#racist bullshit phrase like oh my god

[robotpussy]

"humans are the virus" ok then kill yourself seeing as you are claiming we are viruses

[saintarmand]

multiple popular blogs in the iwtv fandom have a documented pattern of behavior of saying anything ranging from "could be interpreted as a bit racist but only if you're looking for it" to now literally "the real racism is actually against white people" and other alt right talking points. LOOK AT THE PATTERN.

you see the same people constantly complaining about how they keep getting called racist by black fans over and over again, and instead of asking yourself "why do so many black fans think these people are racist? could they be onto something?" you zero in on how polite they are about it and go "well, they put some naughty words after the word racist, looks like there really is a woke mob of big bad black bullies terrorizing the fandom, sounds legit!"

the thing is, something like about a year ago, i actually posted an absolute garbage take i can't believe i ever thought was acceptable, and got rightfully called out for it. i had some other white people agreeing with me, but THANK GOD someone i followed reblogged a post talking some sense. i freaked out at first of course. "someone is vagueing about me? that's not exactly what i said verbatim. i'm being misinterpreted unfairly! what if everyone finds out and starts hating me?" i got defensive, though i avoided throwing the classic huge public tantrum by simply logging off until i cooled down a little, so i managed not to draw that much attention. it's probably only because it was people that i already thought seemed really smart who were saying it, that made the voice at the back of my mind go, "what if they're right and i'm wrong?" so i really thought about it. at first i thought it was just my phrasing that was bad and if i explained it better it would be fine. but now that i've had over a year to think about it and listen and learn, i've come to realize just how stupid that was. and it's probably not the only dumb racist post i made, just the one that i saw called out. i've since deleted the whole blog so i can't check. which i admit i did in large part so other people couldn't check anymore either.

and what were the only consequences i faced? there are users that i think are really cool, and even some i was following, who have me blocked. i go :( about it for a second when i can't reblog a post. iirc like 3 anon asks i've gotten in total, only one of which was even mean at all. oh the horror, someone called me a racist bitch. i literally WAS. and even if i wasn't, so what? it made me feel a little bad, yeah. it would probably actually feel LESS bad if i thought it didn't apply. it would just be confusing and a little funny. it did apply, and it probably still does, i got a lot of shit to unlearn. in my book, me feeling bad is absolutely worth it if it brought whoever sent it even a smidgen of satisfaction. them having to witness my bullshit was undoubtedly worse.

the only reason i'm able to be as polite as i am is because as a white person this does not affect me personally. this fandom has been racist since before the show even started. if i saw popular blogs in my fandom being, say, lesbophobic for more than two years, constantly, and getting away with it, still being popular, receiving praise, and every time i said anything about it i had their followers come after me, while consoling them, i'd be pretty fucking pissed. i'd get tired of being nice so fast. and that's not even mentioning the trauma from a lifetime of racism in real life and online that black people have to deal with. i can't even imagine.

"racist" is not a goddamn slur. anyone who tries to tell you that it is has an agenda, and it's not that hard to figure out what that agenda is.

OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK AROUND YOU. really look. and when you see it, STAND UP AND SAY SOMETHING. i'm ashamed it's taken me this long to do that.

[dumuzithemessiah]

Can we have sacred things?! N isn’t black nor is Leon! Leon is British Pakistani! Not black! Can a character have a tan and not be blackwashed by people? This is what I mean on how bad blackwashing is in a post I meant a while back as why cry about whitewashing when you people hypocritically phrase blackwashing just cause the art is good? Whitewashing art can be good too but it’s still racist as blackwashing is! Can someone tell that person politely to please stop as racebending in general is racist? If they don’t like racism then they shouldn’t be forcing characters to be black or force them to be trans either as this is coming from a god that is gay and I prefer characters to be correct as if Nintendo wanted N to be black they would’ve made him black but no he’s pale as paper!

This is why people hate on Tumblr cause of racist bullshit hypocrisy like this! The blackwashing problem is a thing and I don’t give a raticate’s ass if a blackwashing artist is black because racist whites who white wash are white but that doesn’t excuse their racebent art? Blackwashing hurts as much as whitewashing! Especially red heads… oh as someone with red hair blackwashing angers me how people phrase such disgusting racist bs behaviour..

Also fact: Planet wise there are more black and Asian people than white people on this planet as ironic as that sounds and the internet is world wide so as far as I’m concerned black people ain’t no minority world wide wise.

Also I have no problem with LGBT people showing how fake fictional deities are as no real deity except the Fell Goddess would hate someone for how they are born! I judge by actions of others! So don’t take me wrong as I’m calling blackwashing racist as whitewashing as it is as racebending in general! Hell, it worries me as people seeing people phrasing racist blackwashing art while crying about white washing and white people like all white people deserve to die, as what worries me about that as people might turn racist because of seeing blackwashed pics, see phrasing on it, then see people whining about white washing can make people act racist towards black people!

A lot of people were rightfully mad about Ariel tho as there is no justification on blackwashing red heads as what about red headed little girls with light skin? Blackwashing all those red heads takes representation away from red heads with light skin who are way more of a minority than black people. Especially planet wise.

So yeah I ain’t gonna name call the artist but blackwashing is racist itself so them claiming they don’t like racists is hypocritical AF and forcing trans also is another barrel of problems as transphobes treat those images as to not take trans people seriously and that can hurt trans people badly so such art does far more hurt then do any good!

So yeah done with rant but I made several points and yes I am from Nibiru and my kind suffered a great deal of racism as hating on other advanced species is alien racism… We look nothing like humans, tho we can shapeshift, we aren’t even hominins like humans, nor primates, but diving magical multidimensional felines with a smooth crystal horn and small wings but that would be another post to deal with.

[therealtsk]

tsk i’m DYING to hear your play-by-play on which worm characters have dumb fanon interpretations

UH OH YOU JUST OPENED THE FLOODGATES so the short answer is pretty much every major character but I am a high-effort bitch so let's do this: Taylor Hebert: jfc, I could probably hit a word count limit talking about Taylor alone. First you have the dumb as shit TINO (Taylor In Name Only) phenomenon where people just straight up SI as Taylor but pretend it's her and she's basically a different person wearing Taylor's skin like an ill-fitting suit. Then there's the Memetic Escalator Taylor interpretation where Taylor's Warlord era characterization is flanderized so hard that she turns into her world's version of Doomguy where her response to literally everything is ultra violence, mutilation and torture and she can totally beat up anyone you guys hahah coin sock goes brrrrr you go brutalize those totally deserving victims queen. And then there's shy, stuttering, soft spoken "useless lesbian" Taylor which is not as common but still, fuckin straight men and the way they infantize gay women. Taylor is perhaps the most consistently inconsistent characterization I've seen in fandom, it's fucking wild Lisa Wilbourn: Has two fanon settings. Taylor's best friend who exists solely to give exposition and get the "Stop Coil" subplot rolling (occasional gay subtext will be added in a way that feels fetishy) Or, the evil bitchy blonde who is first target of the SI. I constantly wonder if the people who write the frankly masturbatory SI's are aware that we can tell they're still bitter about girls not dating them in highschool. Brian: basically does not exist in fic aside from the occasional joke cause racism and also because of how popular wlw ships are in Worm fandom. you deserve better dude Alec: has a few token appearances in wormfic fandom that usually have him as the comic relief alongside Aisha, which might actually be for the best considering he's a rapist and the Worm fandom's uhhhh tendencies. Moving on- Aisha: prankster girl that alt!Taylor will adopt as a younger sibling. hopefully is not part of the totally-not-a-harem considering she's even younger then the rest of these teens Bitch: Another girl to fall into alt!Taylor's definitely-not-a-harem, but with more butch tendencies. Basically has no personality in fanon outside of her dogs Parian: SHE DOESN'T HAVE A SHOP FFS also another member of Taylor's totally-not-a-harem Flechette: yeah it's a harem Sophia: holy shit you think Brian's bad? The racism in pretty much every fanon depiction of Sophia is off the charts. Hyper-violent, super edgy, "predator/prey" speech inbound, will get humilated/killed in some new, supposedly satisfying but actually just deeply uncomfortable way, probably throw in some E88 shit too just because Emma: again, do the writers know we can tell they're still malding over the fact that the pretty girls in highschool didn't date them? fanon emma is pretty much a cardboard cut out of whoever was mean to the author. something something bitches three Madison: in fanon has a C53 fetish, occasionally is also Browbeat. don't ask why Victoria: gets hit with the blonde stereotypes even harder then Lisa, "Collateral Damage Barbie" is one of the phrases that activates my flight or fight responses. she basically is an entirely different character in fanon. bubbly dumb blonde girl with a massive temper and well other sexist bullshiit Amy: I hate even touching this character with a ten foot pole but basically is hit with the "soft useless lesbian" trope hard enough to make her into a completely separate person from her canon self. whether or not this is a good thing is still up for debate Carol: in fanon, an evil bitch who exists solely to bully Amy Mark: who? The rest of New Wave: cannon fodder for Leviathan Danny Hebert: literally stale milk instead of a personality, will probably die before the fic is over but we won't care because the author did not care either Armsmaster: hahaha robotman go brrrr or is an arrogant self-aggrandizing shit, can't interact with people without Dragon helping him 24/7 Miss Militia: fanon bat'd into team mom,

idk where this came from considering her first instinct upon seeing children is to pull out a gun holy shit wait is she actually Taylor's true mom- Velocity: canon fodder for levi Battery & Assault: sitcom wife, sitcom husband! please ignore how fucked up this relationship is if you look at it for more than two seconds Dauntless: haha armsy is JEALOUS also cannon fodder for levi Triumph: who? The BB wards in general tend to be incredibly bland, the only ones who have fanon personalities of note are Clockblocker and Vista. The former being such a huge prankster that every other line is a joke- or him complaining about how BULLSHIT Alt!Taylor's powers are. Vista is an angry kiddo who says that Shadow Stalker doesn't count as being a girl on the team The E88: no personality for any of them except that Kaiser is noble and really isn't that bad and also Purity did nothing wrong totally she's just a hot mom trying to do her best, please ignore how she exclusively targets characters of color and literally calls white criminals more civilized than miniorities- the worm fandom has something of a nazi problem i hate it here The ABB: racism and honorable samurai lung even though that has no canon basis so again, racist stereotypes The Slaughterhouse 9: This one makes me just as sad as the Lisa shit because dear god this is such a good cast of villains that fanon completely flattens to bowling pins for the Alt!Taylor of the week to mow down, why does this fandom suck so much. Anyway Jack is just the Joker, Crawler is masochistic, etc i'm moving on now The PRT/Protectorate as a whole: They are an evil paramilitary organization that pressgangs kids into signing up to become child soldiers, and somehow at the same time, they are a bunch of idiots who listen to the PR department and have stupid things like RULES that prevent capes from COMMITTING VIOLENCE. Being called "the biggest gang of all" is common and some shit like "at least the criminals are honest" is a likely statement. Cauldron: whoo boy this one really boils my blood but fanon Cauldron are just a bunch of evil idiots who can't even tie their shoelaces. basically a bunch of dudebros are upset that women run the world and that two of them essentially have "I win" powers so they have to make them lose to their SI- er, Taylor in fics so they can assuage their masculinity, which totally isn't pathetic Scion: Is at once the end all be all of worm you can't write a wormfic without scion or else it's TOTALLY MEANINGLESS because what is the point of a story if all the characters are going to DIE in a few years anyway, and at the same time is incredibly easy to defeat- this ties into how Cauldron is stupid. Scion Truthers pls shut up and go read something else okay I think that's everyone I would apologize but the only thing I'm sorry for is how messy this is

[starlightervarda]

oh hey, you don't have to answer this but I respect your opinion: i was born in India and raised (secular) Hindu in America, so I'm very "Westernized" (if you want to use that term)... i saw some fans excoriating a fic author for having Joe say "Jesus" in a moment of exasperation. I was honestly puzzled by this, because I say "Jesus" all the time, not because I'm Christian, but because I've been culturally conditioned to do so. Joe (in canon) says "madre de dios"; why would he never say "jesus"?

Hi nonny <3

Don’t you get tired of the White Saviourism? Not just in fandom, but in general? I know I do.

This is so stupid. I can’t believe the problems these people keep creating just to attack others about shit they don’t understand. Can they just stop? Please???

People complaining about Joe saying ‘Jesus’, wearing Santa hats or gold, not being religious, having sex a certain way, reek of overcompensation and ignorance.

Their gatekeeper segregationist bullshit shows itself in how they react to whatever doesn’t line up with their wrong, and frequently racist, view of MENA people. Also, it shows they only speak English and know nothing about other cultures enough to think that there are no variations to religion, culture and language. They’ve attacked MENA/Muslim people in this fandom for disproving or disagreeing with their baseless claims and even chased one off the platform.

Joe is clearly not religious, it makes no sense for him to be devout, just like it doesn’t for Nicky and Booker. He’s an ancient gay man who’s died hundreds of times, drinks, draws, has a husband, and says ‘we’re the good guys depending on the century’, calls a woman his boss, and was born a Fatimid during a Golden Age that valued learning, logic and art, had a genre of poetry dedicated to wine and loved astrology. You think this is the kind of person who’ll object to decorating a tree or saying ‘Jesus Christ!’ as a curse? Really?

I swear, this fandom’s insistence to impose modern fundamentalist / Salafist traits on him proves they’re too racist to realize a MENA person can exist outside of religion.

Joe is not a vampire whose throat will burn if he says Jesus’ name as an expression. Same way Nicky won’t be stuck by lightning if he says Wallahi to denote sarcasm. Why? Because it’s just a phrase, divorced from any religious context. Just like Joe said Santa Maria, madre de Dio!, the Italian version of Oh My God, in the movie he’ll say whatever swears exist in the language he’s currently speaking.

Because LANGUAGE! and CULTURE! Because people are people no matter where they’re from! If you speak any language you’re going to use it like it’s native speakers do, because that’s the goal here! Using ‘Jesus Christ’ etc., as a version of ‘Yikes’ or ‘Are you kidding me?’ or ‘What the fuck?’ or ‘That’s unbelievable!’ or with sarcasm is no different. No one is thinking about religious significance when they say these phrases, it’s just a learned response to certain situations. 

Do you have any idea how many times a day I say ‘Allah!‘? And not once do I actually think of God. It’s an expression, usually directed at my cat being cute, something that’s pretty or smells good.

Like, you’re not thinking of having sex with someone you say ‘Fuck you’ to, are you? It’s the same concept!

Because that’s how language works.

I made a post explaining them alongside some cultural/religious facts and more recently another breaking down how they’re used generally. Anyone who speaks Arabic can use them, void of any belief or significance. All the phrases I linked are used as snide insults/filled with judgemental sarcasm. They’re even in MEMES. No different than the ones in English! The entire Old Guard can use them.

Astaghfarallah al-’azim! Jesus Christ! Ay Dios mio! Santa Maria, made de Dio! Nom de Dieu!

[baebeyza]

Hola peeps, let’s get social and real! ~ Long post ahead:

Little question - do you know muslim people, especially muslim women, and asked them things like: “Do you have to wear hijab?”  “Do you have to fast?” “Do you have to this?” “Are you doing this because of what’s written in the Quran?”

If your answer is yes, then I’ll politely ask you to NOT phrase your questions like that.

My entire life the western people around me ask these questions and the problem with the phrasing is that they don’t talk about it as if I am not doing any active decisions.

“Do you have to this” assumes that I am a just following orders without thinking for myself. 

And it is a simple truth that religious people (yes, christians too) are often seen as having no agency in their own lives.

I had this fucking thing said about us in class, when my ethics teacher said “religion is the opposite of reason”. Meaning to say that following a religion is to not use reason or common sense.

And you know what?

That’s bullshit!

If you view religious to be passive agents of their own lives, to only do what they are told and only following a certain life style because they have no choice?

I ask you to stop that line of thinking! 

Because being religious is a choice! 

If you think it’s a choice to not believe, that you cannot say that believing isn’t!

I choose to put on hijab, I choose to pray, I choose to fast! It is MY decision to live an islamic lifestyle because it is MY life! And it makes me happy!

This messed up conception that being religious is only a thing because a person grew up like that and the only reasonable thing to do is to say goodbye to everything religion-related is just insulting.

People don’t get to deny me my own agency in my own life, but they talk like that, they think that I am not doing anything religion-related because it is my active choice to do so. 

If following a set of rules is considered having no agency than aren’t we all passive beans who don’t think for themselves, do we all not follow laws and social ettiquettes?

Is saying “no problem” after hearing “thank you” a sign of being a passive person who only follows social instructions without thinking for themselves now?

Why is following rules of religion the one thing you should question AND come to the conclusion it’s not worth it? 

Because people don’t wanna admit that people can think for themselves and still follow religious rules. That’s barabaric and backwards to them.

They come to a conclusion and think anyone who doesn’t come to the same conclusion must a brainwashed puppet.

And people thinking I am backwards because they cannot possibly think a woman can make the decision to follow a certain life style is just ~ insulting ~

And I lived with this rethoric my whole life and it took time and effort to realise it because it was just normal to me to be asked if I HAVE to a thing.

And no. I don’t have to anything. I choose to do it. 

And you know the sad thing? I really did have no confidence in my own agency for a long time. It took a former boss of mine to call me out on this and blame it on my culture and religion, when in reality my lack for speaking up about wanting to do my lunch break later so I can pray in it wasn’t because my religion taught me to never speak up.  It was caused by the fear of being denied and ridiculed for my request. So many bad experiences of being dismissed as a passive agent of a “backwards” system made me afraid of talking about it. And that’s ~ messed up ~

I want to live as a muslim, I want to use the Quran as my guiding light and follow it’s rules, I want to believe in God and I want to believe in Muhammed (pbuh) as his messenger. 

That’s the conclusion I came to because it makes me happy! The opposite would just make me miserable

And don’t come to me with “oh but some people are forced into it”, that’s not a problem of religion! Parents can force their kids into anything and the reason for that isn’t religion, it’s parents being bad parents!

Any person who openly says to follow a religion and is content doing so, CHOSE TO DO SO!

And it is not your right to say they didn’t

PS:

No, I am not talking about bigots and racists here. My ethics teacher wasnt a bigoted racist, my former boss wasn’t a bigoted racist. 

And all of you who reads this and care about my words are NOT bigoted racists.

You know, if a racist insults me on the streets or denies me a job, I have the satisfaction to know that it was my choice to put on a hijab that made this person hate me. That racist actually hates me because they recognizes that I actively do something they don’t like. 

And in a really odd sense of “I will think positively about anything”, that line of thought can be comforting. I may be a pussy and cry about it, but at least the bitch inside will think about the triumph of ruining someone’s day with my wholesome angelic being! 

Know why? Because this whole complaining post is for leftist tumblr.

I am talking about every single circle of this website. All of them talking about religious people as mindless slaves to a system they have to outgrow.

No “tumblreric philosophy” is save from this line of thinking. Not the communists, not anarchists, not even the two factions of fandom wars.

You aren’t bad people for this line of thinking, you aren’t assholes. But I am still asking you to stop it. 

Because I believe that we can all agree that being seen and treated as a mindless slave who cannot make their own decisions is damaging and that no one deserves it

[jelloopy]

Murder on The Rockport Limited Notes

Previous: Character Creation, HtbG, Moonlighting

Ch 1

Robbie is a halfling who is pretty shitty but he’s good at making “potions” (Robbie is the roommate that everyone really hates but doesn’t want him to leave because he is their plug)

Taako is on the top bunk, Magnus is under Taako, Robbie is next to Taako and Merle is under Robbie

They are woken up at 3 am to report to Lucretia (3 am really?)

”Yeah it’s like Mario Mario or Luigi Mario” ~Griffin (This is so funny because this actually proves that Taako’s last name really is Taaco. Before Justin played it as a joke but this kinda derails that)

Robbie asks them for Pringles when they leave (Thus the beginning of me and the boys not remembering him by anything other than Pringles)

They arrive in their PJs (Taako is in footie pajamas and Merle’s has a flap in at the butt with a Kenny Chesney tattoo on his ass) (When the hell did Merle get that tattoo. Also, why is Lucretia in her full BoB garb right now? Was she asleep and get changed really quickly? Do her robes double as PJ’s? Did she just not go to sleep?)

Taako says he gets night terrors that’s why he’s in like a full-body Onesie/sleeping bag (That is so fricking sad if you think about his backstory later on…)

Magnus just starts changing clothing right then and there when Lucretia tells them that they don’t have time to get ready (This man really has no shame or boundaries. I imagine it was the same in the century tbh)

Leimann Kessler (half-elf man) was murdered before he was even on the train but was able to secure the Relic on the train (Personally, don’t know a lot about how trains work but this to me is kinda odd. Who knew he died? Do their bracers know when the wearer perishes? Is there like a body temp check and a pulse check in there too? We know that it can track them but… how much more can it do…)

All the relics come from a different school of magic. They were never in the hands of someone long enough to learn what they are capable of (Potentially this is a lie. We would have already known the names, schools of magic, and possibly what they could do based upon that alone. I bet Lucretia is hiding that info in her office)

The Gauntlet deals with Evocation magic (Hmmm, I can only imagine why. Maybe because Lup also worked in Evocation magic?)

Avi is manning the cannon! The whole scene with Magnus High as hell. Avi Never learned how to Wink (Avi you’re adorable I love you. Magnus. Get your shit together man.)

Taako pulls the lever too early and they change trajectory into a swamp

Leech fight! (I honest to god forgot this even happened before listening to it again. Not my fave fight)

Ch 2

Merle gets a lot of blood sucked from him by the leeches

Merle is completely submerged in the swamp and Magnus pulls his ass out (Why is it always Merle)

”Scientists have yet to agree” ~Griffin (I personally use this phrase all the time. It just makes me laugh so hard every time.)

Taako can levitate (I really wished he used this more ngl. I would also like to see some more fanart of this)

They are in Rockport! Covered in swamp shit!

Tom Beaudette! We see his house and they get hosed off then they see him at the ticket station again. (What a nice guy!)

Leimann, Diddly, and Justin Kessler (10/10 best alias’ ever)

Taako Charms Tom (It’s a nice go-to huh?)

Merle really wants to murder tom he wanted him to step in front on the train (Merle really is the one who goes straight for murder)

Ch 3

Hudson, Jess the Beheader, Graham Juicy Wizard, ANGUSSSSSSSS, and Jenkins McShittywizard (My favorite train gang!)

Travis making fun of Griffin for how he needs to sleep with 100000000 pillows (I cherish all of these out of character bits where they really just dog on one another)

Angus, my sweet summer child don’t talk to strangers. We know your grandfather’s name was long forgotten even though you’re going to visit him in Never Winter.

The boys legit think Angus is evil and Griffin yells at them bc they are being racist. (1- how are they being legit racist? You haven’t introduced anything about Angus’ race at all?) (2- Jesus he is only 10 years old my dudes)

Graham is 36 years young and is crazy obsessed with trains and his real name is Percy? He is shadowing Jenkins in hopes of learning more about working on a train

Taako from TV! (And so his legend begins!)

Ch 4

Jenkins is harnessing a limited version of teleportation magic

Angus calling the boys out on their bullshit

Taako calling Angus “pumpkin” (Literally melts my heart. I wish someone called me cute nicknames. Also, Taako hasn’t even talked to this kid that much and that name is reoccurring)

Angus has a nondescript blue book that is able to intercept messages sent through magical means (Where did this child get this book and who let him keep it? This is legit just like letting children under 13 have access to the unrestricted internet. It’s literal Hell)

The bit with Angus and “PRYING EYES AND EARS!” (uh foreshadowing my guy)

They find “Jenkins” Dead body after hearing Graham scream

Merle is able to identify a lot of things by looking at the body (It still scares me that he is technically a Physician.)

Angus pulls a small CROSSBOW OUT OF HIS SLEEVE? (Where did he get this, how did he keep it from Hudson, Why the fuck does he have it)

Angus really said “you guys run I’ll get rid of him!” and grabs Graham and runs (How strong is this child. He’s legit lifting and pulling a grown-ass man without help)

”I’m following Angus I’ll see yall in hell!” ~Taako (Yes follow the badass 10-year old please)

”I wanna tell you about the time about this time there were three ogres…”~Taako

The Foley work bit and then Griffin just snapping “The train derails and you all die” (Another out of character goof that I cherish)

”I shit and take 14 damage” ~Griffin (are you okay? How much health do you have? What’s your max HP dude?)

Taako makes the Crab monster Levitate

Magnus punched the crab monster out of the window and it got scrapped up on the side of the train

Ch 5

They follow the Crab into their sleeper car and Magnus attacks with a chair and Griffin says “I imagine because you are so skilled at carpentry that you’ve had to attack someone with a chair before so you are in fact proficient in this attack”

Jess comes in and finishes the crab off with her Soul bound ax that she can conjure at any time (This legit just means that Jenkins did not need to carry her ax to the crypt safe. She let him do it for shits n giggles. We stan)

Jess got her last name legally changed to “Beheader” and Magnus says that he got his legally changed to “The Hammer” (Really Magnus… this isnt 3rd grade stop trying to impress her. It’s that or it could be another sad reference to “Hammer and Tongs” which would mean Julia was “Tongs” D: that is so depressing and cute)

Magnus and Merle are making good progress in solving the murder

”Alright lads” “oh fuck” When Merle keeps up his disguise as Leimann Kessler (It’s so funny because his fake Leimann Kessler is just his current Argonaut Keen.)

”I cast ZONE OF TRUTH” “Jesus you’re like a zone of truth cleric” (Oh honey. This is just the beginning)

Magnus wakes Graham up with a 5% smack with his left hand and then a 6.5% smack also with his left hand (Wtf is this BNHA? Alright Deku)

Taako is an Alcoholic? (He keeps asking for a drink ...This is a bit concerning but it makes sense)

Magnus slaps Graham again with 7.2% and he popped something in Graham’s jaw and he begins screaming but Merle heals him (OKAY DEKU COOL IT MY GUY)

”I wanna be a guy... with a head!” ~” Hudson” (hehe foreshadowing)

SCUTTLE BUDDY!!!!! (A short but adorable life you have my Lil man)

Ch 6

The “fisticuffs” scene with Taako and Angus (Now this is really concerning considering his backstory. I know it’s a joke because of how many people they accidentally kill all the time but like dude… little do you know…)

Angus leading them through the mystery is so cute. But also you know its Griffin trying to get his family to really think it through and I love it. (It really makes my heart really full to hear Griffin get really excited when they figure it out slowly instead of mocking them when they guess wrong)

MERLE YES! MAGNUS YES! YOU’RE GETTING IT! YOU’RE SO CLOSE! (Teamwork makes the dream work baby!)

Magnus jumps out of the train and Griffin gets really serious and gives him the “if you fail this you will actually die” speech (This coupled with the fight scene that Magnus accidentally skipped and the fact that originally Travis did want Magnus to die so he could re-roll a rogue is so wild)

Magnus is gonna become a wrecking ball Jesus (very Magnus-core)

Hell yeah, Magnus! Knock the meat monster into Jenkins!!

Magnus gets hit for 10 points at 1hp and paries it for 10 points! (Top ten anime near-death experiences)

Jenkins threatens to kill the meat monster. Horribly misses then is thrown off the fucking train by the meat monster (Get fucked wrecked Jenkins that’s what you get for being cocky!)

Ch 7

They find the dousing rod compass that Jenkins was using and find the monocle (Pirates of the Caribbean much?)

Taako grabs The Oculus because he has escaped the thrall of a relic before

It tells him that it can make anything he can imagine (This is really interesting tbh)

The Umbrastaff eATS JENKINS WAND!!! and a Lil sigil appears on the handle of the staff that also looks like an umbrella (Lup gets fed lmao. Don’t really understand the Sigil appearing tho. It doesn’t come up any other time I don’t think so it’s cool)

Taako grabs the teleport wand thing and asks everyone to leave and he grabs a bunch of shit from the Cryptsafe pile (Very Taako-core)

They make it to the engineer’s room and Graham tries to slow the train down but he can’t

Taako wanted to open the gate to Never Winter to Phandalin but they change it to Jenkins’ garden because it needs to be a room with “one entrance” (Solid idea on Taako’s part. If it were to work no one would have been hurt)

Taako pushed Angus off the train and he looses two teeth (This man pushed a whole child off the train… ‘Ight)

Magnus dies by jumping off the train (Top ten anime death scenes)

Taako successfully opens the gate into Jenkin’s garden and the train crashes into the garden

Magnus is stabilized by Merle (Awe so the Cleric can do his job!)

Angus gives them pringles for Robbie and the compass. Taako gives Angus one of the forks from his grandfather’s set.

They go to a nearby Never Winter Clinic to get patched up

Out of character, they choose to work on voices and Griffin calls them out bc he’s been doing 8 “different” voices and Clint goes “Yeah try doing that for 40 years” get fuckin rOASTED Ditto! (Also Griffin I love you but like 3 of the voices were the exact same and 2 were so similar it wasn’t funny. Don’t get me wrong different voices aren’t my strong suit either but ya did give it your best shot so.)

We goin’ back to the moon baby!

AVI MY MAIN MAN! (I will forever and always want and need more Avi screen time)

The oculus works with illusory magic (Which is very interesting bc I know it was made by Davenport because he also worked in allusory magic but I don’t ever remember him using any magic… who knows maybe he has and I just never realized)

Lucretia thought they were gonna get it off the train before it left... woman… (You’ve known these men for how long and you thought they were gonna w h a t?)

Next: Lunar Interlude I, 

[marshmallowprotection]

Sorry but I need to rant a bit. Ever since quarantine I realized how kinda racist my mom and step dad and dad are. I have heard my mom call our neighbors “ selfish Jews” heard her say,” we should bb the hell out of China” heard her say all lives matter and threaten me with money after I said blm. My step dad has said that he wants to run over the protesters, and more. But they aren’t openly racist, they are ignorant about their own racism. And I’m so scared of being outed as bi even though (1/2)

TW: abuse, homophobia, racism 

Even though I don’t think they’re homophobic.i did come out to my mom in 9th grade and she took it well but after a vacation where I told some kids(around my age) that I dated a girl when we came home she started yelling at me and saying “how do you think they felt sharing a room with you,” even though I’m not into any of them. So I went back in the closet and convinced everyone that I was straight again. Like she basically controls my life since I’m 16. But I’m so sick of hiding everything(2/2)

I’m sorry that you’re going through a hard time right now. You don’t deserve to have to hear this toxic frame of thinking and you surely don’t deserve to live in fear of being who you are. They’re very aware of their own racism, anon, I know that given all of the things that you’ve said here. They know what they’re thinking and it sounds like they only voice that opinion at home. They know that they can do that stuff at home. They know they can’t say that shit outside of the house or they’ll get called on their shit. 

Literally, threatening murder and saying that they wish to do harm to any POC or protestor right now? That means they’re showing their true colors. That means that their hearts are pretty ugly, and I know you must feel complicated because you are a child and your parents are supposed to take care of you and love you no matter what and should support you. The fact that they probably said  something before you came out like, “well, I’m fine with it as long as it isn’t in front of me,” then I gotta say, that’s some homophobia. 

Your mother literally spouted that lying narrative about “predatory gays”. Which is the most bullshit I’ve ever heard in my entire life, I swear to God. Homophobes and Transphobes use that phrase to keep people from using bathrooms and to ostracise LGBT away from them. They think “oh no, they’re gay and they’re going to touch me,” no, Karen, nobody’s going to flirt with you or touch you because number one, they aren’t interested in someone that has an ugly heart, and number two, it is absolutely disgusting that their go-to option is thinking that anyone who is gay is going to come onto them. 

Cishet guys are guilty of that narrative because men “aren’t supposed to show any emotions or cry nor should they be touchy-feely.” That’s a whole fucking handbasket right there and I could keep talking about how that’s bullshit and how I cannot stand toxic masculinity but that’s another thing. 

I’m sorry that you have to deal with this. I had a similar experience. I was backed into a corner after having spent years of getting yelled at for support LGBT lives and without knowing that I was gay yet. Any time I voiced my opinion, I would get yelled at, shamed, and gaslit into a corner. I was made to feel like I would go to Hell, and worse. So, when I was pushed into that corner sometime later after finding an identity that worked me, I came out to the toxic family member, but then I was told that I couldn’t be pan because “that didn’t exist” and because I “haven’t dated a guy so I can’t know I’m pan”. 

So, basically, I haven’t tried again and I’m not going to. They don’t deserve to know about my love life. I still live at home because of my horrible circumstances so I have to hear bullshit like that too and it makes me so fucking sick. You want to support and care about others so you voice an opinion, but your toxic family doesn't agree with that, so they shame you and make their verbal or physical abuse worse. 

I can’t condone sharing your opinion with them. I know it hurts. I know you don’t want to live a lie. I know you want to be happy and honest with yourself and the people that are supposed to love you unconditionally. But, for your own safety, I cannot condone talking to them or sharing your opinions with them if they are going to hurt you, verbally or otherwise. 

I can suggest that you try to find a safe space online where you can be yourself away from your family. That’s what I did and I’m a better person for it because it helped me learn and grow a lot. You’re a teen so there’s not a lot that you can do to get out. If you feel unsafe, or like you are in danger, then I can suggest you try to seek out an adult that you trust that can help you get out, or a friend or their family that can take you in if you need to get out. 

Document anything that is directed towards you for leverage if you can do so at all, but be careful about that. Delete history and hide everything that you can hide to go and protect yourself. Everything that I’ve read here tells me that your family is very toxic in their way of thinking, and I’m proud of you for stepping out of that toxic cycle and learning how to be a good person. 

Hold on to those kind and compassionate feelings, and just remember that a lot of people have been your position and things got better eventually after they did their best to push through. I hate that you can’t come out safely and be happy with your family but, it’s safer for you right now to duck your head and try to make it to 18 so you can leave. 

[questionablespecies]

I hate seeing the “woke” females in here, because it is literally just the women in here, try to say that oh my god I love playing a game that was tailored to me because I’m a giiirrlll if you’re a boy sucks for you play something else cause you guys have a whole bunch of games for you. Like...okay, why don’t you just say you hate transmen and gay men and go, because you obviously just think cis straight men play Choices if you go around spouting bullshit like that. You literally cannot just say play something else because there is hardly anything that tailors to them at all, literally just like us, the women in this fandom, we are all in the same goddamn boat and you want to kick them out for what?? Because you guys wanna to sit here and claim that choices is females only?? Like if that was the case, why do they give an apparent females only app a male MC option? I’m sure it’s not to give women a different perspective. That’s what is super dumb about this. Like y’all are blatantly homophobic and racist at times or all the time shit, but you wanna go and say your favorite phrase if you don’t like it uninstall when you’re cornered. What kills me is that I don’t understand how this is an impossible concept to grasp.

What I will say though is that, yes for the transmen and mlm out there, that yeah another gender-locked book is another book that you cannot experience to the fullest. However, just keep in mind that PB is doing this in a pattern and you guys are not severely malnourished. We are all on even feeding grounds, even if it doesn’t feel like it, we are. Whatever consolation that is. So despite seeing another gender-locked book, just know that you’ll get yours soon too.

[cromulentbookreview]

Puntastic!

“The first thing you should know about me, the truest most important thing, is that I ain’t never really had friends” - Jane McKeene 

Because this blog is for cromulent book reviews rather than reviews of standalones or first books of a series, I’m going to keep on going with my streak of reviewing sequels. I’m sure nobody has a problem with it, as nobody reads this blog.

And by that, I mean: Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland!

I absolutely love Westerns. I was raised on Westerns. And, living in the Pacific Northwest, basically all of the history of where I live is a combination of a Western and the Oregon Trail game. 

(Fun fact: as a wee little beeb growing up in rural Oregon back in the Days of Yore ((you know, the 90s)), we played Oregon Trail on ancient DOS computers. Oh man the day when you could snag one of the color computers, instead of just the black-and-green ones…God, I’m old.)

Anyway, Westerns! I love them.

Westerns, yay!

I also like stories with zombies. 

Zombies, yay! 

And when you combine them in a story starring two badass young women of color, you get Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation! I loved Dread Nation, because, like I said, its a Western with zombies starring two badass young women who can (and will!) kick ass and take names. Dread Nation came out in 2018, which somehow feels like it was both forever ago and just yesterday. I don’t know, time means nothing these days, and it means even less when you’re sleep-deprived. Still, Dread Nation is one of many books I’ve kept on my radar because the moment I was done, I needed a sequel sometime yesterday. And the moment Deathless Divide hit Edelweiss, I hit that request button so fast - well, I mean, I clicked with normal speed, then had to wait for my crappy rural internet to kick in, but I got there eventually.

The horror...

Just one more fun story then I’ll get to the review, I promise! I got a physical ARC of Deathless Divide because I won a pun contest Justina Ireland held on Twitter. Special thanks to my sister, who knows all the best puns and introduced me to the concept of Caribbean Pie Rates. I’m generally more of a loser rather than a winner, so winning a pun contest on Twitter was the highlight of my 2019.

Ok - Deathless Divide!

We begin exactly where Dread Nation left off - Jane and Katherine (NOT Kate, only Jane is allowed to call her Kate) have barely escaped the shit-show town of Summerland, Kansas with their lives. Now, along with Jane’s kind-of-sort-of boyfriend, Jackson and a ragtag band of survivors, they make for the nearby town of Nicodemus, which promises some sort of safety from the coming zombie shambler hoard.

Only, in a world full of zombies shamblers, there is no such thing as safety.

Things go quickly from bad to tragic on the way to Nicodemus, and our two favorite zombie shambler harvesters barely make it there either. Nicodemus promises some semblance of safety: the walls are well-fortified, and the town seems far more welcoming to black people than Summerland, and there are even a few of Jane and Katherine’s classmates from Miss Preston’s School of Combat. There is one major problem, though: it’s still Kansas, and the dead are still coming.

Heh. That would happen in Kansas. Beautiful, scenic Kansas.

Once in Nicodemus, Jane is arrested, as word of her more lethal shenanigans in Summerland has gotten there already. Also there already are a few others who also managed to escape the ill-fated hellhole that was Summerland, like Daniel Redfern, who has somehow wrangled himself a position as Sheriff, and Gideon Carr, the infuriatingly gorgeous mad scientist tinkering with a vaccine against the dead. Gideon wants to test his vaccine on the entire town, and he wants Jane to help him convince people that the experiment is safe. Jane, stuck in the town prison, just wants everyone to get the hell out of Nicodemus as soon as possible because there is a massive hoard of the dead coming and there’s no walls or vaccines or anything that will save them except getting the hell out. 

Running is their best option for survival.

But the zombies shamblers aren’t the only threat to humanity’s survival. There’s also pure, human stupidity to contend with. The people of Nicodemus are convinced their walls will hold. They’re convinced Gideon’s bullshit vaccine will protect them. 

It does not go well.

For those of you who have, like me, been waiting longingly for a sequel to Dread Nation, you will not be disappointed - Deathless Divide is every bit as exciting, thought provoking and heartbreaking as its predecessor. The best part about this book is that, while Dread Nation was narrated entirely by Jane, Deathless Divide alternates between Jane’s POV and Katherine’s. It’s awesome to finally see things from Katherine’s perspective - in Dread Nation we only ever see her through Jane’s eyes, and in Deathless Divide we get to know her a lot better, including her struggles with anxiety and her feelings about her close but sometimes fraught relationship with Jane. 

Deathless Divide is more than just a zombie Western (a genre I of which I absolutely need more) - it is a story of friendship, vengeance and maintaining your humanity in a world determined to strip it from you. As a sequel, Deathless Divide is exquisite- it expands on the world introduced to us in Dread Nation, provides us with a whole new perspective with Katherine's POV, and there is plenty of zombie-related action. The book may be 500 pages, but it really doesn't feel like it. You'll want to binge it all in one go, and then be left wanting more in the end. Speaking of which - I have high hopes for a third book. I've got my fingers crossed that, in the hypothetical book 3, Jane and Katherine get a chance to hang out with Bass Reeves, because I get the feeling that, in this universe, Bass Reeves is not only the badass bounty hunter he was in our universe, but also a kickass shambler harvester. 

I mean, come on. The man brought in over 3,000 felons and shot and killed 14 people in self-defense. He would be a zombie-killing machine! Just look at that mustache!

Dear HBO: yes, it was awesome to see Bass Reeves featured on Watchmen (which, if you haven’t watched it yet, what are you doing, stop everything and just binge the whole thing right now).

But! I’m still waiting for my six part miniseries dedicated to the life and adventures of one of the coolest people to ever to have existed, ever.

Me, waiting for HBO’s Bass Reeves TV series:

And now for a moment in which I fall into a history-related research hole!

Late in Deathless Divide Ireland mentions the fact that, at the time, it was illegal to be a black person in Oregon. This is true. In 1844, the territory banned black people from living there altogether. And, even though the territory was made up mostly of people who disapproved of slavery, well...A guy going from Missouri to Oregon back in the late 1870s wrote about the prevailing attitude toward his fellow settlers: “Many [poor whites who migrated to Oregon from slave states] hated slavery, but a much larger number of them hated free negroes worse even than slaves.”*

Yeah, Oregon. I love my home state, but we…well, we are not very diverse. Most Oregonians are white, myself included. Only 2% of Oregonians are black, and this is because of Oregon’s long history of being shitty to people who aren’t white, which you can read all about here and here and here and here and also here. Apparently it all stems back to an incident in Oregon City back in 1844 known as the Comstock Incident, but it really, it was all just racism.

Accurate.

I was a grown-ass adult when I learned all about this section of Oregon’s history. They didn’t teach us about this when you’re growing up in rural Oregon in the 90s. No, it was all “Manifest Destiny!” and “let’s build little mini covered wagons and pull them around the school yard while dressed in bonnets and shit.” Meanwhile, the reality was that the whole state was basically a Sundown State.

Oregon, my Oregon, you crazy-ass State. I love you, but you were definitely founded as a racist utopia. That, in the alt-history of Deathless Divide the exclusion laws were never repealed is no surprise. Technically such laws were all invalidated when Oregon ratified the 14th Amendment on September 19, 1866. But Section 35, which made it illegal for black people to even move here, wasn’t repealed until 1926. Don’t think that made things easier for black people in Oregon, though! It didn’t. It really didn’t.

Damn it, Oregon. At least it’s pretty here.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone whose interest is piqued when they hear the phrase “zombie Western.”

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who can’t handle badass young women killing zombies or being badass while also being protagonists of color. 

RELEASE DATE: February 4, 2020

RATING: 5/5

ZOMBIE RATING:

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR POSSIBLE THIRD BOOK: Sagarmatha

* REFERENCE:

Brooks, Cheryl A (2004). "Race, Politics, and Denial: Why Oregon Forgot to Ratify the Fourteenth Amendment" (PDF). Oregon Law Review. 83: 731–762 – via University of Oregon.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Vol. 5 "True Colors"

This is a re-posting from October 4th, 2018 in an effort to get all my recaps fully on tumblr. Thanks!

Guess who’s back, back again

Clyde is back, tell a friend

How long will my focus and work ethic last? Who knows, but with Volume 6 on the horizon and a fantastic new poster out, I’m feeling like it’s time to dive back into RWBY Recaps. Never too late to guiltily dust off an old project, right?

Right.

We’re back in Volume 5. Yes, I did a bit of Volume 1—extreme illusions of grandeur and productivity there—but we should really round out 5 before 6 comes knocking on the 27th. I’ve got almost a month. Let’s see how well I do, starting with “True Colors.”

We open on an image of Qrow and Ozpin together, notably Ozpin given the prim posture and ever-present coffee mug. Qrow makes the comment that things “aren’t looking good” and really? No shit, bird boy. We’ve gone from “Oh no, Ruby is having trouble becoming a leader!” to “Oh no… Weiss is trying to overcome a racist upbringing…?” and are now firmly in the territory of “OH NO a bunch of our faves are dead and Ozpin is forced to possess a child??” Things haven’t looked good for a while.

Ozpin is ever the optimist though. He points out that yeah, things are bad, but they could also be worse. “Humanity is a resilient force” he says, which oddly enough, sounds a lot like the kind of thing someone not a part of Humanity would say. Jury’s still out on whether Oz was the lowly farmer unfairly cursed by the gods, or a god himself justly punished for some sort of hubris… or something else entirely. It just strikes me as significant that he often distances himself from others in not just actions but speech as well. Could be a glimpse into his true nature, aka someone literally not human. Could also just be the result of spending thousands of years reincarnating while everyone else around you suffers and dies. That’ll make anyone feel subhuman…

Qrow challenges Oz’s happy-go-lucky attitude, reminding us that a huge number of pro huntsmen have been murdered and Salem couldn’t have achieved that on her own. She’s had help—and plenty of it. But Ozpin stands firm that it “doesn’t take a great number of people to cause harm” and there are “far more people in this world willing to prevent it.”

Enter our protagonist.

Subtle!

Ruby is adorable, as always, hesitantly approaching the two of them and awkwardly accepting the invitation to chat. It’s a striking difference in how she acts when it’s just her and Qrow, which is expected. Ozpin remains a much more distant authority figure and now he’s inhabiting the body of a boy her own age. I’d be a little unsure about how to act around him too.

Ruby finally asks what we’ve been worried about since the beginning of this Volume: if Cinder defeated Oz then does that mean Salem now has the Beacon relic? Luckily, no. Oz says he made finding the Beacon relic “a bit more challenging than at the other schools.” So Ruby asks the second question that’s been on our minds…

Ozpin: “No, my cane is not a relic.”

Ruby: “I have no more questions :)”

Okay now wait. I'm calling bullshit lol. That cane is 100% a relic. I mean could I be wrong? Absolutely. But it’s way more fun to be confident so I’m calling Ozpin out on this. For a number of reasons:

1. He’s absolutely the kind of guy to do what no one else expects. “The cane is so obvious!” Yeah, which means everyone will be looking for the relic elsewhere, hidden away like the Haven relic. Who the hell would have it out in the open? Ozpin. He would. Expect the unexpected.

2. He’s alsothe kind of guy who might lie to someone about it. Ozpin has been playing this game a long time and he’s not above a few smiles and carefully placed words if he thinks it’ll keep things on track. The Haven relic is the one currently in danger—no reason to announce the Beacon relic’s location and shift the team’s focus just because a former student asks him for the truth. It’s too dangerous and Ozpin is very adept at, as he says, playing things close to the chest. And I don’t blame him. That’s how you keep humanity alive.

3. The scene doesn’t show us Qrow at all who is a lot less adept at lying, to say nothing of the fact that—if he knows about the relic—he wouldn’t feel good lying specifically to Ruby.

4. Ozpin’s previous comment about how this relic is a “bit more challenging” seems significant. That is, why ONLY make the Beacon relic so difficult to find? All the relics are important so why not give them all the same precautions? Well, the answer is simple if your precaution is something you can only do for one of them: keep the relic with you.

5. Qrow, arguably Ozpin’s closest friend (husband-friend), was entrusted with getting the cane back to him and it’s used as the introduction between Oscar and Qrow. Seems like a pretty damn important object.

6. We’ve seen this cane fend off crazy powerful attacks and it never takes any damage. Granted, all the weapons in RWBY are pretty hearty, but Ozpin’s cane seems particularly indestructible. Almost like there’s something similar to magic surrounding it.

7. We’ve still got those gears. That cane transforms into something…

8. The fact that Ozpin immediately homes in on Ruby’s question, quickly counters it, and then tells her to leave (go gather the others). He’s in charge of the conversation here.

9. The fact that the scene suddenly turns light-hearted and humorous. We’re meant to shrug this moment off and not think too hard about it. Well, too late now.

Granted, Oz has a good explanation here. He states firmly that the cane is indeed precious, though only to him, and that it still “has a few tricks up its sleeve.” Nothing he says counters what we already know, yet it doesn’t reveal any of his cane’s secrets either. We’re still in the dark. So until we’re not I remain suspicious about his claim that it’s totally definitely absolutely not a relic.

(The headmaster doth protest too much.)  

(Edit Feb. 2019: I was so wrong, folks!!) 

But we’re moving on. Qrow gets a call from Lionheart asking them to meet up with him to discuss potentially going on the offensive against the bandits. Ruby is ecstatic and runs off. Ozpin? Not so much. He and Qrow both comment on how strange it is that Lionheart has suddenly changed his tune and the addition of some creepy music all but beats us over the head with, “It’s a trap!!” This time when Qrow says that things aren’t looking good Ozpin’s only response is, “I know.” So much for the pep talk.

We cut to Lionheart himself, having just finished up that call, and as we pull back who should we find but Raven. She makes blunt what we already know, “I never expected that you would be the one with the guts to betray Oz” while we get a nice crane shot so that we can see Raven circling him, standing while he’s seated—a predator stalking prey.

Though of course it’s not actually courage driving their actions here. It’s cowardice. At least Lionheart is willing to admit it. He says straight out that he’s terrified of Salem and doesn’t think anyone can beat her, so why not join the winning side? Raven, meanwhile, is still firmly in denial. “I’m not scared,” she says. “I’m smart.” Please, girl. You’ve spent your whole life running and you don’t know how to stop now. “Man up,” Raven continues (god that’s a terrible phrase). “You did what you needed to do to survive. There’s no shame in that,” which is where we see the divide between their morals and everyone else surrounding Team RWBY. They’re scared, but they fight despite their fear because they know it’s necessary to help both others and themselves. Raven is only out for herself and her selfish actions hurt family (Qrow), children (Yang), friends (her tribe), and allies (Ozpin) in the process.

“Who are you trying to convince?” Lionheart asks her. It's great seeing a villain who knows exactly where the line is even as they can’t help but cross it. RIP the complex ones.

We move back to Menagerie where Ilia and the others are still leading the attack on Blake’s family. Kali if BAMF here, snatching up a tray as both defense and weapon when her gun runs out of ammo. We get to see her clocking Yuma before we catch up with Blake and Ilia—and I enjoy the contrast in colors between these two scenes, from full blown battle (cold) to friends-turned-enemies (warm):

Ilia spouts the same arguments as Raven: she doesn’t have a choice about her actions. Violence is the only way to survive. Despite the rhetoric Blake is willing to let her go, but Ilia has other plans. The fight, while not spectacular, does showcase the clear parallels between them—both in their arguments and the use of long/short range weaponry. When asked why she doesn’t leave Blake responds that she runs away too much. Beyond the obvious theme from our title—everyone showing their “True Colors”—the focus of this episode is quite obviously who’s willing to fight for others and who’s only out for themselves; who’s able to distinguish between when a literal fight is necessary and when another avenue can be taken. We see time and time again that Team RWBY is leagues ahead of others in terms of that kind of maturity.

From a world building perspective I appreciate Ilia’s use of her camouflaging skills. It’s rare that we see the Faunus actually using their animal abilities (beyond Sun swinging around on his tail) and that’s definitely a useful one in battle… though it's undermined somewhat by having a weapon that lights up with electricity. Gotta think that one through…

And then Blake sETS THE HOUSE ON FIRE? Damn, girl! This isn’t even a real battle—at least not between the two of them. Ilia says two seconds later that Blake isn’t taking this seriously, neither of them truly wants to kill the other, so is burning down your house really the best option here? I always knew Blake was secretly the most dramatic of the bunch.

(That’s a lie. I'm sorry. The most dramatic is clearly Weiss, but she’d be proud of Blake’s ridiculously over-the-top strategy here, I’m sure.)

Blake manages to pin Ilia and keeps trying to talk her down. It works. Sort of. Ilia starts to cry as she admits that she doesn’t know what else to do, but at that moment Ghira comes crashing through the wall with another fight at his heels. (This family is rich enough that they don't care about the property damage.) And then we get this,

This is a sharp reminder that though Blake and Ilia might be fighting more with words than fists, the same can’t be said for her parents. They are, notably, in very real danger. The fight picks back up with Ilia clearly torn now between her loyalties. She defends herself though when Sun joins the fray, pausing only when Blake begs the two of them to stop. However, their fighting has already cracked the pillar holding up the second story and Ilia gets caught underneath. Surprisingly, she’s saved by Ghira (which tells us more about his character than all his bickering with Sun ever could) and there’s a nifty bit of teamwork used to get him out—Sun’s copies hold up the balcony; Blake uses her weapon to pull her dad to safety. The brother (Fennec) who tries to attack him from behind is justifiably crushed under the rubble.

Kali is safe and joins the gang. The fight is basically over, but Corsac attacks out of pure grief and rage, allowing Ilia to stun him from behind. Now I’ve got a lot of feelings about Ilia, most of which boil down to just plain not liking her. I already explained in depth my issues with her being the (so far) sole queer character on the show and this is now compounded with her supposed “redemption.” There are problems inherent in making the (again, only) queer character an antagonist, but there are more problems in making them an antagonist and then refusing to stand by that. Rooster Teeth had her as a complex villain and then the moment she was revealed to have feelings for Blake it’s, “Never mind! She’s good now!” in the span of half an episode.

And how does this redemption occur? Ilia attacks Blake and goes after Blake’s parents. She continues to attack them after being given numerous chances to walk away. She turns on her allies… only after the fight is won. If Ilia were a different kind of character her stunning Corsac could have easily been seen as a survival strategy rather than a true change of heart. They’re now outnumbered four to two, so—like Lionheart—why not quickly join the winning side? I honestly wish Ilia was out to double cross Blake if only because that would be consistent with her loyalties up until now. It would make sense.

In the grand scheme of things though these are minor points. What strikes me as far more significant is 1. that Ilia and her allies could have killed Kali and Ghira. I admit that she wasn’t fighting Blake full out, but the purpose of this attack was to assassinate her parents and the fight did lead to at least one death. That’s not just something you bounce back from. Maybe I’m an asshole, but I couldn’t wave that away as a “bad decision” like Blake does. They could have died. And 2. the most important of all, we’ve yet to see any true change in her thinking or ideology! Ilia joins the gang because she lost and she's left standing around awkwardly with Blake—the girl she’s in love with. Would Ilia have second-guessed her actions if they'd succeeded in their mission? I doubt it. In the aftermath of failure she's contrite, but Ilia was pretty damn adamant about killing humans---and the Belladonnas---just a few minutes ago. If her redemption is based on circumstance and her one-sided crush… that’s not a redemption I can get behind.

But it’s what we’re rushed into. Blake gives a rousing speech about how no, they can’t just use humans as a scapegoat for this attack. They can’t allow figureheads like Adam to speak for them. She says that they’re all “looking for simple answers to a very complex problem” and that despite it not being what they want to hear, she doesn’t know how to just “make hate go away.” That’s a huge development from the girl who went to Mountain Glenn and said passionately that she was going to change the world, but without any concrete ideas as to how to do that. Now Blake can admit her own ignorance and knows at the very least what not to do. They’re not going to change the world through violence like this—they won’t change it for the better, anyway.  

I’m with her through all that, up until Blake agrees to take Ilia to Haven. The guard yells out, “You’re just going to forgive her? After all she’s done?” and Blake says only, “Yes.” You know what that is? It’s a simple answer to a very complex problem. It’s painted as admirable on her part—Ghira says she’s learned the lesson of how powerful forgiveness can be—but I think this is RWBY’s fairy-tale simplicity shining through and it doesn’t fit with the heavy material we've been tackling the last few volumes. There’s a big difference between forgiving someone and making sure that they face consequences for their actions. There’s a difference between forgiving them and thinking practically about whether you can or should trust them with your safety and the safety of others. Hell, forgiveness usually takes more than five minutes and often times doesn’t happen at all! Ilia has done none of the work to justify Blake’s forgiveness and though having forgiveness handed to you might read as a beautiful ideal, it doesn’t work well in the gritty, complicated, racially loaded storyline that Rooster Teeth keeps trying to pull off. It feels cheap in the face of all that Blake suffered through this volume, especially when they turn Ilia’s actions into a literal joke. She stabbed Sun? No big deal! He pinched her and now they’re even! How much of a joke would this be if Ghira had suddenly collapsed from his own wound? Or Kali hadn't casually rejoining them entirely unharmed? Maybe I’m more bitter than I thought, but Ilia’s redemption feels like an unintended smack in the face.

The townspeople buy into the happy picture though and we get a chorus of them agreeing to join Blake in the fight to defend Haven. Plans are made to arm, train, and transport the people of Menagerie in two weeks time. Getting civilians into fighting shape that quickly might be a challenge, but at least Blake knows a ship captain who owes her a favor.

And that’s where we end this episode—forging a path for the future. Stay tuned for the next episode “The More the Merrier” as we count down to the Volume 6 premiere!

Other Details of Note

In that opening shot we have what looks like a pretty generic print on the wall—who doesn’t like sunsets?—except that it also shows a crescent moon without the broken pieces. Artist’s interpretation? Time before the moon’s demise? Animator’s forgetting about it while drawing the random painting that viewers are only going to see for about two seconds? You decide!

I really appreciate that Ozpin praises Ruby for being the first to realize the potential implications of the Beacon relic. She’s praised for her skill with Crescent Rose and for being one of the youngest to attend Beacon, but it’s rare that people comment on Ruby’s intellect. She’s smart as hell with one of the more strategic minds of the group—that’s partly why she makes such a good leader. It’s good to see someone, particularly her headmaster, acknowledging that.

After Qrow gets the call from Lionheart he immediately reaches for his flask… despite still having a steaming drink beside him. Apparently working with this guy was tough even before they knew he was loyal to Salem.  

Edit Feb. 2019: Lionheart says that “I’ve done things Ozpin will never forgive” and that’s one hell of a loaded line after hearing Ozpin’s thoughts on Lionheart in Volume 6.

“Sorry, Dad” Blake says right before she burns down their library. Somehow I don't think 'sorry' cuts it in this situation...

[knightofbalance-13]

http://saltwukong.tumblr.com/post/173979310856/miles-luna-is-unequivocally-the-poster-child-for

Well then, let’s give you a bit of criticism yourself then.

Miles Luna is unequivocally the poster child for immature assholes who should not be in charge of other people or creative writing and the sooner people realize that the better.

Says the guy who threw a fucking fit over Scarlet being gay and calling it ‘insulting’ like a whiny bitch. (http://saltwukong.tumblr.com/post/174002001031/actually-let-me-say-this-clearly-no-praise-is)

Be polite in your criticism” fuck off. Miles is every bit as immature as his fandom who have famously taken every bit of criticism, no matter how it was phrased, as hate. Miles Luna and his rabid fanboys can fuck off.

Of course, rationally sitting down and explaining why something went wrong and showing it like in Faboover’s ‘Thoughts-RWBY Volume 4′ Series (https://www.youtube.com/user/Fal3oover/videos) is the same as flailing your arms around and crying like a child who was told no. I mean, only a whiny, immature, self obsessed, selfish, sociopathic piece of shit would say that because they are so far removed from what defines a human fucking being that the concept is foregin to them.

By the way, you seem to have uh, blocked me for criticizing you once (https://knightofbalance-13.tumblr.com/post/167961927725/a-girl-with-sparkling-lies-saltwukong). I mean surely, this must be a mistake. After all, why would you block me unless you’re even more immature than Miles?

I’m tired of dancing around this, I’m tired of being nice. I’ll be nice some other fucking night. All blind RWBY stans can fuck off. MKG can fuck off. Rip the goddamn veil off. Acknowledge that your favorite content has a flaw or five. Acknowledge that your favorite “writers” are people too, which doesn’t just mean they’re people with feelings, it also means they’re people with flaws, who are responsible for those flaws and doubly so if they refuse to work on them, and triply so if other people have to sit through the results of them.

Okay then!

Miles has a SEVERE tendency to put in more characters than necessary. I have said this multiple times.

The time skip retcon is an ACTUAL retcon and was fucking stupid. I have also said this multiple times.

And they need a professional writer on staff to teach them how this is all done. I have said this multiple times...

No veils here. I’ve always seen them as people with flaws....

But I guess you don’t want me to see them as people with feelings though.

Okay then, let’s test this out on you people:

You are a fucking coward. You sit there acting all high and mighty while you block everyone who might disagree with you because god fucking forbid any hurt your pwoor prwcious fweelings while you preach hate and destruction on a level that would make the KKK question their life choices.

You are also a fucking hypocrite, saying that Miles and Kerry should be held accountable doubly and triply so when YOU refuse to work on your flaws and I have to sit through it with you. And yet, YOU fucking hide like the cowardly little shit you are behind a blocklist because the mere thought of someone even saying in the most polite manner possible that your ego is fucking massive and wholly undeserved.

You’re also a fucking sociopath since you think that people sending Miles DEATH THREATS and ACTUAL HARASSMENT are JUSTIFIED and that Miles should eat up this shit without realizing that a skill a writer MUST have is discerning constructive criticism from DECONSTRUCTIVE criticism. But god fucking forbid someone post Sun hate in the sun tag when you can just ruin a man’s life (http://saltwukong.tumblr.com/post/173391967376/dont-fucking-post-sun-hate-in-the-sun-wukong-tag).

In general:

You’re all fucking bigots. I have not met a single RWDE poster who wasn’t racist, sexist or hetero/homophobic. Dudeblade outright thinks that the writing is bad because they’re white men, Soku thinks Jaune being white is a flaw, Invested In Your Future adamantly REFUSES to see a female character as anything other than in the right ect. 

You’re all fucking cultists. You people will regularly attack anyone with different opinions than you while preaching your opinions as right. You religiously hate on Miles and Kerry to the point I’m pretty sure youd hear their names if I said ‘satan.’ And you indoctrinate people into your line of thinking all the damn time.

And you are all fucking SHIT at your jobs. Name five flaws in RWBY? I can name FIFTEEN!: Villians need a bigger presence, Aura needs to be explained, more racism against the fanaus needs to be shown, the fight scenes need a LOT of improvement, Ruby needs more focus, We need to spend time in locations in order to get a better feel of them, show don’t tell, the Maidens need more clarification, Volume 4′s plots were messy, Yang needed more screentime in Volume 4, Salem needs more focus, they need to show Aura breaking more, Ozpin’s morality needs to be more defined, the actual retcon of Volume 4s time skip, we need more interactions between Ruby and Blake.

RIght fucking there, I just made a list THREE TIMES LONGER than what you asked for. Thing is, I didn't lie about them, they aren’t formed from my delusions, they have an actual Impact on the quality, they are reasonable for RT to handle and I didn’t use misinformation to make them. That’s ALL YOU PEOPLE DO. You lie out of your asses so much if I hadn’t left I would have drowned in your bullshit, you demand fucking shit that would contribute to NOTHING except your egos, you demand RWBY handle shit more than RT can handle (which is one of the biggest problems with RWBY) and you rely on people forgetting certain parts of the show to make them work. You people aren’t getting shit for pointing out flaws: you’re getting shit because you are so BAD at it that you make people want to forget about them and thus enforce the idea that RWBY has no flaws. That AND as someone who tries to be critical of RWBY, I have to deal with you asswipes.

Actually, let me repeat that for the hard of hearing: “the writers are people too” means they are as deserving of criticism as the rest of us, no more, and definitely no less.

So...none at all, considering you people think you’re all SO flawless and perfect that if anyone criticizes you, they MUST be wrong.

Let me inform you of something: You DON’T see them as people. You see them as fucking SLAVES, you arrogant stain on the face of the Earth. You see them as slaves that you can beat and abuse and harm and harass and belittle all while expecting them to do as you say. You people are so fucking removed from humanity that unless people think like you, have ZERO empathy towards them.

Start thinking critically.

How about you lead by example?

Oh wait, if you thought critically for even a single moment of your life: You’d realize that half the shit you say is fucking delusional, that you sound like a ravening sociopath with zero humanity in him, that you are surrounded by people who will turn on you in a fucking instant if you step out of line, that 99% of the shit you preach if applied to you would make your life miserable and that you have likely driven away anyone who actually cares about and isolated yourself in a cage of hatred that you have no one to blame for but yourself. And when that all hits you, you’d try to scream but end up choking on whatever fatty soda is in your gullet and you’ll die choking on it, cold and alone. So you completely turn off every single part of your brain that performs critical thinking because let’s be honest: Critical thinking requires self awareness and said stuff is basically LETHAL to you at this point.

... Oh what, you have a problem with what I am saying? Well, all I’m doing is following YOUR rules. I’m just treating you as YOU treat Miles. You OBVIOUSLY don’t want things like compassion and empathy applied to you because you’ve never even shown a capacity for such a thing, let alone towards Miles. You wanted this and now you have to fucking take it, because even you know no one listens to a hypocrite. 

Now how about you unblock me eh? Let’s see how you handle your veil being ripped from you.

[armouredgoblin]

I posted 369 times in 2021

70 posts created (19%)

299 posts reblogged (81%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 4.3 posts.

I added 128 tags in 2021

#common sense - 37 posts

#get over yourselves lmao - 22 posts

#start thinking - 21 posts

#what the fuck - 9 posts

#you all know what i'm talking about - 9 posts

#fuck blm - 8 posts

#politics - 7 posts

#uk politics - 6 posts

#history - 5 posts

#dnd - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 38 characters

#america is not the centre of the world

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Sooooooo

A primary school in Birmingham has decided to indoctrinate the children into calling out sexist language with such examples like

- Hey you guys

- Good morning boys and girls

- BOYS AND GIRLS

Are you fucking kidding me to encourage this they give out certificates on a weekly basis to basically make them feel good about policing each others and the teachers language

WHY ARE THE TEACHERS BEING POLICED BY THE CHILDREN

They have little posters that they hold up when someone 'slips up'

One person even ended up on a perfessional conduct meeting for daring to utter the phrase 'boys don't skip' while taking a skipping rope off him which is honestly just overkill. A couple of children snitched on him or her to the headteacher.

It makes me sick how they are now pushing this everything offends "me" narrative on children. Teaching them that they have the power to litterally destory someone's life if they say thry wrong thing is orwellean.

What's next? Reporting mummy and daddy for saying similar things

Reporting randoms on the street?

Oh wait

Fuck this absolutely bullshit mind warping parasite we call social justice.

4 notes • Posted 2021-04-29 06:54:48 GMT

#4

I would like to add something to my previous post but cba so doing it here.

While drow and orcs are considered evil thanks to their lore. There is nothing stopping your campaign making any other race the most evil and cartoonishly psychoitc fuckers to ever exist

For example: The elves decide that there will now be a class system that basically puts all other races below them. The high elves are now the top dogs and consider even the woodelves below them. All the other races are either slave labour or murdered.

To do this they lead a constant war against everyone and are winning due to their compatibility with magic and high intelligence.

They litterally have a large research sector dedicated to creating new and painful ways to destroy and kill.

Now doesn't that sound evil? And have nothing to do with their skin colour.

5 notes • Posted 2021-07-23 06:31:15 GMT

#3

Today I learned what a Tankie is.

I am definitely not one of them.

6 notes • Posted 2021-04-23 17:06:36 GMT

#2

Dear "insulate Britain"

You are a bunch of idiots who glue themselves to the roads

You Have caused more harm than good by stopping traffic with your "protests"

One of your founders hasn't even insulated his own house because he wants big daddy government to do it

I'm not even in London but this annoys me

Insulate your own god dam.houses and start community funding projects if you are so fucking bothered instead of harming others people's lives

Regards

A Goblin

6 notes • Posted 2021-10-27 09:52:29 GMT

#1

The thing I still see from time to time is that certain races in dnd are racist because they are evil and have dark skin.

1. No they are not

2. Read the actual lore of the races

3. It's a Game that uses your imagination you can have the fucking orcs be complete hippies if you want them too.

16 notes • Posted 2021-07-23 05:12:48 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[kinetic-elaboration]

August 9: The 100 2x01, The 48

Okay, settling down to rewatch 2x01, the start of my favorite season...

I love this Clarke so much. Badass Clarke, sneaky Clarke, a Clarke who will fearlessly do what she has to in order to escape and to get to her friends. A Clarke with convictions and guts.

How DO they know everyone’s names lol? Is that ever explained? (ETA: Monty was obviously the informant.)

Mount Weather is one of my favorite parts of this show, honestly. I love that their mission is in part to preserve the beautiful things humanity created, like art; they gave their prisoner Starry Night. The ORIGINAL Starry Night. I just find that very moving. All of these non-essential parts of being human... the show has abandoned them and that’s part of why it’s so hollow for me now, I think.

Level 5: where it all begins and it all ends.

The Clarke/Maya relationship could have been so much more, tbh. Like they had their good moments, like threatening to kill each other etc., but they could have gone deeper.

Surprise! Underground executive branch family dinner! This is the sort of twist I can get behind.

Haha remember when actual delinquents still existed? I joke but truly the later canon has ruined parts of this show for me.

I forgot Tristan survived into 2x01. Not for long. Such Grounder hypocrisy: “That’s one. I lost 300.” He makes it sound as if Finn marched into a village and killed 300 people--they were fucking soldiers on the attack you dum-dum.

“Only our warriors speaking English.” Well that sounds like bullshit based on literally everything we see after this point.

The statue of Lincoln is “the place we go to settle disputes.” First, please don’t say they settle disputes to the death or some nonsense, and second, that’s his namesake... Significant? I mean, objectively, no, but can I make something out of it somehow?

I disliked Luna but she COULD have been so interesting and she and Lincoln COULD have had quite a dynamic. I headcanon them as exes. I want to know their whole backstory tbh. When they met. How. If he wanted to go with her to the sea. If he did perhaps and then came back.

Drink every time someone cauterizes a wound.

You know what else they should have done? Story line about the meeting of Grounder and Sky People medicine. Oh wait that would have taken away from the repetitive war story lines never mind.

That dropship is so fucking impressive. WHERE ARE THE AWARDS FOR THE SET PEOPLE?

And the costume people for those awesome masks.

Am I supposed to feel bad for this Grounder and his charred friend? I do not. Next time, don’t attack the children for no reason and you won’t get burned to a crisp. Easy.

The thing is I can never get behind the Raven + Murphy friendship 100% even though their S5 dynamic looked interesting because he literally fucking shot her and that’s just not a bygones are bygones thing. But they do have personalities that mesh well together so in that way it’s sort of a shame. Also he 10000000000000% had a crush on her don’t even try to argue.

She fired that gun at him. I forgot that. She fired but was out of bullets, that’s the only reason he didn’t die right there. “Yeah I would have shot me too.”

I’m p. sure that’s the real Mount Weather?

I know the Mount Weather people have no leg to stand on when it comes to the Grounders and that they’re...pretty obviously racist, but in their defense--the Grounders were written to be pretty savage, so “savages,” while unforgivably racially tinged, is a fair descriptor of them.

I know I’ve harped on this before but Mount Weather has a judicial system of some sort and it’s possible to press charges there. Somehow. The world building on this show sucks balls.

“They also said you were their leader” is like some retconning, okay. Because you will not convince me that for most of S1 BELLAMY wasn’t the leader in the eyes of the delinquents.

“Kiddo.”

Fucking love Dante. Where are my Dante + Clarke mentor/mentee or ex-mentor/mentee or different-gen-rivals fics?

“We prioritize safety over sentimentality.” As Maya takes blood she absolutely doesn’t need but is having just in case and that she knows comes from someone else’s tortured body because she’s accepted this as something they do, because she’s not sentimental. But she already feels guilty.

Clarke is already using the word “capture.” I had a discussion with someone once about Clarke’s vision of Mount Weather versus, say, Jasper’s, and why it was different and I said some poorly phrased stuff that didn’t really reflect my thoughts and opinions and it still haunts me but I feel like this is...relevant to that. How she immediately feels ‘captured,’ trapped.

Clarke’s devotion to her friends and her people was still so pure and right here.

Dante really does believe he “saved” them. I wonder what his thought process was... I really hate the “savages” so I must save these children? These children look interesting, let’s meet some new friends? She’s right of course that if they were really guests, they could leave.

Multiple crash sites over 100 square miles = I should go on google maps to confirm my Pennsylvania/Farm Station theory but I’m too lazy.

GOD THOSE CLOTHES. I love that Clarke picks the pants and the high heel shiv.

There’s no way there’s actually time for natural selection to work that fast in 97 years and also I’m pretty sure the Sky People are genetically modified because their original pool was way too small for the process Dante is describing but whatever this show is all la-di-da science.

Also: this is how you run an underground Bunker OCTAVIA.

Dante was the only rival/antagonist/whatever Clarke has ever had that rivals her instincts and intelligence yeah I said it; fight me. I know she needed to be on the outside for this season to work but he should have been her mentor. He basically set her up to be mentored and then she ran off and into L who basically destroyed her and she’s never recovered.

THAT REUNION. Heartwarming. Though hard to watch too because this show did both Jasper and Monty so dirty. (Yeah I said that too WHAT OF IT.)

“Dying. Same as you.” Murphy gets all the good lines. That’s why people like him, forget this “redemption arc.”

The Grounder Raven killed was Murphy’s guard and honestly--hilarious. He abandons his post, realizes all his friends are skeletons, pickpockets one, then is shot by what he must initially assume is a dead body. Better character than almost anyone introduced from S3 on.

This cake scene is the most iconic. Jonty were scene stealers stfu. They’re children--basically. They get to act their age. They get to be happy and silly and they loved each other so much.

“Pretend like you’re happy to see me.” / “We are happy to see you.” See? Adorable. I know he’s no cinnamon roll but gosh, adorable.

And then Clarke comes in like secret espionage time and they just look so Tired TM.

I feel like Monty knew, or suspected on some level, that Jasper wasn’t just ‘bummed out’ by Clarke’s suspicions, he was panicking a little.

I can’t believe Jasper and Maya have known each other for like 10 seconds and she’s already seen his O face.

“Clarke’s the only reason we survived.” Um ex-CUSE me but I know you didn’t forget Bellamy’s existence, Jasper.

Clarke’s so smart!

Maya brings out the big guns, literally.

“I’m the one who fired the rockets. Should I not have done that?” is so heartbreaking. Mostly because of the delivery. I love this entire scene. There are like 8 different scenes I love in this episode, like whole-heartedly and truly love.

Clarke’s suspicions really do look like paranoia. Like I see what she’s picking up on, saw it even the first time I watched this ep, but there’s a sense in which she does appear irrational.

There’s actually something kinda funny about Bellamy running out with a spear in one scene, looking around blankly, and then getting chained up as a prisoner in the next scene. At least he inspired his little protege Monroe. Scenes like this are the reason she joined Pike in S3.

Tristan’s like “Who are these fucking children running at me and screaming?” Then he gets shot in the head. Goodbye Tristan you won’t be missed.

“We’re here now. Everything’s going to be okay.” This sounds like Kane playing out a hero fantasy he’s had since he was a child. Except he’s talking to two mud-stained kids who are looking at him skeptically instead of, like, a captured heroine or something.

I feel like they set up this conflict where the adults/Sky People elite come in and, like Kane says explicitly, assume they’re in charge and everyone will fall in line, but then the delinquents don’t see it that way or want that: they have their own priorities (their friends) and their own relationships (Finn and Bell don’t even LIKE each other but they’re still communicating by look) and their own knowledge (the pipes that allow them to move through the dropship camp quickly and without permission). But then... it sort of plays into the rest of the season...but not that much?? Not as much as I would like.

“You are not animals. There are rules. Laws. You are not in control here anymore.”

This show sacrificed a lot of complex relationships to just either make people buddy-buddy who had no reason to be or just arbitrarily assign relationships to scenes or episodes without regard for continuity at all.

Raven took Jasper’s goggles.... never over this.

How was bringing Octavia to TonDC faster than collecting some beetles for her to eat?

“Loss, pain, regret. Time eases these things.” I’d say this is the sort of line the show should be repeating but God when it gets a line in its teeth it never lets the fuck go so I guess it’s better this one remains pristine.

I find Dante very sympathetic but also so creepy.

They weren’t really patrolling for other people, were they? Because like...surely they would have found them. They’re at the dropship and close by. He was just bullshitting here. But why don’t they want to make even more new friends?

Dante’s stationery is presidential themed lol. Glad we stocked up the bunkers properly with the important stuff.

The crashed Alpha Station is beautiful. I believe this was the first time it was shown on the show? Ugh, this whole sequence with the music, it’s perfect and so touching.

Jaha is the most tragic and heartbreaking figure on this show. He also doesn’t get the appreciation he deserves. Just...the image of a man alone in space, talking to his loved ones, hoping they can hear them, not knowing if they can... I almost can’t handle it. I used to be very unsure if I liked where his story line went after this (seeing it in its entirety, I defend it) but surely he could not have died this way.

....I really gotta sleep now.

[virtual-crisis]

⭐Alpha Centauri⭐, Part Eight

So, demons. As you can imagine, they can’t enter holy ground like churches/synagogues/mosques/etc. But the likes of Chick-Fil-A? Oh baby.

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Eventually, Nebb had to go back to his dorm, so Chai and I went to have dinner… At Chick-Fil-A.

The reactions were delicious. Pious, devoted and devout followers of God were for the most part shielded from the ‘ill sensations’ us demons would give with proximity to them, but the ‘Christian’ crowd that frequented and ran CFA were infamously not so. Hypocritical, decadent, prejudicial. Come to think of it, they were basically mortals acting like soldier-of-heaven angels.

When we got to the front of the line, we ordered one at a time. I took a good few minutes vocally puzzling over the caloric consequences of different options, like some ‘weight watcher’ insisting to themself that simply eating less of the same fast food would turn fat to loose flesh. While I was no wrath demon, I could feel the frustration of the others behind us. While they were getting sick of standing, my legs numbed themselves to the point I may as well’ve been sitting, using my thighs as a seat.

Then, despite my mock-indecisiveness, I wound up ordering a good ten or so greasy, deep fried, chewy-biscuit ‘chicken sandwiches’, with a different similarly unhealthy side for each one. To top it off, I spent another minute negotiating an extra large soda cup with a mix of drinks in it, trying to convince the cashier to let me have said drink——to hand off to Chialer, because holy shit that would melt me from the inside out. Audible groans of impatience came from all but Chai herself, in the line.

“Yo, girl’s gotta eat, thought ya boi upstairs said to love your neighbor,” I said to this, casting a cynical look over my shoulder. Chai gripped a hand tightly around her mouth, her chest seizing up as she tried desperately not to laugh.

The price came up on my order, and I added the real cherry on top of the infuriation: fumbling around with a total mess of different-valued dollar bills and no change except for pennies to handle the tax with. By this point, even the cashier was urging me to just give an extra dollar and take the change, but I insisted it was my last one dollar bill and needed to swing by the bank to make proper change.

Unfortunately for the process of moving the line along, they didn’t want to start actually making the huge order until I’d actually put up the cash for it. But once the money was in the register, I sidled out of the way. Little did the humans expect that I was the lesser of their problems, for Hell hath no appetite like the gluttons of its ranks.

Chai, clearly, stoned herself in preparation for coming here, which she’d recommended in the first place earlier in the afternoon. Rush hour, sedated with marijuana, planning ahead of time to be unhelpful… Her process of ordering was so much more infuriating than mine that I could swear the cashier was trying to decide between an aneurism or risking getting fired to lash out at her. The mortals still waiting behind her were exponentially more agitated, with more red skin than racist depictions of native Americans, enough clenched fists to rival a rock concert, and more eyes glaring at my roomie than I had secreted away on my wings. I quivered in place with that sadistic catharsis that ran like blood through our kind. Not like I can help one of my primary purposes for existence being to torture the damned.

My food started coming to me as Chai got in a pointless argument with the cashier about how to pronounce ‘burger’ at a place that didn’t even serve those; once I was loaded up with fast food bags, I went to take the biggest booth-table in the dining area. From there, I could see a group of people make various sounds of frustration as I’d clearly taken their place for whatever over-a-meal ‘team building’ shit they had planned in place of the sort of missionary work religious types eagerly sought out back in yester-century.

From afar, I observed a carefully planned and heavily handicapped dance: Chialer, uranium-skunk demoness of gluttony and envy, working carefully to maintain hostility with the cashier and even a couple other customers, but keep herself from being kicked out of the restaurant; all while stoned off her ass with weed, which didn’t get along with her anyway.

One minute, she was arguing about ordering hashbrowns, even though they were part of the breakfast menu and it was dinnertime. The next, she was antagonizing the cashier with horrifically nitpicky specifics on *just* how much vegetables and sauces would be on each thing… Oh damnit, she got them to call out the manager. I forgot that whoever did that quicker dodged having to pay…… Couldn’t blame her for not stopping me from paying when I hadn’t done so at all during my order.

It took a good half hour before she got to my table with me. She sat next to me, sidling up against me and gently thumping my chest with the back of her hand. I sneered, letting out an obnoxiously loud belch. Only Chialer and myself were amused. Unfortunately for them, Chialer had a similarly crude sense of humor, and we kept up, acting like completely undignified slobs. That, mortals, is what happens when gluttony meets sloth. Alongside, ironically for my end, leaving no leftovers to take home. It was Hell on my stomach (ha ha), but Chialer being around helped a ton (also ha ha).

People cringed, faces squinched up. Kids were giggling, which their parents quietly shushed. Personally—and I can’t speak for Chai here, necessarily—I enjoyed the kids’ reactions the most. They enjoyed what we did: lots of food, lax on ‘customs’ and ‘following the norm’. Modesty, in my opinion, was easily one of the worst traits of humanity.

But all the while, something felt… Insufficient about it. Something not adding up to the sum. I looked around. One couple—an asian duo, looking more than a little out of place in a crowd of white people—were casually sat and eating food as if nothing was wrong, despite all the noise from us. I stared at them for a minute… The man looked really… Tired, while the woman looked very tense.

“See those two?” I whispered across the table at Chialer.

Chai glanced up. “What about ‘em?” she replied quietly.

“They’re not even reacting to us…”

“Maybe they’re deaf, who knows.”

“And coming to a fast food place, ordering food without holding up the line at all? Bullshit.”

“Whatever, Cen, just keep eating. Or let me, if you’re too high on conspiracy theories.”

I furrowed my brow. She wasn’t wrong, but she also was. I knew something was up there, so I sat and pouted for a while, staring at the ceiling. Eventually, the husband got up and walked to the bathroom.

I followed.

He may’ve gone into the men’s room, but I had… Reasons I could go in anyway. Independent of me being a demon, don’t get me wrong. I still looked around to be sure nobody was watching, then slipped in, carefully scanning for others besides the one I was tailing.

The man in question… I saw his shoes in one of the stalls, and… Well, you know what sound I heard from in there. So I used a long, wadded up strip of paper towels to stick the door shut from the inside, and waited for him to come out. When he did… He’d give some answers. If they were innocent enough… Well, hopefully I could zap him in the right way to only erase his memories of the last hour. Electro-neuroscience was very difficult to get right.

“Okay, who the hell are you?”

The Asian man looked up from brushing off his jacket. “I not speak English,” he said calmly. No conviction, no sort of gesture or look of confusion… Yeah right.

I crossed my arms. “Then how did you order food.”

“My wife order food, I eat.”

I scoffed, narrowing my eyes. “If you don’t speak English, how did you understand that.”

The man narrowed his eyes as well, hunching over somewhat. “...Takuya Nakano. Now piss off.” he said flatly, walking around me to wash his hands.

I looked down, pulling up a sleeve to glance over my upper arm momentarily. Some time back, I’d written on it with permanent marker, occasionally reapplying it if it seemed to be fading. Mom had told me the line years and years ago, and I wanted it on hand [or close enough while out of sight] in case I needed to use it…

“Shilton lot-zipper……?” I murmured.

The man lifted his head, glancing over his shoulder for a moment, before shaking his head and going back to washing his hands.

I looked over my shoulder at him, furrowing my brow. “לוציפר שולט." ‘lotziper sholt’. Lucifer reigns.

The water from the sink abruptly stopped. Given the improvised soundproofing I put in the door, it was now dead silent. I couldn’t even hear anything through the walls.

“Where did you hear that.”

“My mom.”

The man shook off his hands for a moment, going to dry them off. “When.”

“Eight years ago, as she sent me off to college. Told me it was a ‘code phrase’.

“Only the princes of Hell pass that knowledge around. Hebrew is a dead language outside of the middle east.”

I let out a huff of air. “So that’s why you’re so nonchalant about my roomie and I.”

“I was trying to have a nice, quiet dinner with my wife. We were ignoring you.”

“Mortals can’t just do that.”

“I noticed.”

“So what are you, then?” I demanded.

The man grumbled in frustration, walking past me again to the door. When he had trouble opening it, he looked down then stomped on the wadded up paper towels and scraped them out so he could leave.

I peered out the door around him. Someone had been trying to get in, and thankfully hadn’t seen me yet. I quickly ducked into a stall and let the guy enter as well. Once I was sure his view would be blocked by a stall door, I snuck out and scoped out ‘Takuya’’s table. His wife was gone.

I ducked into the girl’s bathroom and searched it. Didn’t recognize any of the shoes—hers were pure black boots, really stuck out from the other patrons—so I headed out and made a lap around the building. The alcove for the dumpster out back was a crack open, so I peered in, and sure enough…

“What do you want?” the woman spat in an expected Japanese accent. She was leaning against the back wall of the enclosure, smoking a cigarette with indeterminate components.

I stepped in, closing the gate behind me. “I was trying to chat with your husband a minute ago—nothing flirty or anything, I saw his ring—and he was being evasive about a question I asked…”

She blinked slowly and deliberately. “His dick’s four and eight-tenths inches, he subs in bed, and yes we do use condoms.”

My eyes went wide, and I raised both brows. She smirked. “Woah? Yikes? Okay shit, I’m part succubus and that’s TMI to me.”

“Part what?”

I waved a hand boredly. “...Yeah yeah, לוציפר שולט and all that,” I murmured. “You two are demons and he’s not admitting it.”

The woman blinked again, same as she had before. She then stepped away from the wall and turned around, rubbing the burnt end of the cig on the brickwork. “His name’s Tsuki. I’m Shihai. We’re trying to have an anniversary date, so contact us later about it,” she said. Awfully trusting...

“You’re just…”

“A demon hunter or angel wouldn’t just spit out that they’re part succubus in response to a line like that. They’re too serious, especially for jokes like that.”

I shrugged. “Well I… That’s probably gonna get you fucked up sometime.”

“Believe me, if it were going to, it would’ve happened long before you. Now take your notes and let me smoke,” she said. Afterwards, she pulled out a new cigarette, lit it, and stood aside from an ashen graffiti tag of a pentagram. I quickly ran up to it, looking over it carefully and memorizing the runes drawn in the spaces around it. There were ones representing several of the seven deadly sins—but not all—and an elemental rune corresponding to each. The center held a manji: ‘svastika’ in Sanskrit, but well, you wouldn’t want the symbol nazis stole to be referred to by such a similar name, even if it was the original one.

I nodded slowly. “...Holy shit, you’re—”

“Out. Now.”

I winced, then nodded slowly, going back to open the gate and head inside to finish up dinner with Chai—or rather, yell ‘angrily’ at her for eating all the rest of my food. That svastika (okay, let’s just call it a manji like they do in Japan) had a very specific meaning among demons: versatility. Power. Maybe a certain elder goat-demon would be able to give me more information on the topic...

[elboyo-blog]

About Youtube Rewind

Right so… youtube rewind 2017 is out. Everyone’s favourite end of year tradition, showcasing all the trends people were talking about, and all the topics and creators on the site that cultivated the community around to make youtube stand ou…

I should stop. This is all bullshit as I am aware you all know, yourtube rewind is, was and always will be throwaway ‘look at us we’re unique!’ shite, but this years was especially aggravating. It really boiled down a reality that has been creeping up on us for a while. Youtube rewind 2017 just shows that youtube doesn’t want to be youtube. Of course that could be seen that last year, for example the whole Dwayne Johnson at the start but I believe that can be justified with the fact that Dwayne has a channel just for himself, what isn’t justifiable from last year at least is the fucking talk show hosts like trevor noah and Seth ‘cumstain’ myers.  This only gets worse and worse with this years entry however. But I’m getting ahead of myself, lets just break it down (tl;dr at the bottom)

overview (This will be the most chronological so watching along helps)

Right so off the fucking bat the vid starts with a Stephen Colbert(Not a youtuber) talking to Lele Pons (A viner and Instagram star who flocked to youtube where that ship sank) and some girl beside (I think she’s popular but I don’t know her), we then see some random girl run into the room and start the cue to ‘Despacito’ which I can see why it is there at least, as it sprung to the highest viewed it can have justification. It then cuts to some people dancing and switching shots locations and people (one of which is that one DJ marshmallow or whatever who, again, isn’t a youtuber). It stops at KSI (Who I’ll get too) using a fidget spinner (which ill also get too) with some some vloggers/IG stars beside him (probably). Oh, hey Rhett and Link.  We then get showcased to a slime playground of sorts. I have no fucking clue if this was a trend at all. The only thing I can link this too is all the ‘homemade slime’ tutorials I always hear about. The only thing I really got was ‘Wow! Muselk is thicc’ but other than that the whole thing I think was pointless. Then, for some reason, they put rinestones on their faces? Again, was this a trend? Like, was there a whole underground rinestone craze that slipped under people’s noses? Like most things though, I doubt if it was a trend it even started on youtube. Anyway, they do the dua lipa thing, go to Africa, uuuuuuuugehiehehiihesfiefbfrbeube, do dance crazes during said ‘uuuuuuuugehiehehiihesfiefbfrbeube’ that didn’t originate on youtube and HEY! The eclipse was a thing right? EventhoughthatprimarilyhappenedintheUSthereforealienatinganyrelatabilitythatyoutubewasgoingfor buuuuuut I digress. They do do one thing right which is the whole meme graveyard idea (fitting, I know) parodying the video for the worst tayloer swift yet (nothing beats love story fight me) oooooooh but then the DAB! They hit that DAB!  Into yet another ‘uuuuuuuugehiehehiihesfiefbfrbeube’. Oh cool poopy’s there. Don’t know who that other person is but maybe it’s a new character in the poppy lore or maybe its just a person I don’t know or maybe recognise. The whole hurricane Harvey thing they pull next is insulting to the point ill reserve a whole section to it. Skipping that we go to a roof party with the DJ and the fidget spinner, a perfect almagimation of all that isn’t youtube based trends, seriously the dj could maybe be related as he uses youtube as an outlet for his music but fidget spinners were a physical thing! It was a brand! Literally this year’s version of silly bandz! Yes Susan, include this! Very youtube, much wow! Fuck off. Anyway, we see the party is home to the biggest twats of youtube, team 10 and the pauly boys (Note: that’s a nice band name). with them on the roof are stars that again, didn’t start on youtube. Most of them are viners and/or IG stars with like one or two from fine bros React (I shit you not if you look in the back there’s the old guy from elder’s react). We cut to more slime bois (hey Tomska). When they cut back, (yes holy shit it is the guy form elders react! Jfc) and they do their sick moves like the floss, a move YouTube claims to have homebrewed as well (come on guys, Katy Perry tried to claim it first). Hey, look its every 14y/o girls wet dream. More slime boyos. I think KEEM screams the floor is lava but… that trend was an IG trend wasn’t it or like the last vine trend, but it got Ol’ Yellered, like, just because Fine Bros do a youtubers react to it doesn’t make it a YouTube thing! Jeez louis. Big Shaq’s there, that’s neat. Some filler dancing and cuts when they cut back to the graveyard reinforcing that is it a graveyard for dead memes which I have problem with, because that would insinuate that ‘All Star’ died this year. No, it didn’t, and as long as Steve Harwell is still on God’s green earth no it won’t, yes its popularity has dulled but it was actually a meme that just faded away, cropping up every once in a while, its survival is different to similar trends like ‘We Are Number One’ which can make people I know physically wince when heard. All star didn’t die, it’ll be back if it even left in the first place. More vloggers and traditionally attractive people flash by as a whole recap happen of the torment thrusted upon me. The last live action sketch is Lele and her friend greet the non-youtuber rounding out the production. The credits are actually the best part of this however as we see different pseudo-animators (think more odd1s out, less Psychicpebbles), such as Extra Credits, Tabbes, Jaidenanimation, Odd1sout, Rebecca Parham, ItsAlexClark and Simon’s cat. Though their subject matter is just as pander-y shite as the whole vid you can see the effort in their animation and it’s nice to see that youtube finally removed the dildo it has been shoving up most youtube animator’s asses for the last 3-5 years (but by ‘removed’ I really mean they just slapped a sign on it that says ‘here at YouTube, we love our animators!’ and pretend they solved the problem.

Dead fucking memes/(hate to use the phrase but) irrelevancy

The Dab, fidget spinners, shooting stars with more probably but it was hard to see during my stroke, point is, YouTube is out of touch and has zero self-awareness when it comes to memes and trends

I know the word sounds pretentious as hell but seriously, here’s a my honest-to-god reaction of who I saw on screen

·         Not a youtuber

·         Not a youtuber

·         Don’t know

·         Don’t know

·         Despactio guy 1

·         Don’t know *3

·         Despacito guy 2: electric boogaloo

·         Don’t know *2

·         Don’t know *2

·         Don’t know *2

·         Dj boi

·         Vannos

·         Don’t Know *4 Ft. Lincoln

·         Don’t know *3

·         Quick flashes of the great unknown

·         KSI and his favourite toy (not counting NetNobody’s dick)

·         Don’t know *6 (Empire was better)

·         Another 3 I don’t know but there is that one guy who screams a lot, think his names guacamole or something

·         @rhettandlink and another guy, classic trio

·         Don’t know*2

·         Don’t know*slime

·         Don’t know* rhinestone

·         Hey, its @a-kind-ale-war

·         Africa – Toto

·         Slo mo guys among the dead meme cosmos

·         Otherwise, you guessed it, no clue

·         Don’t know * field

·         Don’t know any of the eclipse crew

·        @caseyneistat

·         God’ wrath in the form of comets coming to smite us as failed creations

·         YouTube Is Shutting Down My Channel and I'm Not Sure What To Do

·         His beautiful bastards (nameless in my lack of knowledge)

·         6 zombies that died in obscurity, nameless and unknown, ‘tis a shame

·         Why I left Smosh

·         The cosmos of people I don’t know

·         KSI’s brother

·         Poppy

·         A DC lawsuit

·         Mooooooooorrrrrreeeeee spaaaaaaccceeeee

·         A youtube circle jerk of self-righteousness (more on that later)

·         People holding hands

·         The shitty vine family

·         Team 10 bitch who the hell are flipping you

·         The other one

·         Shitty IG ‘Comedy’ Squad

·         Black guys and backpack kid (Note: another good band name, though it needs tweaking)

·        @thetomska getting face fucked

·         Victims of the great slime massacre (slime control now!)

·         Old guy from react

·         Don’t know*roof party

·         Every teenage girls wet dream/gay ship

·         Daniel Keem saying floor is lava

·         Lava victims

·         A very cold rapper

·         Don’t know but has a sword

·         More zombie boys

·         A cluster of people 2012

·         Forehead in the back again (sorry jack)

·         @markiplier

·         Why I gave the pope Undertale

·         A finale of people I don’t know being absorbed by the cosmos

·         Neato mosquito animators

As you can see a good majority of the stars I doubt much people know, probably only chosen for the brand friendliness which begs the question…

Exclusions/double standards

A lot of people were excluded from this year’s rewind, which isn’t a surprise in the slightest. This issue was brought up last year as well, but with this year it showcases some hypocrisy with possible reasons to exclude folks. Firstly, KSI, he had the whole beef with NetNobody (the greatest Minecraft youtuber there is) but Netnobody was excluded, it couldn’t be numbers or presence as before retiring, Adam had about 11 million subs, maybe he declined, like most sane people would, or maybe because he neither pulls the views or the family friendly influence that he used to. Its safe to assume Ricegum and IDubbbz got rejected by choice, again sanity, or because of their beef, which is again hypocritical of the site as KSI was allowed on fine and Keem along with the Paul brothers aren’t the angels of Youtube either. Again, it seems YouTube is really trying to push this family friendly goofball persona which is perfect for the weird kids and the cool kids which is true but is only really surface level in the rewind and the reality isn’t really shown otherwise. Also fuck that Nazi racist Pewdiepie amirite ladies?

Hurricane Harvey debacle

I believe this is honestly the most insulting aspect of the rewind. Though it had good intentions it just highlights YouTube’s utter ignorance. Not to pull a PJW but this is dictionary definition virtue signalling. Youtube makes themselves out to be all together, yes youtube, you are the most influential platforms of our generation, cat videos and make-up vlogs can save the world! In all seriousness though this is one of the most botched poorly executed thing I’ve ever seen, and I’m counting HWNDU. For one thing the tone and flow is horrible, the segment is frankenstiened into the middle of the video and puts a halt on the relatively well paced video, and is followed by a radical hip and swaggity dance party yeah! As if the whole was a task by the team and when they were down with it they thought; “right, that’s over with. Back to the fun and cool stuff yeah!” if they kept the pace by putting the thing just before the credits as to highlight the message at the end and while everyone’s lifted by the message they’re treated to the credits and the talents of the wonderful animators. However, that would only make the segment flow correctly as, in my opinion, it comes off as quite nepotistic to big creators. A method they could’ve done is before they filmed or edited anything they could’ve announced to fans and viewers to send in webcam clips and videos of them holding hands in unity or saying unity, showing a UNITY between fans and creators. That said this brings me to my conclusion;

 Conclusion

Youtube doesn’t want to be youtube, it wants to be a family and advertiser friendly site for all to come, it wants to be seen as a beacon for ALL internet trends and ideas and it wants to be seen as a user and creator friendly platform. But youtube isn’t this, and youtube hates that. This year has seen the worst year in the sites history for user treatment and contact showing double standards with actual users and companies such as talk show hosts, with things like the adpocolypse rumoured trending tab rigging and trending tab blacklists. Along with this is the, as I said, nepostistic outlook on creators, with youtube success being less and less consistency based and more and more luck based on one video blowing up and staying that way, and trending (along with youtube in general), should facilitate a rise in creators and ideas instead of promoting channels who already have 5-6 million subs and censoring a lot of voice directly or indirectly. With no other options for video site (realistically, nobody uses vimeo or dailymotion and fucking rip vidme) youtube’s current state is more dire than ever and their push for a false identity within an identity crisis for the site is very obvious. This alongside their cowardice and compliance with controversy like in the nazi Pewds situation is showing to be really damaging.

Tl;dr: get a fucking backbone youtube and stop pretending to be something that you’re not.