and I created a Pinehead headcanon from it. For the sake of not repeating the same answers (since it was a long answer XD), I’m going to link you to that response post right here.

But if you’re looking for the nutshell version:

What do you think is Oscar’s semblance?

For a while, my main choice for Oscar’s semblance was Nullification—the ability to cancel out the effects of another’s semblance and/or prevent them from using their semblance for a period of time. I had based this theory on information shared about Princess Ozma from the Wizard of Oz series in ThatKaitoDan’s RWBY video essay on Oscar’s Great and Powerful Semblance. It was stated in Dan’s theory video that Princess Ozma, being a powerful magician and rightful ruler of Oz, possessed the ability to relinquish abilities from others.

Going off of that, I came up with the theory of Oscar possessing a similar type of power. The power to stop another from using their semblance for a short period of time and/or in more serious cases, even take away their ability to use their semblance permanently via doing something with their soul or something to that liking. I figured this would’ve been a cool power for Oscar to have, not to mention a very powerful one.

And as highlighted back in V6, it is possible for a semblance use to wield that kind of power. Mercury mentioned that his father was able to ‘steal’ his semblance away. If it’s possible for others to share the same type of semblance then it would be great for this to be something Oscar can do. Another reason why I think this power could work well for Oscar is because I have this theory where Oscar would be the one to restore Mercury’s semblance. And in exchange for helping him, Mercury will become an ally of Oscar’s. After all, if Oscar has the power to take away one’s semblance then surely, with practice, the reverse could be possible too. I dunno. If I had to pick an actual ‘semblance’ for Oscar, nullification is my top choice.

However, as you’re already aware of, this squiggle meister has moved away from the idea of Oscar eveb having a semblance. This ties into my answer to the next question.

Do you think Oscar might be able to wield multiple semblances since he is a combination of many different souls? 

On the contrary, my answer is the opposite. I think Oscar CAN’T have a semblance BECAUSE he is a combination of multiple souls. One’s semblance is described as the projection of their aura into a more tangible form. One’s semblance is said to be unique to them since it’s a power that is a reflection of their soul. Their very being.

To me, I now think it might be impossible for someone in Oscar’s predicament to possess a semblance. Semblances are abilities born from one’s soul basically and is meant to represent who they are, so to speak (according to what Ren said back in V4).

But in Oscar’s case, how could that be probable? He’s NOT just onesoul. He’s one soul plus many more. He’s another life in a culmination of many different lives destined to serve humanity.

Ozpin himself mentioned that both his and Oscar’s souls are currently combined. So…how would Oscar be able to have his own unique power that isprojection of his very soul when he doesn’t have one soul. Not anymore.

As sad as it is to say, Oscar isn’t his own person. He’s not just one person. Not one soul.

I actually dislike the thought of Oscar wielding more than one semblance due to his many lives. As OP as that sounds, I feel like that’s a bit of cheating. Sure it’ll be a power unique to Oscar and it’ll surely make him powerful, yes. However, I find that to be boring and honestly not what I pictured for Oscar.

I mean…if the show manages to take that and run it in some kind of heavy plot-driven way where Oscar is some kind of human semblance storage device. Like he’s basically One For All from My Hero Academia. He’s able to possess and control multiple semblances.

Like if the show did it in a way where Atlas has been illegally using their auraexperiments to steal and traffic semblances—steal the powers of viable candidates to be sold to the highest bidder on the black market for those seeking high powered semblances or something like that.

And Oscar is seen like some major key to that since he can hold more than one semblance so he’s tricked and kidnapped by whoever is running this semblance-trafficking circle among Ironwood’s ranks without his knowledge to be used in continuing their operations. This actually makes me think of an old thought I once hand about RWBY making a homage to Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood by introducing a subplot where Oscar is abducted and used for his aura as the Boy with More than One Soul. So he’s basically turned into a human aura battery by some rogue Atlesian scientist to create an army of solders bent on taking over Atlas. Like the Mannequin Soldiers.

If this idea is used like that…then…okay? I guess it could be kinda cool. Still not what I want to be Oscar’s true power, though. Sorry. No.

I want something that symbolizes Oscar possessing a power that only he can wield masterfully while simultaneously being something that was shared by the other Wizards of Light to give Oscar an incentive to be more fully accepting of his role in this fight against Salem. If that makes sense. I don’t buy Oscar being completely complacent with the Merge. As a matter of fact, Oscar is behaving just as nonchalant about his true feelings as Ruby was in V5 and I honestly pray she is the one to call him out on that in a similar way he did with her.

This is why I like the idea of Oscar having no semblance at all with his true strength coming from the power he shared with his fellow wizarding brothers. This is why I really want Oscar’s power to be magic.

When you think about it, Oscar may be the one character in RWBY who I think doesn’t need to have a semblance. Someone once made a point about semblances being only a remnant of magic. They are meant to resemblemagic but never come as close to being what it truly was. The gift of the Gods.

They didn’t say it in those exact words but this is what I derived from that analogy because I agree with it. Semblances are a by-product of ModernRemnant while magic was the original— its more powerful predecessor used by the First People of Remnant during the Era of the Gods.

 You can almost even say that one’s semblance may be limited by its wielder. Magic, on the other hand, is the power of the Gods. It is a power of infinitepossibilities. With magic, Oscar would be able to do more than anyone else on the team especially it he learns to master control of it.

I really think magic is going to be Oscar’s thing. It’s a power that’s his and is destined to be only his since it’s an intricate part of his legacy.

Out of the three fairy tale characters who influence Oscar’s story, two of them were powerful magic users including one who was practically the embodiment of magic in her world. From the get-go, magic has always been a power unique to Wizards since it represents their origins. Their past with First Remnant. It is what connects them to the Gods, Salem and all other magical things still retained in Remnant.

I cannot see Oscar having a more fitting power than magic.

And do you what’s also great about that? Even if Oscar has magic, he’d still be able to perform all those feats that folks were speculating to be his semblance. To the folks who believed Oscar’s power to be something to do with plants—Oscar can do that in the form of earth elemental magic. To the fans speculating that Oscar’s power would be some kind of teleportation ability, Oscar would be able to fly using magic as demonstrated by the Maidens and Salem and Ozma during the Lost Fable.

And to folks like me who thought Oscar’s semblance could be Nullification—Oscar would still be able to do that with magic. There is so much that can be done with magic. If Ozma was able to create the Maidens from magic while the King of Vale allegedly used it to create the Vaults to house the Relics while Ozpin blessed the Branwen Twins with avian shapeshifting through magic, then imagine what Oscar could do should he tap into that same power.

And if Oscar is anything like his inspirations, both in RWBY and in fairy tale, then only greatness is to be expected of this budding young farm boy. Semblance ornot, I strongly think Oscar is destined to become a great and powerful magic user. Even more powerful than Salem. That’s my theory.

With that thought in mind, it makes me consider something interesting. Here we all are thinking that Ruby Rose is going to be the saviour who finally defeats Salem when the possibility of the show making her the one destined to protect and/or fight alongside the actual ‘chosen one’ to stop Salem is also in the cards.

After all, not all protagonists in stories have to be the hero of the story or saviorof the world within the story. Nomad of Nowhere sort of did something like this in its first season where the Nomad, our main hero, is revealed to truly be the protector of our key player—the last magic user and probably the one person besides the Nomad with the power to put an end to El Rey. A little leeway to theorize about Nomad but the idea still remains.

It’d be interesting if the one or ones destined to defeat Salem as our two smaller, more honest souls— Ruby and Oscar working together to put an end to Salem’s dark reign. And they’ll succeed together, not by destroying Salem, but by cleansing her of her darkness, reverting her back to her former form before she dove into the Grimm Pools through the combined light of Ruby’s Silver Eyes and Oscar’s magic.

Salem would still be immortal. And she would still be bitter and wanting revenge against the Gods. However this time Ruby and Oscar would sever her ties to the Grimm Pools entirely by getting rid of them all, practically relinquishing the Land of Darkness. A feat once thought impossible since only the God of Light could repel his brother’s power. But Ruby and Oscar would be able to do it together since they share the God of Light’s power running through their veins.

That could be so cool if turned canon. Again, it’s just another theory in my plethora of headcanons. Buuuut…y’know it’s one I’ve come to really like in recent days. And with that, that concludes my answer.

Whelp…so much for the nutshell version XD  Oh wellll….I hope these answers were satisfactory to your liking Mizu. I guess you’ll let me know.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

[whitleyschn33]

RWBY 7 Trailer Thoughts

So, I said I would share my thoughts on the trailer, so here they are! I’m going to start at the beginning and write down what comes to mind for each little section, but since I have seen the entire trailer a couple times now, I may jump forward to connect whatever I’m addressing to something later in the trailer. This might make things seem a bit erratic, so I apologize in advance if this comes out like a lot of rambling nonsense. That said, let’s begin!

1. We open with Ironwood narrating that these are “uncertain times” over a montage of the Kaiju Grimm attack Argus, then cuts to Ruby saying that she’s trying to do what’s best, but doesn’t know if what’s best is what’s right as we see her use her Silver eyes on the Kaiju.

I’m hoping that this line about Ruby not being sure about what’s best being what’s right implies that we’ll get some kind of fallout for the events of Argus. One of my major gripes with the V6 finale is just how dangerous their plan was for the civilians in Argus, and how the narrative so far hasn’t really acknowledged that. The first step of their plan was cutting communications in Argus – something that would have caused mass panic even if they had succeeded and got away without the military noticing in time to send out forces. That panic can and did draw Grimm, and very easily would have killed dozens to hundreds of people. They’re huntsmen and huntresses – even if what’s “best” may be getting the Relic to Atlas, that doesn’t make what they did to do so (putting the civilians of Argus in unnecessary danger) “right”. Anyway, moving on.

2. Next, we get the gang flying into Atlas, whose airspace is completely full of military airships, with Weiss saying that this isn’t right. It then transitions to a shot of Atlas above Mantle, which seems to be on fire, then to the city, then the streets, where we see Atlesian knights patrolling, and only a handful of civilians walking outside, while Blake says the city just seems awful. We see a man throwing a trashcan at a TV screen (which as far as I can tell was showing the “Atlas Broadcasting(?) Network”) while a voice asks “what can we do?” (Can someone tell me who that is? It doesn’t really sound like Oscar or Jaune, and Qrow’s new VA pulls off a much more convincing performance at the end of the trailer, so I don’t think it’s him). Cut to Ruby saying that they didn’t come this far to fail now.

So, from Weiss’s line, we know that this is not how things usually are. The military is on high alert, showing off how strong their defenses are to match the closed off borders. I would guess that this also means troops roaming the city on patrol isn’t how things used to be either. Now, from what I’ve seen, most people seem to be taking this as a sign of martial law, and that theory certainly seems likely – the man throwing the trashcan and the fires we see are all potential signs of rioting, which could be a cause and/or effect of martial law being enacted. I have to wonder if that’s only part of the story, though. Later in the trailer, we see the gang fighting Grimm on the city streets (so I assume that’s what Ruby’s line is directed at), which we know from the leaked storyboards and their clothes happens immediately after they enter Atlas. The only time we’ve seen Grimm inside kingdom walls is during the Fall, so why are they there? What if this is a recent occurrence – a sudden influx of Grimm making it past the defenses and into the city proper? That’s another explanation (or even just another reason in addition to rioting) for troops to be patrolling, and I could very easily see that becoming a vicious cycle. Grimm get in, people panic, drawing more Grimm to the area and making it more likely for them to get it, causing more attacks and more panic, and making the soldiers seem less like protectors and more like ineffective “peacekeepers”. There’s a lot more I could say about this, but let’s keep going.

3. We go back to Ironwood’s voice overlaying what seem to be two/three different fights – the fight in the city streets against the sabertooth Grimm and two different fights in a mineshaft (and yes, they’re mines, the warning signs on the walls warn of deep mineshafts) against a new type of Grimm that I’ve heard are called Centinels and later an Ice Geist. He says, “Until now, I believed it was impossible to truly turn the tides against Salem. We find ourselves in the position of needing…. A new approach. She will keep returning stronger and stronger –“ cut to the new model for Ironwood “- unless we destroy her.” Cut to Ruby saying “Tell us how we can help.”

So, the main thing of interest to me here is Ironwood. We can see from the shot of his new appearance that he’s no longer taking care of his appearance like he did in the first few volumes – the stubble from V4 has become a full grown beard, and his hair doesn’t look like it’s been combed in weeks. The guilt and paranoia that we saw budding in V4 has fully come into bloom, as evident by his lines here, the heightened defenses we saw around Atlas, and the troops patrolling the city. In V4 E11, Jacques accuses Ironwood of never trusting anyone but himself, to which Ironwood responds to “For good reason,” then immediately says, “If Oz had just listened to me from the start…” Ironwood clearly believes that the Fall of Beacon would not have happened had Oz listened to him – used his strategies. Oz’s strategies “failed”, so this reaffirmed Ironwood in thinking that he’d had the right ideas – that if he had been able to control what was happening in Beacon, he could have stopped it. So, now, he’s not taking any risks with Atlas. He’s doing everything he thinks is right to protect the kingdom, no matter how paranoid or insane it seems – closing the borders, dust embargos, potential martial law, whatever it takes to keep the kingdom “safe”. 

Now, this seems to be extending to Salem herself. If Oz was flawed about Beacon, he may be reasoning, why can’t he be wrong about Salem? Maybe there is a way – maybe the strength of Atlas *can* destroy Salem. Salem always seems to come back, maybe she’s just never been completely destroyed, and that’s what we need to try to do to fully get rid of her. Now, we know that this isn’t true, that Salem can’t be killed, can’t be destroyed, but even if Ironwood knows this (from his “believed it was impossible to turn the tides” line), he’s clearly no longer thinking straight. He no longer trusts Oz for having reasons for not simply going after her with an army, since Oz has been knocked down from his pedestal of “all-wise and powerful” with his “death”, so now he’s going to try to go about things his own way… which, from the state of Mantle? Doesn’t seem to be working amazingly well. More on that when I try to summarize my thoughts into a cohesive TLDR.

4. Cue Team RWBY jumping out of a plane into some kind of complex (my guess would be the mines/refineries at the mine site), interspersed with them fighting either the Sabertooths or the Cenitals, and title card.

So, “final” (I say that, but I’ll probably talk about them again) take on the new outfits. Ruby is still my favorite – it still looks really good, the hair is far tamer than I or anyone else thought it would be and I’m glad (though in some places, particularly the concept art that went around like a week ago, it really looks like Cinder, and I’m not sure how to feel about that), since this just gives her hair a more stylized look.

Blake is sitting at my second favorite – I think it’s a look that comes together pretty well, and the hair looks fine (I’ve seen some people complaining about how flat it looks, and I’m just here like, yeah, that happens a lot when you cut it that short, it can lose the volume it used to have). 

Now Weiss and Yang… are now kinda tied. Yang’s outfit looks better than it did in the original art for me, and I think that’s mainly because the belt breaks up the khaki a bit better in 3D, so it’s not just a great expanse of bleh (still think the jumpsuit itself is ugly as hell, but I’ll take what I can get). 

Weiss’s… is still a case where I like the aesthetic they were going for, but it doesn’t come together right. The big poofy skirt looks okay when she’s on her own (sometimes), but next to the rest of RWBY just looks so out of place and in the way and honestly a bit bland. The top half with the sleeves and gloves look… fine, but again, I wish they didn’t poof out the arms so much. The braid… still gives me really mixed feelings because it’s shorter than the concept art, but it’s still looks so thick and heavy, and adds to this unbalanced feeling I get. If it was in the back completely, instead of the side, I would be perfectly fine with it, but as it is, just throws me off. I can see what they were going for, particularly in the clip where she’s fighting a Cenital since that’s where the outfit as a whole looks best to me, but as a whole, there are too many little details that throw me off for me to really like it. Again, that might change when the first episode hits, but for now… eh. 

The title card is pretty, though.

5. Back in the city streets – Qrow comments that he was expecting things to go a lot rougher, Blake and Yang are walking away when suddenly – captured by bolos! We see Blake, Qrow, then Ruby go down, the Relic falling off on to the pavement. A man approaches, while another standing of to the side, and then picks up the Relic. End trailer.

So, first off, major kudos to the new Qrow VA – his performance is outstanding. I was worried that the transition would be jarring, but if I hadn’t known they’d put someone new in, I honestly wouldn’t have noticed. His mimicry of Qrow’s voice is exceptional.

Second, I’m fairly certain that the people that captured the team are Atlas personnel. While we can’t see much, the man in frame wears white and blue, Atlas colors, and has a fairly militaristic haircut. The other figure is either wearing white boots, has a model that hasn’t been completely rendered yet, or seems to be an android, looking at the odd pattern and shape of his feet. I’ve seen some people throwing out the idea that this is Ironwood trying to take the Relic, or Atlas trying to steal the Relic, since the man picks it up, but – guys. Really? We see Ruby talking to Ironwood earlier in this trailer. They’re still in their old clothes, this is episode one. The more likely explanation is that these guys captured them because RWBY and Co attacked a military base, stole an airship, arrived in said stolen airship, and clearly are not supposed to be here if they just suddenly appeared without the border officials being informed, and so are clearly criminals in the eyes of Atlas. So, yeah, my 5 lien are on them spending, like, 5 minutes in jail before they can get to Ironwood, where he (hopefully) reams them out a bit.

So, yeah, that’s the trailer!  No sign of Whitley, which, disappointed by not surprised. I’m gonna hold out hope for him to be in the intro, like in Volume 4. As for what I think may be happening this volume from the trailers, I expect we’ll have a heavy focus on Ironwood, his paranoia, and his relationship with Oz, and how that extends to how the inner circle has operated for the part 10/20/?? years. I also feel like the first big thing to be tackled will be the Grimm in the city. The fact that Grimm are getting in points to a huge breakdown in the kingdom’s defenses, despite the fact Ironwood seems to have ramped them up to 11. So, the question is, where are they coming from, and how are they getting in? Considering that the Centinals break out from the ground, and RWBY and Co are fighting in a mineshaft, I would say that it’s coming from a subterranean pocket of Grimm, like the ones that people of Mountain Glenn broke in on. Since we know Salem is experimenting more with Grimm, it’s possible that this Grimm outbreak is being caused by her seeing how viable it would be to launch an attack on Atlas from underground, where their defenses are at their weakest, and this is showing most prominently in the mines and the city around them/on the ground. Otherwise, it could be possible the SDC, while mining, broke into a cavern full of them. This doesn’t seem as likely, though, with the dust embargo. If the SDC isn’t able to sell overseas, then mining operations were most likely shut down temporarily. No use wasting money trying to get product that you can’t sell. It could be an old mine, though – one that had been boarded up cause Grimm, but that broke loose due to all the negativity caused by Ironwood’s new measures.

But ultimately, we’ll just have to wait and see! Once again, I’m sorry if this is a bit rambling – I have to leave any minute now, so I haven’t given this a through reread, but I want to get my thoughts out there in a timely manner for once, so I’m going to post anyway. Thank you for reading this far! What’re your thoughts on the trailer, the outfits, the potential plot? Feel free to comment below or send an ask, and I’ll talk to you all soon! Have a good day!