#like its not just hes alone and a relic of pre war times

[movedtodykedvonte]

Simon wasn't young when the war started and I think that's an important aspect in talking about why he feels so disconnected to Ooo in the present.

He was already becoming the older generation compared to a child like Marcy. He was a man established in his life and career with clear sights of where he was going and supposed to be doing. Even without the war the world would've changed beyond him but at least he wouldn't have been alone then. At least he would have time to adjust. Now imagine that it still happens but all at once. Simon got no adaption period to being obsolete in the world, a relic, an outlier. One day he fit in and the very next he painfully didn't and to make matters worse no one else can relate.

He's alone and all the planning he may have had for it is worthless cause the only thing that remains in regards to it are shadows of things that were already after him.

[hresvelged]

— alliances, part I.

Been meaning to delve into stuff like this for a while, but there's just a lot to unpack for a character like her. She holds a lot of knowledge pre-skip most others do not by virtue of her role in the game and her motivations. This is mainly going to be about Edelgard's complexity and views on the Agarthans. Mainly in terms of her knowledge, her reactions and thoughts, and how/why she forms a firm line between her army and their own.

She tends to foreshadow a lot in her speech pre-skip (mainly because she knows what's going to happen and all that), which is seen in some of the quotes I highlighted. Going to make some general bullet points, though.

Crest Stones: They've been seen already as being able to turn people into crest beasts, so Edelgard knowing this isn't strange. As such, she'll talk about it because there is both no point in hiding what's been seen/she hopes those who do see it will come to their own conclusions as to what they want to do with that information. She isn't interested in getting non-Fódlan people intertwined with her personal affairs. Them knowing this information won't influence her actions, but she can use it to deduce them as people. The war will be hers to fight, regardless. The crest stones are also substantial as far as the Heroes Relics themselves go, seeing as the two tend to go hand-in-hand. Aymr has one like the others. She's open about her disdain towards crests/the weaponry that propels said crests. In-game text also infers she already knows this prior to the general Black Eagle (in CF/SS's case) populace discovering it, like in chapter 5 when they see Miklan turn into one.

"Such is the fate of one whose life is corrupted by a Crest Stone... How pitiable. The least we can do is put an end to his suffering." "Right or wrong, he was a gifted leader. He could have been a great asset to Fódlan. What a waste."

Unlike others' words in this scene, Edelgard's reaction is more subdued/implying this fate was unavoidable for him given what he was doing and she expected it. She knows before most that a person wielding a relic who isn't compatible with its crest will result in beasts. She calls it 'pitiable' not out of malice. A person's worth should not be dictated by whether or not they have a crest.

The Heroes' Relics: Fódlan history has the legendary weapons written down as things to be revered, used by the Ten Elites as gifts from the goddess. The Agarthans would know this isn't true because their kind was literally there and it's part of the reason for their forged alliance with Edelgard/the Empire in the first place. They as a whole do not tell her everything because there is emphasis in text numerous times how their factions are separate and the alliance will be broken once their mutual goal is achieved. Also, why would they reveal their entire hand to her? They wouldn't. Edelgard absolutely keeps a number of secrets, herself. It's an alliance forged on mutual needs, not trust. She's very smart and additionally comes to make her own inferences both due to her personal knowledge as well as her thoughts. In-game, when you visit the Red Canyon and Edelgard ponders its architecture, you can gain support points if you tell her that you think "a culture long since perished" used to live there. To which she replies:

"Heh, it's possible they weren't even human. Hmm, perhaps their remnants still influence this world."

She wouldn't say this if she had no reason for thinking that. Furthermore, Edelgard isn't the type to immediately believe everything she might hear from others. Let alone from a group she despises and can disguise themselves as her family (literally. See Arundel/Thales). She needs probable cause to believe it, hence why she examines what she receives. But I do think she also knows what the heroes relics are made of. The bones stuff. Another thing that makes me like to believe she knows this is just the way her army speaks about 'crest stones/bones' in the Holy Tomb. She is also the Imperial Princess and next Emperor, so it's not illogical for her to hold at least some knowledge others do not in the event it comes up and someone goes. How do you know this lol.

Herself: A weird point lmao, but the truth of what they did to her/her siblings is covered up both by them but also the empire itself. A 'plague' etc etc. If someone says that to her, she won't correct it because she doesn't want to talk about it, but she'll just silently grit her teeth together. She's never told anyone at present that she has a second crest, let alone the Crest of Flames. She loathes thinking about it nor does she care to share that with anyone (minus like. Hubert who is her close vassal but he canonically knows what she's been through and she trusts him). Her Crest of Seiros is public knowledge, though. But the fact that she and her family were taken under the palace with the primary goal of giving them the Crest of Flames is kept hushed. When she does choose to share it, she speaks with passion. See her C+ support with Byleth.

"I know how it all sounds. But when you see my true strength, you will know I speak the truth. I have kept it hidden all this time, but.. I will reveal to you the power of my second Crest. It is the same as yours.. the Crest of Flames. When it manifested for me, I swore a silent oath. For the sake of my family and for all the poor souls whose lives were traded for my existence. For their sake, I will build a world where such meaningless sacrifice is never again sanctioned. As emperor, I will change the world. I swear it."

Seeing as TWSITD obviously know this, I think they could also use it as leverage against her. Three Hopes shows this, but houses wise, there's always the looming threat of 'If you go against us, you will pay etc etc.' Her motives stem from this event- From the goddess not answering her pleas and everyone around her dying just for her to get more power. She muses about this often, hence the nightmares from it. It was not Edelgard specifically they sought at the time. Not until the crest manifested. A number of her siblings didn't even bear the Crest of Seiros. I feel like it's important too because this memory shows how she doesn't like working with them due to this pain they've caused but feels she must because she needs their power to usurp the church. This, coupled with how unsettled she feels each time they take the guise of someone she knows, compels her to stay her hand.

Aymr: It's first heavily implied in houses that this was made specifically for Edelgard by the Agarthans because it takes Agarthium to repair if you break it. Like I mentioned earlier, she knows what kind of weapon it is. Nobody ever questions her having this though because it just appears like any other heroes' relic, despite the empire generally lacking in them compared to the kingdom and alliance. She has Labraunda in 3 Hopes because she severed ties with them earlier than in houses. Plus like. When we do see her wield Aymr in Hopes at a point, Thales is with her. Aymr is a strong axe that allows her to channel her power and aid in her quest forward. It's not a 'gift' given as a peace offering or to satisfy her, but to satisfy their own needs. She is a weapon. If Edelgard is strong enough to take down the church, they are ever-closer to what they want. The axe is a way to destroy anyone who stands in her way.

They have also "given" her the Crest of Flames, but that ties back to what I wrote earlier about it coupled with the 'weapon' bit. She hates having 2 crests and doesn't want to become a puppet emperor like her father. It's talked about how having 2 is a heavy strain on one's body and shortens a person's lifespan, so this would apply to Edelgard as well. This lack of time is a strong motivator for her quick actions- Both on her end and the desire to not wait around anymore. But also, using the power of those 2 crests is daunting and strenuous. Edelgard is a proponent of people using their own power to cut a path forward, but given how she feels the people of Fódlan are blinded to the truth, she uses these abilities she has in order to force them to understand. If she does not, she feels the cycle won't end. She's strongly devoted to this goal and explicitly states it plenty of times.

The Flame Emperor: That is her own persona she uses pre-skip to protect her identity as she sorts out her plans, but the attire itself is from the Agarthans seeing the extensive technology and stuff. She's able to mask her voice with it, too. Until she can declare war, she must set her devices and act anonymously. Even when she does happen to speak to other people as FE, she does so declaratively. It's the truth she urges those to know.

After we see Kronya in-game, Edelgard will only speak to Kronya/Thales/etc in her Flame Emperor outfit if they are not using their 'disguises.' This is because Edelgard standing in plain sight with them is just. A red flag lol. I think it bothers her when they use those visages, and not just solely because it increases her distrust levels. Arundel was her uncle, someone she had went to the Kingdom with at one point in time. Pre-skip in houses, she does fight them at moments with her classmates when the times called for it.

Kronya: "Huh? What are you— Are you here to kill me?" Edelgard: "I am. Prepare yourself for death while you still can."

Which still stands now. There is the fact that Edelgard knows what she is doing. Whenever she decides to dispose of TWSITD members prematurely, she needs to act cautiously. Even so, in certain circumstances, it's not only what is expected of her but also what she needs to do. She is cutting a divide between the Flame Emperor army and the Agarthans'. At least, from their perspectives. She wants to rid the Church of its power & system they've upheld for ages, but she also needs to dispose of TWSITD. Allowing them to fester is not completing her life's goals. It's a second war. TWSITD are the ones who caused the two-crest experimentation, controlling the empire from the shadows, etc. Her plans of war are already brewing when she enters the academy. She knows people will be surprised- Perhaps even hate her. If they flee to their home countries, that is all for the better. They don't need to get involved.

That being said, there's of course the sheer fact that they're providing her with extra military strength. Since they know her plans of war. This is obvious enough in houses, emphasized in hopes in her support with Hubert when she says "Besides, after breaking ties with him and his allies, we lacked the military capability to carry out an operation on such a scale." This is post-skip in Hopes so I don't want to deep-dive it rn, but the Agarthans hold a strength the Empire alone does not possess even pre-skip (which is why I included it mainly lol, just to show it's a thing). It is why she keeps her ties with them at the moment because not only is fighting against 2 armies at once difficult, but unreasonable to her at present. She loathes complicity, but she is super determined for this goal of a higher cause.

This alliance is made aware of by far and few in-between. She has no plans on telling anyone about it who doesn't already know. While I think she has the most correspondence with the group's leaders, it doesn't really matter who tells her what so I'm leaving it vague on purpose to allow for plenty of wiggle room. Their faction is bigger than even Edelgard knows, anyways. She doesn't know where they hide out nor even who they all are. She is around so many faces all the time, them included, but she must continue on in order to achieve results.

[unboundwanderers]

//THE GOTH DOCTOR\\ Intro Variant.

BASED ON THE AESTHETICS OF HORROR-THEMED SCIENCE FICTION, The Doctor has survived The Time War, but at a cost. One he refuses to acknowledge. The Doctor in this stage of his life initially starts as very standoffish and bitter. He's just lost his race and ended a war, he's got very bad PTSD which manifests as rage and bitterness. He's sad, trying to push people away and exist on his own- because if he lets anyone in for a moment, he'll break down. A good man at heart, this Doctor carries a lot of pain. He's mourning- mourning for his race, and for the person, he used to be. He goes through an arc of starting as a vindictive, insulting, disrespectful bastard- but eventually, he picks up a companion who heals him into a softer, mellow, understanding figure- who's got a lot of weight on his shoulders.

BELOW THE READ MORE ARE PROMPTS FOR THE GOTH DOCTOR. A loner and a standoffish incarnation, this Doctor is COLD and RUTHLESS. His PROMPTS are HORRIFIC and the monsters he faces are ELDRITCH beings of UNSPEAKABLE HORROR. You've been warned. He works with characters who can take that kind of abuse, ones who are ready to stare into the abyss- ones who are ready for the truth of the universe: That there's an evil that must still be fought, even if you don't want to.

FIRST MEETING PROMPTS / SOLO ADVENTURE PROMPTS >In Which your Muse meets The Doctor and works with him collaboratively (or antagonistically) during a one-off adventure. As mentioned in my rules- I write a lot of my threads like "Micro-D&D campaigns" in which our muses go on an adventure! Here are some prompts that follow that concept. These are basic ideas- they can always be discussed and plotted further.

Some threads may or may not establish that The Doctor is already traveling with @lunaetis's Yelan- as periodically, Yelan returns to present-day Teyvat while The Doctor has a standalone adventure. If you are a Genshin muse, the choice to acknowledge that is within your discretion. I do it mainly for TIMELINE purposes, as Hina's Yelan is one of my main's. If you want to establish the thread we're doing as an ALTERNATE TIMELINE or PARALLEL UNIVERSE in which The Doctor is not a native of your universe, we are free to acknowledge that.

The Goth Doctor can MEET and RECIEVE companions if we plot that as a possibility. Yelan will be The Companion who travels with him up until his regeneration. However, The potential for Companions set before HER arrival aboard is limitless. The Doctor you will receive prior to her, however, is an ABSOLUTE BASTARD- So keep that in mind, as he works really hard to make sure you know that (He Doesn't want friends.)

THE RELICS: Every Two Centuries, The Museum Of The Universe will pass through a random galaxy. On this day, it passed through YOUR CHARACTER's planet, and you, like the others before- received a massive invitation in the sky to pre-order tickets! Only five people would be selected from the entirety of your PLANET to view the contents of the museum. Naturally curious to see what it might have, and what you can learn- you pre-order a ticket. The Surprise that comes when you out of everyone on the PLANET is picked must've been shocking... but when you end up TRAPPED in the Museum with shadows that consume all in its path... Well, just be glad you're not trapped alone... Though, something tells you that THE DOCTOR didn't pre-order a ticket.

MANE OF BLOOD: Six Months ago, a howling echoed through a full moon night. At first, it tried to hunt them- but nobody could anticipate the strength of something that was half man, half beast. Now, the people lock their doors on every full moon night- they turn out the lights, and establish a curfew (even if the soldiers who maintain it don't wish to be out there...) But, YOUR CHARACTER feels that something is amiss... and when a man in a blue box arrives, his investigations into the matter cross paths with a curious mind like theirs...

THE EVERLASTING CURSE: Women and Children are drawn to THE SHORES of YOUR CHARACTER's home city. They walk into the water, past the shores- and they disappear. Only to return weeks later, as mouthless... silent... empty vessels, afraid of the water. It sweeps the population in a grip of fear that they cannot break from, so they continue to let it happen. YOUR CHARACTER has had enough and meets someone who thinks the same way... The Doctor.

VAMPIRE IN THE MASQUERADE: A Masquerade ball! And how EXQUISITE it is~! YOUR CHARACTER arrives, someone eager to be a part of the festivities. However, when a string of gruesome murders leaves the ballroom panicked and cordoned off by The Police- you realize only one person can make sense of these PUZZLING murders- which leaves the victims flatter than a pancake... and it's a man who doesn't wear a mask.

FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER: The TARDIS arrives on the set of a science fiction movie that(or play, if your character comes from a time before motion picture), YOUR CHARACTER is involved in the production of this project. As a (minor) film geek, The DOCTOR is intrigued by the production- but when he finds a familiar foe being used as a film prop... things get grim and bloody.

[lore-of-the-silvereyes-rwby]

Ironwood Summary

Here we are at last the final conclusion of this long character analysis series, for now. This is mostly going to be my own opinion of the character based on the research I did for the analysis. As well as some ideas of what may happen to the character in future volumes and overall standing of what the character was always meant to be and represent in the rwby narrative. Also keep in mind that this is only an analysis of Ironwood’s character pre Volume 8 so there won’t be any spoilers used in this analysis or summary

(Before we begin i want to thank @spacecapart for his art to be used in this summary as i feel this piece summarizes how i feel about Ironwood)

When I started researching and writing on July 31st 2020  for Ironwood and the months that followed I feel like I have gained a better understanding of what exactly Ironwood’s character was meant to be while making sure my overall opinion of him wasn’t biased but honest and neutral. 

For the most part Ironwood’s life was just sad because, well it was never really his to begin with, since he pretty much had no say in it. Based on what I saw and learned about him with the help of additional lore as well as the current story Ironwood was just a tool and a plot device in the narrative.

He started as a tool for Mantle(pre Atlas) which planted the seeds that made him this cold inhuman person that we see at present due to its old toxic ideologies of imperialism and militarism combined with a Nietzsche's philosophy that survives and thrives through Ironwood once he become a de facto king when Atlas became an official kingdom.

Then he became a tool for Oz to protect and safeguard the current status quo without benefiting from it. Though it was with good intentions Ironwood couldn’t help but feel insulted that he was being restricted and kept in check by someone who does not share his belief or ideals of what he considers right even though they weren't his beliefs or the best to begin with.

Finally after all was said and done he became a tool for the very enemy that he swore to fight and defend against. Due to his toxic upbringing in Atlas and his bitter resentment for Oz he tried to take matters in his own hands only for it to backfire immensely into the events that we see in the show. As I Stated in “The Hero that was never meant to be” Ironwood was more or less the most prominent catalyst for all of the events and conflicts in the show that Salem took advantage of and prospered from simply due to Ironwood’s elitist and violent mindset.

All of this just contributes to Ironwood being a plot device since that he’s essentially just a philosophical mouthpiece for Atlas as the show has somewhat made it clear that he is basically the physical embodiment of Atlas if it were a person with both a voice and need to survive. Which wouldn’t be so bad if Atlas wasn’t the Remnant equivalent of a fasciest imperialist dystopia. Most of Ironwood’s character flaws mostly stem from the fact that his is simply the product of his origins and refusing to change or find a compromise for the better.

Another thing that I believe should be taken into consideration is his overall effect in the plot. Added by how the narrative has been structured with its main conflict I think it's safe to assume that no matter what, Ironwood was always a character that was set to fail ever since his introduction. This is mostly due to the fact that most if not all of his power comes from control and authority over others. As well as his lack of actual experience when it comes to war and conflict. 

As I stated in I am power with my own estimate of Ironwood’s age(47-50) based on his rank’s promotion requirements he has at least 30 years of experience from both his huntsmen and military career: 34 if we were to count his academy days of training. Now you're probably asking; “If he has that many years of experience in his career, then why are you saying he has none?” Well it is quite simple based on 2 factors; his professions and the time that he was born in.

At present he is both Headmaster of Atlas academy and the Atlas equivalent of the joint chiefs of staff of the Military. I think it's logical to assume that Ironwood gained the status of Headmaster first and General later due the needs of Oz. Given the importance of the relics hidden in the academies it would be a pragmatic choice for Oz to ensure that there was always a guardian and supervisor over the vaults as well as training the worlds next gen huntsmen(the agreed upon nuclear deterrent). 

Since his profession shifted from field combat to school administration upon becoming headmaster most if not all of Ironwood’s career from this point on saw very little combat opportunities and would soon be filled with politics once he became General further diminishing his combat skills. Also since Generals are the face of the military they mostly handle diplomatic and public affairs as well as deal with civilian contractors to ensure the military has the resources and gear needed to sustain itself.

This means that Ironwood went from fare soldier, to desk jockey, to financial benefactor throughout the entirety of his 30 year long career. But the two thirds of his later career  basically had no relevant or beneficial experience that would be suited for the war that he had been preparing a long time for. Ironwood’s lack of practical experience is also more damaging when you realize that the very little he did have also wouldn’t be of much help in the first place as well.

This is mostly due to the fact that Ironwood was born at the beginning of the high golden age of peace and prosperity for Mantle/Atlas and all of the concerning conflicts happening at least 5 years before the show’s start very late in his career at an estimated age of 45, with the white fang terrorists groups targeting SDC assets that he wanted for war. 

Also his career at that point most likely focused on policing and enforcing Atlasian laws rather than doing actual combat and even then he was trained to fight grimm instead of human combatants and even if he had to fight people they most likely are that of combat inexperienced and petty criminals that wouldn’t actually put up that much of a challenge and even then most of the fighting was done by disposable robots that he can command  with the press of a button.

Overall Ironwood was really unprepared to even fight anyone in general, let alone wage a war against Salem. Even if he had powered up that army to the maximum it really wouldn’t solve anything. Ever since the first episode of the series the message was clear; You're not going to win with just strength and power alone, but with acts of mercy and honesty. As well as just enjoying the simple things in life and just simply living life rather than just surviving. After all this time Ironwood forgot to live life and be satisfied with what he had. Because of this he’s just going to keep on pushing the limit until he loses everything that he has and drag everyone else with him. Simply because he wouldn’t admit to himself that he has no idea about what to do or accept that he wasn’t the most important piece on the board.

Which sadly brings me to the very likely truth that it is guaranteed that Ironwood’s part and time in the story is coming to an end and his death is drawing near. This has been foreshadowed in the beginning of volume 6 where the true plot and crisis of the story had basically made Atlas and by extension Ironwood irrelevant to the story when it's been made clear they can’t just simply kill Salem and win with brute force as he had hoped. Because of that Ironwood was no longer important to the story as they show and fandom have hyped him up to be. Even if he still had an actual role in the plot I’m afraid to say that Ironwood’s story (even if it wasn’t that much) has already been told and judging by the direction he is going by it’s only going to get worse for his character (moraly wise) to the point that his death may be a blessing in disguise for remnant.

To start we need to look at the essential core concepts that make up Ironwood’s character. If we remove all of his actions and focus on his archetypes we get a character that is A) Half robot, B) the de facto leader of an inefficient military(let's be honest it's just a glorified security force for rich douchebags.) C) A school principal and D) someone who essentially hails from what can be considered the most evil and inhuman kingdom of his world that values power and is placed into a story and conflict where none of those things even matter given what we know about the true stakes and consequences of the plot and this is essentially all that we even know about him in relation to the story.

Which brings me to this point that in my opinion he wasn’t much of a character to begin with. This is mostly due to the fact that we really don’t know anything about him besides the summarized 4 points from the last section. We don’t know anything about him like how he became involved in the plot, how old he is, when and what caused him to be a cyber, does he have anyone outside of work or any family that he cares about and more importantly why does he fight in the first place and what motivates him to do so and what does he hope to gain? These details to me are important as to give depth to a character as to better understand why they are the way they are. Otherwise they are either a philosophical mouthpiece or a living ideological caricature. As I stated before in Ironwood’s case he is just that for Atlas, just a simple tool that it can use for whatever it needs.

Which also brings up another subject towards his contributions to the plot; What exactly can he do and was he really even that important to begin with? As I stated before Ironwood really doesn’t have much to offer besides the Military which has been proven to be useless and unneeded. But if it was to be needed that doesn’t automatically mean Ironwood should be the one leading it. For example should he be removed from power and replaced and the heroes really need the military wouldn’t it be simple just to involve the new commander and chief or appoint someone they can trust to ally with them. So yeah the military part as well as the academy are what give an individual like Ironwood any relevance but that doesn't automatically mean they’re that important or crucial to begin with.

Simply put Ironwood has always been a character in the wrong genre. Had he been placed in any other circumstance he may have had a point and could have succeeded but in the case of his story he doesn’t have one. Ever since his debut he has always been this source of contradictions and antagonism and contrast when it comes to how the world and characters have been set. Due to this Ironwood has always been this source of escalation and conflict as he only follows his own beliefs and tries to force others to comply with them. As well as the truth that he really has no idea of what to do since he was never really prepared to handle anything like this and added by the fact that he won’t admit or consider the possibility that he is not that needed or important. If he continues on with this type of thinking it's only going to warrant his end as simply put by Oscar he really is just as dangerous as Salem.

Before I explain his overall purpose and status in the Narrative I want to go over several ideas for what may be next for Ironwood throughout the rest of the series which will be explained further by the reasoning I will use in the narrative part. 

Fate and status for Volume 8 and the rest of the series

Death

I think it's safe to say that Death flags have been hovering over Ironwood for a while or at least since Volume 7. But is it certain? Most likey. I say it’s near mostly due to my belief that his story has essentially been told and he really doesn’t have anything left to contribute to the plot at this point. The impact of his death whether it will leave a positive or negative impact remains uncertain. But the way of his death to me is certain; he’s going to die by the hands of another character(specifically a hero). I know most people would have hoped for a heroic sacrifice or a redemption by death but I don’t exactly see Ironwood doing such things. (Which I’ll explain in the next 2 bullet points)

If it hasn’t been made clear Ironwood has made more enemies than allies simply due to his inability to compromise or let go of his Atlasian ideals and ego. As well as his refusal to accept the fact that he really isn’t that important or necessary in this conflict or at least in the way he wanted to be. If he further descends into his own little world Ironwood is going to cause more problems and do more damage that can never be undone and the only way to stop it would be if he was out of the picture. Because of this Ironwood is likely to die in V8 or by the end of the Atlas arc but it is also possible that he may die at another point later in the series.

Redemption Arc

The chances for Ironwood’s redemption are slim but they’re there, but probably not in the usual way that everyone expects to happen. To help clarify the possibility of redemption we will be using the trifecta structure of redemption arcs. This includes; How the character sees himself, how they see the world, and the stakes and how they change over time. As well as the Scale and Values of his motivation. To help better understand let us take a look at Ironwood’s motivations and goals from V2 and how they contrast and differ from V7 Ironwood.

Volume 2 Ironwood’s motivations upon first glance are simple; stop the threat and ensure stability and security. However if you watch closely there is an ulterior motive. From this we can determine the true Values of his goals and the Scale of what he is willing to do to achieve them and they go as such;

His values as of V2 are security via large Military foundations and amassing complete control and influence over forign nations while promoting the agendas of Atlas imperialism.(similar to the Galactic empire in its early years from Star Wars) With the scale showing that he is willing to go to such lengths as propaganda and political manipulation and betraying allies to get what he wants(the greatest example of this being subverting control from Ozpin)

From this we know that Ironwood sees himself as this perfect savior that can do no wrong and should be the one in charge. While his views of the world being that everything is below him unless they match those of Atlas. With the stakes at the time being the possibility of losing imperial expansion and the threat of domination from a superior force that could shatter the foundations of his ideology and culture. 

While Volume 7 Ironwood’s motivations being; whatever it takes to preserve his perfect and ideal society even if it means sacrificing everything else before his valued culture is destroyed.

The values of this Ironwood definitely differ from previous versions of the character. As V7 Ironwood’s motivations have shifted from saving lives and defending them from Salem to preserving the very little bastion of control and authority that he has over Atlas. With the scale showing that he is willing to turn on allies and go as far as to abandon a whole heavily populated city and potentially the rest of the world in order to preserve the one thing that he has complete and unconditional control over.

Because of this a lot of Ironwood’s views have changed by the end of V7. 

Due to his streak of recent failures his views of himself changed from being the perfect leader that he thought he was, to accepting reality that he isn’t said leader and is prone to failure. However because of that thinking he no longer feels that he should hold himself to that set standard anymore and do what he thinks is needed to get his desired results. Which leads to the fact that he still views himself as the one that should be in charge but this time he does not feel compelled to be fair or considerate of either allies or people.

His views of the world really haven’t changed as much. He is just more honest, open and direct about his views by V7’s end where it's pretty clear that he values his military industrial complex that is Atlas over people's lives regardless of their affiliation.(It should be noted that Mantle is still apart of the Kingdom of Atlas as a whole so consider the fact that he is abandoning the part of it he deems is an acceptable loss without even trying to save it)

But the greatest and significant of changes for Ironwood in the plot are the stakes. Prior to being told the truth about Salem’s immortality he honestly thought that he could win and kill her and be free to pursue whatever task he could set his mind to now that she was gone. After being told and with the clear indication that his power(Atlas) was at risk he essentially is doing what raven did; cut his losses and settle with what he has and run. As such the stakes for Ironwood at this point are to preserve the very little power and control that he has currently at his disposal and sacrifice and do whatever he can’t to maintain it even if it means letting the rest of the world die or be under Salem's control.

This is just speculation but Ironwood’s chances for redemption are pretty slim but not impossible. But the key start and major factors to make that redemption possible is for him to yield power and let go of Atlas. As I stated before, Ironwood relies heavily on his control over Atlas as he believes it to be the only means to maintain and sustain a war as well as the only way of  enforcing his authority. To reiterate Ironwood true power and relevance to the story is his complete and unchallenged command over the Kingdom of Atlas and at the risk of sounding cliche; “All who obtain power are afraid to lose it even a hero” If there is to be any hope of defeating Salem and or maintaining peace in Remnant it can not happen with Ironwood being in power. Which may be more difficult than it seems which leads us to the possibility that he may not be redeemed and should he live past the Salem conflict with this type of thinking.

A New Enemy

For a character to be redeemed the character needs to want change for better but given his personality and recent events Ironwood at this point doesn’t feel or believe that he should change as he now has an ends justify the means mentality with the belief that he is this grand savior believing his way is the only way. Because of this it is very likely that he may stay an antagonist throughout the remainder of the series and possibly long after the main conflict.

The Third Faction; Okay I think it's a safe bet to say that no matter what Atlas was always going to be an antagonistic force that was being set up as early as V1. And unfortunately for Ironwood he ended up being the face and voice of said force that was there before he was ever given a name or a design.

Because of this setup it is possible that Atlas under Ironwood will become its own faction that may try to counter salem but at the same time will possibly sabotage the allies aka the main heroes and the rest of remnant since Ironwood’s paranoia has increased to the point that he doesn’t trust anyone anymore and most likely will reject any offer of aid or promise of an alliance  since Ironwood believes his in own hype that much that he will eventually become a problem that has to be stopped which will possibly lead to the end of Atlas. Which brings us to what might happen to the character post Salem and Atlas.

Post Salem Insurgency; This is speculation but it's possible that after Salem is defeated and Atlas is destroyed he would continue to be a threat for the rest of Remnant as he will be forced to answer for war crimes and step down from power with the possibility that he may never obtain it again. 

Given what we know of his personality Ironwood isn’t the type of guy to yield power or think he did anything wrong due to his ends justify the means montra. As such in the years following Salem's defeat and the possibility that Atlas may no longer exist or at the very least no longer subservient to Ironwood’s authority its most likely that he might end up in charge of a paramilitary consisting of the very few soldiers that are still loyal to him and start raiding and terrorizing settlements, cities and kingdoms all over remnant just to rebuild his military complex and infrastructure as a means to reclaim the status and power that he was stripped up.

How and why any of this would happen if it ever does is debatable but should it come to be Ironwood is going to need to compensate in order to survive if he becomes a legitimate threat which brings us to a very likely scenario based on his original inspiration 

Full Cyber

Given what happened near the end of V7 and recent V8 concept renders combined with the Tin-man inspiration I do believe that there is a very likely scenario that Ironwood will be more machine than man at some point in the series assuming he doesn’t die yet. This is pretty much a given scenario due to his favoritism for machines than people and his new found ideology that humanity is weakness now it is very likely when given the chance that Ironwood will willingly become full cybernetic(Possibly to the point of just simply being a brain in a new metal body)

 While this isn’t exactly an ideal outcome for the character but at the same time this would actually make Ironwood a credible threat as he would now be able to enforce his authority on his own now without relying on others to do it for him. Based on the research from the I am power post Ironwood is relatively a very weak character in comparison to a majority of other characters that we have seen so far and this is especially true when compared to the villains and main heroes. One key aspect to remember is that Remnant didn’t need the military only Ironwood did because on his own he’s screwed no matter what the situation.

Ironwood relies to heavily on his Army as it is the only thing that gives him some ambiance of a fighting chance but ultimately he is very ill suited to lead and manage said army that when you think of it are possibly full of people that are probably more capable than him as well as able to back up and defend their position of power on their own. Whereas Ironwood can not if he were to be overthrown by the military. In other words a fully cyberized Ironwood would actually be beneficial for him as it would make him a formidable threat beyond just simply being the guy who has the world's only military. Depending on what kind of enhancements he can get he would at least be on par with characters like Ruby Qrow and Yang and at the very best on the level of pre maiden Penny. Because as he is right now Ironwood would surely die if he were to face any character that is not within his capabilities. But this is my theory and observations but until we see more Ironwood’s best bet is going full cyber.

Role in the narrative & what we can learn from Ironwood

To start I think it's pretty clear that Ironwood in narrative is just a foil for most of the characters in the show. Especially with greater comparisons and emphasis on these 3 characters; Ozpin Ruby & Salem. While at the same time he is also the character representation that embodies Atlas the most and as such much about what we know and learned about Atlas is mostly due to Ironwood’s actions as he is the culmination and development of Atlasian culture. Unfortunately though this as far as his character was ever going to go. Which makes it all the more tragic and sad when you think about the role that he was supposed to serve.

We will first be breaking down each Foil comparison between Ironwood and the 3 prominent characters to plot as to better under his place in the narrative.

Ozpin

Of all the characters that exist in the RWBY story I do believe that Ironwood tried to emulate and be his own version of Ozpin(or any past incarnation). However unlike Ozpin Ironwood is biased, lacks actual experience and above all takes shortcuts to get faster results at the expense of others. I know that this mostly stems from good intentions but what exactly qualifies Ironwood to even think that he should be the one in charge to handle this Salem conflict. This is one of the greatest problems that is addressed in the show about Ironwood. He really believes that it's his destiny to lead by replacing Ozpin and win.

 But I ask again; What exactly can Ironwood do that would qualify him to even be worthy to take up Ozpin’s task?

That's just it really, there is nothing about him to warrant such a thing. When it comes to the foils between the 2 it's about being this Big Good character that should lead and the themes of Grey morality that R.T. has tried to implement into the show. But when it comes down to it Ozpin is the true Big Good while Ironwood was simply a pretender. Ironwood has always been a narrowed focused character that cares about the conflict itself instead of the people that are caught in the crossfire. And unlike Ozpin who has based all of his decisions and plans from experience and human nature, Ironwood had based his for a need to simply be right and in control.

In short Ironwood had wanted to be the next Oz as he believed he was more suited to do what Ozpin couldn’t even though he lacked the skills, experience, and power to do so which brings us to the next foil. 

Ruby Rose

This might be stretching a bit but when it comes to the plot there is no greater foil between characters than who is the real hero of the story. In this case is the hero of the series Ironwood or Ruby? To help answer this inquiry we need to know what exactly a hero is. Webster's dictionary defines a hero as a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent, endowed with great strength or ability.

While other sources would say what qualifies  A hero can be as simple as a person that saves lives and stuff, but a hero can be anyone that does something they have fear of but are brave enough to still do something. Bravery is usually the biggest trait of any hero. This person has usually overcomes huge obstacles to survive or to rescue others.

A hero is selfless, a genuinely good person, and someone gets the undivided attention of all of us and causes change.

A hero takes action to help others at considerable risk to themselves, however, if that action also helps themselves, then they are not a hero because they are acting out of self-interest. Courage is admirable, but unless it involves risk or sacrifice in order to help others, then it isn't heroism.

So in short the true hero of the series is actually Ruby not Ironwood or any other character in the series. Not because she is one of the main characters or because this is a story from her perspective but because she has the ideal and pragmatic skills and abilities needed to handle the current situation of the plot as well as doing what Ironwood has failed to do himself confront fear and be brave. As I stated in paranoia over reason most if not all of his choices have been based on fear rather than actual logic, reason, or bravery. Which is further highlighted by facts discussed in I am power that Ironwood is really nothing without the military and doesn’t stand a chance on his own.  

This is indefinitely a stark contrast to ruby as she has proven since her introduction to be capable of handling the threat of Salem as she has the talents skills abilities power and above all the spark that inspires others that compels them to do great things for the right reasons which Ironwood failed to do as all of his action have had a certain goal that would only benefit a certain few with him being the one who would benefit the most. This is mostly due to how the 2 have responded and chose to handle the situation. 

When it comes down to it the main plot is defeating monsters that dominate the world who happen to have a leader controlling them. Remember the whole reason why Salem is even a credible threat is because she can control said monsters and the first premise before she came on screen for the first time was learning how to fight grimm. This is something that Ruby was training and preparing for since she was a kid with the added bonus of having the powers needed to handle the situation with ease while Ironwood has only been preparing for a war with other people rather than monsters and crush rebellions rather than being a guardian peacekeeper that Oz meant for him to be.

 Because of this Ironwood has contributed more to the problem more so than Ruby did as his actions were done in favor of Atlas and his own self interests were as Ruby makes honest mistakes out of ignorance and optimism. Which brings me to the next foil that Ironwood shares more qualities with than anyone else

Salem

I know I'm going to get a lot of heat for this but if you think about it Ironwood is basically a syfy dictator version of Salem’s fantasy dark lord. Face value it doesn’t seem likely but given what we know about their current lore, history, personally, and world building these two can be twins to some extent. The examples are as followed;

They’re both headstrong and blunt individuals who go too far in their endeavors when simple and easier solutions were present

They’re both isolated however Salem is isolated by circumstance and force while Ironwood is isolated by choice and paranoia which is ironically the results of their cold upbringing and history

They both lead organizations with questionable intentions that border on dark and immoral with goals that are based on self entitlement rather than rightfully justified or earned

And to top it off they essentially command armies of soulless killing machines

From these examples we have plenty of foils between the two with them being pride, isolation, tragedy, authority and probably the most important foil in regards to the plot War & Conflict. However when it comes down to it Ironwood is on the short end of these foils when compared to Salem. 

In terms of tragedy these two have let their past misfortunes dictate and influence their decisions resulting in a sense of entitlement that they have been wronged now the world has to compensate them for things to be right. For Salem she had a cruel upbringing for unknown reasons and life being unfairly cruel while Ironwood was lifely forced into servitude and was never really himself as he wanted to be. Salem’s tragedies are the result of grief and dealing with forces that she couldn’t comprehend. While Ironwood’s is the result of unchecked ambition and ignorance.

Similar to Oz, Salem has more experience being a leader that can exert their authority and will over others while Ironwood lacks the experience and therefore can’t do the same. The Grimm under Salem’s command are more of an oppressed hivemind that she leads with little to no resistance unlike her human subordinates. Thus Salem has more direct control and authority over those she commands and has the abilities necessary to keep them in line with her goals. While the people under Ironwood’s authority have a voice and mind of their own that don’t align with his ideas. Due to this he isn’t much of a respected leader as he thought he was. Because of this Ironwood is mostly kept in power by rules and regulations with everyone blindly following suit. 

 As for war Ironwood was without a doubt unprepared for it. This is mostly due to 4 reasons;

He had no idea of what he was doing

His opponents are of better a quality than anything he can make or round up

He was preparing for the wrong war that should never have come to pass.

He was to prideful and sure of himself that nothing can go wrong

When it comes to the 1st reason Ironwood was more or less a pseudo soldier in a time where militaries are pretty much obsolete. This is because militaries are used as power projection of a nation and convey the message to another nation to not cross them. Due to the timing there was no real reason or excuse to justify having a military during a point in time where people are more interested in developing a culture and living life rather than fighting in needless conflicts. As such there was no practical reason, competition, or threat to justify Ironwood’s demands for a large military when he came to power or ensure that it was of a better quality than whatever hypothetical enemy that he would face.

Salem on the other hand has had experience commanding armies before and probably has instigated several wars and conflicts prior to the founding of the current 4 kingdoms thus Salem would have at least accumulated centuries to millenniums of war experience that surpass Ironwood’s brief 30 years of service in the Atlas military. Given that Salem was already a crafty and manipulative person during a time when gods were still around, she most likely would have seen the mistakes and flaws that Ironwood has made and exploited them.

Leading into the 2nd reason Ironwood was pretty much in command of a terrible military. As stated in the 1st reason there was no real threat or competition that encouraged those in power besides Ironwood to remilterze. As well as the current military most likely being filled with people who don’t want to fight a war and most likely enlisted for economic reasons. Because of this and his paranoia Ironwood had to find a surrogate army to prepare for his war that in his mind could happen at any time. However this resulted in cheaply made Androids that can be assembled fast for quick deployment. Due to this Ironwood traded quality for quantity as not only was no one going to fight in his war but believed war was on its way soon. Out of misplaced desperation Ironwood hastily assembled a low quality army that never stood a chance.

In comparison to Salem’s main military force there aren’t that many differences. However the Grimm are slightly a better quality than what the Atlas military has to offer. This is mostly due to the fact that the Grimm are a semi sapient species that are capable of learning and adapting as well as possessing some level of self preservation with individual grimm being around longer than most of their kind becoming even more deadlier than them. While the androids that Atlas uses aren’t as they were made to be cheap and disposable and are mostly effective in large numbers. 

The 3rd reason for why Salem is doing well during this conflict with Ironwood is mostly due to the General preparing for the wrong type of war than the war that he is actually fighting in. After all is said and done Ironwood has solely been preparing for a war with other people rather than for monsters. This is because the Atlas military before Ironwood took charge wasn’t meant to fight a war. Not all militaries are formed or created to defend the people. Atlas is the type of military that serves only in favor of the best interest of the state of government rather than the people. 

Because of this Ironwood had spread misery and divided the people turning them into enemies. Salem would later take advantage of this division that Ironwood created as he was more focused preparing for war than managing the welfare of his citizens. This is speculation but most if not all of the weapons like penny and the Atlesian knights were solely made to fight human opponents as opposed to the grimm that Salem commanded. This is because Ironwood feared and distrusted people more than the monsters he fought.

The 4th and final reason why Ironwood never stood a chance is due to the fact that he believed in his own hype more than he should have. From key dialogues to certain character interactions and in universe lore Ironwood has always presented himself as this towering figure with unlimited power; A god among men so to speak. This shows us that ultimately Ironwood’s ego and pride have been inflated to the point that his overall common sense is non-existent. This is further explored and shown in the control tactics that he uses specifically these ones; Strength and Intimidation in Numbers; 

Some aggressors like to dominate a situation by having a number of associates or friends present to support their position. The superior numbers alone may constitute an intimidating presence. They can also back each other up and challenge an individual in turn during a proceeding. In addition, they may also put pressure on a person to make a decision before they're ready. At worst, the strength in numbers tactic may be used for direct or indirect bullying or harassment.

Ironwood's overall strategy is simply sowing fear and doubt into an enemy that he doesn’t understand with large and unnecessary shows of power wasting resources to cover a wide variety of unknown enemies that pose a threat to him regardless if they are with Salem or not. This is best seen with the thousands to millions of cheaply made androids that are only effective in large numbers and the one ship of the line that was too big to be suited for warfare as they function as more of a forward operating base with their great size giving them the intimidation factor without other supporting fleet vessels like frigates or corvettes.(FYI by my count from V6 ep13 there were at least 41 of those ships hovering above Atlas doing nothing)

This is even confirmed by Ironwood in V3 ep3 where he claims this to be the case with this line of dialogue; 

“The people of Vale needed someone to protect them, someone who would act. When they look to the sky and see my fleet, they feel safe, and our enemies will feel our strength.”

This sort of tactic would probably have been useful if it was applied in a conventional warfare plot with people being his opponent as this is a real life tactic used in militaries and the navy especially in the modern era. The problem however is that the plot isn’t about conventional warfare nor is it a battle between people but with monsters where these tactics are meaningless  to them. These tactics are ineffective when compared to Salem’s psychological hit & run terror tactic being used in a setting like RWBY’s are quite effective and more useful than anything Ironwood can come up with. Even though they rely on opportunity and time to become a practical threat the end result is a huge payoff to the one who applied them with that being Salem. 

To sum it up when it comes to the foils of war between these 2 characters all you really need is the right tactic, strategy or plan and everything falls into place regardless of whether you have an army or a handful of misfits all it takes is careful thought and patience something of which Ironwood has shown to be lacking.

In conclusion what we learn from these foils are Leadership, Heroism, and War and how no matter what Ironwood was always on the short end of these traits and was never going to reach his ideal scenario for each of these ideas as he had set high expectations that were well above his capabilities and now he’s paying the price.

The Atlas Meta Narrative’s influence on Ironwood

Based on my research and what I have stated before; the greatest source of Ironwood’s flaws and antagonism is largely due to the influences of his home kingdom; Atlas. 

Just like Ironwood Atlas is also a foil setting and culture to the other kingdoms and the rest of Remnant. The reasoning for this is best explored in the established lore and other expanded material. To help better understand, here is a brief summarized history and development of the Kingdom of Atlas;

Before Atlas came to be it first started as Mantle who began as a group of desperate people trying to survive. Taking advantage of the cold climate of Solitas they were safe from the Grimm and had an unknown amount of time to develop both their technology and culture without restraint or interference. Eventually this progress was stalled due to a Grimm incident in Mantle that forced the current leaders of the kingdom to make radical and unnecessary regulations that suppress basic human emotions and rights instead of putting the effort to protect the people. 

When the Great war started Mantle joined only to ensure that its like minded imperialist ally Mistral would supply them the resources needed to survive. Because of this and the extreme measures they enforced on their citizens to control them prior to the war Mantle was most likely considered the most evilest faction during the war. When the war came to an end with Mantle suffering an embarrassing defeat it led to an age of cultural segregation and discrimination upon Mantle in the post war era.

Following the war Mantle entered an age of isolation and economic depression due to distrust and suspicion from the other kingdoms as they would only view them as this inherently evil and tyrannical force that can’t be trusted. Because of this the lingering scar of the toxic ideology of pre-war Mantle survived and is echoed in its spiritual successor; Atlas where it continued what Mantle couldn’t survive and thrive under the same core ideology that they had 80 years ago when they were still Mantle with only minor changes made to prevent the other kingdoms to intervene and possibly destroy their so called perfect culture. 

After they lost a scar had remained and an echo was created that still lingers to the present. Due to cause and effect Atlas at its core was developed to be this amoral conservative xenophobic dystopia that was being led by corrupt individuals that were in pursuit of their own self-interests rather than serving their citizens and were kept in power by blind followers that couldn’t see their real intentions. As a result Atlas became a culture of exploitation, expansion, repression, and subjugation for the well being of the political entity that is the state at the expense of its people and others. 

In relation to Ironwood as I stated before is a byproduct of this system and is simply one of a long line of blind followers that eventually supplanted the leadership and chose to continue the machine that is Atlas and replaced cogs needed to keep it running as he was once forced to do throughout his life because he doesn’t know of anything else. 

Because of this upbringing and the history of his origins Ironwood was more or less viewed as indifferent in the eyes of his own people and evil in the eyes of others. Leading to a clash of beliefs within Ironwood that resulted in conflicts with others and the main meta narrative theme that we were meant to learn from him; The essence of Being.

The Essence of Being

Essence is defined as the core nature or most important qualities of a person or thing. Essentially the narrative lesson that we can learn from Ironwood is the age old lesson that has been echoed from R.T. longest running series but with a more individual focus. That's right, Ironwood's journey and arc in the story is an inverse and modification of the classic RVB question; “Do you ever wonder why we're Here.”

But in the case of Ironwood it's more focused on an individual person asking and the age old question of Why am I here and what is my purpose and how do they justify and understand it.

As I stated before Ironwood was simply the wrong character in a different genre from a writing and story perspective. But in universe from the perspective of Ironwood it's simply a matter of him asking; “Why am I alive and here, and why am I this instead of that in a world like this?” At some point everyone questions the reality and circumstances of their situation and it's probably common questioning on a world, setting, and reality like Remnant. For Ironwood it’s possible that he’s asked these questions more than anyone. As for the reasons why he would question his existence go as follow;

Why was I born in Atlas?

How do I prove I'm good when others think I’m evil by proxy? 

Why I’m I so weak when compared to more skilled & powerful people?

Why was I made to be reliant on others that can’t rely on themselves?

I’m I respected only for the rank or the man?

Does anyone really care about me or I’m I being used by sycophants?

Will anyone care when I’m gone?

Why won’t anyone give me a chance?

How do I justify and understand the reasons why I'm here?

Does any of this matter in the end?

The core of Ironwood’s journey, actions, motives, and story wasn’t about saving the world, the balance of grey morality of people, or even the preservation of a certain culture, but instead is about cementing a legacy to escape the harsh reality that everything we do will eventually be undone. It's such a freighting thing to fall but is even more freighting is to admit it

In a way Ironwood's story is somewhat relevant to this line from Monty Oum in regards to immortality; “The goal isn't to live on forever; it's to make something that does.” CRWBY has even stated that Ironwood is a forward thinking individual/ A dreamer if you would. Because of this Ironwood was more focused on where he was heading rather than focus on where he was and what he was doing Causing a lot of problems to happen and escalating events to the point that we see them in the shows present. This oversight and negligence is because he continued to believe that, like everything else in his life, it would be righted by the sheer force of his will.

But sadly he is just only one man put on the world for a brief moment of time that is rather minuscule and insignificant on a cosmic and meta level. Everything changes and legacies are either forgotten or are repeated. In the end time and death are the ultimate victors as they undo everything and the cycle repeats itself for better or worse and individuals like Ironwood are just caught in the middle repeating and doing the same thing that has probably already happened and will probably happen again. All it takes is just a matter of time.

My Thoughts and conclusion

For the most part I was pretty much cautious when it came to the character and felt that he was more or less a side character trying to be a main one. The problem with that however in my thoughts is that well he doesn’t really have much to go on to warrant such a status. As well as how the plot has been structured Ironwood was never going to get what he wants. He may have had good intentions but at the end of the day he is only human with his own wants and needs.  

Overall I do feel that his part in the story is over. Mostly because he tried to take the lead of it. Meta understanding aside Ironwood’s time is coming to an end and I hate to say it but it probably would be for the best. Not just everyone else in the show but for himself as well. As I stated Ironwood’s life is Sad because well it never was really his to begin with. It's illogical because he was ill equipped to be a part of the setting that he was in. His death is more than guaranteed because he has nothing left to contribute to the story that can’t be done by anyone else. At this point with the overall message of death in the show it would be mercy and relief for Ironwood as Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you.

I still hold hope though as I’ve come to understand and see why people are fascinated by his character. But for that hope to be possible Ironwood has to let go of Atlas as it has been the main source of conflict between him and everyone else.

Well that's it I’m done for now as this is an analysis of Pre V8 Ironwood and maybe after V8 I may add more research of V8 Ironwood and see how much i got right in the initial analysis. After doing this I hope to do an analysis on Qrow Branwen and other RWBY characters hopefully in a much shorter amount of time as opposed to the months it took me to do Ironwood.(then again this was my first character analysis) Until then be on the lookout for additional bonus content for Ironwood such as;

Character comparisons from fiction

Character comparisons IRL

How you can fight & Kill Ironwood

A more indepth look of his new cybernetics

What Ironwood should have done

His relationship with other characters

The possibility of an Ironwood spin-off

That's all for now. Let me know what you think and thank you all who helped made this analysis possible.

[myhauntedsalem]

Hexes and Hauntings of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has a long tradition of religious tolerance that brought diverse settlers to the young colony, so it’s no surprise that the state has become known for the various modes of religious expression of its people. But these very traditions brought with them their own unique ideas about magic and the supernatural, and the state’s central position in national affairs and wars has drawn plenty of ghosts to the region.

The Pennsylvania Dutch emigrated from Germany and nearby areas in Europe in the late 17thcentury. These people stuck together, but they came from a number of religions and some chose to live simple lifestyles rather than blend into Pennsylvania culture. As a result, modern Pennsylvania Dutch communities are rural, but it isn’t uncommon to see Pennsylvania Dutch influences even in large cities like Philadelphia.

However, because the early communities were relatively closed off, their own cultures developed. And with these cultures came magic. Pow-wow is a system of folk magic unique to the Pennsylvania Dutch, but with heavy European and Christian influences. The charms and spells offered by Pow-wow offer protections from illnesses, witches, and other dark forces. A book about it was written in 1820 by John George Hohman, called Pow-Wows, or The Long Lost Friend, contains descriptions of many spells, that give an idea of the Pennsylvania Dutch way of life at the time. For example, if your horse refuses to eat, here’s a Pow-wow spell that will fix the problem: wrench open your horse’s mouth and knock on its palate three times. If you want to apply Pow-wow to your life, get your Bible in hand and read through Pow-Wows, which contains incantations to remedy diarrhea, headaches, colic, sore mouth, parasites, and more, and also has charms that will guarantee the success of your lawsuit and prevent criminals from getting near you. You can find the full text of the book online.

Many Pennsylvania Dutch barns are decorated with large circular symbols that usually have some kind of five-pointed design inside of them. These are hex signs, which were once thought to be Pow-wow talismans that would bring fortune to the farm, but are really just designs that grew out of a Pennsylvania Dutch art tradition. The symbols that are used to bring fortune to the household were called barn stars, large metal five-pointed stars. Hanging a barn star on your house is similar to nailing a horseshoe above your door in other cultures. You can buy hex signs and barn stars from Pennsylvania Dutch craft shops if you want to bring a little extra luck into your life.

The modern age may have decreased belief in magic power, but it seems to have had no effect on the belief in life after death. Pennsylvania is littered with pre-Revolution buildings that still contain their original inhabitants. Many born long after then still remain with us.

Philadelphia is home to many of these lingering spirits. Eastern State Penitentiary, a prison dating back to 1827 and now located well within the city, is a famous paranormal landmark, with every ghost hunting team you can think of probably having taken a sweep of its cellblocks. Al Capone had a brief stay in the penitentiary, and even he claimed to be haunted by a victim of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. Visitors interested in the paranormal should visit what is reportedly the most active cellblock, Cellblock 12—but personally, on my visits, I can’t go into Cellblock 14. Going through the entryway fills me with an inexplicable sadness and a sense that I’m intruding.

Eastern State Penitentiary is a famous, publicly-accessible paranormal site, but another famous location that can only be entered with special permission is Pennhurst Hospital. Pennhurst was formerly an asylum for people, mostly children, whose mental illnesses or disabilities rendered them incapable of caring for themselves (or their families were too embarrassed to keep them around). Conditions for patients were notoriously bad, and Pennhurst employees, understaffed and intolerant, frequently abused their charges. These atrocities were eventually exposed and Pennhurst was shut down, but many believe the hospital is still haunted by the ghosts of patients and caretakers who suffered there mentally and physically. Workers hired to help maintain the site often report seeing shadow people, hearing crying, and feeling presences when they should be alone.

Pennsylvania is also home to another site of misery and despair, though this next location claimed more lives in three days than Pennhurst did during the decades of its operation. Cited as one of the most haunted cities in America, Gettysburg is a small town surrounded by beautiful, rolling fields. These fields, hills, and forests were once where one of the most important engagements of the Civil War was fought, and it may still be living that history, as numerous sources claim to see both Confederate and Union soldiers marching there. Ghosts of soldiers have been spotted at every major location of the battle, and many ghosts are spotted inside buildings within the city proper. Even the sole civilian casualty of the battle, Jennie Wade, is reportedly haunting her home. But spirits aren’t the only relics from the battle you can find in Gettysburg: to this day, visitors can stumble upon bullets laying quietly in the grass. But perhaps the most haunting aspect of Gettysburg is how peaceful and serene is. Though statues and monuments commemorating the battle now dot the landscape, it has remained mostly unchanged; imagining the area as it must have sounded in the chaos of war is horrifying in its own way.

These are famous haunted locations, but there are plenty of lesser-known hauntings in Pennsylvania. York, for example, was once home to an asylum that burned down before firefighters could arrive. Seven gates were built so local authorities could rescue (or capture) patients that had escaped. According to a legend, anyone who walks through all seven of the gates goes straight to Hell. Another haunted town is Centralia, under which burns a massive coal fire that forced the city to be abandoned by all except a stubborn few. The fire is still burning decades later, and the smoke attracts tourists and ghosts. Even Hershey Park has its share of paranormal encounters to its name.

Pennsylvania may be known today for its sports, sports fans, food, cities, and being strangely conservative in a very liberal region, but maybe it’s the state’s observance of tradition and rich history of tolerance and brotherhood that keep old magic alive and souls animated.

[theculturedmarxist]

To justify Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss to Donald Trump, leading Democrats and their key media allies for years competed with one another to depict what they called “Russia’s interference in our elections” in the most apocalyptic terms possible. They fanatically rejected the view of the Russian Federation repeatedly expressed by President Obama — that it is a weak regional power with an economy smaller than Italy’s capable of only threatening its neighbors but not the U.S. — and instead cast Moscow as a grave, even existential, threat to U.S. democracy, with its actions tantamount to the worst security breaches in U.S. history.

This post-2016 mania culminated with prominent liberal politicians and journalists (as well as John McCain) declaring Russia’s activities surrounding the 2016 to be an “act of war” which, many of them insisted, was comparable to Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attack — the two most traumatic attacks in modern U.S. history which both spawned years of savage and destructive war, among other things.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) repeatedly demanded that Russia’s 2016 “interference” be treated as “an act of war.” Hillary Clinton described Russian hacking as “a cyber 9/11.” And here is Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on MSNBC in early February, 2018, pronouncing Russia “a hostile foreign power” whose 2016 meddling was the “equivalent” of Pearl Harbor, “very much on par” with the “seriousness” of the 1941 attack in Hawaii that helped prompt four years of U.S. involvement in a world war.

With the Democrats, under Joe Biden, just weeks away from assuming control of the White House and the U.S. military and foreign policy that goes along with it, the discourse from them and their media allies about Russia is becoming even more unhinged and dangerous. Moscow’s alleged responsibility for the recently revealed, multi-pronged hack of U.S. Government agencies and various corporate servers is asserted — despite not a shred of evidence, literally, having yet been presented — as not merely proven fact, but as so obviously true that it is off-limits from doubt or questioning.

Any questioning of this claim will be instantly vilified by the Democrats’ extremely militaristic media spokespeople as virtual treason. “Now the president is not just silent on Russia and the hack. He is deliberately running defense for the Kremlin by contradicting his own Secretary of State on Russian responsibility,” pronounced CNN’s national security reporter Jim Sciutto, who last week depicted Trump’s attempted troop withdrawal from Syria and Germany as “ceding territory” and furnishing “gifts” to Putin. More alarmingly, both the rhetoric to describe the hack and the retaliation being threatened are rapidly spiraling out of control.

Democrats (along with some Republicans long obsessed with The Russian Threat, such as Mitt Romney) are casting the latest alleged hack by Moscow in the most melodramatic terms possible, ensuring that Biden will enter the White House with tensions sky-high with Russia and facing heavy pressure to retaliate aggressively. Biden’s top national security advisers and now Biden himself have, with no evidence shown to the public, repeatedly threatened aggressive retaliation against the country with the world’s second-largest nuclear stockpile.

Congressman Jason Crow (D-CO) — one of the pro-war Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee who earlier this year joined with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) to block Trump’s plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan — announced: “this could be our modern day, cyber equivalent of Pearl Harbor,” adding: “Our nation is under assault.” The second-ranking Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin (D-IL), pronounced: “This is virtually a declaration of war by Russia."

Meanwhile, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who has for years been casting Russia as a grave threat to the U.S. while Democrats mocked him as a relic of the Cold War (before they copied and then surpassed him), described the latest hack as “the equivalent of Russian bombers flying undetected over the entire country.” The GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee also blasted Trump for his failure to be “aggressively speaking out and protesting and taking punitive action,” though — like virtually every prominent figure demanding tough “retaliation” — Romney failed to specify what he had in mind that would be sufficient retaliation for “the equivalent of Russian bombers flying undetected over the entire country.”

For those keeping track at home: that’s two separate “Pearl Harbors” in less than four years from Moscow (or, if you prefer, one Pearl Harbor and one 9/11). If Democrats actually believe that, it stands to reason that they will be eager to embrace a policy of belligerence and aggression toward Russia. Many of them are demanding this outright, mocking Trump for failing to attack Russia — despite no evidence that they were responsible — while their well-trained liberal flock is suggesting that the non-response constitutes some form of “high treason.”

Indeed, the Biden team has been signalling that they intend to quickly fulfill demands for aggressive retaliation. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Biden “accused President Trump [] of ‘irrational downplaying’” of the hack while “warning Russia that he would not allow the intrusion to ‘go unanswered’ after he takes office.” Biden emphasized that once the intelligence assessment is complete, “we will respond, and probably respond in kind.”

Threats and retaliation between the U.S. and Russia are always dangerous, but particularly so now. One of the key nuclear arms agreements between the two nuclear-armed nations, the New START treaty, will expire in February unless Putin and Biden can successfully negotiate a renewal: sixteen days after Biden is scheduled to take office. “That will force Mr. Biden to strike a deal to prevent one threat — a nuclear arms race — while simultaneously threatening retaliation on another,” observed the Times. 

This escalating rhetoric from Washington about Russia, and the resulting climate of heightened tensions, are dangerous in the extreme. They are also based in numerous myths, deceits and falsehoods:

First, absolutely no evidence of any kind has been presented to suggest, let alone prove, that Russia is responsible for these hacks. It goes without saying that it is perfectly plausible that Russia could have done this: it’s the sort of thing that every large power from China and Iran to the U.S. and Russia have the capability to do and wield against virtually every other country including one another.

But if we learned nothing else over the last several decades, we should know that accepting claims that emanate from the U.S. intelligence community about adversaries without a shred of evidence is madness of the highest order. We just had a glaring reminder of the importance of this rule: just weeks before the election, countless mainstream media outlets laundered and endorsed the utterly false claim that the documents from Hunter Biden’s laptop were “Russian disinformation,” only for officials to acknowledge once the harm was done that there was no evidence — zero — of Russian involvement.

Yet that is exactly what the overwhelming bulk of media outlets are doing again: asserting that Russia is behind these hacks despite having no evidence of its truth. The New York Times’ Michael Barbaro, host of the paper’s popular The Daily podcast, asked his colleague, national security reporter David Sanger, what evidence exists to assert that Russia did this. As Barbaro put it, even Sanger is “allowing that early conclusions could all be wrong, but that it's doubtful.” Indeed, Sanger acknowledged to Barbaro that they have no proof, asserting instead that the basis on which he is relying is that Russia possesses the sophistication to carry out such a hack (as do several other nation-states), along with claiming that the hack has what he calls the “markings” of Russian hackers.

But this tactic was exactly the same one used by former intelligence officials, echoed by these same media outlets, to circulate the false pre-election claim that the documents from Hunter Biden’s laptop were “Russian disinformation”: namely, they pronounced in lockstep, the material from Hunter’s laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” This was also exactly the same tactic used by the U.S. intelligence community in 2001 to falsely blame Iraq for the anthrax attacks, claiming that their chemical analysis revealed a substance that was “a trademark of the Iraqi biological weapons program.”

These media outlets will, if pressed, acknowledge their lack of proof that Russia did this. Despite this admitted lack of proof, media outlets are repeatedly stating Russian responsibility as proven fact.

“Scope of Russian Hacking Becomes Clear: Multiple U.S. Agencies Were Hit,” one New York Times headline proclaimed, and the first line of that article, co-written by Sanger, stated definitively: “The scope of a hacking engineered by one of Russia’s premier intelligence agencies became clearer on Monday.” The Washington Post deluged the public with identically certain headlines:

Nobody in the government has been as definitive in asserting Russian responsibility as corporate media outlets. Even Trump’s hawkish Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, crafted his accusation against Moscow with caveats and uncertainty: “I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity.”

If actual evidence ultimately emerges demonstrating Russian responsibility, it would not alter how dangerous it is that — less than twenty years after the Iraq WMD debacle and less than a couple of years after media endorsement of endless Russiagate falsehoods — the most influential media outlets continue to mindlessly peddle as Truth whatever the intelligence community feeds them, without the need to see any evidence that what they’re claiming is actually true. Even more alarmingly, large sectors of the public that venerate these outlets continue to believe that what they hear from them must be true, no matter how many times they betray that trust. The ease with which the CIA can disseminate whatever messaging it wants through friendly media outlets is stunning.

Second, the very idea that this hack could be compared to rogue and wildly aberrational events such as Pearl Harbor or the 9/11 attack is utterly laughable on its face. One has to be drowning in endless amounts of jingoistic self-delusion to believe that this hack — or, for that matter, the 2016 “election interference” — is a radical departure from international norms as opposed to a perfect reflection of them.

Just as was true of 2016 fake Facebook pages and Twitter bots, it is not an exaggeration to say that the U.S. Government engages in hacking attacks of this sort, and ones far more invasive, against virtually every country on the planet, including Russia, on a weekly basis. That does not mean that this kind of hacking is either justified or unjustified. It does mean, however, that depicting it as some particularly dastardly and incomparably immoral act that requires massive retaliation requires a degree of irrationality and gullibility that is bewildering to behold.

The NSA reporting enabled by Edward Snowden by itself proved that the NSA spies on virtually anyone it can. Indeed, after reviewing the archive back in 2013, I made the decision that I would not report on U.S. hacks of large adversary countries such as China and Russia because it was so commonplace for all of these countries to hack one another as aggressively and intrusively as they could that it  was hardly newsworthy to report on this (the only exception was when there was a substantial reason to view such spying as independently newsworthy, such as Sweden’s partnering with NSA to spy on Russia in direct violation of the denials Swedish officials voiced to their public).

Other news outlets who had access to Snowden documents, particularly The New York Times, were not nearly as circumspect in exposing U.S. spying on large nation-state adversaries. As a result, there is ample proof published by those outlets (sometimes provoking Snowden’s strong objections) that the U.S. does exactly what Russia is alleged to have done here — and far worse.

“Even as the United States made a public case about the dangers of buying from [China’s] Huawei, classified documents show that the National Security Agency was creating its own back doors — directly into Huawei’s networks,” reported The New York Times’ David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth in 2013, adding that “the agency pried its way into the servers in Huawei’s sealed headquarters in Shenzhen, China’s industrial heart.”

In 2013, the Guardian revealed “an NSA attempt to eavesdrop on the Russian leader, Dmitry Medvedev, as his phone calls passed through satellite links to Moscow,” and added: “foreign politicians and officials who took part in two G20 summit meetings in London in 2009 had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts.” Meanwhile, “Sweden has been a key partner for the United States in spying on Russia and its leadership, Swedish television said on Thursday,” noted Reuters, citing what one NSA document described as “a unique collection on high-priority Russian targets, such as leadership, internal politics.”

Other reports revealed that the U.S. had hacked into the Brazilian telecommunications system to collect data on the whole population, and was spying on Brazil’s key leaders (including then-President Dilma Rousseff) as well as its most important companies such as its oil giant Petrobras and its Ministry of Mines and Energy. The Washington Post reported: “The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with U.S. intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals — and map their relationships — in ways that would have been previously unimaginable.” And on and on.

[One amazing though under-appreciated episode related to all this: the same New York Times reporter who revealed the details about massive NSA hacking of Chinese government and industry, Nicole Perlroth, subsequently urged (in tweets she has now deleted) that Snowden not be pardoned on the ground that, according to her, he revealed legitimate NSA spying on U.S. adversaries. In reality, it was actually she, Perlorth, not Snowden, who chose to expose NSA spying on China, provoking Snowden’s angry objections when she did so based on his view this was a violation of the framework he created for what should and should not be revealed; in other words, not only did Perlroth urge the criminal prosecution of a source on which she herself relied, an absolutely astonishing thing for any reporter to do, but so much worse, she did so by falsely accusing that source of doing something that she, Perlroth, had done herself: namely, reveal extensive U.S. hacking of China].

What all of this makes demonstrably clear is that only the most deluded and uninformed person could believe that Russian hacking of U.S. agencies and corporations — if it happened — is anything other than totally normal and common behavior between these countries. Harvard Law Professor and former Bush DOJ official Jack Goldsmith, reviewing growing demands for retaliation, wrote in an excellent article last week entitled “Self-Delusion on the Russia Hack: The U.S. regularly hacks foreign governmental computer systems on a massive scale”:

The lack of self-awareness in these and similar reactions to the Russia breach is astounding. The U.S. government has no principled basis to complain about the Russia hack, much less retaliate for it with military means, since the U.S. government hacks foreign government networks on a huge scale every day. Indeed, a military response to the Russian hack would violate international law . . . .

As the revelations from leaks of information from Edward Snowden made plain, the United States regularly penetrates foreign governmental computer systems on a massive scale, often (as in the Russia hack) with the unwitting assistance of the private sector, for purposes of spying. It is almost certainly the world’s leader in this practice, probably by a lot. The Snowden documents suggested as much, as does the NSA’s probable budget. In 2016, after noting “problems with cyber intrusions from Russia,” Obama boasted that the United States has “more capacity than anybody … offensively” . . . .

Because of its own practices, the U.S. government has traditionally accepted the legitimacy of foreign governmental electronic spying in U.S. government networks. After the notorious Chinese hack of the Office of Personnel Management database, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said: “You have to kind of salute the Chinese for what they did. If we had the opportunity to do that, I don't think we'd hesitate for a minute.” The same Russian agency that appears to have carried out the hack revealed this week also hacked into unclassified emails in the White House and Defense and State Departments in 2014-2015. The Obama administration deemed it traditional espionage and did not retaliate. “It was information collection, which is what nation states—including the United States—do,” said Obama administration cybersecurity coordinator Michael Daniel this week.

But over the last four years, Americans, particularly those who feed on liberal media outlets, have been drowned in so much mythology about the U.S. and Russia that they have no capacity to critically assess the claims being made, and — just as they were led to believe about “Russia’s 2016 interference in Our Sacred Elections” — are easily convinced that what Russia did is some shocking and extreme crime the likes of which are rarely seen in international relations. In reality, their own government is the undisputed world champion in perpetrating these acts, and has been for years if not decades.

Third, these demands for “retaliation” are so reckless because they are almost always unaccompanied by any specifics. Even if Moscow’s responsibility is demonstrated, what is the U.S. supposed to do in response? If your answer is that they should hack Russia back, rest assured the NSA and CIA are always trying to hack Russia as much as it possibly can, long before this event.

If the answer is more sanctions, that would be just performative and pointless, aside from wildly hypocritical. Any reprisals more severe than that would be beyond reckless, particularly with the need to renew nuclear arms control agreements looming. And if you are someone demanding retaliation, do you believe that Russia, China, Brazil and all the other countries invaded by NSA hackers have the same right of retaliation against the U.S., or does the U.S. occupy a special place with special entitlements that all other countries lack?

What we have here, yet again, is the classic operation of the intelligence community feeding serious accusations about a nuclear-armed power to an eagerly gullible corporate media, with the media mindlessly disseminating it without evidence, all toward ratcheting up tensions between these two nuclear-armed powers and fortifying a mythology of the U.S. as grand victim but never perpetrator.

If you ever find yourself wondering how massive military budgets and a posture of Endless War are seemingly invulnerable to challenge, this pathological behavior — from a now-enduring union of the intelligence community, corporate media outlets, and the Democratic Party — provides one key piece of the puzzle.

Update, Dec. 24, 2020, 7:36 a.m. ET: Although the tweets from The New York Times’ Nicole Perlroth referenced above were deleted by her, as indicated, an alert reader notes that a Politico article at the time referenced part of my exchange with her, one prompted by anger from Washington Post reporters over an editorial by their own paper that argued against a Snowden pardon, even though that paper reported extensively on Snowden’s documents and won a Pulitzer for doing so:

The editorial is nothing if not a good excuse for a Twitter debate. Some journalists continued to air outrage yesterday over the editorial board’s defenestration of Snowden, while others either agreed with the board’s argument or at least defended its right to take a stand that it knew would no doubt rankle many in the Post’s newsroom. In one of the more notable exchanges, New York Times reporter cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth tangled with Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Snowden/NSA story for The Guardian.

Perlroth: “Gotta say I agree w/ wapo. @Snowden leaked tens of thousands of docs that had nothing to do with privacy violations.” http://bit.ly/2cLPeLY

Greenwald: “They can start an august club: Journalists In Favor of Criminal Prosecution For Our Sources” http://bit.ly/2cLLIRz

That’s precisely what I was referencing here. It’s utterly repugnant that Perlroth advocated that her own source be imprisoned on the ground that he leaked documents “that had nothing to do with privacy violations” when it was she, Perlroth, who decided to reveal details of NSA spying on China, angering Snowden in the process. Clicking on the above link to her tweet demonstrates that she since deleted it.

One last point: there is an outstanding op-ed in Thursday’s New York Times about anger over the alleged Russian hack by Paul Kolbe, who served as a senior CIA clandestine operative for 25 years and is now director of the Intelligence Project at Harvard Kennedy School, entitled “With Hacking, the United States Needs to Stop Playing the Victim.” It details that “the United States is, of course, engaged in the same type of operations at an even grander scale” and therefore “it’s time for the United States to stop acting surprised and stop posturing.”

[itsclydebitches]

Ironwood tucked tail and ran, he didn't actually consider his options he reacted with paranoia and literally did the thing the villains (Watts) told him to his face was the thing they wanted him to do. Ironwood neglected Mantle for ages, like seriously he was going to tell everyone while Mantle had a huge hole in its wall. And no he wasn't doing everything possible the whole season was all about how he was sacrificing Mantle's safety for his own end.

There are a lot of different points here so I’m going to break things up: 

“[Ironwood] didn’t actually consider his options” except he did. We had an entire, if heated, conversation about it. Is Amity ready? No. So can we use it? No. Are we in any state to keep fighting? No. Has the perimeter been taken out? Potentially. Is Salem approaching? Likely. They ran through a number of different factors and came out with two options: leave now or hold their ground. Based on what they know, Option Two is a death sentence and when no one was able to come up with an Option Three that combined saving Mantle with keeping the rest of the populace alive + keeping relics/a Maiden out of Salem’s hands, Ironwood went with Option One. People also have to remember that from their perspective she could be here any second. This is the opposite of Volume 6 where the group actually had time to come up with various options and chose not to. Here, they can’t afford to spends hours or days trying to come up with additional solutions when Salem may be on their doorstep in a matter of minutes. 

“literally did the thing the villains... wanted him to do” yeah, he did, but again... what’s Option Three? What’s the solution where Ironwood keeps people safe without creating a single bit of division among them? Right now it doesn’t exist. Just because the hero ends up doing what the villain wanted doesn’t mean that decision wasn’t logical or justified. It doesn’t mean they had another way out. It just means that the villain did their job and crafted a scenario where the hero is screwed no matter what they choose.That’s what makes Salem so hard to beat. It’s akin to a trick. She crafts plans wherein even the best solutions have horrific consequences attached, but that’s not Ironwood’s fault. This is gonna sound weird, but I’ve had that Matrix scene stuck in my head the last few days. Neo is offered a red pill and a blue pill and told to choose, now. The fandom’s response to Ironwood’s dilemma is akin to going, “I can’t believe Neo didn’t take the time he wasn’t offered to choose the green pill instead.” That green pill... doesn’t exist... Not yet anyway. 

“Ironwood neglected Mantle for ages” again, building Amity necessitated that neglect. We can argue that Ironwood never should have built Amity in the first place then---letting Mantle have their resources is more important than building a communications tower/thinking you can defeat Salem---but the fandom and the RWBYJNR team don’t get to have both. We can’t demand that Ironwood finish this project and then drag him for doing what’s necessary to achieve that. Amity was not “for his own end.” Nor were things like the military presence. We can argue the ethics of whether it’s ever appropriate to keep soldiers around town, but the intent has always been to keep the people safe. And given how many times grimm broke through the walls this volume? Those soldiers probably saved a lot of lives. If we’re truly going to criticize Ironwood for his treatment of Mantle than we likewise need to criticize the group for staying on his back about Amity. It’s because they allowed him to think that this was a way to defeat Salem for so long and pushed him to get it done that the mistreatment of Mantle continued. How do you keep Ironwood from taking resources from the people? Idk, maybe tell him that the thing he wants the resources for won’t actually save the world like he thinks it will... 

“like seriously he was going to tell everyone while Mantle had a huge hole in its wall” 100% agree there. I think it was stupid af to tell the people about Salem at all, let alone during a grimm attack. But remember that our heroes were very pleased with that development. That’s the one thing Ironwood has been praised for. Again, if we’re going to criticize him for that then Ruby likewise deserves criticism for pushing him towards telling others about Salem and then giving her  little, “He’s doing it.” As I’ve mentioned the last two volumes, my primary issue with the writing is not that the characters make mistakes, but rather the hypocrisy that occurs when that happens. Team RWBY is continually let off the hook by both the writing and the fandom despite the fact that their actions contributed immensely to all of Ironwood’s mistakes. Their mistakes are just as much at the center of all this, but no one wants to acknowledge how keeping that secret forced Ironwood to work under hugely false information. Even though we just got a whole volumes articulating how horrific that sort of manipulation was for Team RWBY under Ozpin. Their choice to repeat Ozpin’s actions had far more devastating circumstances, namely hurting Mantle in the name of a plan they knew was doomed from that start. RWBYJNR could have spared Mantle at any time. 

“...Ironwood’s plan sucks” yeah, it has a million holes in it, but again, does anyone have a better plan? If Salem’s flying grimm army is such a threat to a hypothetically sky-high Atlas, why aren’t people acknowledging what a threat those + grounded grimm are to an Atlas that sticks around beside Mantle? To be blunt, there are way bigger priorities here. No one should be asking, “But what will we do about food days/weeks from now?” when Salem is theoretically coming to kill them in the next hour. How about we survive the immediate threat first. If we’re all alive to worry about food later that will be a miracle. 

“take apart a military vehicle or two and used the material to fix Mantle’s wall” maybe he could have. We as the audience have no idea what exactly these “resources” are and how they might be replaced, but if we’re really going to nit-pick like that... why didn’t anyone else? Why didn’t Team RWBY suggest that instead of just yelling at Ironwood to fix everything himself? Why didn’t Robyn do that instead of stealing the materials on their way to Amity? Everyone keeps insisting that Ironwood isn’t united with the others, but it’s everyone else who insists that he fix everything himself while simultaneously betraying, lying, criticizing, and undermining him along the way. I likewise don’t buy the “Ironwood is the adult and he’s responsible for Team RWBY” argument I’ve seen floating around because that’s by the same group who was going, “Team RWBY are adults now Ozpin and Qrow need to trust them more” last volume. They have their licenses. They’re working with a military inner circle. They, as I’ve said before, don’t get to flip-flop between vulnerable children and responsible adults as they please. If the group is mature enough to fight this war at Ironwood’s side then they’re mature enough to go, “Hey, how about the eight of us try to think up ways to help instead of just yelling that we don’t like what Ironwood, as just one very stressed person, has managed to come up with?” 

“maybe he could have updated Mantle’s security” again, we don’t know what Ironwood might or might not have done after the Fall of Beacon in terms of updates. All we do know is that he didn’t have the one crucial piece of information that made Mantle’s security seem vulnerable: Watts is alive. Ironwood only found that out after Watts had already taken over. 

“Maybe he could have told the council and worked with his own government” sorry but this argument always makes my brain go “????” The only thing we know about this council is that they were fully backing Jacques at the meeting, which is not a good indicator of how trustworthy they were pre-his arrest. If we’re praising Team RWBY for not trusting Ironwood---someone who has been fighting Salem for years and who immediately shared his own secrets---why in the world would we expect Ironwood to trust two lackeys of Jacques Schnee? One of these options seemed a whole lot less trustworthy than the other. And I guarantee you that if we had gotten a story where Ironwood brought in the council and then we learned they had been working closely with Jacques? People would criticize him for that too. “Maybe he could have kept things quiet like Team RWBY did and not give information to a corrupt government.” It’s a lose-lose, apparently. 

“did what the kids wanted and it WORKED” literally only because the plot went wonky to accommodate them. No one freaking out, no one angry anymore, everyone coming together to sing the Remnant equivalent of Kumbaya... I’m by no means against hopeful results superseding “realistic” ones, but this was a seriously extreme example of the plot accommodating the group’s preferences. In the same way it accommodated them in Argus. It’s a deliberate choice not to have there be any repercussions to starting huge grimm battles ,or telling an angry mob about the sorceress sociopath out to kill them all, and RT grabbed hold of that choice by both hands. It’s hard to argue who is really “right” or “wrong” when the narrative itself makes sure that only one party’s actions ever have bad outcomes whereas the others always come out rosy. It has been a rigged system the last two volumes. Team RWBY’s choices are always “right” not because they’re justified, but because the writing ensures that nothing bad ever happens as a result. Even when logic dictates that it should. 

“idk maybe tell them to fight on their own they can” this would be a good option if the group were actually interested in just defending Mantle. But they’re not, their goal is to stop Ironwood from leaving Mantle behind. We get that moment where the whole team stands in front of him in a semi-circle, making it clear that if he wants to enact his plan, he’ll have to go through them first. It’s not a, “You do your thing and we’ll do ours” situation, it’s a “We’re not going to allow you to do your own thing.” So Ironwood responds to that with, “Fine. You’re forcing me to move you? You’re under arrest.” 

“maybe see about getting their system back up” Watts had complete control over the system. The conversation at the dinner made it clear that everyone was locked out: Ironwood, the council, even Jacques himself. And I doubt Watts, wherever he is now, is just going to hand that control back because Ironwood asked. Which again, comes back to time. Do they have time to interrogate Watts? No. Do they have time to sit other tech experts down and try to get them to reclaim the system? No. People keep insisting that these are all options that Ironwood willfully ignores, but every one of them results in the same thing: Atlas twiddling its thumbs as Salem slams in with her grimm army. This would be a very different situation if she were days out and they had some time to try these things, but the setup is very much, “If she’s coming she’s going to be here in no time at all. Whatever we’re doing, we have to do it right now.” Long-term “options” of these sort simply aren’t on the table. Telling someone to take the hour-long “option” when you literally have five minutes is just illogical. Rejecting that doesn’t make you a bad person, it makes you the one person thinking the situation through. As I’ve said before, Ironwood and the Ace Ops are the only ones weighing these issues in a “Is this actually possible? manner. Team RWBY is riding purely on confidence and hope. 

“there’s no proof Salem is coming” you’re right, there isn’t. We only have her promise and the silent perimeter, so no, that’s not proof. ... but are you really willing to risk that? I sure as hell wouldn’t be. There’s no way I would trust that many lives to “Well, she might be pulling our leg.” Calling her bluff is a BEYOND risky choice and the only reason the fandom thinks it’s such a good option is because we’re looking at this from a storytelling perspective. We know it’s unlikely that the group will face off against Salem before the final volume. We know it’s unlikely that Salem would start attacking the world in earnest because she’s so damn powerful that this would wipe everyone out in a mater of weeks and then, you know, there’s no story anymore. As characters in this world they have no reason to believe that Salem would lie about coming, especially after Watts, Tyrian, the chess piece, the perimeter... Salem has clearly been setting up something, but Ironwood should just ignore all that to call a hypothetical bluff, risking every single person in the process? That goes so beyond endangerment I’m not even sure what to call it. That would be the action of someone I wouldn’t trust as my leader. Risking the Maiden, two relics, and the lives of an entire kingdom on an entirely unfounded hunch. That’s straight up insanity and if Ironwood had done that I would have hoped the Ace Ops would revolt. You’re clearly unfit to serve, sir, if you’re going to risk all our lives---the entire world even---on a theory that has 4 points against it and 0 in favor. 

[harringroveheart]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren Summary:

Cantonica welcomes Kylo Ren with a storm.

-- Or --

The First Order is broke and Hux forces Kylo to go on a fundraising campaign to Canto Bight. Clone shenanigans ensue.

Chapter One

Cantonica welcomes Kylo Ren with a storm, the wind rising up around him hot and hard, tearing at his hair and cape, urging him with rough intent towards the edge of the flight pad and the sea boiling hungrily some five hundred feet below. Far away, out on the purpling horizon, a spider leg of lightening touches the rind of the world – a smattering of applause and bell-like laughter from the city behind him, one monster waking to greet the other.  

Canto Bight.

The city is just now beginning to rouse, her lighted windows cutting inviting shapes against the darkening sky. Distance turns the nascent sounds of celebration melancholy, almost wistful — tinkling glass and sudden bursts of music, amplified and then snatched away by the unfurling storm — and then drowned out entirely by the deafening beat of repuslorlifts as the First Order shuttle drops out of the atmosphere above him.

The transport bobs gracelessly, engine whining as it struggles to land against the surface’s fierce updraughts, scoring the night air with the metallic taste of ozone. The flight pad, like most things Canto Bight, is more decorative than functional and it had been a welcome validation of Kylo’s piloting skill that he had been able to land his fighter without skating off the platform and into the sea. The rest of the port is empty, the yachts and pleasure cruisers of the galaxy’s wealthy elite stowed away for safekeeping. A shame. Kylo would have liked to see them.

He shakes his head slightly, trying to parse the intrusive memory from his own thoughts.  

Canto Bight had been a favorite story of Ben Solo’s. He'd asked for it again and again as a boy, enraptured each time, tucked into bed by droids the approximate shape of his mother: a city within an island within a tempest — or so the stories went. Kylo sneers half-heartedly at his own nostalgia, a clammy cast on his skin he can’t seem to shake off. In the stories, the city itself was a fortress of jewels, polished and moulded by the desert planet’s fierce winds during the day, glittering as bright as a new star at night, a beacon to greedy trespassers and hungry-hearted adventurers from all corners of the galaxy. In the droids’ stories, the real treasure was always something insipid — a friendship, forgiveness. Love. Now, looking at the city, Kylo is fairly certain the only real treasure of Canto Bight is to be found in a lucky hand of sabacc.

Credits, Kylo reminds himself fighting his distaste for the place and his purpose here. Billions and billions of credits.

The transport has drawn attention, the city unfolding and preening as obvious as an old dame waiting for an audience before putting on her earrings. The house musicians find cohesion, a warm brassy tune soaring to life, fighting the dull blast of landing gear. The streets flood with light, shifting gold and purple, a string of halo-lanterns springing to life along the perimeter of the race track and all the way down to the landing platform. Some of the casino’s early guests drift out onto balconies and terraces in pursuit of the smallest entertainment, opera glasses and libations in hand. The brutish utilitarian shape of the Order transport is an unexpected delight for them, Kylo gleans, a divertissement during the spell of unfortunate weather.

His hand twitches at his side, the feathering of his nervous system in response to the rising thrum of excitement and expectation of the men assembling at his back. He breathes in their nervous energy and turns his attention to the city, its domed plume-like buildings and broad curving balconies, its stepped amphitheaters illuminated by strings of rosy halo-lanterns, its secretive lovers’ gardens and sparkling fountains. The opulence leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Kylo wants to run through every last topiary with his lightsaber.

The stormtroopers are in awe. They have been conditioned not to dream, but this, they think, this must be what dreaming would look like. This is almost as beautiful as the firing of the superweapon.

Kylo allows them their petty fantasies. Under their boots the galaxy is shrinking, planet after planet, almost subdued, and one day this pretty little casino town will be too — even if it won’t look so much like a jewel when they are done with it. And in any case, their childish excitement tastes better than their confusion and their disquiet — both of which Kylo knows the exact rancid smell of. But the salt flats of Crait are far behind them all now, the hollowing ache of doubt soothed by a dozen more recent successful campaigns and a merciless propaganda drive. They have learned to bury their disappointment and their failures in the dirt, under the salt.

There are no graves deep enough to hold Kylo’s failures. He scrubs brine from his lips and turns to survey his company over one shoulder.

Two squads. A token show of force, unnecessary and inescapable. Behind the stormtroopers is an even larger group of non-militants huddled together against the weather: officers with their caps stuffed under their arms; Kylo’s terrifyingly intuitive attendants; the dozen or so bookkeepers and bodyguards in the employ of Jessamine Sphess of Kuat Entralla Industries; and Sphess himself, still ambling down the transport ramp at a glacial pace, a droid at each elbow to prevent the frail old relic from blowing away.

The sight makes something sour in him. In the stories the droids told him the little force-sensitive hero was always alone, always brave. He always stole into the city by himself.

“Orders, sir,” the squadron leader asks at his back.

“Follow,” Kylo says quietly, not bothering to make himself heard over the blowing wind.

A ripple of excitement goes through the ranks regardless, plastisteel rattling as they snap to attention; ready, loyal, their minds gelling one into the other, an expanding mass, a wave of will surrendering to him louder, deeper than the first roll of thunder on the horizon, except for—

There. A sudden splinter of irritation; a familiar itching annoyance, pinching at Kylo’s awareness: Hux, elbowing his way out of the throng of troopers and crew to stab Kylo in the abdomen with his latest weapon of choice: a triple ring binder full of funding requests.

“Excellent flightmanship, Supreme Leader,” Hux says acidly, his face already ruddy with windburn. “How would you like me to account for the excess fuel spend for the venture? As a scouting detail or a joy trip?”

“It’s just called flying, Hux.”

“Oh,” Hux says, all faux-surprise, “Is it? Is that what we train our pilots to do?” He waves a hand behind him at the two black-clad pilots fussing over Kylo’s idle TIE fighter. “I had no idea.”

The wind hardens, whipping around them in a flurry so that the edges of Hux’s greatcoat slap against Kylo’s boots. Hux keeps one arm banded firmly over his chest to keep it snug across his shoulders, determined to look impressive, but the wind has flattened his hair over his forehead, somewhat mitigating the effect.

Kylo scowls down at the binder Hux had just attempted to disembowel him with and shoves it uncaringly at his hovering ensign. “Find it,” he says. The young man bobs out an awkward curtsy under the weight of the thing. “What’s this one then?” he asks Hux disinterestedly.  

Hux sniffs as if he isn’t already pitching a tent over the opportunity to rant about his latest project. As if he hasn’t been staring daggers at the back of Kylo’s head the entire past week, rehearsing.

“An essential initiative, Supreme Leader,” Hux says, falling into step as Kylo takes off over the long spindly walkway towards the city proper. “A non-active asset that will vastly augment our latent military firepower. In layman’s terms—"

Kylo hands over his pilot’s gloves to a valet who has run up alongside them, swapping them for a lighter smoother pair. “I’m not a layman.”

“Of course not,” Hux says slickly. “A pseudo-orbital quantum converter then.”

“What’s that?” Kylo says absently, already intent on not listening – his usual approach to anything Hux says that came with an explanatory memorandum.

“I’m so glad you asked, Supreme Leader—”

The sad thing is, Kylo thinks as Hux launches into one of his characteristic, jaw-droppingly boring speeches, is that he genuinely is. Glad. To have the opportunity to brag about his work, this latest and completely transparent attempt to spend their dwindling reserve of money on an outlandish and improbable feat of technology that will vault his name into the annals of galactic history. Hux has a lack of conversation partners aboard the Finalizer – something which he convinces himself is because of his unmatched intellect, but in truth, Hux just lacks the social skills to recognize that his colleagues don’t enjoy being assaulted with all the glorious minutiae of invention in their rostered lunch break.

His old master, Snoke, pre-bifurcation, had often laughed about it behind Hux’s back – how easy it was to reel the general in with a little flattery, to make him feel singularly intelligent, visionary. Unique. He had only trusted Kylo with that little joke. Only Kylo had been true enough, worthy enough, to share in his master’s contempt…

“—sized reactor that could potentially harness an unprecedented amount of kyber extract—” Hux is saying, working himself into a lather, his pupils turned to pinpoints. Kylo increases the length of his strides so that the man has to skip every fourth step to stay alongside him. Hux has frustratingly long legs, but his commitment to good posture and his uniform typically keeps his steps tight and choppy. Kylo can usually escape him.

“—and with reduced full-power recycle we can achieve pinpoint accuracy, or as I like to call it, pin-planet accuracy.” Hux is chuckling to himself now.

The long crossing from the flight pad to the city has no guardrails and narrows at points. If they continue to walk side by side he can make it look like an accident.

Stars, Hux would just love that. The man has a dozen contingencies in place for his canonization in the event of a wrongful death. He’d probably have to spend the remainder of his leadership staring at a life-sized carbonite statue of the prick.

“What’s the shape?” Kylo asks abruptly, already knowing the answer.

Hux gives a little cough, his rant coming to an abrupt halt. “Spherical,” he says, too neutrally. “A sphere.”

Kylo raises his eyebrows. “Death Star-shaped, would you say?” He holds his hand out without looking back. The ensign passes him two pages of flimsi from the brief.

“Chapter twelve and again in the appendices, sir,” he yells over the wind, grappling with the cumbersome binder and its wildly fluttering pages. “He’s word-replaced Starkiller but there are several truncating inconsistencies, including ‘Untitled Project-Killer Base.’”

Hux scoffs, turning red. “The capabilities of my weapon—”

“You’re not getting funding for Starkiller Two.”

“Of course not. I would never be so on the nose as to call it that,” Hux lies.

The ensign pipes up from behind them, “He’s got Captain Peavey executed again, sir. At page 300 — and again at 313.”

Kylo rolls his eyes. “Remove it.”

“A terrible oversight,” Hux concedes, already holding out a sheaf of replacement pages, paginated and in laminate. “Why kill a man twice.”

“Why kill a man at all,” Kylo mutters.

“Yes, that sounds like sound logic, Supreme Leader,” Hux says snidely.  

“Ensign, announce General Hux’s immediate demotion.”

“Very well, but I would like my binder back,” Hux says.

“Ensign, destroy the binder.”

Hux makes a sharp gesture. “Belay that, Ensign—” His words terminate in an uncharacteristic gasp. In making the gesture he has released his grip on the lapels of his coat and it rips off his shoulders in a whirl, shooting out over the churning water like a giant black bird. Kylo catches it without thinking, a reflex, drawing it back into his grip with the force and shoving it at the general’s chest, taking off towards the city once more before the other man can comment on it.

It only takes seconds for Hux to catch up. “You might at least consider allocating a measure of funds to the commission of some more fitting regalia.” He sounds breathless but his disdain is clear, and Kylo doesn’t need to look to know Hux is eyeing his usual dark clothes with distaste.

“Of course, General,” Kylo says, flip. “Yellow robe or gold?”

Hux levels a scowl at him. “I suppose I should be thankful you’re not in combat blacks. These are friendly negotiations you will remember.” He eyes the lightsaber hilt hooked to Kylo’s belt pointedly. “I’d hoped you would represent the Order in something a little more…diplomatic.”

“That’s rich. I seem to remember a suggestion from your direct superior — that would be me, Hux— that you wear your new dress uniform to the negotiations.”

Hux blanches. “It’s ceremonial.”

“I would prefer you wear it,” Kylo says benevolently.

“I would prefer it weren’t orange.”

“It’s not orange,” Kylo says, enjoying the displeased turmoil of Hux’s emotions. The general preaches against vanity and yet is quite preoccupied with the trappings of his own status. Whenever Kylo grows bored or suspicious enough to tune into Hux’s private moments he more often than not finds the general reverently stroking the rank bands on his uniform sleeve or polishing his jackboots with a fervour unique to the deeply sexually repressed. “I’m surprised, General. I thought you would be well pleased to wear the color of your precious order.”

“My order, sir?”

Kylo clenches his jaw – and then consciously unclenches it, wary of the remaining half-life of his adult teeth. He settles instead for the usual fantasy of Hux being slowly trash compacted to death and shouting ow ow ow quite satisfactorily.

“Our order,” Kylo amends. “That I rule over.”

“Oh yes,” Hux says snidely, ignoring Kylo’s dark tone of warning, “I suppose that’s why you took the title of Supreme Ruler.”

“Actually, I like that. Ensign,” Kylo calls over his shoulder. The young man continues hop-skipping awkwardly to keep up with the two taller men, head buried in his work. “Start new dictation: new call sign and rank: Supreme Ruler.”

Hux’s face drops. “Ren, you— Don’t be absurd. We don’t alliterate.”

“Ensign. Further dictation: Head-General Hux.”

“Stop it, please.”

“Admiral Armitage?”

“Is that an official promotion?”

He’s circled in front of Kylo eagerly, walking backwards, completely undeterred by the wind that pushes him to stagger from side to side. Kylo uses the force to keep him from gaining too much momentum and marching himself right over the edge. Hux doesn’t notice this kindness of course, too busy running his mouth and ruining Kylo’s good mood.

“You know, if the negotiations here go well we may be in a bargaining position with our generous investors to ask for an advance on more than another weapon. We may even be looking at enough security for” — he licks his lips — “fleet expansion.”

“We have a fleet.”

“Not a very big one,” Hux says, his voice lowered, so that only Kylo can hear. “I’m just saying, if you could find it within yourself to be civil to our new business partners for the next few days, you may find we catch more flies with honey than with poison.” He punctuates this statement with a completely fraudulent and objectively terrible smile at someone over Kylo’s shoulder — probably Jessamine Sphess, who, incidentally, Hux is poisoning to death.

“Vinegar.”

Hux looks confused. “How do you kill a man with vinegar?”

“No, that’s not—” Kylo sighs. “Remind me how someone with your backwater upbringing made it up the ranks so fast.”

“The same way as you did, Supreme Leader,” Hux says, slippery as an eel. “With hard work and determination.”

“More like nepotism and assassination,” Kylo mutters.

“Yes. As I said, the same as you.”

Kylo shoots him a warning glance in place of a hand on the other man’s throat. “Careful.”

A small congregation of officials from the Barosi trade delegation have come out to meet them and they huddle together under a gazebo, their vestments snapping on the wind like flags. Their clothing is sheer, Kylo realizes as they draw closer, designed to move and flow with the weather.

“Well, great, everyone’s naked.”

“A cultural eccentricity, Supreme Leader,” Hux says, spinning on his heel to face the delegation, falling back into step at Kylo’s side. Kylo can hear the distinct nasality in his tone that means he is suppressing a smile.  

“You could have warned me.”

“But I did, Supreme Leader. During the initial brief. If I recall correctly, you were ‘just resting your eyes’.”

“Sire!” one of the sheer-robed attendants yells, breaking away from the group to greet them. He bows prettily, his whole cock and balls exposed by an errant gust of wind.

“I believe it is a Barosi custom to exchange greetings in the form a kiss,” Hux says, as insincere as a junker orphan.

Kylo rolls his eyes. Hux and his counterfeit patrician values, assuming that such small intimacies could possibly embarrass Kylo when he’s spent a whole other lifetime bending to kiss papery-dry hands and powdered cheeks at the behest of his mother, and later, to lick blood with adoration from the boots of his master.

“Don’t embarrass me in there,” Kylo says without looking back. “This isn’t Arkanis. People don’t eat with their hands.”

He doesn’t bother to turn to see if the barb lands, already stepping forward to receive the first kiss. The force beats like a second heart under his ribs, quickening to purpose.

[tumblingxelian]

A thing about Oz cos I am in a mood

Actually, screw it, let's do this:

I want to see if I can debunk some of the mythic qualities surrounding Ozpin with limited use off fan theories and just based on the content in show and the visuals presented in lore.

OK, first life he was apparently a heroic and good dude, died young, agreed to go back to Remnant because he might be able to see Salem.

Next up he came back into the body of the white haired dude who's name we don't know, hooked up with Salem and had some role in their conquests before trying to split with the kids, big battle, death, the kingdom fell and Salem seemingly went into isolation.

We know for at least three of his next lives that he spent his time drinking away his despair, living in isolation add bitterness.

Now hold up.

I am sure someone is just waiting to shout out that Ozma only ends up in souls similar to him and so he totally didn't just body-jack these guys and destroy their lives, which is indeed what Ozpin claimed is the case, but even ignoring his willingness to lie or hide info...

Nothing we are presented with hints at that being true. First of all the God of Light never mentions that, merely that he'd never be alone.

Secondly, we literally see him subsume his first host and Jinn establishes it took him a long time, post starting to recover, before he actually started to live alongside his host.

What's more he has seemingly little if anything in common with Oscar on any level, meaning that by all evidence presented, yes, Ozma, rather than hide in the back of these guys minds, instead took over their bodies and destroyed their lives.

Someone might argue that maybe he didn't know how to cede control but that's pretty heavy into fan theorizing with little evidence.

So I think this addresses the matter of reincarnations, now lets move onto the common claim that Ozpin was somehow super integral to the world.

Spoiler warning, I don't think he was:

First of all, while yes we see Grimm putting the screws on people in two areas after he arrives, I feel its worth noting that these people were already at a level of societal stability that they could make large settlements, metal tools and expend resources caging Faunus for the lols.

This is all pre-Ozma coming back.

Next up we know he spent a minimum of three lives indulging i unhealthy coping mechanism and yet the world survived, to the point where the four maidens could apparently travel it quite comfortably and confidently.

After that we see him living a fairly simple life with a family before he even went after the Relics, meaning that for a minimum of four to five lifetimes (give or take) Ozma was in no way 'leading the world' or fighting some secret war against Salem or the Grimm and yet the world survived and developed none the less and in the case of the fishermen even looked even semi modern-ish in some regards.

I feel that this sufficiently demonstrates that Ozma himself was not integral to the survival of the species of Remnant.Not saying he never helped, but merely that the world would only look different without him, rather than not exist.

So, he gathers the Relics. finds out he 'Can't' defeat Salem and then starts hiding them. At some point his current life ends and either in the next life or one after it, he is likely the king of Vale, at least based on the fact the king ordered the Hunting academies constructed to hide and protect the Relics and Ozpin claims he was involved with all that.

The Great War:

Now as noted we generally presume he was the King of Vale given the Relic, Hunter Academies, ETC, so I don't think its contentious to say it was him. Though if you don't think he is then these points can be happily ignored.

Ozma as king basically did nothing in the Great War while people fought and died, Faunus were kept as slaves in other lands and only moved to act near the end of the war itself.

He then unleashed WMD levels of destruction on his enemies and cowed them into submission to the point where even his own ally is depicted as kneeling and surrendering to him.

So he went on to create democracy, seemingly a good thing, it seems to do OK in Vale and Mistral at least so partial credit where its due.

In Vacu however it basically stomped on what the people actually wanted and led to tons of issues and did nothing to address the land having been pillaged by other nations, one of which Ozpin currently led.

And it failed so had in Atlas that one of Ozpin's "Allies/subordinates" is seemingly a dictator, with a military and has also gone behind his back and blames him for everything in Vale.

So overall, pretty mixed bag, mostly shows him as passive, heavily destructive when active and rather careless about addressing systemic or legacy issues like what happened in Vacuo or how Atlas so easily sled back into having one guy in charge of everything.

So, Hunters:

Hunters are cool, brave, heroic and important (Usually) But they are not necessary. They have existed for exactly 80 years since the Great War, the world survived before them and it will likely survive if the career fades. So creating the academies, while useful is not something that saved the world from extinction.

As Headmaster:

As Headmaster we know he chose two potential bandits to be his agents giving them powers, only one stayed loyal and the other scarpered eventually and that he hides tons of info from them and his other allies.

We know that while somewhat aware of Cinder's scheming he took very little action (On screen) to counter it in anyway. He eventually co-opted some of his first year students into aiding him because they were already proving more successful than him.

Now before I continue I would like to note that no "The show is called RWBY, of course he can't do things!" is not a good counter argument. Why you ask? Because if you actually believe that then why are you bothered by RWBY being the protagonists in place of Ozpin in V6, but not in V1 and 2 before he got involved? The Dock fight, investigating the White Fang and the Paladin fight are all Pre Ozpin's involvement and in the latter case were even quite destructive. So unless you thought Ozpin should have been leading the charge then you can't use the trope argument of "he's not the MC" because he didn't suddenly become the MC post V3 either.

So, as noted, as Headmaster he was extremely passive, threw less than prepared students into danger with only one teacher and ultimately he and the system he created failed to really stand in Cinder's way all that much. Not strictly his fault, but it doesn't present him as someone terribly effective or integral to the survival of the world and given how many students we saw ditch out his plan for them to be Relic shields also seemingly failed.

Post V3:

What is there to say, he has given some exposition, usually false or stilted and only when pressed. Gave some teaching advice and briefly participated in two fights before going into seclusion mode because until he stopped the ship from crashing.

The last of which is fairly useful, but I never argued Ozpin was the load, merely suggest he wasn't and isn't some load-bearing legend responsible for the salvation of the world.

He isn't.

He's a dude, one who seems to not really trust his allies, or even his wife given he lied to Salem right after coming back to life implying distrust is not a new thing. His people management skills and overall strategies seem to cause plenty of issues, not address issues, or have large gaps in them that enemies have used.

Is he useless or incompetent?

No.

But he isn't shown to be better at this than anyone else is either and could be argued to be worse than some people at it. 

And that's that, thanks for your time.

[felixlearnstodraw]

2020-05-16: finally some semblance of done...i started this with just the conviction that i needed to honour the amazing cast that made up my first maddening and first new-game+ playthrough of fire emblem: three houses (on casual tho--didn’t know what maddening would be like and didn’t feel like restarting if it was too hard or something). but it turned into my biggest drawing challenge yet in terms of composition, posing, level of detail, and shading/contrast. not to mention discipline/stamina over a two-week period. i learned so much and am grateful to move on, but i hope there is something to enjoy from my efforts :)

some notes on the characters and their poses (from top left, counter-clockwise; major SPOILERS for the verdant wind route):

claude (barbarossa, brave bow): i know he looks east asian lol. moving on: i wanted to represent gambits, which were such a nifty and unexpected addition to the fire emblem playbook (stride alone for its versatility deserves a huge shoutout). i think enemy use of gambits could be refined if they want to keep it as a mechanic, but overall, a great layer of strategy in my opinion

hilda (great knight, silver axe): the first character whose pose i locked down: i liked the contrast between her own perception of being non-committal and her actual commitment to those who depend on her. character-wise was not as enjoyable or consistent to me as charlotte in conquest, but her battle-selection quotes were among my favourite (”i wanna go home...” when low-health pre-timeskip broke my heart the first time i heard it. great job salli saffioti (VA) and patrick seitz (voice director))

raphael (war master, killer knuckles): really pleased with how the in-air, gearing-up-for-an-absolute-beast-of-a-punch pose came out. i did a lot of posing in front of my mirror for that one, which was a technique i’ve always known i should use but never did. gauntlets were a cool addition to the weapon roster (and maybe overpowered?), but i wish they had a bit more variation (i think i was spoiled by fates’ abundance of personal weapons)

marianne (holy knight, blutgang): her post-timeskip low-health battle-selection quote is “i won’t run!” and i felt that i wanted to honour that spirit, especially with how fearful she is of everything pre-timeskip. and in contrast to lysithea (see below), i felt that marianne would look to her heroes’ relic as a source of strength, given what she goes through in the paralogue in which she receives it

lysithea (gremory, thyrsus): i originally had her in just a generic magic-casting pose, but one thing i wasn’t expecting from the verdant wind route was its reveal that the heroes’ relics were made from dragon hearts and bones (that were stolen!). this horrified me but completely worked as an explanation for why the relics look so--for lack of a better word--disgusting. i thought lysithea would also find this horrifying, given her history of being subject to blood experiments, so her pose is meant to show her conflicted in using thyrsus despite its incredible power (see: her nuking enemies from up to 5 spaces away thanks to her also reaching S rank in reason)

ignatz (bow knight, generic bow): i drafted so many bow poses where the arrow was notched, but then i took a screenshot of him after loosing his arrow and realized that sometimes the most dynamic pose is the one implying the action, not showing it directly. unrelated: “let me paint you a picture” is an awesome crit quote, which, thankfully, i heard often (thanks, killer bow, king of lions battalion and S rank in bows)

lorenz (dark knight, generic black magic): one of the most consistent characters in terms of making me laugh out loud (shoutout to ben diskin, his voice actor, who also brought such spunk to caspar, who i recruited this run and paired with hilda--their supports were adorable). lorenz is much more likeable imo if you headcanon his objectification of women as a result of being gay but still needing to find a wife because of his noble duty. i guess this isn’t related to the drawing at all but i felt the need to defend my boy 😂

leonie (falcon knight, spear of assal): this pose was such a nightmare but i’m glad i finally figured it out thanks to some good old google image searching (thanks, wikipedia image for parkour!). the idea was to represent how she dodged everything as the falcon knight i trained her into, which seems to be typical of fliers in this game (not that i’m complaining--my previous fire emblem experience is just the fates games, in which avoid-tanking doesn’t really work, so it was cool to see a completely different way of managing the enemy phase in action)

the professor (whom i named big boy lol; mortal savant, generic sword): i completely forgot about the mortal savant class when i was planning everyone’s final classes, so was expecting to keep him a warlock for the endgame since i went for mastering reason this playthrough. then i remembered about it in the final month, and luckily i happened to have high enough sword rank to pass the certification exam so happily, the professor could join his students in kicking butt in a master class :)

wow that ended up being long. but that’s the beauty of fire emblem games i think. each playthrough is such an immersive experience. next for me is the crimson flower route, after just having finished the side story (constance best girl?). looking forward to it!!

[ladykf-writes]

Fanfic Writer Appreciation (and a little self love)

Sooooo, as talked about I wanted to do a little promo. I may not always be my favorite writer, but I try to be one of my cheerleaders. And well, if you’re here you obviously have some interest in what I’m up to.

SO! Here’s a list of my currently-published WIPs and some info about them, in the order that I’ve updated them, most recent to oldest. 

Feel free to ask questions about any of them!

Dog Whistle (Ao3 || FFN) - started off as a prompt from @snackarey​ when I reblogged some Soulmate AUs. This one was a prompt for soulmates (Zack/Kunsel) who felt what each other felt - like pain. Needless to say, this went into a canon divergent AU where Kunsel felt some of what Zack was going through when Hojo got a hold of him after Nibelheim. And saved him, setting off an ever-increasing list of revolutionary consequences. It’s nearly 58K, and though I’m a little stuck I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Dewprism: Journey to the [Relic] (Ao3 || FFN) - this actually has a lot more written than I’ve posted, I just got a little frustrated because well... the fandom is teeny tiny and there’s no real feedback. But! It’s an interesting piece. It’s a semi-novelization where I’m taking the old PS1 Classic from Squaresoft, Threads of Fate/Dewprism and merging the two storylines. Basically... you can’t play the game anymore unless you got it from the PSN for your PSP or... PS2, I think? Or emulate it, of course, you can do that. And I wanted to bring the experience to more people, because it’s got such a great story.

It’s Not a Game (Ao3 || FFN) - this is my Avengers/FF7 crossover, and funny story, it was actually born out of a comment back on my old Genesis RP blog about how Genesis would totally be Tony Stark’s favorite character if he played Crisis Core. It’s turned into a full blown fixit I have a type and I actually have like, 90% of the next chapter done, it just doesn’t feel quite right so I haven’t posted it. And am, of course, stuck. There’s a case of choice paralysis here; the premise is that, in the MCU, FF7 is a series like it is in our world, and Tony is a fan. So he goes to make a simulation to do a self-insert... only he somehow transports himself (and Bruce) to a dimension where it’s real. A “Stark-insert” someone called it; and it does use a lot of “Self-Insert” tropes, actually. There’s just so many ways it could go that I’m stuck on choosing exactly how to progress here.

Party of Five (Ao3 || FFN) - the MMO AU! This was actually originally a prompt @up-sideand-down​ got, that I got permission to take off with. It’s a modern AU AGSZC where they meet online playing this MMO I made up that’s based off of FF7 and modeled after a mashup of like, me studying WoW and my experiences playing SWTOR. I’ve actually got some ideas of where it’s going, I just got too caught up in technicalities and need to reroute it back to the relationships going on.

Welcome to FF7 (series link, Ao3) - this is me hashing out basically what I think went down pre-games. Most of it is headcanon, I cannot stress that enough. It’s based off of the little we know, of course, but there’s just so much we don’t that it’s mostly headcanon. Tons of OCs. It’s a whole series, and they overlap - different sections that follow different departments, mostly. The base story is Welcome to ShinRa (Ao3 || FFN) and that follows the man who will become President Shinra from back when they first discover mako energy. I’ve also got Welcome to the Science Department (Ao3 || FFN) which starts off with college students Gast and Grimoire and how they get drawn into the beginnings of what becomes ShinRa Electric.

And last but not least, honorable mention to Times of Change (Ao3) - this was actually a piece inspired by @deadcatwithaflamethrower‘s Re-Entry series. I desperately need to reread that before I can hope to continue this, but... one day. One day.... I don’t suggest reading it right now, my headcanons have changed and it needs an overhaul. But you’ll see eventually.

And now... the WIPs you haven’t seen. (Under a cut)

By fandom, just to keep things straight, but in no particular order otherwise.

Compilation of FF7

The Snowball Effect (Ao3 || FFN) ... sequel? continuation? - as one of the gift exchange presents I’ve just done this past month, it is definitely standalone as is, but if I ever figure out where I want to take it, I’ll continue that one. It was just far too much fun.

The Price of Freedom - the sequel to To Be Human, which... I’m looking forward to, but I really burnt myself out on TBH so it’s going to be longer than anticipated before I approach this one. TBH definitely stands on its own, but there were some loose ends left to tie up, so we’ll see how that goes. And when it goes, when I’m ready to approach that again. TBH needs some editing, too... lots of work there.

The Unnamed Pokemon/FF7 crossover that I’ve talked about for... a couple years now (yikes) but now actually have a plot for. It’s very interesting to me, putting Pokemon on Gaia, and seeing how that changes everything. Because like, they’d have presumably used Mew’s DNA since there’s no Jenova (I can’t see them using Deoxys, which would be the closer parallel) and since there’s no Chaos, Grimoire is still alive. Which means no extra Drama between Lucrecia and Vincent - and really, there shouldn’t be the stress between Vincent and Hojo over her being sick because Mew would theoretically be much more compatible with humans than Jenova was.

What I’m saying is Seph has three parents and at least one set of grandparents and a much more stable Sephiroth (and Genesis and Angeal, thanks to Lucrecia teaming up with Gillian) leads to some very interesting changes. Like deciding they don’t want to fight the Wutai war anymore. >_>

Hold My Flower - a timetravel fic featuring our one and only flowergirl, who has had enough of people messing up her planet and refuses to just... let it die. She is, unquestionably, a force of nature. No fragile flower to be found here, this is the gal you see in the OG who threatened a mob boss and meant it. Heaven help anyone who gets in her way. She’s going to save the world. Possibly in a Turk Suit, don’t look at me.

The Long Game - Reeve goes back in time, and holy crap this one is a monster I am truly intimidated by so it’s gonna take a while for me to get going on that. XD But basically, similar premise to the above - the world isn’t healing and someone has to do something, so Reeve is nominated due to his position in ShinRa and potential to... he’d say “influence” but let’s call a spade a spade - manipulate people and events to a more favorable outcome.

A third BIT fic is one that I started writing with my friend @askshivanulegacy back in... damn, somewhere between 2011-2013, before we switched to writing SWTOR fic together. It’s one where Zack is sent back in time, and the differences in him post-Hojo change things even before he can start deliberately changing anything. But I got permission to take and remake that, so I intend to, one day. It was Good Stuff. And you can never have too much timetravel.

Dragon Ball Z

So, this is an oooooold fandom of mine - the first fanfics I ever wrote (under a different name, no I’m not telling XD it was ten years ago) were for DBZ, and definitely the first ones I ever read, back in the days of dial up. And I read a couple interesting takes on Chichi/Vegeta fic... and I was talking with @vorpalgirl about it and said I’d love to try my hand at something with that one day. I think they have the potential to be a really great pair (don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the canon pairings but those two have a lot of potential) so... yeah someday I might dip my toes back into Z. It’s on the wishlist, as well as reviving and cleaning up an old unfinished work of mine. Someday~

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Seven Years Lost - this one I’ve been debating a long time, and even did a little on! It’s basically how I rationalize what happens when Link pulls the Master Sword out and - well, spoilers but it’s a really old game so - when he comes out as a teenager and is immediately able to handle a nearly-adult body. It involves a dreamscape scenario where he communicates with his past incarnations and learns from them, and from sharing dreams with Zelda due to their bond.

Sailor Moon (manga/Crystal based)

Second Chances - I read a lot of SM fanfic back in the day, and my favorite ones were... more real? Like, there were more consequences to these 14 year old kids out there fighting for their lives and sometimes losing them. I’d like to tell a story through Minako/Venus’ eyes primarily, covering what that’s like, and then I also just really want a happy ending for the senshi/shittenou? So... yay canon divergence, lol. You guys know the deal by now. XD

Star Wars: Legends Era

United We Stand - SWTOR fanfic, baby! Basically, I’m just dying to see the eight classes cross over each other, and I will bend canon to do it. For anyone that’s played the original class story lines, there is some cross over but believe me when I say there were huge opportunities that were let drop by nature of the game. Just with the two Jedi stories alone... but that’s #spoilers for a not-as-old game so I’ll leave that be and only elaborate if asked.

(And do feel free to ask about any of these! I’d love to hash them out more.)

[the-redlion]

Fallout OC Interview!

Template made by @robobrainmurdermysterytheatre

Hehe, I got tagged this time (Vs. just doing it on my own with Easton ^^;; If you wanna see his, here’s the link: Easton Colt) But thank you @commonwealthhero​ for tagging me!

Rules:

1. Choose an OC.

2. Answer them as that OC.

3. Tag 5 people to do the same. kinda already did this so I am gonna just leave it alone, haha.

What is your name? “Normally I wouldn’t take part in something like this, but now that the Institute is gone... I... I’m hoping it can help me find someone. Oh, ehm. Right! A name. Nathan. Nathan Sinclair.”

How old are you? “ 32... well, no... *his hand shifts to scratch at the stubble under his chin* Normally, this wouldn’t be a complicated question to answer. *he shifts in his seat* Do you remember that article about the ‘Man Out Of Time’ published by Publick Occurrences a few years back? Turns out, he isn’t the only thawed out pre-war relic kickin’ about.”

What do you look like? *He chuckles to himself for a moment* ”Back in the day one would just post a photo with the article. The things you take for granted. But, um, darker caucasion, dark brown hair, blue eyes, and freckles… those have always been my tell.”

Where are you from? Where do you live now? “Chicago. Then Boston. Now, I rent a room in the Dugout Inn. I haven’t found anywhere… more permanent since leaving the Institute.”

What was your childhood like? “Traveled a lot. My father was in the Army. My mother left before I can remember, so there isn’t much to say about her. My dad wasn’t really built to be a single dad. So most of the time I was appointed a guardian. It sucked at the time... but it’s a better childhood than what most kids are subjected to these days.”

What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions? “The Railroad. They were the ones who planned and carried out my liberation.  Though it was more of a tactical maneuver against the Institute, and I guess that still makes me a  pawn, but… at least they treat me better…. So for that, I am grateful.”

Tell me about your best friend. “I’d have to say Agent Sparrow. He was the main agent who orchestrated my rescue.  When it came to knowledge on the Institute, he was second to none. He was an escaped Synth himself, and had dedicated his life to rescuing others of his kind. Sparrow is a remarkable guy... definitely one of the funniest people I have ever met! Though I can sense a sadness in him. Like there is something or someone he is longing for. Anytime I try to ask him about it, he tends to avoid or change the subject.”

Do you have a family? Tell me about them! “Once, I had a wife and son. *He paused for a minute as he focused on the swaying light fixture above his head, trying to fight back his emotions* But they are both dead now.”

What about a partner or partners? " Technically, no one. But there is someone I am trying to find. Someone I desperately hope I can mend what I broke.”

Who are your enemies, and why? “ The Institute was the only enemy I had. Now they are gone..”

Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them? "The Railroad is definitely not a fan of them but despite that, Sparrow seems to think differently of them.”

What about The Enclave? "I am not familiar with that term.”

How do you feel about Super Mutants? “In honest, their existence is pretty depressing. They are little more than Feral Ghouls, shadows of their former selves.”

What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in? “ Honestly, since waking up in the future, I can't recall a fight that wasn’t bat-shit-crazy.”

Have you ever fought a Deathclaw? “Only one. Didn’t come outta that one in the best of shape.”

Do you like fighting? “No. Even as a former soldier, I hate it.”

What’s your weapon of choice? "I favor semi-auto rifles. Though I haven’t managed to keep one in working order long enough to favor any particular one. They don’t make them like they used to.”

How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?) "Wits. It’s what saved my ass in the war... so far it’s still working here.”

Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them? “Yes. Vault 111, It was my unwilling home for over 200 years.”

How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you? "First Radstorm was the night I was rescued from the Institute. wasn't the best first impression of the surface world. I was sick for weeks. Now, I stock up on RadAway and try to keep out of its way.”

What’s your favorite wasteland critter? “Whatever doesn't try to kill me I guess”

What’s your least favorite wasteland critter? ”The ones that try to kill me”

How do you feel about robots? “If they don’t try to kill me, I see no issue with them”

How many caps do you have on you right now? “If I tell you, are you gonna try and steal them? Haha”

Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla? “Truthfully, I've never heard of the second one, and I didn’t even like Nuka Cola before the war.”

Do you do chems? “No. Never.”

Do you ever think about the Pre-War world? “Always. In my dreams and in my nightmares.”

What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently? “Well without getting too deep into details. I need to apologize for something horrible I once did. That choice brought out good and bad… but nonetheless, I want to correct it.”

What’s your biggest achievement? Or what do you hope to achieve? “I don’t think I have an answer to either of those questions”

What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world? “Idealistically, a better world… but It's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel on that one.”

[asktheadeptus]

Bolter

"To a Space Marine, the boltgun is far more than a weapon; it is an instrument of Mankind's divinity, the bringer of death to his foes. Its howling blast is a prayer to the gods of battle."— From the teachings of Roboute Guilliman as laid down in the Apocrypha of Skaros

The Bolter, also called a Boltgun, and its variants are some of the most powerful hand-held ballistic anti-personnel weaponry in use by the military forces of the Imperium of Man. It is a powerful assault weapon that fires explosive kinetic rounds colloquially referred to as bolts. The Bolter is a weapon synonymous with the Adeptus Astartes, and rightly so. However, although the Space Marines are its primary users, the Bolter finds itself in use in military organisations throughout the Imperium. The weapon is fearsome, with explosive rounds capable of ripping through or blowing apart a foe. The Chaos Space Marines of the Traitor Legions were issued their Legions' Bolters before the Horus Heresy, and therefore use generally older variants than the patterns available to present-day Loyalist Space Marines.

The Bolter is a mid-range anti-personnel ballistic weapon that lies between the lighter and more compact Bolt Pistol sidearm, and the more effective but more cumbersome Heavy Bolter. The most common standard patterns of Bolter can easily be wielded by a Space Marine, but on account of their size and weight, smaller human-scale pattern Bolters are used by the Battle-Sisters of the Adepta Sororitas .

For both the Space Marines and the Sisters of Battle of the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas, the Bolter is viewed as a weapon intended by the Emperor of Mankind to bring his wrath to the enemies of Mankind. Both a weapon and an item of devotion to the Emperor, an Astartes' Bolter is carefully tended by its user. Indeed, a good part of the daily firing rituals performed by the Space Marines when not at war is spent carefully tending to the Bolter's multiple mechanisms and entreating its Machine Spirit, to ensure the weapon is always ready for war. Every Astartes carries a Bolter lovingly handcrafted by the Artificers of his Chapter's Armoury or by one of the Adeptus Mechanicus Forge Worlds. At each point in its construction, special rituals are observed by the Artificers or Tech-priests. The Bolters used by the Space Marines are known to be coded to Astartes genetic signatures so that they are only functional for members of the Adeptus Astartes.

History

The Boltgun, or Bolter as it is also known, has been the standard armament of the Adeptus Astartes for as long as Space Marines have defended the Imperium. But this was not always the case. The ancient Space Marine Legions once utilized Volkite Weapons, a class of powerful thermal ray weapons whose technology is pre-Imperial in origin and dates back to the Age of Strife. These compact weapons possessed considerable killing power, surpassing most other armaments of their size. Unfortunately, Volkite Weapons of the various types were difficult to manufacture, even for the most able of the Mechanicum's forges, and the demands of the expanding Great Crusade in the late 30th Millennium swiftly overwhelmed the supply of these relic-weapons. Furthermore, Volkite armaments were somewhat lacking in effective range, and had high maintenance requirements that were unsuitable for the wartime needs of the burgeoning Crusade. Once relatively common within the fledgling Space Marine Legions, Volkite Weapons had fallen largely from favour by the time the Horus Heresy began in the early 31st Millennium and had been superseded by the far more flexible and utilitarian Terran Bolter. A brutally efficient weapon, the Bolter fires mass-reactive bolts at its targets, each one a self-propelled missile which explodes with devastating effectiveness after penetrating its target. The fear and awe that Bolter fire creates makes it a perfect weapon for shock troops, the hammering thunder of the guns mixing terrifyingly with the dull, wet explosions as flesh is blown apart.

To the Space Marines, the Boltgun is far more than just a weapon; it is a symbol of his position as a chosen warrior of the Emperor and a physical representation of Mankind's supremacy. A Boltgun is a treasured weapon, but in the hands of a Space Marine it is a divine instrument of his wrath, a bringer of swift death whose howling blast is a prayer to the gods of battle. Bolters can only be made by skilled artisans and so are produced only in limited quantities, but always to the highest standards and using only the finest materials available. Even Bolter rounds cannot be easily fabricated outside of specialized workshops, and the weapons require regular servicing if they are to function properly. Each Space Marine is scrupulous in their attention to their Boltguns, regularly performing rituals of maintenance less he anger his weapon's machine spirit.

Description

Overview

The Bolter is a large .75 calibre assault weapon. It has a much greater mass than most standard-issue Imperial weapons such as the Lasgun, although it is slightly shorter in length. Unlike most Imperial ranged infantry weapons, it lacks a stock, resulting in a grip much like a pistol's or a submachine gun's. A Space Marine's bulky Power Armour would make shouldering a stock an awkward experience, and Power Armour is most likely also able to compensate for firing vibrations and oscillation, making a stock redundant. Stocks are sometimes used, however, with an extended barrel and an M40 Targeter System to transform the Bolter into a sniping weapon system. These sniper Bolters, known as Stalker Pattern Bolters, are most often used with Stalker Silenced Shells.

The Space Marines are not the only warriors of the Imperium to carry Boltguns into battle, but the version carried by the Adeptus Astartes, the MK Vb Godwyn Pattern Boltgun, is by far the largest and most devastating. By comparison, the smaller patterns of boltgun carried by the Adeptus Sororitas or the champions of the Imperial Guard are pale reflections. So large is the Godwyn pattern that no normal man could heft one, let alone survive its unforgiving recoil. A blessed creation of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Godwyn pattern has served the Space Marines for millennia, its design based upon ancient STC technology from long before the birth of the Imperium. The Godwyn is not the only pattern of Boltgun used by the Adeptus Astartes though, and many of the Space Marine Chapters have their own variants, such as the "Angelus" Bolter used by the Blood Angels, or the "Fenris" pattern boltgun used by the Space Wolves. However, the Godwyn pattern remains the most common weapon of the Space Marines and fills the role of the sacred Bolter, as cited in the Codex Astartes as the primary weapon of a battle-brother.

This variant has a built-in ammunition counter which indicates how many rounds are remaining in the weapon on an external display. The number of remaining rounds will also be shown in the auto-senses display of an Astartes' helmet. The Mark Vb Godwyn Pattern uses a Sinister/Dexter locking mechanism with a sickle-shaped magazine that carries 30 bolts and can fire in bursts of up to four rounds with a single trigger pull. Other features include a biometric sensor integrated into the weapon's grip that allows the Bolter to identify its user's genetic signature so that only Astartes can make use of the Bolter. The Godwyn Pattern also possesses an integral targeter that links with the Space Marine's auto-senses for enhanced accuracy. Bolters make a unique roaring sound when fired, which is caused as the propellant in their shells ignites, followed by an explosion when the bolt detonates upon hitting its target.

Like other Space Marine weaponry, Astartes Bolters are designed to be handled by their superhuman physique. The weight of each Godwyn Pattern Bolter means that most normal humans cannot handle the weapon comfortably without the aid of a supporting brace, and the weapon's handgrips are too large for a mortal to grasp without assistance. However, even if a mortal were to fire the Bolter, the resulting recoil would most likely rip his or her arm from its socket. It is illegal within the Imperium for a non-Astartes to wield an Astartes Bolter, which is one reason why the weapons are genetically coded so that only a Space Marine can fire them. An Imperial citizen caught in unauthorized possession of a Bolter or even of just a bolt round can be harshly sentenced by the Adeptus Arbites. However, some Bolter patterns like the Godwyn-De'az or Locke patterns are specifically built to be wielded by unaugmented humans, and the weapon is sometimes favored by officers of the Imperial Guard and members of the Adeptus Arbites who require a weapon with more stopping power.

The major advantage of the Bolter in comparison to the ubiquitous Lasgun is its stopping power, as the bolt's kinetic force and explosive head can deliver much more damage on a target than the coherent light beam from a Lasgun. However, the major reason that the Bolter never was favored as a weapon for the soldiers of the Imperial Army is that next to its mass and weight, it is also a temperamental weapon that requires lots of care and maintenance to function properly. Where the Lasgun only requires a quick daily disassembly and cleaning while mumbling a prayer to its Machine Spirit to keep it going for over 10,000 shots, the Bolter requires much more careful tending and cleaning to ensure its proper function. While a centuries-old Astartes Veteran can tend to his Bolter blindfolded in less time than a freshly recruited Guardsman tends to his Lasgun, such familiarity with a weapon is impossible to attain for the average human soldier, hence the need for a simpler standard armament. Another disadvantage of the Bolter is the need for its heavy and cumbersome ammunition compared to the small and easily recharged power packs of the Lasgun. While this is seldom an issue for the Astartes, due to their focus on rapid and overwhelming assault tactics, the risk of finding oneself out of ammunition is very real for Imperial Guardsmen who favor the weapon during prolonged operations, or on missions where resupply is improbable or difficult.

The Boltgun can also be modified for a variety of roles; the Adeptus Astartes and the sacred texts of the Machine God sanction some of these, others are crafted by battle-brothers themselves and remain confined to specific Chapters. Scopes of all kinds are a common addition to boltguns, even though most marks of Power Armour incorporate optical enhancements. A scope can be tailored to its environment, keyed to different visual spectrums or the heat-trace of certain foes, giving a Space Marine a better chance to find his target. Drum magazines are sometimes used to increase the ammo capabilities of a boltgun, replacing the standard sickle clip. This extra ammo reduces the time between reloads and allows a battle-brother to keep up a sustained stream of killing fire. Regardless of modification or pattern, a Boltgun remains an ancient and deadly weapon in the hands of a Space Marine, and if all else fails, it is solid enough to crack skulls and snap bones with its heavy casing.

Standard Bolter Round

Bolter Ammunition (a bolt) is primarily a .75 calibre rocket-propelled round. Whereas conventional solid slugs utilize a propellant charge contained in a casing that forces the bullet down the barrel upon ignition, in contrast, a bolt is self-propelled; it features its own integrated solid fuel propellant that propels the bolt at high speeds, essentially acting like a miniature rocket. The propellant itself is shaped to control the bolt's direction and speed; however, this method of rocket propulsion would normally warp the barrel due to gas pressure. The Bolter uses an ingenious two-stage method to prevent this.

As well as the rocket propellant, a small conventional charge is also utilized. This charge is strong enough to force the bolt out of the barrel at a significant muzzle velocity, and simultaneously ignite the bolt's propellant. The rocket-propellant is precisely fused to ignite immediately as the bolt leaves the barrel, alleviating any possibility of pressure build-up. The bolt then accelerates toward the target under its own power.

Standard Bolter ammunition utilizes a mass-reactive fuze, designed to penetrate the target before detonating within, maximizing damage to the target and leaving little chance for survival.

Construction

The Bolter is complex to produce and requires dedicated maintenance, which prevents it from being issued more widely throughout the Imperial Guard. The standard pattern Bolter is also simply far too heavy to be wielded effectively by the average human being or Imperial Guard soldier. The Bolter is far more susceptible to being fouled by dirt and mishandling than the basic Lasgun issued to Imperial Guardsmen, requiring much more training to use than the Guard is ready to invest in the standard line Guardsman. The Bolter's need for physical ammunition as opposed to power packs demands far more logistical organisation to supply than the standard Lasgun, and Astartes Chapters have been known to go through a mountainous stockpile of rounds during a single campaign. However, the Space Marines wear massive suits of Power Armour that further enhance their already prodigious genetically-enhanced strength and allows them to control the powerful recoil of the weapon, and the armour also enhances the already prodigious skill of the individual warrior with autosense uplinks and suit-integrated targeting systems. This makes the Bolter a good fit as the primary weapon for the Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, who have used it since the Space Marine Legions were first raised at the dawn of the Great Crusade in the late 30th Millennium.

Known Bolter Patterns

Over the millennia, the Bolter has been improved and changed many times. There have been hundreds of variants, but only a few have made any radical differences in the weapon's function. All of these variant patterns have the same basic features, but each has different additional features (depending on the weapon's pattern) that seek to improve upon its basic design. The current standard-issue Bolter for the Space Marines is the .75 calibre Astartes Mark Vb Godwyn Pattern Bolter.

Angelus Pattern Bolter - The Sanguinary Guard of the Blood Angels and their Successor Chapters make use of a wrist-mounted, drum-fed variation of the Bolter called the Angelus Bolter, which fires potent Bloodshard Shells filled with razor-filament that is very effective against most known forms of armour.

Baal Pattern Bolter - The Blood Angels and their Successor Chapters make use of a variant of the standard Godwyn Pattern Bolter known as a Baal Pattern Bolter, named after their homeworld of Baal.

Ceres Pattern Bolt Carbine - Relatively uncommon weapons (the design was said to have been rescued from a Space Hulk and pressed into production specifically for the long ago Angevin Crusade), Bolt Carbines are typically easier to wield than full-size Boltguns, due to their lighter, simpler construction and lower rate of fire. Without the multi-round burst ability common to many patterns of Bolter, a Bolt Carbine is incapable of the wholesale slaughter that characterize volleys of Bolter fire. However, their simpler design means that they misfire less frequently and are much easier to maintain. Bolt Carbines may use any form of special Bolter ammunition.

Condemnor Pattern - The Condemnor Pattern Bolter is a highly specialized Combi-weapon used almost exclusively by the operatives of the Ordo Hereticus and Adepta Sororitas. It combines a Bolter with a single-shot crossbow armature. Though archaic in appearance, the crossbow fires a silver stake engraved with sigils of disruption that destabilize a psyker's connection with the Warp. A direct hit from the crossbow will therefore not only deal a severe wound to a psyker, it will also send his power spiraling out of control, consuming the user in a storm of untrammeled psychic energy.

Crusade Pattern - The Crusade Pattern Bolter is the original type of Bolter used by the Astartes of the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade of the 31st Millennium.

Filienostos Pattern

Footfall-Pattern - The moniker "Footfall-pattern" is applied mockingly at best, said only with a straight face by arms dealers in the Koronus Expanse trying to fleece their customers with a false air of legitimacy. Comparatively crude and inefficient, these counterfeit weapons fail regularly due to insufficiently strict manufacturing tolerances, but the inconveniences of owning such a weapon are outweighed by their lethality for those who cannot obtain a true Bolter. Footfall-pattern Bolt Weapons, due to their poor design may not be used with any form of special ammunition.

Gilded Bolter - The Gilded Bolter is a master-crafted Artificer Bolter of unsurpassed beauty, workmanship and artistry. It is a weapon used by certain Space Marine Captains and has sometimes been given as a gift to such powerful Imperial officials as Sector Governors. The weapon has been used by some of the most notable Ultramarines Astartes to have served in the Deathwatch in the tempestuous region of space known as the Jericho Reach.

Godwyn Mark IIIa Pattern - The Godwyn Mark IIIa is an older pattern of Bolter still used by the Astartes of the Dark Angels Chapter.

Godwyn Mark Vb Pattern - The current, most widely-used pattern of Astartes Bolter in the Imperium.

Godwyn Ultima Pattern - The Godwyn Ultima Pattern Bolter is a variant weapon very similar to the Godwyn Mark Vb Bolter, and was known to have been used by the Minotaurs and Exorcists Chapters during the Badab War.

Godwyn-De'az Pattern - The Godwyn-De'az Pattern Bolter is the standard pattern of Bolter used by all of the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas since their formation in the 36th Millennium. This pattern has been in use by the Sisters of Battle since that time because it remains more reliable and more potent than any other pattern of Bolter developed for use by the Sororitas. The Godwyn-De'az Pattern is designed to be used by a normal human and thus is much smaller than an Astartes Bolter. This pattern of Bolter is designed to make use of the Sarissa as an attachment. The Sarissa is a vicious, curved, bayonet-like blade that can transform the Godwyn-De'az Bolter into an effective close combat weapon even as it retains all of its ranged functionality.

Hesh Pattern - Since the 36th Millennium, the Astartes of the Deathwatch have been equipped with the Hesh Pattern Bolter, created by Magos Cymbry Jamis of the Adeptus Mechanicus as a reward for the Deathwatch's exemplary service to the Imperium. Bolters of this pattern are more compact than other variants and show unusually skilled craftsmanship on the order of a master-crafted weapon. Due to their smaller size, Hesh Pattern Bolters are well-suited for fighting in confined spaces and they are also favored by Astartes vehicle crews and by certain Assault Marines. Hesh Pattern Bolters incorporate an integral folding stock, a motion detector and preysense sensors that connect to an Astartes' Auto-senses. Deathwatch Astartes who complete their term of service with the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Xenos are permitted to keep their Hesh Pattern Bolters when they return to their home Chapter.

Heresy Pattern - Heresy Pattern Bolters first appeared during the Horus Heresy. Cut off from regular sources of supply and maintenance, many Astartes were forced to cobble together non-standard Bolters using a variety of different parts drawn from different patterns and existing variants of the weapon. These ancient weapons are collectively known as Heresy Pattern Bolters. Amongst Chaos Cultists, Bolters confer much prestige to the wielder. Many of these bolters still in existence are heirloom weapons, taken in ritual duels or armed conflicts and passed down through generations of owners. Though designed to be used by an un-augmented human, the recoil is still murderous.

Hurricane Pattern - A Hurricane Bolter consists of three twin-linked Boltguns fired as a single weapon. First used by the Black Templars Chapter, Hurricane Bolter weapon systems combine the punishing firepower of multiple twin-linked Boltguns to produce a truly withering storm of shells.

Kai Gun - The Kai Gun is a huge, two-handed, ballistic weapon of archaic design similar to a Bolter that was developed following the loss of the Forge World of Kai to Warp Storm Gae-sann in the 34th Millennium. Possessing an advanced industrial culture, the Machine Smiths of Kai bartered their skills for a measure of protection, learning to fashion weapons in the Warp that they could not have conceived before. Their ploy eventually failed and the daemon hordes of the Warp descended upon them to fight for possession of these new domains. All that remained after the destruction of Kai was the weapons they had once built to appease their slayers. The Kai Gun is so large that a normal man would be unable to lift it, but one which a Chaos Lord or Daemon Prince would have no problems wielding. The gun is a psychic catalyst, turning the hate and malice of its wielder into tangible bolts of energy.

Locke Pattern - The Locke Pattern Bolter is a variant of an older pattern of Bolter used by the Adeptus Arbites, and is now the most common pattern of Bolter in use in the Koronus Expanse. Like the Bolter patterns used by the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas, the Locke Pattern Bolter can be used without difficulty by normal-sized humans.

Mark III Pattern - The Mark III Pattern Bolter was produced by the manufactora of Badab Primaris during the Badab War and was used by the Astral Claws Chapter.

Mark IV Ultra Pattern - The Mark IV Ultra Pattern Bolter was known to have been used by the Red Scorpions Chapter, and carried a standard 25-bolt sickle magazine. This pattern also possesses a built-in ammunition counter, an Auto-senses targeting uplink, and a biometric handgrip sensor for genetic identification of its user as standard features.

Mark IV Pattern - The Mark IV Pattern Bolter was an earlier standard variant of the Astartes Bolter that made use of a 20 bolt magazine and possessed the capability for both single-shot and three-bolt burst fire. The Mark IV Bolter also incorporated a biometric sensor in its handgrip to identify its wielder using his unique genetic imprint.

Mark II Cawl Pattern Bolt Rifle - The Mark II Cawl Pattern is still the archetypal firearm of the Adeptus Astartes, but now re-engineered, re-crafted and perfected for use by the transhuman warriors of the newly-created Primaris Space Marines. This pattern of Bolter was named for its creator, Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl. Like all weapons in the Bolter family, the Bolt Rifle fires small, self-propelled missiles known as bolts which explode with devastating effect. The Bolt Rifle has a longer range and slightly more penetrating power compared to the standard-issue Bolter.

Mark II Ultra Pattern - The Mark II Ultra Pattern Bolter was known to be used by the Red Scorpions Chapter during the Imperial operation on the Tyranid-infested world of Beta Anphelion IV. It made use of a Dark Eye night scope that greatly enhanced the weapon's accuracy during nighttime operations.

Mars Pattern Mark II "Scourge" - The Mars Pattern Mark II "Scourge" Bolter is the preferred pattern of Bolter used by the Battle-Sisters of the Order of the Ebon Chalice's Abbey of Dawn on the world of Iocanthos in the Calixis Sector. The Scourge has consequently been a favorite among several missionaries in the Koronus Expanse, particularly Genevieve Almace, whose followers have dispatched countless heretics and mutants with these weapons. Like the Godwyn-De'az Pattern Bolter, the Mark II Scourge Bolter can be used without difficulty by normal-sized humans. Scourges come equipped with a sarissa blade, a sharp, serrated bayonet that can tear open foes in hand-to-hand combat with ease.

Nocturne-Ultima Pattern - The Astartes of the Salamanders Chapter are known to have made use of Nocturne-Ultima Pattern Bolters during the Badab War. The Nocturne-Ultima Pattern seems to be a modification of the standard Godwyn Ultima Pattern Bolter carried out solely by the Artificers of the Salamanders on their Chapter homeworld of Nocturne, hence the name of the pattern.

Nostra Pattern

Perinetus Pattern "Solo" Mark II - This pattern of Bolter is considered to be heretical in the eyes of the Machine God by some members of the Adeptus Mechanicus. It is far less sophisticated than the other extant patterns of Bolter and lacks the capability for automatic fire, allowing it to shoot only a single bolt with each pull of the trigger. However, the loss of this capability is made up for by the weapon's greater range, increased accuracy and enhanced reliability in adverse environmental conditions. This pattern of Bolter is intended to be used by normal humans and is sized accordingly. The Perinetus Pattern Bolter is very popular as a weapon with certain Planetary Defence Force garrisons and some rebel groups within the Imperium.

Phobos Pattern - The Phobos Pattern Bolter is perhaps the most venerable design of the sacred Bolter used by the Astartes. This weapon was hand-crafted by the Fabricators of Mars at the very birth of the Imperium, to ensure that every Marine had the finest wargear with which to reunite the scattered elements of Humanity. The carnage caused by the heavy .70 Cal. shells of Phobos pattern boltguns caused many units to retain these weapons even once more advanced patterns became available.

Relic Boltgun - Within the Calixis Sector, there may only be a handful of these extraordinarily rare and ancient devices. Bulky beyond the means of most men to wield, these weapons may once have been wielded by the Emperor's warriors during the earliest days of the Imperium, and bear the eagle's claw and thunderbolt symbols common to that distant age. More than merely fine examples of ancient Bolters, these weapons are holy relics imbued with a tiny fragment of the Emperor's wrath.

Ryza-Ultima Pattern - The Star Phantoms Chapter are known to have made use of Ryza-Ultima Pattern Bolters during the Badab War. The Ryza-Ultima Pattern seems to be a modification of the standard Godwyn Ultima Pattern Bolter that first originated on the Forge World of Ryza.

Skapulan Bolter - The Deathwatch of the Jericho Reach is strangely silent about the history of Watch Station Skapula, and how this lethal Bolter remains from the abandoned station. Techmarines fortunate enough to examine the advanced weapon frequently debate the number and nature of Machine Spirits necessary to achieve its flawless performance, but the most widely accepted theories place a union of over one hundred Machine Spiritswithin the casing of tenebrous alloys. In addition to accuracy and power unrivaled in other Bolters of its size, the Skapulan Bolter integrates a Fire Selector, a Targeter, and a melee attachment equivalent to a master-crafted Combat Knife. The Skapulan Bolter is unique and there are no other known Bolters of this type currently in existence.

Stalker Pattern - The Stalker Pattern Bolter is a standard Godwyn Mark Vb Pattern Bolter modified with an M40 Targeter System and an elongated barrel so that it may also serve as a Sniper Rifle.

Sternguard Pattern - The Sternguard are veteran members of the elite 1st Company of a Space Marine Chapter. They deploy wherever the battle is fiercest, particularly excelling in the use of ranged weapons. The standard modifications found on a Sternguard Bolter includes an enhanced scope, shoulder-sling strap, and a specialized magazine that allow the Space Marine to carry different types of ammunition and switch between them freely. The specialized magazine allows a variety of ammo types, at the expense of capacity of standard ammo and to reload.

Tigrus Pattern - There are many types and patterns of the mighty and iconic boltgun used by the Adeptus Astartes, and the Tigrus Pattern Bolter is one such variant. During the latter days of the Great Crusade, it was first discovered in the depths of Forge World Tigrus. The STC data for this sleek weapon was quickly disseminated throughout the Imperium before the outbreak of the shadowed Horus Heresy. The noble bastion of Mars suffered irreparable damage at the hands of the Traitor Legions, yet the Bolters that bear its name continue to see service in the 41st Millennium; revered and honoured as ancient relics of Mankind's lost glory. Though one of the rarer patterns of Astartes weaponry seen on the modern battle, Tigrus pattern Bolters are renowned for their accuracy and the facility of their weapon spirits to operate in co-ordination with the systems incorporated within Space Marine armour.

Umbra Pattern - The Umbra Pattern Bolter is one of the earliest patterns of Astartes Bolter and was produced in large quantities early in the Great Crusade. This reliable pattern of Boltgun saw widespread use amongst many Legions. It is still manufactured in the forges of some present-day Space Marine Chapters, including those of the Mantis Warriors, Executioners and Carcharodons Chapters, who made use of them during the Badab War.

Umbra Ferrox Pattern - The Umbra Ferrox Pattern Bolter is a variant of the ancient Umbra Pattern that was mass-produced by the Techmarines of the Space Marine Legions in the midst of the Horus Heresy. Unlike the standard Umbra Pattern Bolter, the Umbra Ferrox is capable of replacing its sickle-shaped magazine with a box magazine that has a greater ammunition capacity, and incorporates Target Reciprocator Systems that enhance the weapon's range and allow it to better integrate its targeting system with an Astartes' Auto-senses.

Source: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com

[tsaomengde]

What Is Owed (2)

(Part 1)

           Alia tends to spend her nights in alleyways in the bakers’ quarter, because the heat of the ovens within the buildings radiates pleasantly through their exterior walls.  To reach the Palace, she and her silent escort pass out of the bakers’ quarter – through the gently floating domiciles of the aristrocrats’ way, a pleasant breeze making the buildings bob slightly against their tethers – down Merchant Lane, its midnight stalls offering imported, obscene art, fried, sugared dough, bolts of hand-woven fabric, fortunes, games – past the purple-tinted feytorches of the Pleasure District, its occupants selling precisely one good in all its infinite variations – beneath the airsteel-lined glass domes of the moss farmers’ crop enclosures – around the great circular depressions of the Stone Circuses, relics of less civilized times – and finally, up the Royal Hill, following narrow streets past guard posts and dwellings both afloat and earthbound.

           The Palace of Randra is a gigantic floating fortress, its limestone walls built high and sheer, its towers all straight lines and harsh angles.  Lights burn within its innumerable windows.  Sigils of protection and warning are carved into every one of its surfaces, giving it a mottled, chaotic affect. The airsteel foundations threaten to carry it off into the sky, but it is moored to the Royal Hill by means of three enormous chains, each of the dozens of links the size of a horse, forged in the pre-national times.  Only twice in recorded history have those chains been cast off and the Palace guided into war, serving as a mobile siege engine the size of a mountain.

           Alia remembers the second time quite well.

           Tonight, however, the Palace floats quietly, its gates opened, stair-doors resting against the ground, inviting.  Of course, no one enters without business or an invitation, and those doors are well-guarded.  But her escort identifies themselves and her, and their business, and they are ushered through.

           She bids her escort farewell with a smirk as they hand her off to a flock of servants, garbed in the silver livery of the King, who are waiting eagerly for her just within the arch of the First Gate. The head servant, a rail-thin, sallow-faced woman who identifies herself as Nadia, shakes her head at Alia and clucks. “You are summoned by His August Majesty,” she says, “but you are unfit in your present state to appear before him. You must come with us and let us make you ready.”

           Alia rolls her eyes at Nadia.  “The King has seen me in states far worse than this,” she says. “If he wishes my presence, let him receive me as I am.”

           This draws a surprisingly loud harrumph.  “There are rules,” Nadia says.  “And it is my part to ensure all follow them, old acquaintance of His August Majesty or no. This way.”

           With a sigh, Alia shuffles after Nadia.  She has sobered quite a bit, but she is still feeling too drunk and too tired to want to put up a fight.  If this fretful busybody wants to bathe her and give her clean clothes, she has no serious objections.

           There is indeed a bath, already drawn.  It is pleasantly hot on those parts of her that were not bathed in the Water of Yeda.  The servants, of course, take her age as a sign of fragility and scrub at her tentatively, as though they were cleaning a babe; she snaps at them several times not to worry about hurting her and just to get it done.  Finally, she seizes an ivory comb from the one who is unsuccessfully attempting to deal with the tangled mess of her hair.  She rakes the comb down her back and arms, hard enough to break the skin of any ordinary person, and when they see it has no effect whatsoever, they stop treating her as though she is going to break.

           Nadia, who left at the start of the bath to arrange for clothing in Alia’s size, returns midway through.  She takes one look at Alia’s hair, which is still an impenetrable nest of grayed kinks even when soaked, and begins to berate the poor girl given that unfortunate duty.  Alia interrupts her.  “Spare this one your petty displeasure,” she says.  “Fetch shears and a razor.  It’s more than like to be filled with lice in any event.”

           This being done, she is dried, and presented with a shift and a dress.  Rather than rebuke the woman with the items in question, Alia turns her sneer on Nadia. “As you insisted on this farce,” she says, “you will bring me trousers, an under-shirt, a doublet, and boots.  I am a soldier, not a maid.  And though needs must I surrender it to His August Majesty’s guards, you will also fetch me a blade.  I will not go before him unarmed like a merchant or administrator.”

           Nadia scowls, but obeys.  Clothing is presented to Alia’s satisfaction.  A short, curved blade in a leather scabbard is found and given to her.  A mirror is brought forth, and Alia examines herself in it.  With mild surprise, she thinks that she looks like herself. Older, and thinner, but the effect is nevertheless startling.

           “Follow me,” Nadia says, once Alia gives the sign that she is now ready.

           She lets Nadia lead her through the cold stone hallways, past walls covered in the colorful tapestries of Randra’s noble houses, past checkpoints manned by cold-faced guards, past libraries and armories and kitchens and sleeping quarters, until finally they stand before the great golden doors of the throne room.  Royal guards, clad in ceremonial, gilded airsteel plate – the gilding both for effect, and to keep the armor’s wearers from drifting off the ground – stand to either side of the doors, halberds held at the ready.  One of them extends a mailed hand, and Alia draws her short blade and places it there for him to take.

           “His August Majesty King Stryga the First, Sovereign of all Randra, Peacemaker and Justice-Bringer, will now see you,” Nadia says, and the doors open before Alia.

           The doors close behind her in that vast, unlit hall, and she is alone with the King.

           Alia looks at the man sitting stiffly in the hovering throne, the seat kept earthbound by means of a golden chain.  The only illumination in the entire room, a single dim dwimmerlight of bluish-white, hovers above his right shoulder.  His body is no longer powerful beneath his voluminous white robes of state, but he still has a dangerous air to him, a sense of competence.  His eyes are bright, his skin like dark copper, his expression stern.  His circlet is made of bright silver.

           “Alia,” he says, his voice deep and controlled.

           Alia drops to one knee, the movement only a little stiff. “Your August Majesty,” she says.  “Sovereign of All Randra, Peacemaker –”

           He cuts her off, speaking in the soldiers’ cant.  “Oh, stop that nonsense, you ancient cow.”

           She looks up at him and grins.  “First ‘hoary slattern’ – you can thank your men in the Palace Guard for that one – and now ‘ancient cow?’  My guess is that you need something from me, and thus far I’ve not been persuaded to feel generous about it.”

           “I like ‘hoary slattern,’” Stryga says.  “For such a noble tongue, Fillorel has quite the repertoire of excellent insults.  Get up off your knee and let an old friend have an embrace.”

           Alia gets to her feet, Stryga comes down from his throne, and they clasp one another fiercely.  “I wish you had let me know that your wanderings had brought you back to Randra,” Stryga says after they separate.  “I would have given you a room here in my humble house, rather than inflict you on my poor citizens.”

           She slaps him lightly across his chest, an act which probably bears the death sentence in any other context.  “Perhaps that is precisely why I didn’t tell you.  Perhaps I prefer the streets to houses, even ones as nice as this.  And, once again, I feel it necessary to point out that if you have a favor to ask, you are not predisposing me to be agreeable.”

           Stryga sighs.  “Old habits, like old soldiers, are the hardest to kill, Alia.  We spent so many years insulting one another…”

           “I know.  How did you find out I was here?”

           “My corps of spies, of course.  They are always bringing me potentially useful tidbits in an attempt to curry favor.  One of them recognized the sigil on your face.  How many wandering beggar women are there bearing the mark of Yeda?”

           “Your soldiers thought it was Grond’s.”

           “The sketch I commissioned of you so my men would know whom they hunted showed you with Grond’s.  By the time I noticed, it had already been disseminated amongst the troops.”  Stryga shrugs.  “The artist made an understandable mistake.  They are quite similar.  And you are now here, so it matters little.”

           Alia crosses her arms over her chest.  “Now, Stryga.  Third time pays for all.  What do you want from me?”

           Stryga draws his full lips into a thin line.  He walks slowly back to the throne, seats himself in it.  When he looks at her again, she can feel the difference in him.  Now he is the King, and before he speaks again she already knows it will not be in the soldiers’ cant.

           “Randra,” he says, “has need of you, Alia the Steelblooded.  To you must I entrust the protection of that which is to me most cherished – my thirdson, Prince Andral.”

           Feeling herself stiffen slightly, Alia lays a hand on her empty scabbard.  “I am not a soldier of your realm, Sire,” she replies.  “No oath have I sworn to you or to your throne.  Well do you know who I am and what I have done.  Still you would do this thing?”

           “Even so.”  Stryga gestures around them.  “The wealth of Randra is not in farming, husbandry, or the arts.  Our prosperity we owe solely to one thing: our airsteel, mined from Mount Morrara.  The other powers of the world covet it, and many pay us pure gold for it.  But of what I now must tell you, I hereby swear you to secrecy. To no other soul are you to reveal it, lest your name be disgraced and you be forever known as recreant amongst us. Swear you this thing to me?”

           “I so swear it,” Alia responds.

           Stryga nods solemnly.  “The mines produce less every year.  Nowhere else in the world is this precious thing to be found, and now its veins begin to run dry.  Against such an eventuality, my predecessors and I have set a stockpile, accumulated over the decades.  But the other powers of our continent, by and large, have all that for which they are willing to pay – or have all of that of which we are willing to give.  For mark me: we keep the best and purest ore for ourselves, and wish for none to equal us in the skies.”

           “If this stockpile is to be the last of the airsteel traded to fill your coffers, then,” Alia hazards, “then it must be traded to those places across the ocean, where the metal is yet surpassing rare.”

           “You have the right of it.”

           “What has this to do with your thirdson?”

           Stryga gestures to the east.  “The ocean is the demesne of Oalla.  They control the ports, and they lay rightful claim to the waves and all that sail upon them – or above them.  We must make alliance or make war, and I have had my fill of war – and there is a noblewoman of the royal line in Oalla, of marriageable age.”

           “You command a host,” Alia points out.  “Soldiers sworn to carry out your will.  What need is there for an old soldier, long in the tooth and deep in her cups, to be your thirdson’s shield?”

           “There is trust between us, of old.”  Stryga steeples his fingers.  “Trust, and the blood-price I am yet owed.”

           Alia narrows her eyes.  “Am I to be his shield, or your tool?”

           “A shield is a tool of sorts.  And more than one may wield it.”

           “Be straight with me,” she says, switching back to the cant. “You must have other people capable of this task, and more competent to do it.  You would call on my debt for this?”

           “I would,” Stryga replies in like manner.  “It is simple, Alia: having you there, when he takes this journey, will be the closest thing to my being there myself.  That is why I want you for this.  All things will be quit between us if you agree and deliver him to Oalla to be married.”

           “And then I can go back to drinking myself to sleep at night in the streets?”

           “If that is truly how you want to spend your days? Yes.”

           Alia closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

           “When do we leave?”

[myhauntedsalem]

Hexes and Hauntings of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has a long tradition of religious tolerance that brought diverse settlers to the young colony, so it’s no surprise that the state has become known for the various modes of religious expression of its people. But these very traditions brought with them their own unique ideas about magic and the supernatural, and the state’s central position in national affairs and wars has drawn plenty of ghosts to the region.

The Pennsylvania Dutch emigrated from Germany and nearby areas in Europe in the late 17thcentury. These people stuck together, but they came from a number of religions and some chose to live simple lifestyles rather than blend into Pennsylvania culture. As a result, modern Pennsylvania Dutch communities are rural, but it isn’t uncommon to see Pennsylvania Dutch influences even in large cities like Philadelphia.

However, because the early communities were relatively closed off, their own cultures developed. And with these cultures came magic. Pow-wow is a system of folk magic unique to the Pennsylvania Dutch, but with heavy European and Christian influences. The charms and spells offered by Pow-wow offer protections from illnesses, witches, and other dark forces. A book about it was written in 1820 by John George Hohman, called Pow-Wows, or The Long Lost Friend, contains descriptions of many spells, that give an idea of the Pennsylvania Dutch way of life at the time. For example, if your horse refuses to eat, here’s a Pow-wow spell that will fix the problem: wrench open your horse’s mouth and knock on its palate three times. If you want to apply Pow-wow to your life, get your Bible in hand and read through Pow-Wows, which contains incantations to remedy diarrhea, headaches, colic, sore mouth, parasites, and more, and also has charms that will guarantee the success of your lawsuit and prevent criminals from getting near you. You can find the full text of the book online.

Many Pennsylvania Dutch barns are decorated with large circular symbols that usually have some kind of five-pointed design inside of them. These are hex signs, which were once thought to be Pow-wow talismans that would bring fortune to the farm, but are really just designs that grew out of a Pennsylvania Dutch art tradition. The symbols that are used to bring fortune to the household were called barn stars, large metal five-pointed stars. Hanging a barn star on your house is similar to nailing a horseshoe above your door in other cultures. You can buy hex signs and barn stars from Pennsylvania Dutch craft shops if you want to bring a little extra luck into your life.

The modern age may have decreased belief in magic power, but it seems to have had no effect on the belief in life after death. Pennsylvania is littered with pre-Revolution buildings that still contain their original inhabitants. Many born long after then still remain with us.

Philadelphia is home to many of these lingering spirits. Eastern State Penitentiary, a prison dating back to 1827 and now located well within the city, is a famous paranormal landmark, with every ghost hunting team you can think of probably having taken a sweep of its cellblocks. Al Capone had a brief stay in the penitentiary, and even he claimed to be haunted by a victim of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. Visitors interested in the paranormal should visit what is reportedly the most active cellblock, Cellblock 12—but personally, on my visits, I can’t go into Cellblock 14. Going through the entryway fills me with an inexplicable sadness and a sense that I’m intruding.

Eastern State Penitentiary is a famous, publicly-accessible paranormal site, but another famous location that can only be entered with special permission is Pennhurst Hospital. Pennhurst was formerly an asylum for people, mostly children, whose mental illnesses or disabilities rendered them incapable of caring for themselves (or their families were too embarrassed to keep them around). Conditions for patients were notoriously bad, and Pennhurst employees, understaffed and intolerant, frequently abused their charges. These atrocities were eventually exposed and Pennhurst was shut down, but many believe the hospital is still haunted by the ghosts of patients and caretakers who suffered there mentally and physically. Workers hired to help maintain the site often report seeing shadow people, hearing crying, and feeling presences when they should be alone.

Pennsylvania is also home to another site of misery and despair, though this next location claimed more lives in three days than Pennhurst did during the decades of its operation. Cited as one of the most haunted cities in America, Gettysburg is a small town surrounded by beautiful, rolling fields. These fields, hills, and forests were once where one of the most important engagements of the Civil War was fought, and it may still be living that history, as numerous sources claim to see both Confederate and Union soldiers marching there. Ghosts of soldiers have been spotted at every major location of the battle, and many ghosts are spotted inside buildings within the city proper. Even the sole civilian casualty of the battle, Jennie Wade, is reportedly haunting her home. But spirits aren’t the only relics from the battle you can find in Gettysburg: to this day, visitors can stumble upon bullets laying quietly in the grass. But perhaps the most haunting aspect of Gettysburg is how peaceful and serene is. Though statues and monuments commemorating the battle now dot the landscape, it has remained mostly unchanged; imagining the area as it must have sounded in the chaos of war is horrifying in its own way.

These are famous haunted locations, but there are plenty of lesser-known hauntings in Pennsylvania. York, for example, was once home to an asylum that burned down before firefighters could arrive. Seven gates were built so local authorities could rescue (or capture) patients that had escaped. According to a legend, anyone who walks through all seven of the gates goes straight to Hell. Another haunted town is Centralia, under which burns a massive coal fire that forced the city to be abandoned by all except a stubborn few. The fire is still burning decades later, and the smoke attracts tourists and ghosts. Even Hershey Park has its share of paranormal encounters to its name.

Pennsylvania may be known today for its sports, sports fans, food, cities, and being strangely conservative in a very liberal region, but maybe it’s the state’s observance of tradition and rich history of tolerance and brotherhood that keep old magic alive and souls animated.

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: A New Wave of Horror Films About Women’s Deepest Anxieties Is Perfect Viewing for Our Summer of Discontent

Even if most horror movies, until fairly recently, have been made by men, women are still central to their impact and meaning. What would King Kong have been without his tiny captive inamorata Fay Wray, or Frankenstein without Elsa Lanchester, his bewigged, wild-eyed bride? Sometimes women represent fragility and innocence in horror movies, symbols of purity worth saving; other times they’re sympathetic companions or spokespeople for misunderstood monsters.

But their allure goes further and deeper than that—especially when it’s women who are doing the looking. Today, the term “the male gaze” is thrown around more loosely than its originator, filmmaker and film theorist Laura Mulvey, intended. Even when there’s a man behind the camera, the lens doesn’t always simply cater to man’s desires. Women love watching other women; we identify, we admire, and sometimes we feel a frisson (or more) of desire. Other times we recoil, though that may only intensify our fascination. So what happens when women filmmakers take control of the horror genre themselves?

Women filmmakers have been making horror movies since, well, the beginning of movies—Alice Guy-Blaché and Lois Weber contributed to the genre early on. But what’s notable now is the growing number of women filmmakers who are exploring expectations and anxieties specific to womanhood, as well as the mysteries of female erotic power. In the past two months alone we’ve seen a raft of horror movies made by women—Natalie Erika James’ Relic, Romola Garai’s Amulet, Josephine Decker’s Shirley and Amy Seimetz’s She Dies Tomorrow—that are keyed in to women’s experiences in canny, unnerving ways. To define all of these films as horror, in the classic sense of the word, is admittedly a slight stretch: some are more strictly psychological than supernatural, less studies of things that go bump in the night than maps of the turmoil in our heads. But even that is a reflection of what horror, seen through women’s eyes, can mean: the things that scare women the most are already inside them. For years, male filmmakers have been concocting outlandish scenarios for us, while we’ve been storing up material for centuries.

Rob Baker AshtonImelda Staunton and carla Juri in ‘Amulet’

Horror movies made by women and specifically addressing women’s anxieties or hyperreal strengths aren’t new—Karyn Kusuma’s Jennifer’s Body (2009), Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) and Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (also 2014) are just three noteworthy examples from the past decade or so—though it’s still surprising there haven’t been more of them. No one could have foreseen that the summer of 2020, a mini-epoch during which many of us have been confined largely to our homes, unable to socialize in the usual ways and freer than usual to nurture our own personal neuroses, would provide the perfect soil and weather conditions for a new wave of horror movies made by women to flower so fully. Some of the current crop are more effective than others, but all share one trait: They’re about vulnerability but not necessarily victimization. Most of the women in these movies aren’t heroic in the superhero sense, but they’re also not the girl who needs to be saved.

Amulet, the directorial debut from actor Romola Garai (who also wrote the script), may be the most technically ambitious of these films, and through the first two-thirds, at least, it’s jaggedly compelling. An ex-soldier from Eastern Europe, Tomas (Alec Secareanu), has taken refuge in London, working odd jobs and sleeping in a flophouse. A nun with a seemingly generous spirit (Imelda Staunton) finds a place for him to live, in a decrepit house inhabited by a young woman, Magda (Carla Juri). Magda’s ailing mother is kept locked in an upstairs room—it’s dutiful Magda’s job to tend to her day and night, and the responsibility is wearing her down.

Garai layers the plot with so many feverish ideas and images that you wonder how, in the end, it’s going to come together. There’s a woman who can’t escape horrific memories of wartime rape. And Tomas, who seems to have fallen under the spell of a strange little goddess statue he’s dug out of the earth, needs to come to terms with his inflated view of himself as a protector of women, when his own interests are clearly all that matter. For him, the house itself appears to be a moist, sticky trap: It’s at first a place he doesn’t want to be, though it soon becomes one he can’t leave. Magda, meanwhile, appears to be the trapped innocent, the woman who needs saving; she’s also a fabulous cook—but what, exactly, is she serving up? Garai has some grim fun with notions of what men expect women to be vs. who they really are. The movie is marred by a confusing coda that only muddies its already too-vague ending, but it does feature one enduring image: a squirmy, newborn bat-looking thing that emerges from a womb with all its teeth. If that’s not a childbirth-anxiety metaphor, I’m not sure what is.

Sometimes the scariest things we give birth to aren’t, at least literally, living things. In Shirley, directed by Josephine Decker and based on a novel by Susan Scarff Merrell, Elisabeth Moss plays a fictionalized version of Shirley Jackson, the author of one of the most elegantly chilling ghost novels of the 20th century, The Haunting of Hillhouse, as well as the “The Lottery,” a whoppingly effective short story that was for years a nightmare-inducing staple of junior-high literature classes. In Shirley, Moss’ Jackson is the wife of a seemingly jovial Bennington academic (Michael Stuhlbarg) who actually exerts brutish control over her. He invites two young newlyweds, Rose and Fred (Odessa Young and Logan Lerman) to move into their comfortably ramshackle Vermont home, but really, he’s just looking for cheap labor: Shirley, neurotic almost to the point of being incapacitated, is incapable not just of keeping house but of performing basic tasks, like getting dressed for the day.

Thatcher Keats—© 2018 Thatcher KeatsMichael Stuhlbarg and Elisabeth Moss in ‘Shirley’

Shirley is controlling and manipulative in her own way, but she’s also deeply charismatic. She has a knowledge of witchcraft and folklore, and an affinity for the Tarot. But most of all, she’s blazingly intelligent, and Rose, who has had to put her own studies on hold with the birth of her first child, is drawn to her. Shirley’s lack of suitability for the real world—she’s treated as an oddity and a pariah by her husband’s university friends—means she lives in a world of her own, one in which she drinks too much and stays in bed too long, unable to move and, worse, unable to write. When she confronts a blank page, she’s really staring down a demon. She’s so difficult, in her husband’s eyes, that he’s taken up with the ostensibly more attractive wife of a fellow academic—so her sexual power has been diminished too. Shirley isn’t a horror movie in the conventional sense, but it’s a picture that stirs up the murk of so many women’s fears: If I can’t create something of worth, does that mean I too am worthless? If I have a child, what part of myself do I lose—and how do I ever get it back? This movie has a strange, heady earthiness, like an alluring perfume sourced from an enchanted, and somewhat treacherous, forest.

If the season’s most memorable horror movies have been made by women, that’s not to say men aren’t capable or interested in shaping horror scenarios from a woman’s point of view. In Leigh Wannell’s The Invisible Man, released in February, Moss played a woman stalked by the controlling boyfriend—cloaked by an invisibility suit—she’d thought dead. And Janelle Monáe stars in Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz’s upcoming Antebellum, playing a successful modern-day writer who suddenly finds herself living a very different life, in what looks like the pre-Civil War south. Never underestimate the power of the sympathetic imagination, and remember that women are free to explore the dimensions of men’s inner lives, too.

But even though men must feel just as much stress as women do when it comes to doing right by an elderly parent, I’m not sure a man could have made Relic. Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote play Kay and Sam, a mother and daughter who drive out to Kay’s mother’s house, way out in the country, when they learn that she hasn’t been seen for days. They let themselves in and poke around her things, tidying up and taking stock of all the placemarkers we use to track exactly where our parents are at as they age. There’s some shriveled fruit stacked in a bowl; little Post-It reminders (“Turn off the stove,” “Switch off the light”) abound, most of them exactly the sort of thing that a person whose memory is failing might write to herself. But among them is one that reads, “Don’t follow it”—a suggestion that she’s being stalked by something, as opposed to someone.

The next morning, Kay’s mother—and Sam’s grandmother—appears in the kitchen, as if she had never gone missing. But something is clearly wrong. Edna, played by Australian actor Robyn Nevin, is herself—yet not herself. One minute her eyes are dancing with warmth; the next they’ve gone cold, as if her own family members have suddenly become hostile strangers. She gives Sam, who’s always adored her, a ring, only to later angrily accuse her of stealing it. Kay, who’s filled with mostly unspecified guilt—does a daughter’s guilt ever have to be specified?—recognizes that she hasn’t been in touch with her mother as often as she should have been. She also thinks it’s time she found a safer place for Edna to live. She visits a nursing home, where the manager says with businesslike cheerfulness, “Think of it as independent living with the edges taken off.” It’s the most chilling line in the movie.

Courtesy of IFC MidnightEmily Mortimer in ‘Relic’

Director Natalie Erika James—who co-wrote the script with Christian White—uses horror-palette colors to explore tensions endemic to mothers and daughters, both between Edna and Kay and between Kay and Sam. Tempers flare over the smallest things; at one point or another, each of the three bristles when she senses another is telling her what to do. There’s nothing supernatural about any of that. But something is happening to Edna—she’s changing in ways that alarm Kay and Sam. Anyone who has watched a parent age—who has seen the number of selves one person can inhabit in a lifetime, moving from one stage to another in a gentle gradient spanning decades—will recognize Kay’s anguish. Relic’s ending is an embrace of terror and tenderness. So many horror filmmakers start out with great ideas and don’t know how to wrap them up. James caps off her debut feature with a quietly intense operatic flourish that feels earned.

If our imaginations are capable of conjuring great horrors as well as wonder, here’s a question: Can we pass our most acute fears, virus-style, on to others? In her shivery, evocative and sometimes surprisingly funny existential thriller She Dies Tomorrow, writer-director Amy Seimetz burrows deep into some of our dumbest 3 a.m. fears and wonders aloud, What if they’re not so dumb? Kate Lyn Sheil plays Amy, a young woman who, as she’s moving into the house she’s just bought, becomes seized with a fear she can’t explain: She’s certain she’s going to die the next day. In a panic, she calls her closest friend, Jane (Jane Adams), begging her to come over. When Jane finally shows up, she tries to talk sense into her friend—only to return home, get into her PJs, and suddenly feel paralyzed by the same fear. When Jane confesses her anxiety to others—to her brother (Chris Messina), to the doctor to whom she goes for treatment (Josh Lucas)—they too downplay her distress, only to find themselves captive to the same debilitating panic minutes later. The whole movie is like a game of telephone in which an urgent message is passed along from one player to another, fuzzy at first before emerging into disquieting clarity.

Courtesy of NeonKate Lyn Sheil in Amy Seimetz’s ‘She Dies Tomorrow’

She Dies Tomorrow takes place in a world much like the one we’re living in right now, one that feels untrustworthy, not fully readable. It’s also a place where we might feel regret about some things we are capable of controlling: at one point, Amy tells a guy who appears to be a fairly new lover (Kentucker Audley) that she once ended a pregnancy. His face clouds over as she elaborates; the information seems to trouble him more than it does her, even though she’s the one who will carry the knowledge of the act forever. She notes that her life would be so different if she’d kept the child; she probably wouldn’t have been able to buy this house. Her practicality is the opposite of coldness—she knows the cost of her choice, because it lives inside her every day.

And what if it’s not the greater world but ourselves we can’t trust? Our certainty that we’ll have a tomorrow amounts not to everyday optimism but to a kind of arrogance—though we probably need that self-reassurance to survive. This is less a movie about death than one concerned with how we go through life without giving too much thought about its stopping, though that’s a certainty for all of us. Even when we think we’re thinking about death, we don’t really know what to think: No one trustworthy has yet returned from the other side to tell us what it’s all about. She Dies Tomorrow is all about the unreclaimable yesterday, the day before we knew. It’s a thoughtful movie with no jump scares; its jitters are baked all the way through.

Fear of death isn’t specific to women, obviously—the male characters in Seimetz’s movie are susceptible to it too. But maybe, given women’s often complex relationship with aging—which includes the fear of losing sexual allure—our fear of death has a slightly different tenor from the way men experience it. In Shirley, the aging, matronly protagonist is not only unable to write, which is her chief measure of her own self-worth; her husband has also taken up with a supposedly superior woman—and isn’t the moment we lose faith in our own magnetism itself a small death? Watching our parents age, as Kay does in Relic, is the ultimate reminder that we’re next; it’s also a test of our mettle when we see the traits that have calcified in our forebears begin to manifest themselves, in smaller ways, in us. In Amulet, the exhausted Magda has a different problem: she’s simply waiting for her mother to die, so she can be free. All of these movies were conceived and made before we had any sense of how a worldwide pandemic would shape and circumscribe our lives. But all, in some way, speak of constricted freedom, of carrying on with life until it decides it’s through with us. They’re about all the things we can’t protect ourselves from, what we used to call, in more innocent times, fear of the unknown. Now we know what to fear, only to realize that knowing isn’t necessarily better.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste