#pragmatic and ruthless

[isagrimorie]

MATT: She and Pike both landed on the ground. → Which, at this point now, while you guys are in this moment of joy, you begin to take awareness back in of the room around you. →

Pike is standing back about five to 10 feet from you. →

Lady Vex'ahlia is at the door with this dark green bow covered in these arced, twisted bits and wood and vine, arrow nocked in it, aimed right at Laudna. →

Pike, hand out in front, clutching holy symbol. →

#MARISHA :Who are you? →

# VEX "I think the more appropriate question is, who are you? Pike. → Would you have a look? I mean this with all due respect, do not move. → The moment you do anything strange or untoward, this goes between your eyes."

She pulls the arrow back taut, and as she does, you can see these small, thin brambles spiral out of the arrow's wood and prepare itself with this extremely pointed, jagged element that's just aiming straight for you.

→#IMOGEN: I'm just prepping Telekinetic Shove, just in case. →

--

#LAURA Is that all right? →

#MATT Pike and Vex nod. →

VEX: "All right, boys. → Stand down." In the two corners of the room, you see two figures step out of invisibility. →

#SAM Ooh. →

#MATT You see two armored, masked members of the Rifleman Corps. →

#TRAVIS Dope. →

#IMOGEN Well. Shit. →

#MATT Weapons at the ready, lower them. →

--

#FCG Everyone at the castle was really nice. → Well, except for one guy. →

#ASHTON Let's not jump to-- →

#VEX "Right, and to that point."

MATT: Vex, who's in front of the door, steps to the side and opens it, and right as she opens the door, you hear... → (guns rattling) →

#SAM Oh god. →

#TALIESIN/ASHTON Oh, this asshole. →

#MATT Looking just beyond it, you see four, five dozen Riflemen, and then them flanked by probably 50 or more Pale Guard. →#TRAVIS Damn! →

#MATT All completely surrounding the front of this house. →#LAURA/IMOGEN Uh-oh. →

#LAUDNA (scared gasp) →

#MATT Beyond that, you see across the way, elevated on a platform, a bit of a shine hits your eyes, and you see a glimmer of some sort of glass, before you make out to be the light hitting some sort of a sight as a large, intricate, metallic rifle sits trained at the door, and a white-haired figure behind it shouts into the air:

PERCY: "Vex'ahlia! Pike! Do I have your assurance or your authority?"

MATT: Vex steps out and into the view of everyone present, arms up. →

VEX: "You have my assurance, darling."

The man back there with the rifle. → "(sighs) Very well. → Pale Guard, Rifle Corps, stand down."

You watch as he pulls it up, and this is a long, strange-barreled rifle, before slinging it over his shoulder and stepping up from behind a barricade. →

All the other riflemen put their weapons to the side and still train intensely on all of you as Vex'ahlia steps out into the light. → Pike steps out as well. →

Sorry, not sorry but I loved this part. It's so sexy of Vox Machina, particularly of Vex and Percy.

Judging from Laura's extremely pleased look, she also approves and loves Percy even more for this level of (deserved) paranoia.

(Travis is even more impressed at how badass they are.)

transcript source

[fullscoreshenanigans]

The little bow of reflection and smile Ray makes as he briefly soaks in the last morning Emma and Norman will be able to carry out their routine as usual knowing the horror they'll endure before night's end.

He knows they'd both prefer the harsh truth over a pretty lie, would hate to think about other siblings suffering the same fate as Conny, Hao, Sadie, Susan, and so many more before them if there was even the slightest chance of being able to do something about it. It's part of what he loves about them; where he had the tendency to give up after years of learned helplessness and self-loathing, they would resolutely say "no" and escape the system they had been born into.

(they are better, they are deserving, unlike him)

He loves them so much he can't help but let some of his fondness show on his face as he savors Emma's reaction to seeing him and Norman, because if that isn't so incredibly her, to love so effortlessly and uninhibited, to live so unabashedly authentic.

It's part of what got him through a life he cursed and part of why he has faith if anyone will be able to do this, it'll be them.

[captainofthetidesbreath]

will say, the Orym discourse is really annoying but, hey, at least the main discourse isn't about the gods at the moment!

[astriiformes]

I love how Raine and the BATS all have matching outfits because like. Raine wears the exact same thing for their duties as Bard Coven Head, and while it’s not totally unheard of for a group of protesters to dress in a way that evokes an important “establishment” figure to make an ironic point, I think the real reason, somehow, is that they literally didn’t think about it being incriminating

[orpheusilver]

"flint killed two of his crew out of frustration" THAT WAS NOT THE MOTIVE AND YOU KNOW IT, KATHRIN.

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

So could you explain the "UFO believer" point on your 'Your emperor is problematic' thing?

Reference to this post

It's a joke about Caesar's comet! During the funeral games Octavian held in Julius Caesar's honor, a "star" (comet) appeared and remained in the sky until the games ended. Octavian used this to argue that Caesar had become a god after death - and then called himself "son of a god" as a nice bit of PR.

Historians usually describe this as propaganda. And it was. But there's a good chance Octavian really believed it, too. He seems to have personally been a religious man, the comet really happened (it was also recorded in China), and comets were considered signs from the gods. There was also precedent for humans becoming gods or guardian spirits in Roman religion, albeit very rarely.

So, if you'll allow me a bit of humorous license, since for the Romans a comet might as well be a UFO...you could call Octavian a UFO believer. :D

[bestworstcase]

Which parallels between Ruby and Salem?

the first one i picked up on is that salem, in 6.4, echoes almost verbatim something ruby says to oscar in 5.5: oscar says that he’s scared, ruby tells him “we just have to press on;” and salem mutters—seemingly to herself?—“and so we must press on.”

further, the placement of these lines are directly mirrored in a really interesting way: oscar interrupts ruby before she can finish, asking how she can be so confident after everything she’s been through, and she answers that she isn’t confident, that she feels just as scared and overwhelmed as he does, but she’s chosen to try her best—to keep moving through the fear.

in contrast, salem gives this grandiose little speech to her acolytes—and of course none of them dare to interrupt her, but there’s nevertheless a lull, a pause in which salem glances out the window and we glimpse the sadness and weariness she’s carrying under the surface, because the mask slips just a little. “and so we must… press on” is salem’s answer to herself, to whatever pang of regret or doubt or exhaustion she just felt, before her attention goes back to her audience and she starts talking about the next steps in her plan.

so on the one hand we’ve got this inversion of ruby saying “we just have to press on” as a lead in to ruby having this monologue about what she’s feeling and what she meant, and then salem interrupting herself to make this remark—but on the other hand, both lines ultimately function as sort of narrative trail markers, flagging the grief/fear/pain both ruby and salem are carrying with them as they try to press on, and also highlighting the important difference that ruby has people in her life who care about her, people she can talk to about her feelings, and salem does not.

and on subsequent viewings it really hit me that rwby does this kind of thing with ruby and salem A LOT—that’s just the most immediately obvious example, because of how similar the two lines are.

another example occurs between 5.11 and 6.3. you know this beat?

RAVEN: All that time spent spying for Ozpin, and you still have no idea what you’re dealing with. There is no beating Salem!

RUBY: You’re wrong. We’ve done things that most people would call impossible, and I know the only reason we were able to do it is because we didn't do it alone! We had people to teach us, people to help us, we had each other. Work with us. At least I know we'll have a better chance if we try together. Please.

[She extends her arm, offering her hand to Raven, and Raven glances down—considering, for just a second—before her expression hardens and she steps back, resolute and angry.]

RAVEN: You sound just like your mother.

…yeah in 6.3 salem’s rejection of the divine mandate, the counteroffer she makes to ozma, and his reaction to that? framed EXACTLY the same way. and what’s really striking about that is that, from salem’s perspective, the underlying emotion of that scene in the lost fable is also identical—something that jinn’s narrative intentionally obfuscates by framing the scene through ozma’s point of view.

but, like, consider what’s really happening in that scene from salem’s side. the gods are the ultimate evil; they tortured her, murdered the planet, and consigned her to eternal suffering to punish her for disobeying them. she knows how powerful they are, and she’s seen that they don’t care if people are standing against them or not—they’ll kill anybody, they killed EVERYBODY, just to make a point to one person. to her. yet she also wholeheartedly believes that people can overcome their tyranny, that it isn’t futile to stand against them. (and why shouldn’t she believe that? after all, humans came back.)

so… in her eyes, ozma has just revealed a terrible secret—he was sent back to remnant to enact the will of those evil gods, and he’s chosen to obey because he’s terrified of what they’ve sworn to do if he does not—and salem comes back at him with: no, what they asked of you doesn’t matter, why should we obey them when we can fix what they broke by ourselves? whether you read “replace them” as “replace humans” or “replace the gods” doesn’t matter, because either way: from’s salem’s point of view, she’s asking ozma to join her, to work together to achieve their goals without submitting to the will of the gods. and ozma (figuratively) answers that with a fireball to the face, just as raven did to ruby in 5.11.

but wait! there’s more!

i’ve mentioned before that i think the fight with cordovin at the end of v6 is a big hint at what the emotional shape of the final confrontation with the god of light will look like—“clearly the people have forgotten that they live in peace thanks to the awesome might of atlas! […] consider this a reminder! […] and watch how your leader maintains order!” c’mon. “you are ants! you are lower than ants!” c’mon. “this is what happens when you think you know better than those rightfully in charge!” HELLO?—anyway, with that in mind,

in 6.12, ruby and maria fly right at the mech to bait cordovin into firing on them, intending to exploit a weakness oscar identified in the missile launcher itself. but cordovin figures out the ploy and, enraged, shoots their plane with the mech’s dust cannon instead. maria’s eyes get shorted out, the plane spins out of control, and they crash. ruby immediately picks herself up and marches forward to plant herself squarely in front of cordovin, staring down the massive barrel of the dust cannon as she REFUSES to surrender and declares that she and her team are GOING to atlas, no matter what.

sound familiar?

it really should:

where this one gets really interesting is that not only do both salem and ruby respond to what should have been a crushing defeat by getting right back up to stand their ground while shouting their defiance to the cruel, power-drunk authority figure who slapped them down in the first place—both of them also stick with the original plan, doing exactly the thing they were trying to do before getting slapped down. salem’s is “i’ll come back, i’ll tell the world of this massacre, raise a new army—” and ruby’s is baiting cordovin into taking a shot at her so she can exploit a weakness in the firing mechanism, and thus disable the weapon altogether. salem fails because the gods have already killed everyone, not just her allies; and ruby prevails because, by putting herself at point blank range this time, she neatly removes the advantage that allowed cordovin to outmaneuver them the first time around.

now, think about this: what is the essential difference between ruby in 6.12 and salem in 6.3? what tactic did ruby rely on to beat her odds that salem didn’t when she faced the gods?

ruby identified and then exploited a fatal weakness of her opponent, while using her opponent’s strength—the sheer size and power of the mech itself—to her advantage, literally hiding in front of the dust cannon cordovin intended to kill her with so that cordovin wouldn’t be able to see what ruby was doing until it was already too late to stop her. ruby wins here because she relies on the same tactics salem uses in the present—tactics that arose directly from lessons salem learned from her defeat at the hands of the gods.

and what’s especially neat about that is, those tactics don’t come to ruby any more naturally or instinctively than they came to salem; ruby has always been pragmatic—the kid stone-cold cut off tyrian’s tail after he stung qrow!—but she’s also a very straightforward combatant up until this fight. she’s a brutal, efficient fighter whose basic approach to battle is to ruthlessly chop down her opponents or snipe them from afar until there’s none left…

…which was exactly the mindset that got salem to fomenting a rebellion and leading an army to confront the gods head-on—exactly the mindset that led to salem’s horrific defeat and the total annihilation of humanity at the hands of the gods. which ruby witnessed only a few days before she pulled this tricky, underhanded move to disable the dust cannon and beat cordovin against what seemed like impossible odds. ruby learned the exact. same. lesson. from watching salem’s defeat that salem herself did through experiencing it, and upon being put into a similarly hopeless battle against a foe orders of magnitude more powerful than herself, ruby immediately put that lesson into action AND THAT’S WHY SHE WON!

salem’s divide-and-conquer strategy is also one ruby employs to great effect in the rwby-vs-ace-ops fight at the end of v7, and again against ironwood early in the climactic sequence of v8—striking at multiple pain points at once to split him off from his loyal supporters and playing to his arrogance and need for control to get him to lower his guard once “penny” has been restrained. other people besides me have pointed this out, so i won’t belabor it other than to emphasize that ruby adopts this strategic approach because it works and is morally neutral—that is, there’s nothing intrinsically evil about divide-and-conquer tactics, and both the narrative of rwby and ruby herself understand that salem is evil not because she relies on such tactics but because she applies them toward monstrous, destructive, cruel ends.

anyway—in the interest of brevity i won’t outline everything but i do want to highlight two more. one is just a visual/symbolic thing that has me VERY curious about the direction the story might be taking with ruby in v9, because THIS shot in the v8 opener…

…is STRONGLY evocative of this shot of salem sinking into the pool of darkness…

…and occurs in the context of an opening number whose theme is “we thought we could change the world, we tried our best, we gave everything we had and failed, but it was worth it to try.” with a side helping of “some heroes choose the wrong side” and an extra side helping of you could play the whole song over the failed rebellion in lost fable and have exactly salem’s point of view.

gives me brainworms.

anyway, the other thing—the last thing, is what ruby says during the broadcast in 8.5: “things are dire, and we need help. but please, try not to panic; this isn’t some new enemy or invading kingdom. this is a force we’ve faced before, for centuries: salem. […] we didn’t have time to prepare for salem, but now you do! just because she can’t be destroyed, doesn’t mean she can’t be beaten! if she really was unstoppable, she wouldn’t have acted with such caution before now. she knows we’re a threat! so even if we—even if atlas falls, you can’t give up.”

in… essence, that is a reiteration of the point salem makes about ozpin’s failure during her monologue in 3.12: “how does it feel, knowing that all your time and effort has been for nothing? that your guardians have failed you? that everything you’ve built will be torn down before your very eyes? your faith in mankind was not misplaced: when banded together, unified by a common enemy, they are a noticeable threat… but divide them, place doubt into their minds, and any semblance of power they once had will wash away.”—the emotion is very different, but in her broadcast ruby does precisely what salem is mocking ozpin here for not doing, ie using the threat salem poses to the world as a rallying cry to bring people together. there’s even a slight echo of salem’s own language in ruby’s broadcast; salem describes a unified humanity as a “noticeable threat” and ruby repeats that as “she knows we’re a threat!”

and in general, ruby speaks of humanity’s collective strength and of the possibility of people coming together and being able to drive salem back with the same conviction salem does—in stark contrast to ozma, whose faith in humankind has long since hollowed out into weary cynicism. ruby and salem are on opposite sides of the conflict, but they’re on basically the same wavelength in terms of what they think humans are capable of. in his heart of hearts, ozma doesn’t truly believe that humans can withstand salem, much less the gods.

but ruby DOES believe that, and salem believes that, and both of them base A LOT of their decision-making on that belief; salem exploits ozpin’s self-defeating secrecy for all it’s worth, and ruby refuses point blank to give up because she knows salem can be defeated if enough people are just willing to try. even when ruby starts to crack, later on in v8, she’s not losing her faith in humanity—she’s losing her faith in herself, doubting her leadership, her judgment, her decisions… without ever for a second doubting humanity as a whole. and THAT is, in a nutshell, the quality that makes ruby more like salem than she is like ozma:

salem watched the gods annihilate humanity with a snap of their fingers and she still believes that humanity can and must reject divine tyranny.

ruby learned that salem can’t be killed and she still believes that humanity not only can but will defeat salem.

but when the god of light tells ozma that modern humans are a broken shadow of what they once were and tasks ozma with redeeming them lest the gods obliterate them forever, ozma accepts that as a fact—a horrific, terrifying, painful fact, but still a fact he has yet to truly question.

and ruby—who is essentially ozpin’s successor, who succeeds where he has failed over and over and over again—is succeeding exactly because she is more like salem than she is like ozma.

[the-river-of-light]

I have come to an unfortunate conclusion

[kageyama-ritsu]

idk theres something about makotos overarching character arc being that he basically decided to devote his whole self into doing something he loves (being an idol and being part of trickstar) and sticking with it even when it consistently drags him outside of his comfort zone

parallels with his modelling career where he was also repeatedly pulled outside of his comfort zone, but in ways where he was being taken advantage of, where it was done to the detriment of his own self, something he wished he could escape from but circumstances prevented him from doing so until he reached a breaking point and physically could not continue anymore.

now he's constantly being pushed to do things like take charge, assert himself, and gain self-confidence, even when he doesn't quite feel comfortable in doing so. he fights back when he doesn't think he's being valued as a human being with his own desires and wants. every time he's pushed out of his comfort zone, it's for his own benefit - and even if it isn't, he finds a way to put a positive spin on it. and most importantly (to me anyways), he does this all while pursuing his dream of becoming an idol, something that doesn't come as naturally to him as modelling did, something he still feels inadequate about and is unsure he even has the talent for. but he works his ass off to be an idol despite the fact that he can quit anytime BECAUSE he loves the new path he's chosen so much

[clockworkspider]

"I do kind of hope you forgive him, because it makes me hope you could forgive me."

WOW this is so Reed. He and Isobel really are made for each other.

[ladynicte]

Makima is such a good character I kin her so much <- is an ASPD girlie

[age-of-moonknight]

“Homecoming,” Moon Knight Annual (Vol. 3/2022), #1

Writer: Jed MacKay; Artist: Federico Sabbatini; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[dudefrommywesterns]

yeah. his code name IS eric.

this is in the books too.

[team-frightfur]

The immense pain of the joke being too immoral for the Morality - 4 character so you have to reattribute it to the morality - 1 character where its less funny but makes more sense.

[wolfes]

more unmotherly ruthless pragmatic arrogant egotistical female characters... who are the protagonist and not the mean girl archetype

[chutzpahhooplah]

honestly I’m interested to see how show fans react to the end of tlou, bcs the hashtag Gamers seemed to find it INCREDIBLY divisive