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jdrizzle15 · 3 years

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Her Second Return

Just like all of you, and especially my fellow Penny fans, I am absolutely devastated by the Volume 8 finale. I had been in quite a state these last few days, utterly heartbroken, and actually nauseous at times. It feels strange to me to be legitimately grieving a fictional character, but it’s not a bad thing to feel this way. To me, this just shows that CRWBY loves her just as much as us to have written her so well that we connect so completely with her, that it feels like we lost an actual piece of ourselves when she’s gone.

But as you can probably tell by the title, this mega post isn’t gonna be about accepting this end, not in the slightest! Today I want to share canon evidence that can point towards another return of our beloved quirky red headed cinnamon bun! I’m here to spread this hope that I and others in the Nuts & Dolts dolts Discord server have!

I have this separated into many different sections to keep these thoughts organized. With that said, here goes…

A Father’s Words:

In Episode 7 of Volume 7, ‘Worst Case Scenario’ we learn the origins of Penny’s aura, and thus her soul. We also learn that it takes more aura each time she’s brought back. This leaves open an option that could be used at a later point.

Many people theorized that Pietro could indeed revive Penny one more time, which he would absolutely do. But there also lies the possibility that someone else could donate some of theirs, I’m not sure about this as I feel like it’s akin to blood donation where compatibility matters or there's a high risk of altering her, but the possibility is definitely there.

Now, the conversation in Chapter 5 of Volume 8, ‘Amity’ that Pietro and Penny have is an important moment for both Father and Daughter. It was there to show how her death in PvP all that time ago really did have a heavy impact on him and is still affecting him to this day.

Instead of continuing to pretend that everything is A-okay, like he had done for most of Volume 7, he finally lets his true feelings about how it come out to Penny for what is quite likely the first time. Even going so far as to say "Are you asking me to go through that again?" when she offers to take the risk of trying to lift Amity with her power. He wants Penny to be able to live her life.

This entire scene with Pietro established “this is what will likely happen” even if circumstances are much different now, it doesn’t negate the fact that this is a key part of Penny’s story. Scenes like these have a purpose beyond simply making an eventual death all the more heart wrenching. Her never actually getting to live her life makes those scenes basically moot. It makes them effectively pointless from narrative point of view. Unless there's more to it.

Building Relationship:

The build up between Ruby and Penny the last two volumes has been absolutely phenomenal with a definite destination in mind, and this doesn’t feel like that destination. So much of the arc of this season was to help Penny. This girl that our main protagonist absolutely adores and treasures, it would just be awful to throw all of that out for what amounts to an avoidable end. Why use so much of their precious and very limited runtime on deliberately building up this relationship only to end it abruptly, and permanently, when they’re separated?

In my opinion, RT is definitely smarter now than to intentionally set up what was really looking like a budding gay relationship only to kill one of them for good. If N&D wasn't actually going in a romantic direction, why would they leave in all of the romance-adjacent stuff that they got, that's not how ‘just friends’ act. And that is not something you use such valuable time building up for absolutely no pay off whatsoever...

Representation of Hope:

At its core, RWBY has always been about hope. It’s not at the forefront the whole time, but there's been an underlying theme of hopefulness that has persisted since it began. Some describe the show as a Hopepunk, I personally find this to describe RWBY really well. This genre of storytelling is about caring for things deeply and the courage and strength it takes to do so. It’s about never submitting or accepting the way things are. Fighting for what you believe in and standing up for others. RWBY fits all of this extremely well. How does this relate to Penny? She has been shown to be a sign of hope for everyone, but especially for Ruby, the main main protagonist. A prerequisite for a Hopepunk story is the hope.

Her first death in V3 was something that fundamentally changed Ruby. For the first time in the series, we see our main character all but broken by this event. With the loss of Penny, immediately afterwards, Ruby’s hope followed. She made up for it through determination and force of will. We see it affect her multiple times throughout the journey to Volume 7. But upon her return in V7, Hope reached a high point for everyone, the sheer relief on Ruby’s face is plain to see!

In V8 chapter 5 ‘Amity’, Penny literally raises hope by lifting the arena into the sky so Ruby could spread her message. And when she falls, and Amity with her, the connection is lost and hope plummets again. From there things take a very negative turn with the hack begins to take Penny’s agency.

In chapter 11 ’Risk’ is the point in the arc where everyone is reunited for the moment, so two separate hero stories are no longer a thing at that point in time. For the time being focus seemed to be shifted to care about the characters and how they’re going to solve the current problems. This is also where Ruby reaches her lowest emotional point in the season.

It’s not huge, but it’s interesting how connected this is. Before Ruby and Yang share a good cry over learning the possible fate of Summer, Yang brings up restoring optimism and hope to Ruby after the younger sister storms out of the room in frustration. This is where Penny’s scenes take up the rest of the episode. Getting Penny back in control of her own body and safe again is what makes the ending of the episode much brighter, when just 5 minutes before Ruby had been distraught and scared. This then spills over into the group coming up with the plan to use the staff, putting the main group in a much better mood. Of all the things to go right, it’s interesting that it’s Penny.

Things go wrong with the plan in the end and Penny dies. I find it interesting that once again, Penny got them hopeful in their chances of doing something right. Given said plan succeeded but at the cost of Penny of all people, Penny is shown to be the beginning and end of hope for them

The highest and lowest points for hope seem to directly correlate to when Penny’s around. When she comes back again, hope will return too, just like it had before. And because she’ll likely be back for good this time, the second return will probably be close to when Ruby is nearing the complete abandonment of hope. This would be pretty par for the course of the show honestly.

A little aside, but in a sense, Penny also represents Unity. The CCT in Vale fell after her first death, knocking out global communications and the unifying connection it gave. When it was restored for the briefest moment, she was there. Her body connected so she could allow for its launch, her soul lighting the night to hold up Amity with every ounce of her strength. So of course when the Hack succeeds and she falls, she takes global comms down again with her. At a smaller scale - even at the Hack's second last attempt to control her, she draws everyone in the Schnee Manor together. At the start of the volume, Yang states the one thing that they all agree on is not surrendering Penny.

Unity seems appropriate for one whose first song and wish was for but one friend, who would go on to find so many more in the process, and permit for a moment the possibility of all Remnant becoming friends once more. Where she first died, the name of the episode devoted to her story - Amity, "friendship", from the Latin root amicus, "friend" - she almost lives and dies with the very possibility of a united Remnant. It's no wonder she's a priority target for Salem, the great divider, and it seems natural that her next restoration may very well allow the next bid to bring the world together.

The Void Screams:

Moments after Penny's death, we hear a weird scream in the void space. It was a guttural, pained, angry scream, almost like the void space itself was crying out. All the portals shuddered and flickered when it happened.

Some think that this scream was Salem returning, but that happens earlier than Penny’s death, her return is signaled with cinder's arm acting up. We know this because after the arm finished flailing uncontrollably, Cinder said triumphantly "she's back." If it were Salem screaming, it would have happened after she fixed herself, but it didn't.

And I doubt Cinder would have been surprised or unsettled by it considering she was happy Salem returned not long before it. And why would a Salem scream affect the portals anyway, she has no connection to the staff or it's magic.

Another thing to consider is the fact sound is not transmitted through the portals. Otherwise, they would've heard Oscar and the rest calling for them, or the screams of the citizens of Mantle and Atlas. This lowers the possibility of that scream being from Salem even further.

The sound really seems to be coming from something else entirely within the void, and that something is not at all happy. There’s also the fact that Penny was the only person who died in the void space, everyone else was just thrown out of it like Ruby and Co. The only logical cause to me is Penny. Her body was a product (or byproduct) of the same creation magic that made the void space, her blood seems to have been a trigger.

Now I can't be sure about it, but this makes me feel like Penny is almost a part of creation itself? For whatever this thing is to be so angry, that is the only explanation I can think of currently. But all of this could possibly relate to the Narnia allusion of 'the willing victim killed in a traitor's stead' that others have brought up, which will be covered next.

Narnia Parallels:

Atlas has several parallels and references to fictional places (putting aside real world ones like the United States). One of those is that of Narnia, both on the surface and on a deeper level. It is a land of winter year round, where people struggle to survive and there is a present divide between those loyal to the current Monarch and those who are not. James is a parallel to Jadis, the White Witch, a ruler whose thoughts and cares aren’t exactly centered around the actual well being of the people. The hologram table in Ironwood’s office is designed to look like stone, like the Stone Table which features prominently in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He has a handpicked cadre of special agents/secret police, like how Maugrim and his wolves served Jadis. Another key parallel is how Jadis’s winter sets in to oppress and kill everyone in Narnia, but the Witch provides aid and protection to her loyal followers. She has all the power to spare harm to others, and uses it only for the loyal. As soon as Mantle splits from James and Atlas, no care is taken to protect them from the cold of Solitas even though he has every ability to turn the heating grid back on. His protection is only for the loyal.

Now that the parallel is established, let's look into the details. Starting with how James plays the role of Jadis.

"I had forgotten that you are only a common boy. How should you understand reasons of State? You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. We must be freed from all rules. Ours is a high and lonely destiny." These are the words Jadis says in the Magician’s Nephew to justify the blood civil war she and her sister had waged for rulership of Charn, before she came to Narnia. She won that war, technically, but only after the last battle had been lost and her sister had marched right up to her so that they were face to face. Jadis’s troops were dead, her followers had surrendered, and the capital was under full control of her sister. But, she still had one card, one ultimate play to win and prove the throne of Charn was rightfully her. The Deplorable Word, a piece of old magic that killed everyone and everything except for her on Charn. It was monstrous, senseless, cruel beyond measure. But it got her that hollow victory. This mindset, the disregard for the people except as tools for her own will, the ultimate ‘aoe’ destructive move that no one had even considered her using, the unwillingness to stop even when by all practical measures the war is over, is a shocking parallel to James. In many ways, he is Jadis in mindset and deed.

Then there is the shared desire for A Thing that both James and Jadis have. For James it’s the Winter Maiden and control over her. For Jadis it’s the Silver Apples from the Tree of Youth. And funnily enough, the Maiden Powers parallel the Apples quiet well. These apples grant power and a life of eternal beauty, but should not be taken or eaten on one’s own initiative. They must be given, a gift granted by another, or only suffering will come from obtaining them. "For the fruit always works — it must work — but it does not work happily for any who pluck it at their own will. If any Narnian, unbidden, had stolen an apple and planted it here to protect Narnia, it would have protected Narnia. But it would have done so by making Narnia into another strong and cruel empire like Charn, not the kindly land I mean it to be.” Jadis’s immortality, and some of her power, come from the fact that she ate an Apple of her own will after stealing her way into the garden where the Tree of Youth had been planted. She gained the eternal life she had wanted and the power along with it, but she did so by taking it and was cursed because of it. Her skin turned pale and her lips blackened as if she were a frozen corpse given life. She will be trapped in a life of misery and hate according to Aslan- oh hey Cinder, how’s having stolen the Power you always wanted working out for you? Cinder had the power she wanted, but she only got hungrier, eager to claim more and increase her might. But in her pursuit she was defeated and humiliated by Raven, had to steal her way out of Mistral, and then suffered defeat after defeat while in Atlas. Only in the end, when she didn’t keep pursuing the Maiden Power, did she get any kind of victory.

The reason these parallels to Narnia are so important is one of the most famous events of the series. The cracking of the Stone Table and the rebirth of Aslan after his death. ‘When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.’ Well, the ‘Stone Table’ in James’s office has cracked, and Penny strikes me as a pretty willing victim. She has never actually committed any actual treachery or harm, as she was the Protector of Mantle, and fought for its and Atlas’s people until the very end. And because of her death, the actual traitor, Winter, who loyally served James until he had gone too far, was saved. Through Penny’s self sacrifice, Winter was saved. So now Death itself will start working backward.

(Major props to my friend @catontheweb for writing this section, I was getting nowhere with it, if they weren't there this part wouldn't exist!)

Norse Mythology:

The tree we see in the post credit scene gives off some serious Yggdrasil vibes. Also called the World Tree, it is essentially all of creation in Norse Mythology. It connects all nine realms, including the God realms of Asgard, the human realm of Midgard, and the underworld of Hel.

Humans are born from the branches of Yggdrasil. The web of Wyrd is woven for every person once they're born, and their path is set from there regardless of how many times the souls cycle over. But at the end, they're destined to end up in one of the worlds, for a myriad of reasons.

I believe Penny landed closest to this giant tree. She was on the center platform in the void space, so if that space is directly above the island(?) the tree is on, it makes sense for her to fall by the center nearest to the tree. This would not only open up all kinds of possibilities for the volume in general, but it would also create options for Penny.

The whole of Yggdrasil’s representations fit well into Penny’s story. Birth, growth, death and rebirth. We can count Penny’s appearance in V7 as birth for now, her growth is all her development in leaving =the military and becoming a Maiden, her death just happened, and her rebirth would be her revival. And this is a cycle she’s gone through before.

The Norse god Odin and Yggdrasil have quite a connection. In one story, Odin cut out one of his own eyes to gain knowledge from a pool underneath Yggdrasil. The only one that fell whose eyes alone are incredibly significant to the story was Ruby. So, they could choose to have her allude to Odin by having Ruby make some kind of deal with whatever entity likely rules over this magical place. An eye for Penny’s life.

There’s another story about Odin, Yggdrasil and the pursuit of knowledge. Odin so loved knowledge, that he sacrificed himself in a quest to learn the deeper magic of runes. It was believed one could only learn the magic spells from runes in death. So, Odin hung himself on Yggdrasil for nine days as an offering, and teetered between life and death. After he mastered the last spell on the ninth night, he ritually died and all light was extinguished from the world. Odin’s death lasted until midnight, when he was reborn and light returned to the world.

This story doesn’t fit Penny perfectly, but allusions often don’t. So If she really did land near the tree, she could be another loose representation of Odin’s story here. What she did wasn’t for knowledge, but to save her friends and keep Cinder from getting the Winter Maiden power. She believed it necessary that she sacrifice herself to achieve this end. As we established, Penny represents Hope, so her death means the loss of hope. This parallels Odin’s story of his death meaning the loss of light itself. So if this theory holds up, it would make this death temporary, until her rebirth and the return of Hope with her once again.

Alternatively, Ruby has the potential of loosely representing Odin in this story as well. Odin later uses the knowledge of the runes to do many things, but the most relevant one right now is awakening the dead. Both of these stories are about making a personal sacrifice to gain something that is desired. Ruby would absolutely make such sacrifices if it meant saving Penny.

It is said that Odin lived “according to his highest will unconditionally, accepting whatever hardships arise from that pursuit, and allowing nothing, not even death, to stand between him and the attainment of his goals." This sounds like Penny's arc of accepting the WM powers. This is more just a general connection between Penny and Odin, but I found it interesting.

Side Note: I encourage anyone who’s interested to look into RWBY connections to Norse Myth, there’s a surprising amount of things that feel eerily similar to the show. Likely just coincidental, but it’s fun to think about!

(If I got any of this wrong, I sincerely apologize by the way. I researched as best I could, but I admit it could have been lacking.)

Ambrosius and the Staff:

Ruby told Ambrosius "we kinda wanna keep her around longer than that" as part of her very specific instructions. Then Penny died about ten to fifteen minutes, at the absolute most thirty minutes later in-universe. I don’t know about you, but to me that seems very short to be considered ‘longer than that’. Technically it is, but when writing a story and a character says something like that, you typically don’t just kill the character they were referring to basically right away. It makes sense for a week-by-week watch, but in a volume binge, which many viewers do, it becomes ironic how fast Penny dies after being removed from her robotic body.

The first time we see the staff of creation being used, it's to save Penny. Using the staff of creation to help Penny is a sign of how incredibly important she is.

They’ve even got this entire transformation sequence for her, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to throw all that away two episodes later. In a meta context, it’s a massive waste of time and budget considering the asset creation for Penny.

Penny is a character who has already hopped bodies two times. And now we're supposed to just believe that this time it really is a final death? Just two episodes after we were explicitly told her body isn't what matters, that "Her soul is who she is" and that "the mechanical parts are just extra"? From a writing perspective, it feels strange, like your breaking a promise right after making it. And frankly, CRWBY is better than that, which makes me think this is not the actual end for her.

A possible connection between Penny, Ruby, and the Staff (thus Creation) can be seen in the intro. As Ruby is falling and being dragged down into the darkness, she is shown reaching for the staff. In the void space, Penny is the one with the relic. So with Penny having this strong connection to Creation, and the lyrics “fight for every life” playing as Ruby reaches for the staff, it’s a safe assumption to make, with the knowledge we now have, that the Staff of Creation represents Penny in this particular moment. Which could mean that V9 will be about, at least partially, fighting for Penny’s life.

Musical Hints:

In terms of music, Friend, as a song for Penny, is very dissonant from the episode itself. The song is oddly cheerful for Penny’s recent untimely death, and it overall highlights the wrong parts of death. It’s simply too happy to be a song about losing one of the most, if not the most joyous characters in the entire show. The song also abruptly ends. There’s no outro, and while this could symbolize the fact that Penny died young, it could be that the song itself is unfinished in a story sense.

What do we hear just before the song finishes, though? A progression of notes that sounds eerily similar to the last line of the opening of Volume 8. The notes for “Fight for ev’ry life” and “Who fin’lly felt alive'' share a similar melodic structure, they aren’t perfect clones of each other, but they are incredibly similar, to the point where it seems intentional. Penny may very well be the life that the opening song is fighting for. It is also worth noting that the line “Fight for every life” comes just after “Sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall,” which is the exact wording used for the description in the Volume 8 finale. Team RWBY risked the fall, yet, strangely the opposite of fighting for every life happened with Penny’s sacrifice. Perhaps the time to fight for every life has yet to happen, and we will see it come Volume 9.

For another thing, the lyrics for Friend are entirely centered on Penny’s feelings for Ruby, to the point where they read very much like a bittersweet love song. The music itself is incredibly cheerful, as mentioned previously, creating a mood whiplash with the end of the volume. Why would we hear a song about Penny’s feelings for Ruby, sounding like a love song, if her death is supposed to be a tragic sacrifice akin to Pyrrha’s? The song may very well be giving a clue into its future use in the show proper.

If this was meant to be a good bye song, why make it so cheerful and romantic sounding? There's only one part about her dying and even then, it's just too accepting and goes right back into cheerfulness. The song is also pretty hopeful, telling Penny's story in a fairly chronological order. And the part where she talks about sacrifice is quite pointedly followed up by one about feeling alive. It also ends with the super cheerful chorus, the word "alive" being the last... (Remember the episode title: The Final Word)

(I want to thank my friend @shadow-0f-x for writing the majority of this section! I was struggling to choose how to tackle it as I am not well versed in music theory.)

What We Didn’t See:

It is likely that Penny understood Jaune's semblance better than him and figured something out about it’s abilities in the same way that she understood Ruby's semblance better than her. She had plenty of time to observe his semblance up close as he boosted her aura to stave off the virus. Because of that intentionally timed cutaway in the finale, we don’t get to hear her explain herself after her strained “Trust me.” All of that seems really suspicious to me.

Pyrrha Parallel:

Pyrrha and Penny both sacrificed themselves to stop or stall Cinder. Jaune tried to convince the both of them to stop. With Pyrrha, he failed, while with Penny he actively helped her sacrifice herself. Doesn’t make sense for the guy who was determined not to let anyone else do what Pyrrha did, unless of course Penny assured him she’d be alright.

The Moment:

RT including the suicide hotline in the description shows that they're aware that Penny basically committed assisted suicide, seeing it as a noble sacrifice worth doing to save her friends. They're aware, and I believe they're smart enough to condemn that decision to hell and back.

The best way to do that in my opinion is to pull her back into the land of the living and let her witness first hand the consequences of throwing her life away so freely. This would show Penny how her actions affected others so maybe she could learn to truly value herself. To not think herself expendable. It would be bold and unwise to portray this choice as something good, unless it was going to be called upon later and be pointed out for how horrible it really is.

On top of this, Penny was way too content with her death, happy even. There's no way team RWBY is letting her stay content with it. It’s almost as though we're supposed to join Ruby and Co. in calling bullshit on what Penny is saying and doing because no, Penny, this is not how things are meant to work. It's as if Penny was basically saying "I want to die for my friends" because most of the volume had been about everyone else making sure she didn't die. She knows it will hurt them. She knows.

At the peak of it all, a choice like this will totally destroy Ruby. It may very well be her breaking point for Volume 9. Curiously, the moment itself is written like it’s the first choice Penny’s ever made, yet the entire Volume shows this isn’t the case. However, this is the first choice that Penny’s made solely independently and it’s rather pertinent that the choice she makes is a mistake. Outside of giving Winter the Maiden gift and saving the day temporarily, this sacrifice will not have any lasting positive effects. Jaune will be saddled with the grief of killing Penny. Ruby will have to live with losing her best friend and not being able to protect her a second time, and Winter now has the burden of the Winter Maiden abilities, making her a target of Cinder. This is a bad thing, and Penny needs to see the long term consequences.

Transfer of Power:

As we all know, colors in RWBY are really important and get a lot of focus in the show. That means the yellow we see as Penny gives Winter the Maiden Powers was intentional and likely important, no matter how insignificant it may seem. It’s possible that the transfer effect being yellow could have something to do with Jaune’s semblance. When Fria gave the power to Penny, the effect was very much blue, so this transfer should have been green since she was the one giving it this time. The weirdness of this transfer and the focus on color in RWBY really makes it look like something’s up with how that went down.

A little off topic, but Penny saying "I won't be gone, I'll be part of you." makes me think... Winter is smart, so when she gets time to think about what Penny said, maybe she'll arrive at the same question many in the audience came to; if she's literally part of Winter, can they be separated again? If Winter starts questioning that, the possibility of Penny coming back just skyrockets.

Fria actually tells Penny "I'll be gone" before giving her powers up, which is an interesting contrast to Penny telling Winter "I won't be gone". She may have gotten that line from Winter be all philosophical in V7, saying Fria was now a part of Penny, but it hits differently coming from an actual Maiden. S5o it’s possible that Maidens usually actually will be gone, but Jaune's semblance did something to change that.

This could go well with the theory that they won't need to find an aura transfer machine, or build another one, because Jaune will have a semblance evolution allowing him to do the transfer instead. It might actually be that this evolution already happened and the golden light we saw was Jaune transferring penny's aura to Winter in some way?

An observation that I find interesting is when Penny gives winter the powers, not only is the aura yellow but penny completely glows yellow too, and she obviously starts to disappear, but she doesn’t seem to fully disappear, she just glows.

It's possibly a fading out effect and she does fully fade but animation makes bright light easier, and so we don't actually see her disappear because she's dead and not gone. But it does once again emphasize the color yellow here!

And the color is coming from Penny, it does go up Winter's arm a bit, but Penny is clearly the source. This transfer is so weird and I’m not really sure how to interpret it. There's just actually no reason that we are aware of to make the effect yellow here is the thing. Unless it has something to do with either Jaune or Ambrosius, or potentially a combination of both...

Jaune’s Aura:

The way we see Jaune's aura break in the finale is strange. His aura shouldn't be breaking here. It had been long enough since he was boosting Penny, he's had time to recharge, and it didn't look like it was a strain on him at all. Plus, we know he has a lot of aura, so there probably wasn't too much to recharge in the first place.

He has a massive amount of aura, it has never broken before as far as I remember. Even if it has though, that doesn’t make this occurrence any less odd. It should absolutely never be a one-hit KO. We didn't see anything that would've drained it, that should not have been enough to break his aura. Unless he did something - something that would require a huge amount of aura - that we just didn't see. That amount of aura drain is far more than just an attempt at healing would do, Jaune absolutely did something with his semblance that took up almost all of his aura.

Pinocchio Allusion:

As any Penny fan knows, her character allusion is Pinocchio, the puppet who became a real boy. Penny deviates from the allusion by having always been a real girl, as Ruby is quick to point out, but she shares many story beats with her original story including multiple deaths. In the original story, Pinocchio dies from being hung by his own strings due to his poor decision making and he dies. Sounds a little familiar, does it not? This is where his tale originally ended. Readers were unsatisfied with this ending however, so the author decided to change the story by reviving Pinocchio and teaching him to be more careful.

Unlike Pinocchio making all the wrong decisions, Penny often makes the right ones, or ones she thinks is right, when concerning others. While usually a good thing, this has meant Penny almost giving herself up multiple times during V8, her last attempt being successful. This is where Penny and Pinocchio begin to share similarities again. They are both very reckless when it concerns themselves. This carelessness comes from different places, but it ends with the same result of them endangering their lives and even sometimes losing them.

In the Disney movie, Pinocchio dies by drowning after going to rescue Geppetto and washes up on the shore (like the beach in V8’s post credit scene). His father is devastated and takes him home to grieve, but as a reward for his selflessness in rescuing his father, the Blue Fairy returns and brings him back to life, as well as granting him humanity. Penny sacrificed her life as well, and it stands to reason that she should be rewarded for it, much like her allusion was.

Penny got her maiden powers from someone with blue aura and then gave her powers to someone with blue aura. So it could be that not only Ambrosius, but Fria and Winter as well represent the Blue Fairy. It could be set up for Winter helping to bring Penny back to life once more. It’s an out there theory I admit, but it’s not outright impossible either. The Blue Fairy in Pinocchio saved him three times that I know of, so RWBY having three representations does make sense.

Geppetto wished for him to live as a real boy, but it depended on what path Pinocchio took. This is very reminiscent of Penny and Pietro. Pietro wants to see her live her life, and surely with him absent in V8C14 that didn't work, despite Penny choosing. Her father did not see her happy enough to live her life, and will only be able to learn her death through others. But Pinocchio's themes were life and being alive. So the likelihood that this is not her end yet is quite high!

A Girl That Fell Through the World:

Penny could be the girl who fell through the world. The girl in the story fled the consequences of a choice. The only person who chose her ultimate fate was Penny. The others were pushed into the void, but she chose to die. The consequence of her choice is Ruby’s grief first and foremost, which Penny won’t see. The girl who fell through the world does come back though, and the world will be changed severely with Penny’s absence. Alternatively, it could also be Penny coming back to Wonderland or wherever they currently are, as long as it’s unrecognizable to her.

What Returning Brings:

Others might say another return would have no story relevant purpose, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Penny gives a profoundly youthful, joyous, and wondrous outlook on the world and story that we hadn't seen since Ruby in Volumes 1-3(not the end), Penny returning would bring a much needed levity back in after the despair they will undoubtedly be going through. While not necessarily a huge thing in most other shows, for RWBY, a show largely about keeping up hope, an ounce of such relief is a necessity.

As much as I hate saying it, Penny’s death does actually make some narrative sense because she had to pass on the Maiden powers. (They could have done this in a number of ways, and I personally think they chose rather poorly, but I digress.) Throughout this whole volume, we can see Penny seemingly being set up to join the main cast, but would have been too strong with the powers. This also accomplishes ridding her of the burden of responsibility that comes with being a Maiden and lets her obtain the freedom that’s so important to her character.

Once she returns, seeing this grief that her actions caused, particularly to Ruby, will get her to realize more that her actions can have serious repercussions. She made a choice, but that choice hurt the people she loves. She must have known that it would but I’m not sure she ever realized just how much.

I didn’t want this post to be heavy in the shipping department, so I largely left it out, but I am going to say this one thing that could have an impact. If Nuts & Dolts is on its way to being canon, which this volume makes it feel highly likely, this could be a catalyst.

It could prompt an arc for the both of them in which Penny learns to live her life fighting for her loved ones, rather than sacrificing it for them. A relationship could potentially start from there. And Ruby seeing Penny learn these things may also help her to stop doing the occasional but very dangerous and reckless things she does. Ruby witnessing Penny coming to terms with what she did to the people that care about her would actually make her stop to think “wait, is this how everyone else would feel if I got myself killed?” That would be a very important moment of character growth for her.

I’m certain there are other significant things that Penny returning can bring to the show. And there are definitely more sections I could add to this. At this point though, assuming anyone even made it this far, I think I’ve been going long enough already. So let’s just roll into the outro!

As painful and hopeless as it seems, I'm choosing to trust them with this because there is absolutely no way they didn't see backlash coming. The way this finale went makes me think that they calculated for backlash and aren’t jumping into something they don’t have a plan to recover from. Whether this trust is unfounded or not remains to be seen, but I don’t think it is currently. I do think, however, that the cause of this backlash was a major misstep. Now that it has happened though, they have a chance to do something good with it.

I know for a lot of you, trust in CRWBY has been damaged, some even irreparably so. And for those that feel this way, I don’t blame you. My trust in them took a hit too, but isn’t broken completely yet. There are many ways that they can bring her back that would make sense with the narrative, they have the ability to make it right, and after going over all of the hints and general weirdness of things many times, I think they will.

I'm feeling pretty confident now and I really didn't expect that to happen at all to be honest. But discussing and theorizing with the discord server seriously helped get my hopes back up surprisingly fast! It’s actually thanks to all of them that this gigantic post even happened! So thanks a ton my fellow Dolts! And a special thanks to!!

@arcana-amicus

@catontheweb

@cosmokyrin

@gaydontmesswithme224

@jammatown919

@shadow-0f-x

They really helped get this thing across the finish line!

And thank YOU for reading all~ of this! I sincerely wish it gave you some of the hope and confidence that I now have!

#RWBY #rwby vol8 #rwby v8 #rwby spoilers #Penny Polendina #nuts and dolts #mechanical rose #a little #Essay #more like dissertation #I haven't written this much in #probably ever actually #Have HOPE people!

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warrioreowynofrohan · 4 years

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The Silmarillion as a TV/Netflix Series (Part 6)

This is by far the trickiest part, because I have no specific ideas for adapting the strategy and tactics of the War of Wrath. But there are a few big points to settle first. One of the major questions is whether the Valar themselves are going to be involved in the war.

If they are, it’s hard to imagine how the war could take 50 years.

If they aren’t, it’s hard to imagine how it could be won at all: the Vanyar-Noldor army of Valinorean elves is not especially larger than the original Noldorin forces in Middle-earth, and the remaining forces of the Sindar and Noldor of Middle-earth are so far depleted as to be neglibible. So, if it was virtually impossible for the Noldor to defeat Morgoth when they first arrived near the start of the First Age, or during the Long Peace, before he’d had the time to develop more and more dragons and other monsters within Angband, it’s hard to see why it would be possible for similarly-sized Elven armies to defeat him now. (Remember, the Valinorean Noldor are only 10% of the original group of Noldor.) Also, if the Valar aren’t involved, it’s hard to see how the war could be so cataclysmic as to literally destroy the landmass of Beleriand.

The Silmarillion states “The Host of the Valar were arrayed in forms young and fair and terrible, and the mountains rang beneath their feet.” I take this as meaning at least some of the Valar did go to war themselves; while it’s possible to read the phrase as referring to only Maiar, that seems like far from the most obvious reading. Manwë and Varda would not go (I think Tolkien said or implied this somewhere), but Tulkas and Oromë, whose purposes specifically include combat against evil things, certainly would. Ulmo, also, would undoubtedly be involved. And I think Aulë and Yavanna would as well, for love of the shapes and creatures of the world that Morgoth had destroyed and corrupted. I’m not as good as imagining Vana and Nessa in battle-shape, but it’s certainly possible. Of the Fëanturi, Lórien, Estë, and Nienna would come at some point, but in non-combat roles and to do what healing and cleansing of land and spirits as they could. And all these would be accompanied as well by large numbers of Maiar. (Including Melian! Likely including Curumo as well, he seems like the type of person who would want to be involved.)

If there’s a question as to why Eönwë would be commanding when Valar are there, I don’t see a contradiction. The general of an army is neither inherently the most powerful warrior nor the person of the highest social status. If he’s generalling, it’s because that’s the role he’s suited for.

The second major question lies in the basic contradiction between timelines indicating the War of Wrath took about 50 years, and the statement that the onslaught of the winged dragons lasted for “a day and night of doubt” and is one part of the battle noted where the Host of the Valar was on the defensive and retreating. Now, I have no military knowledge, but even to me it seems obvious that a war which lasts for fifty years and in which the largest setback for the victorious side lasts for one day make no freaking sense.

And on top of that, cinematically a fifty-year war would be very difficult to depict. So for the show, I think we’re better off having events proceed considerably more quickly than that.

As far as individual episodes go:

Episode 1: This episode is set-up. In Valinor, preparations for war, and the rising of the Star of Eärendil, seen in Middle-earth (including by Maedhros and Maglor, and Elrond and Elros). In Middle-earth, some scenes of Maedhros and Maglor raising the twins (I think it’s stated somewhere that they went far south, beyond the regions where Morgoth’s for es had a heavy presence). Some scenes on Balar dealing with the aftermath of the Fëanorian attack on Sirion. (What do they do with Fëanorians who surrendered afterwards? What do they do with Fëanorians who changed sides and fought on in their defence but who they still don’t trust?) The episode ends with arrival of the Host of the Valar.

Episodes 2 through 8 are the War itself, which, again, I have no idea how to construct. The Elves of Valinor are arriving by boat; and I expect that the Valar and Maiar would, for the most part, accomoany them. The landing would take place mainly all along the Falas, from Nevrast to the Mouths of Sirion, as well as farther north around the First of Drengist where Fëanor first landed.

Morgoth’s forces are spread throughout all of Beleriand, but vary in type. Hithlum stands out because it is not mainly inhabited by monsters, but by Men - the Easterlings and those among the Edain who are their thralls. I have an impression - partly from the Manwë’s reaction to the later Númenorean invasion, yielding authority to Eru even though the Valar certainly had the capacity to defeat Ar-Pharazon’s army - that the Valar and Maiar would be very uncomfortable about making war against Eruhini, even those who served Morgoth. So the portion of the invasion force at Drengist would be in large part the Edain, with some Elven and Maia support, and soon aided by uprisings among the Edain thralls. The role of Maiar or Valar here would largely be to keep the orcs and wolves and monsters of Morgoth at bay outside the mountains of Hithlum, but to leave the conflict against the Easterlings of Hithlum largely to the Edain and Eldar.

This would bring the northern portion of the army quite close to Angband, but they couldn’t attack from there - the Anfauglith would be packed with monsters and defenses, never mind the ever-present threat of Morgoth flooding the place with lava.

The greater part of the Valinorean forces would sweep east and north from the coast, facing substantial armies’ or Morgoth’s creatures (including cold-drakes, non-winged dragons, wolves, giant spiders, and really anything else horrifying you can think of; but the balrogs are being held in reserve by Morgoth for the defense of Angband). Various Maiar of Morgoth would be involved, including Sauron. One thing to note is that despite the presence of Valar, the Valar aren’t (aside from Tulkas and maybe Oromë) inherently suited to combat - that’s why Tulkas showed up in the first place. Even back in the Ages of the Stars, the Valar’s attack on Utumno was a hard fight - and that was when Morgith’s forces were far smaller than during the War of Wrath, though Morgith himself was personally more powerful then). So it’s not implausible for things to take some time and be challenging.

Episode 7 is the fight against the winged dragons and death on Ancalagon, and Episode 8 is the destruction of Angband and the casting of Morgoth into the Void.

Episode 9 includes Maedhros and Maglor’s demand for the Silmarils, Eönwë’s response, the brothers’ attempts to steal the jewel, and Maedhros’ death and Maglor’s departure from the known lands. This episode would also include scenes of the aftermath of Angband’s overthrow, the freeing of thralls and of captive spirits, in which the Fëanturi and their associated Maiar would have a large role (shout-out to @thearrogantemu’s latest fic!). At least a few of the Maiar who served Morgoth would genuinely surrender, which could be contrasted with Sauron considering surrender but ultimately choosing against it due to being unwilling to face consequences.

Episode 10 is the journey of (some of) the elves of Middle-earth to Valinor; the choice of others to stay (including Galadriel and Celebrimbor’s choices, and Galadriel’s last conversation with her father); and the promise of a new land for the Edain. It would also include the rebirth of Finrod in Valinor, giving hope that many of the audience’s favourite characters are not permanently dead, though it may be a long while before they return to life. I think having this at the very end is the best way to deal with elven rebirth without it feeling like a bit of a cop-out. If Finrod’s alive at the start of Season 6, you’re going to have pragmatically-minded viewers asking why the Valar don’t revive the Noldor as a whole and chuck ‘em at Morgoth - after all, if they die again, they can just come back again! Elven rebirth needs to be treated seriously, not as convenient respawning, so I think introducing it just as a possibility, for many years in the future, and at the end of the series, is the way to go.

This is also a great episode to show all the different reasons for different elves’ decisions on whether to return to Valinor. Returning out of weariness, or desire to see their families, or repentance, or simply having had enough of the endless wars and suffering of Middle-earth, or wanting to see the beauties of Valinor. Staying because they’re attached to Middle-earth; or want to make their own decisions outside the tutelage of the Valar; or are too ashamed to return and see the people they once knew; or, for some (especially Sindar) being unwilling to go to Aman if the Kinslayers can go there and be pardoned as well (“I’d rather live in the Anfauglith than have to share Valinor with them”); or still being curious about what the lands of Middle-earth beyond Beleriand are like; or wanting to know more of the Edain and Dwarves; or feeling a responsibility to aid and heal the world rather than leave it. I could even see a small handful of Vanyar or Valinorean Noldor choosing to stay for a while out of fascination with this world and its people, despite so much of what they had seen of it being horrible.

#tolkien #the silmarillion #maedhros #maglor #edain #elves #valar #war of wrath #sauron #adaptation

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greensydney · 4 years

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Wellness Segments from The Friend Zone Podcast

This is where I’ll be listing Fran’s Wellness Segments. It will be updated regularly. Any specific products/stores mentioned will be linked :)

Ep. 1: It’s Ok to Log Off

Being the first episode, Fran starts us off easy with a loving suggestion to take a social media break. At the time of this recording, “Twitterless Assante” was reaping the benefits of taking mindless twitter scrolling out of his life for some time.

Ep. 2: Family Matters

This is where we start digging in and doing the work. Here, Fran asks us to look within to resolve family disputes that have gone unchecked. Have the talks that you have been avoiding, even if it feels uncomfortable. Remember to come from a place of compassion when approaching loved ones, and to not take anything personally. Which is a theme throughout many of the early episodes, as it’s the 2nd agreement in The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, one of the many books Fran has suggested.

Ep. 3: Take 5

Work on building and maintaining a healthy morning routine. This helps set the tone of the day. By leaving our phone out of this part of the day, we can avoid things like waking up to a long, angry text or some other drama and letting that guide how the rest of day goes. Basically, set the tone of your day before taking in information from anyone else.

Ep. 4: Surrender

Meditate, meditate, meditate.

Osho books are great for learning more about quieting the mind, as recommended by Fran. Sadhguru is another great teacher who I look to for insight on meditation, mindfulness, parenting, and just life in general. He has a channel on YouTube with tons of videos. Fran also recommends trying Mala beads to assist with meditation, or maybe journaling afterwards. She really just stresses the importance of beginning a meditation practice, without fear of doing it “right” or “wrong”.

Ep. 5: Even Martha Went to Jail

No clear-cut Wellness Segment for this week, but the main gist of things was: create what you want, what feels good for you. Critics will appear for everyone, no matter how great they are, so do you. Don’t keep yourself from creating things because of fear of how others will receive it.

Ep. 6: Tacos & Quickweave

In your journal, dissect the relationship you are in. Asking questions like, “Why are you with this person? Who are you *really* doing this relationship for?” For singles, ask questions like, “What am I *really* looking for, in a person? How do I want to feel when I’m with them? How do I want to show up in their lives? How do I want them to show up in my life?” For those resistant to relationships, ask yourself why and really work through it to get those answers that you seek. ~meditate, meditate, meditate ~

Ep. 7: The Choir & The Competition Are Out

Parents: Sit with our children and start asking them questions about their interests. Fran shares how she was impacted by her mom not being more encouraging about her becoming a singer, so she wants us to know how important it is to truly listen when our kids ask to pursue new things, even if it isn’t exactly what we pictured for them.

For everyone, even those who don’t have children or maybe they aren’t quite at the age to start discussing these things: we were all a child at some point. Many people can benefit from asking ourselves if the profession we are in is for you, or if you were just trying to please our own parents. It’s never too late to begin learning more about anything that excites you.

Ep. 8: Fitness Regine Hunter

(I’m pretty sure they purposely didn’t spell it “regime” because of the difficulty for many in pronouncing the word. lmao)

In this episode, Fran speaks on the importance of holistic health and wellbeing, sharing how much it has shaped who she is and improved her life. She wants us to really sit with ourselves and think about the things we want to work on. Ask, “What can I do to ensure that I’m being the most beautiful *me* possible?” From skin and hair care, to diet, to fitness, to the way we talk to ourselves or others. All the little things that make up holistic living. No quick fixes! We’re here to werrrrrrk, hunty.

“Forget the internet for a second. Forget what the Instagram models look like, we’re talking about YOU...” - Fran the MF Goat.

Implement a fitness regime that works for you. Maybe it’s part of your morning routine, maybe it’s an after dinner thing; everyone gets to choose what is best for them and that’s part of the beauty of this life. :) Try a few things and see what works. There is an emphasis on the importance of starting slow, allowing your mind and body to get used to new activity. Fran started off with walking, increasing her distance over time, and then turned that into jogging when it felt right for her. Blogilates and Yoga With Adriene are YouTube channels she mentions here. I have been hooked to yoga ever since trying a few videos from Adriene. Yoga by Biola is another great channel to check out. Biola has this video, “Restorative Yoga for Collective Trauma”, which I love. I learned of her from The Friend Zone earlier in 2020.

Skin and Hair: Check out Frans YouTube channel to see all the informative videos she has on all-natural beauty and health tips. Personally, I really like Naptural85 for hair videos as my curl pattern is very similar to hers. Click around on suggested videos to find the ones that speak to you.

Ep. 9: Don’t Forget the Feet

OIL UP! From head-to-toe. Get that moisture. Especially in these colder months. Hands, feet, nails, toenails...literally everywhere. Dustin cannot get over the importance of the feet. Fran says this aztec healing clay is great for dry, cracked feet, and she hinted at its ability to fix some facial skin woes as well. Extra Fran tip: put a small amount of oil on your nail beds before painting them. This protects the skin and promotes nail growth. I tried this myself and it’s a game changer in my nail health! They used to get cracks in them once they start getting to a certain length, but if i keep them oiled up, they are smooth as precious little stones. :)

Ep. 10: A$AP Shirley Caesar

This episode reminds us that finances, too, can impact our total feeling of well-being. The Friends all want us to get our finances in order, taking the tiniest of baby steps, if needed. Fran’s 3 things to cut back on:

Eating Out

Online Shopping

Places like Target, where you go for 1 thing and leave with a full cart.

Making these sacrifices adds up. The goal is that eventually, any big things that are weighing on our mental due to finances can more easily be dealt with.

Ep. 11: And I’m Telling You, I’m NOT Going!

It’s all about skin-care in this wellness segment! Starting with what goes into your body, and ending with what goes on your body. First off: DRINK LOTS OF WATER! This not only promotes healthy skin but as we all know, it’s just good for the body in general. The body runs nice and smoothly when it’s hydrated from the inside-out.

If you need to cut down on your caffeine intake (I’m right there with ya), Fran suggested Yerba Mate. It’s a natural source of caffeine and much cleaner than what comes in other energy drinks. I must say, I feel like the naturally occurring caffeine just hits different. I was hyyype the first few times I got a Yerba Mate instead of my usual orange Red Bull! Energy drink isn’t the only form to get your Yerba fix, thankfully. It’s sold as a loose leaf tea, or in bagged tea as well. I LOVE coffee though, and I am not giving that up so easy. I find that bringing mindfulness to my habits with it, helps me to not consume too much.

Now, for the outside of the body: washing and moisturizing daily is imperative. This may be obvious to some, but it can also feel difficult for those with a really busy schedule. I know for me, as a mom, there has been many times when I only had one chance to take a shower on a given day, and if I didn’t take it, I was always sorry. Or I would take a rushed, half-effort shower and get dressed immediately after without oil, lotion, anything. Having a routine in place for daily washing and moisturizing (that works with my sporadic life) helps me make sure it won’t get missed. Again, as with episode 9, OIL UP! Coconut oil is a great choice, but my skin just drinks it up like water. Sesame oil is a nice alternative because it’s a bit thicker. It was hard for me to get used to smelling like a huge sesame seed though, not gonna lie. But there are so many different oils and butters out there to love our bodies with, just use some trial and error to find which one(s) work best for you.

Last thing: Bedding. Change it at least once a week. Get on the silk pillowcase train! Or if you real fancy, like Fran, get you a full-on silk sheet set. Cotton sheets soak up all the moisture from our skin that we work so hard and lovingly on.

Ep. 12: The Shut Down Mixtape

House cleaning time! Clean your fridge, clean your closets, clean your desk drawers. Clean everything! Trying to especially bring focus to areas that are often overlooked in your regular daily cleaning. By doing this, we clear out old energy, removing heaviness from our homes that we may not even realize is there. I personally can vouch that this helps with anxiety and even lifts my depression symptoms as well. It feels good when the space I live in looks and smells nice, so taking the effort is more than worthwhile.

Ep. 13: Oh God…

Get in touch with what religion/spirituality mean to YOU. This one was hard for me because I wasn’t raised with much knowledge of (or respect for, sadly) religion. As I grew, I became super interested in the various religions and how they affect the lives of others - good or bad. I’ve now learned to adapt my own spiritual practices that support me and help me get by. And this is life changing.

Ep. 14: Say It Like You Mean It

Here, we are instructed to find out what our individual love language is. This comes from the book The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. The 5 Love Languages are:

Quality Time

Acts of Service

Receiving Gifts

Words of Affirmation

Physical Touch

You may already have an idea of what your primary love language is, but you can get some more information on that by reading the book or by taking quizzes on the book’s website. Knowing your love language, as a single, can help you define what you need from a partner. As someone in a relationship, it can help both partners learn how to best make sure everyone knows they are loved and valued.

Ep. 15: Yo Mama

Scalp Care for Winter Weather!

½ Cup Olive Oil ~ Seals in moisture

2 Tbsp. Honey (Fran uses Raw honey) ~ Creates pretty shine

½ Cup Coconut Milk ~ Adds protein

½ an Avocado ~ Healthy fat

½ a Banana ~ Softens hair

Blend all ingredients into a creamy conditioner, which should come out a nice light greenish color.

I keep forgetting coconut milk at the store or else I’d have been tried this one, smh *face palm* But I will edit to add my review after I finally do this. :)

Ep. 16: Non Profit & Chill

This episode had no segments, but we can still gain a wellness tip from it. Recorded right after Fran returned from a trip to Africa, she had a ton of insight to share on why it’s so important to be an ethical consumer. This episode was a great one to re-listen to as it reminded me that I am reading labels and the “about” pages on brand’s websites for a valid reason that is important to me, not just following trends. Dang imposter syndrome, always trying to step in and ruin everything (shoutout to the Friend Zone for teaching me about that as well, in a later episode.)

Fair Trade Errything !!!

Ep. 17: There’s A Song For That

No wellness segment this week, per say, but again I’ll summarize the episode to make it wellness for us all. The friends basically dode over their favorite break-up songs, from the deepest of soul, to the pettiest of rap songs. Many genres listed, and many bangers. This episode is a great listen for those going through a breakup, or even if you’re a big fan of the episodes where the Friends just let loose and have fun.

Ep. 18: Don’t You Go To Work?

Inspired by Assante and his newly purchased stones, which he is carrying safely in his pocket, Fran suggested that us listeners get in on the magic as well by getting our own stones. Starting with Citrine. This stone is a light orange color, and can be found online or in local crystal stores in most cities. Often referred to as “the merchants stone”, Citrine is believed to attract success. Fran offered the idea of laying it on some money, because she did it and got a random check in the mail soon after...And I kid you not - I did it, and the saaame thing happened to me. I was shook and beyond grateful!

Other stones mentioned here are Lapis Lazuli and Black Tourmaline. Lapis is a pretty, royal blue shade, usually with gold flakes in it. Lapis is known as the “communication stone”. Black Tourmaline is, you guessed it, black, and often found in shiny pieces. Fran says she keeps one of these by her bedside to absorb negative thoughts; letting it cleanse her energy before bed.

Stores mentioned on this episode: Rock Star, and Namaste shop. Both New York based but have online shopping available. Personally, and this is gonna sound real woo-woo, but I prefer picking out stones in person because then I can actually feed off of their energy to pick the right one for me. Those living in a small town, there is probably a crystal shop not too far away.

Ep. 19: The Friend Zone & The Read Mash Up Pt. 1

Wellness this week: be messy and silly with your friends. For me, I don’t currently have any real life friends to hang out with, plus COVID, so my family gets to enjoy all my silly mess. Life just cannot be lived being serious 100% of the time!

Ep. 20: 2015, I’ma Let You Finish, But 2016…

I loved this episode because it brings us back to our journals. Fran asks the guys and us listeners to reflect on two simple, but powerful questions to answer at the end of each year:

What are 3 things you discovered about yourself this year that you love? Things that you feel will propel you into the next year, as a person, career-wise, and as a whole. Write freely about how you plan on maintaining and evolving.

What are 3 things you discovered about yourself this year that you did not like? Maybe some of these things are hard to face. Reflect on how you’ve allowed them to hold you back and what you are doing to adjust them.

#friendzonepod #wellness #holisticliving #forthe #hoodhearted

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firstcorinthians-elevenfifteen · 5 years

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20/20 Vision.

So this is about to be one of the realest posts I have ever written.

This post is going to be about depression, a subject I hate speaking on (insert wobbly faced emoji).

Once 2020 started, I took a break from my environment, from people, and it was just God, Cairo and I for a few weeks.

I stepped into 2020 with so many goals and expectations, and I knew I had a part to play in executing them, I couldn’t just say, here God, here’s my faith - do your thing. I couldn’t expect my year to be massively different if I was still doing the same things I was doing. I needed to change. I just didn’t know how.

After I had Cairo, like I said in a previous post, although it was a happy time, I was still very sad. I had experienced so much and I had so much healing to do. Throw being a solo mother into the mix, and it was a sure recipe for postnatal depression.

It took me months to realise I was struggling from PND. It only dawned on me in January as I took time to reflect. I realised for over a year I hadn’t been myself. I’d gone into self-protection mode, mamabear mode, thick-skinned mode, emotionally-numb mode, and functioning in all those modes made me lose Millie. I hadn’t been myself in over a year. I was tired, worn out, tired, exhausted, offended, hurt, and did I mention tired? There was even a point where I was physically withering away lol.

I tried to come out of those modes, but something would happen and I would go back into them, vowing never to come out again. It was the only way I thought I could protect myself. Sometimes, misery loves company, and its favourite company is you. Sometimes being miserable is the most comforting feeling, because you don’t actually know anything different anymore.

If you know me, you know I’m always reading something. One of the books I was reading at the time was “Wholeness” by Toure Roberts and whew chileeeee, it completely broke things down for me.

I couldn’t see past my pregnancy anymore. Life stopped there. It was such a blow for me that I couldn’t see life before it, and I was struggling to see what life would come after it (silly, huh?). But depression pulls you into a deep, dark hole.

Reading the book made me see that I got pregnant in the first place because I wasn’t whole (you’re thinking well duh right?), although I acknowledged that fact, I hadn’t actually accepted it, prayed about it, and allowed God to work on that broken part of me. Being pregnant, then caused me to become even more broken, and whilst everyone can scream forgive and move on, it just wasn’t that easy. I needed to start right at the beginning. I needed to start looking at the issues within me that brought me to this point in life, so that I would not encounter this misstep again, and so that I could actually learn and grow from this season.

I had to address every insecurity that brought me to getting pregnant. I brought them before God in prayer and asked him to help me heal. To help me overcome them. I had to take scriptures concerning my insecurities and force them to become the new narrative in my mind concerning myself and my situation.

It was then that I saw God began to really work on my mind. Strongholds were being broken because I finally surrendered the most broken parts of me and allowed his word to loosen the lies Satan had given me to live by.

Second thing on my list was addressing this pregnancy. Whilst I love my son with every atom of my being (and then some!), I had a hard time accepting what I had done. Yes everyone makes mistakes, and yes I love my baby. I just would wish and wish he came about in a more wholesome situation.

It was a truth I had been running from, purely because to others, I was boldly carrying my cross, you could not tell me nothin’, but inside I was yelling help me! Do you know how hard it is, living a life you haven’t come to terms with yet? Being a mum is a 24/7 job, I can’t take a day, a week or a month to get my mind together, but during prayer, God managed to comfort me.

Genesis 17, talks about when God was speaking to Abraham, telling him to walk faithfully and be blameless. Abraham couldn’t wait for God’s promise (His son Isaac) so he slept with Hagar, they had Ishmael, and well, you know how that goes.

God was speaking to Abraham after this though, saying that He remembered every single promise He had made to Abraham and Sarah. He still wanted to fulfil them. He simply wanted Abraham to walk faithfully and blamelessly before Him. I felt like God was telling me the same thing. The past didn’t matter. He’d already factored in this misstep. All I had to do was trust Him, walk before Him faithfully and blamelessly, then all I’d have to do is watch Him work out all His promises in my life, like He still wanted to do.

Thank God.

With more consistent prayer, and intentionally seeking God, things began to change, I began to change, my outlook on life began to change, my personality was coming back, and a better, less bitter Millie was evolving. I naturally wanted to go out more and actually began to enjoy being both single and a mother. I found myself actually being content.

I can’t explain it but it’s like a burden has been lifted for real, for real. Even on days when I’m exhausted and parenting is hard, I can feel God’s grace giving me more energy, I can feel God giving me more strength to endure the rest of the day joyfully.

This is when I see scriptures coming alive in my life, like His strength being perfect in my weakness, like Him being a father to the fatherless. Like His grace being sufficient.

I’ve had so many people around me tell me I’ve changed. Honestly, it’s for the better. I can see so much more clearer now. I’m not ashamed. I’m not insecure. I’m being made whole by His grace. Literally.

Whilst I did make a mistake, I can’t say that I would have reached this point without Cairo. Truth is, I have always been depressed, I have always had episodes of it, especially since my dad left us as children. This situation just magnified it for me. But I’m so grateful that I serve a God who is faithful. He uses everything for our good. He’s using the very mistake I made to heal me.

I’m still on a journey, I’m not perfect everyday, but, God is faithful, and I know my end will be so much better than my beginning.

- m x

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moonysfrexckles · 5 years

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Listen it’s not what they did, it’s how they did it

Killing Jaime and Cersei and having them die in each other’s arms? Fine. But having a ceiling collapse on the major villain of the show for the past however many seasons, having her go down WITHOUT A FIGHT when this woman literally blew up all her enemies when she was at her most broken? Not fine. Like hell would Cersei surrender so easily and give up fighting. This woman has not stopped fighting for 8 seasons and you expect us to believe that a bit of rubble is her undoing?? Where is the politics? The backstabbing? The Plan B’s and C’s that no one sees coming? This is not Cersei Lannister and frankly, she deserved better.

As if that wasn’t enough, having the character with the most beautiful and redemptive storyline on the show who somehow managed to become everyone’s favourite after he SHAGGED HIS SISTER AND PUSHED A KID OUT OF A WINDOW in S1 suddenly throw away 7 seasons of desperate struggle to be a better and more honourable man all within a second just because he realises he’s actually not over his abusive twin? Not fine. Not fine at all. In fact, this is quite possibly the worst end to Jaime’s character. It was a butcher of the tragic man we all know who was so desperate to salvage any scrap of his honour, he lost a hand protecting a woman he’d known for a few weeks (don’t even get me started on Brienne. My heart is BROKEN for her).

Jaime and Cersei SHOULD have died together. There was too much emphasis on coming into the world together and leaving it the same way for them to die apart. But Jaime should’ve been the one killing her or desperately trying to make her surrender before realising he had no choice but to kill his Queen (coming full circle as that was how his story began). Two of the biggest players of the game from S1 should NOT have died so underwhelmingly in a way that completely erased 7 seasons of character development.

Now onto Daenerys... Having Dany burn KL? Fine. Genuinely, this has been set in stone right from the very start of Season 1 when we saw those dragon eggs in my opinion and has been a prediction of mine for the final fight for so long that I do think it makes sense. Her vision, her constant threats of burning cities and taking what is rightfully hers by fire and blood, was all leading to one outcome: Dany forcibly taking the Iron Throne or even destroying it. All of that? Fine. Dany, the one we’ve been rooting for from the start suddenly becoming the villain? Honestly? Fine. I thought this was a very clever twist. I’ve always wanted her to ultimately become the villain to the Westeros characters we’ve also followed, giving us a fight that is not simply good vs evil but the different perspectives of characters we’ve watched grow and suffer and fight to stay alive. It shows us the duality of her character and all the different perpections as, ultimately, Dany IS a foreign conqueror forcibly seizing a throne that doesn’t currently belong to her- that’s literally not something a conventional hero would do. THE PROBLEM was the execution (pun unintended). The same woman who freed slaves, who burnt abusive and misogynistic Dothraki leaders, who freed the Unsullied and constantly talked of ridding the world of tyrants IGNORES the bells of surrender and suddenly starts burning innocent civilians???? NOT FINE. NOT FINE AT ALL. Have Dany burn KL and become the villain is fine but DON’T act as though the compassionate character we all grew to love and cheer for (ESPECIALLY after she’s just lost everyone) is evil to the core and mentally unstable enough to burn innocent men, women and children like sitting ducks. That is NOT FINE.

Listen, I could go on forever with more. Cleganebowl (the Hound dying in fire was a nasty touch, I thought, though some might’ve found it poetic or cyclical or whatever), Tyrion throwing Varys under the (literal) dragon, Jon doing ABSOLUTELY NAFF ALL when we all know his character is about as black and white in terms of morality as GRRM dares to stray and yet he still somehow comes out of it looking like the hero we should root for against the “big bad” Dany. I can’t truly express how sad and mad and disappointed this episode made me. I love these characters and I feel as though we were robbed of a just and IN-CHARACTER ending for them that was worth the accumulation of 7 gruelling and heartbreaking seasons. Instead, it feels like none of that was worth anything.

#game of thrones #got8 #game of thrones spoilers #got spoilers #jaime lannister #daenerys targaryen #dany #daenerys #cersei lannister #spoilers

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itsclydebitches · 6 years

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 6 “The Lady in the Shoe”

Welcome back, everyone! The summary for this episode: Part Two was pretty excellently done (with one major exception) and Part One would be stellar if we could just separate it from its context. Which of course we can’t. So it’s a bit of a mixed bag this week.

Episode Eleven is titled “The Lady in the Shoe,” but apparently instead of a scolding and early bedtime children get to be blown up via missiles. Alrighty then. We open back on the mech battle with Ruby telling Weiss to get her butt down here, we need your help if we’re going to take down this monstrosity. Weiss briefly speaks my language.

Weiss: “You’re joking, right?”

Except it’s not a criticism about picking a fight with a Atlesian special operative in the first place, just that said special operative has some serious firepower on her side. Ruby justifies this leaderly decision with, “We’ve fought giant monsters before. This is just a tiny old lady…”

Which is precisely the problem, Ruby. You’re not fighting a giant monster here—this mech is not an objectively evil grimm rising up from the depths of the ocean that you are duty bound to fight. You are about to attack a tiny old lady—the sort of person you’re supposed to be protecting, even when they’re dicks. It still astounds me that the writers put all this dialogue into the characters’ mouths without commenting on (or even realizing) the staggering irony here. Can Ironwood please show up at the last moment and chastise them all for doing everything but what huntsmen are supposed to do?

Notice in this shot that no one has drawn their weapon yet. We know the kind of response time this group has. If there’s any danger nearby—real (grimm) or imagined (their uncle)—those weapons are raised in a heartbeat. Now here’s a massive mech bearing down on them and no one is moving to defend themselves, so some part of them must realize that this is a stupid, childish, needless fight that they are responsible for diffusing, considering that they started it in the first place. No one bothers though. They’re not outright attacking yet, but they’re not backing down either. That stubborn faith is admirable when set against monsters and Salem’s henchmen, not when it’s aimed at an authority figure you never should have made an enemy of in the first place.

However, Cordovin then reminds us of her dickishness, calling the kids “spider roaches” (ew) and promising to take them down. She wants to see how their “resolve holds out against the might of the Atlesian military,” once again encouraging the audience to accept this fight as the volume’s long-awaited resolution. Their resolve has been shaken the last few days, but fighting Cordovin has absolutely nothing to do with facing off against an immortal enemy. Having the kids hold their ground here doesn’t somehow tell us that they’ve re-discovered purpose in their good deeds and are willing to continue fighting against Salem, it just highlights how unwilling they are to admit when they’re wrong. This fight emphasizes only how immature and reckless the group is behaving right now. That doesn’t disappear just because RT tries to flimsily reframe it in another light.

Things immediately start going downhill. Done with her warning shots, Cordovin launches a missile at Maria and Weiss, though at the last second it’s blown out of the air by Ruby. This cues Cordovin into the fact that the rest of the gang is down on that cliff. She launches another shot and Weiss jumps down at the last second, getting up a barrier of stone and ice to protect them. Like so much in this fight, the save only comes at the very last second.

Oscar: “That was close…”

This should really be cueing the kids in. Cordovin isn’t playing around and this little encounter just got horrendously dangerous. The answer here is to surrender, admit that you were in the wrong for trying to steal military property, not escalate the situation by gleefully fighting back. And Ruby absolutely escalates it. A minute later—after laughing while dodging more missiles—Ruby takes a freaking headshot at Cordovin.

Look, there’s no excuse for that. Not in my book. I don’t care how likely it is that Atlas glass is strong enough to stop one of her rounds. I don’t care if Ruby assumed Cordovin would have her own aura up as an extra precaution inside the mech (if she can even manipulate aura like that. Cordovin is military, but that doesn’t automatically mean she can fight like a huntsmen. There might be a reason she got in that mech instead of fighting them herself). I don’t even care that Cordovin shot first and people are going to claim that the group is now justified to do whatever they want to her. Ruby could have been wrong. All of her assumptions about glass and aura might have come back to bite her. She looked a woman dead in the eye—not a grimm, not Cinder, not Salem herself—and shot with an intent to kill. What would everyone think of our precious protagonist if she’d murdered a Atlesian official after getting caught trying to steal their tech? Since when does the show encourage us to cheer on the group attacking an ally, no matter how much of an asshole she is as an individual?

I’ll be blunt: I don’t like this Ruby. I wanted leader!Ruby dealing with her anger at Qrow, our kind and level-headed girl growing into a mature young adult this volume. Instead we’ve gotten a smug, flippant child who is so obsessed with moving forward that she’ll eschew strategy and ethics in favor of results. She’s impatient. She’s once again overconfident in her abilities. She’s backsliding and this would be a fascinating thing to witness if the show weren’t incorrectly characterizing this as growth.

Before Ruby takes her shot though we get a bit more of that irony. Jaune points out that such a large mech will have difficulty hitting a small target, so they should spread out and give Cordovin too many things to focus on. “We just have to be smart,” a hilarious line given the context of all this. Maria is charged with keeping the airship safe, despite the fact that she had her license revoked. (Another example of them taking the legitimate, “How is this woman flying a plane?” question and reducing it to a joke.) Qrow offers to give them another bird’s eye view of the situation, despite the fact that we’ve seen no reason for this sudden change in his outlook. For 7 episodes now Qrow has been under the impression that everything he’s done as a huntsmen is useless and last week he followed that up with the worry that his semblance is at the heart of it all. Neither of these fears have been addressed. Ruby giving one incredibly broad line about how she still needs Qrow Branwen shouldn’t erase what’s been plaguing him for an entire volume… but it apparently does. Fighting is no longer a useless endeavor with Salem hanging over him. Stealing an airship is no longer a plan he’s against. His semblance is no longer something to take into account. (You’ll notice that, conveniently, his semblance doesn’t seem to have any impact on the fight. Suddenly close combat alongside allies is no longer the dangerous thing that the Tyrian fight once painted it as.) Like so many others I’m thrilled that Qrow seems to be in a better place… I just wish we’d been given a convincing reason for him to drop his bottle here and happily join a fight he’s so-far been against for three distinct reasons. Like so much in this volume, the ideas are great while the execution falters.

Truthfully though? I love the fight itself. Ruby skillfully dodging missiles or running along their back, Weiss creating a series of ice islands for them to jump off of, riding on the lancer she summoned… all of that is epic as hell. However, that’s undercut by the fact that I’m just not rooting for Team RWBY here.

Over the course of the fight they do a good amount of damage to that mech. One of the biggest blows is when Qrow and Ren manage to destroy the device generating Cordovin’s shields. They don’t disable it, they just shoot it until it breaks. The entire time I was thinking, “Wow. This is going to be a pretty penny to fix/this mech is going to be entirely useless if Argus suddenly needs it to defend themselves from some grimm.” The entire time the group—particularly Ruby—treats it all as a fun adventure that’s only serious when they want it to be (like shooting at Cordovin). Ruby’s logic is chastised because “This isn’t a game!” and when she gets into trouble Weiss demands, “What if I hadn’t caught you?” The answer is just a sunny smile, not any actual thought about what her choices just were and whether she should change them.

Ruby is meant to be chipper in the face of danger, i.e. “Bad! Landing! Strategy!” after getting knocked off a cliff by a grimm. She’s not supposed to attack other people, destroy their defenses, and laugh about it. Perhaps the most frustrating moment is when she hangs off the front of the mech, waving at Cordovin like they aren’t having a legitimate battle here. Nora’s commentary is something that I always enjoy, “And you said it wasn’t beach season” + “You get back here with my man!” is fun, especially since the latter finally acknowledges that she and Ren are a couple now. Hallelujah! But it only works because Nora’s entire brand is happy-go-lucky in the face of overwhelming odds. That never really changes. Ruby, however, is jumping between silly goof and murderous huntress within the span of a few seconds. Is the Cordovin fight supposed to be comical or something they’re taking seriously as one of our final battles? The writing can’t decide.

Of course, we do hit a point where things get bad enough that the group starts panicking again. Cordovin has enough of all this and makes a swipe at Nora, forcing Jaune to make a last second grab for her. Both of them are slammed into a rock with their auras broken. The rest of the group gets blasted right off Weiss’ lancer, but Ruby can’t quite make it to the edge of the cliff. She stops her fall with Crescent Rose and then just…hangs there?

Okay. This is what I mean when I say the writing is contrived; that things are working out in one specific way to serve the plot, regardless of logic. Why isn’t Ruby using her semblance? Is she really that exhausted already? Why not just dive into the water? We’ve seen numerous times—starting at Beacon’s initiation—that Ruby can fall from great heights provided that she use the impact of her shots to slow her descent. Why isn’t Weiss summoning something for her to drop onto? Why does Qrow reach for Ruby and then just stand there stupidly while Cordovin levels a shot at his niece?

There’s no reason why prodigy Ruby would just hang there cringing, or why all of her talented friends would just stand there dumbly, except that the plot wants Maria and Oscar to “have” to rescue her. Except they don’t have to. We haven’t set up a situation where they’re truly the last line of defense. Jaune and Nora have already been knocked out. Now you could have Cordovin cut off the rest of the group with one arm while aiming at Ruby. Show a brief shot of Ruby trying and failing to start up her semblance, slipping further down the cliff in exhaustion. Let Weiss scream at her to just drop and Qrow shout back that she never learned how to swim. Give us reasons—even if they’re flimsy—for why using the airship is suddenly the only option.

Because you know, airship. The entire point of this fight is to keep the airship intact and get to Atlas. Now it’s been shot at. We don’t see what exactly the damage is, but I’m going to roll my eyes hard if it’s conveniently minor. Have Oscar and Maria escape unscathed, but I hope the ship itself is wrecked. Let the group realize that they picked a fight and their reasons for doing so are now useless.

“This is what happens when you think you know better than those rightfully in charge,” Cordovin says and she’s right. Her being an asshole is entirely separate from the fact that she’s got her facts straight. She is in charge of the Argus base, adults do often know better than teens, and this is what happens when you think you know better than those who told you, “This is a bad idea.” RWBYJNR made their bed and now they can lie in it. Now if only the writing would actually acknowledge that...

We cut with the mech fight half over and transition to Blake and Adam. This is the part of the episode that I think was very well done, but let me preface that by saying I view this battle in the same way I view Qrow’s current characterization. Meaning, I’m glad we got there… but how did we get there? That’ll make more sense in a moment.

For now, we watch as Blake tries to get away from Adam, no doubt hoping to make her way back to Yang. All of Adam’s dialogue in these scenes is excellently done. He’s the epitome of an abuser, characterizing Blake’s growth as a flaw—“Can’t you do anything besides run?” Missing the fact that nowadays she’s only running from him—and blaming her for his actions: “I wouldn’t have to be doing this if you’d just behaved!” It’s the kind of dialogue that I’m sure will sound too familiar for many viewers. Definitely hard to watch, but that’s because it’s well crafted.

“You’re selfish. You’re a coward,” Adam says. “You’re delusional,” Blake shoots right back.

As the fight continues Blake ends up losing her coat, something the whole fandom was hoping for given the importance of her scar. I really enjoyed the use of editing during all this. Adam ends up breaking Gambol Shroud (symbolic and a good setup for volume 7) and manages to get Blake into the same position as when he first stabbed her. This time Blake blocks the hit and when she does we get the briefest look at Yang’s bike rushing towards them. The speed of the cut is a good choice, keeping up with the fast-paced action, letting us know Yang is almost there without drawing attention away from Adam and Blake.

However, the fight does simmer down as Adam finally removes his mask.

That brand is… disturbing. Granted, it would have been more disturbing if I’d been able to figure out what those letters (numbers?) were right from the start lol. For anyone still confused, Adam has a horrific SDC burned over one eye—a literal mark of the Schnee Dust Company. Did he work for the Schnees and receive that as a part of their slave labor? Was it enacted as punishment after one of his raids, a way of sending a message to all the other faunus? We don’t know, we might never know, but at the very least I want Weiss to see Adam before he’s either killed or makes another escape. Given everything else that’s been going on, RWBY hasn’t had time to explore the accusations Blake leveled at Weiss all the way back at Beacon, or the conversation we overhear her dad having at the party. It’s looking like Yang and Blake’s arc with Adam is finally coming to a close, but getting a look at his face could be the start of a new one for Weiss. She deserves to know the full extent of what her father has done. Not just to her as his daughter, but to an entire minority group.

“You didn’t leave scars, you just left me alone,” Adam whines like his own trauma in any way excuses what he’s done to Blake. “How does it feel to be alone?”

We get Blake’s ear twitching towards the sound of Yang approaching, she uses her semblance to escape, and at the last second proclaims, “I’m not alone.”

THEN YANG STRAIGHT UP HITS ADAM WITH HER BIKE.

Right now I do not CARE about in-world physics, or how Yang aimed coming off that cliff, or any of that. She hit Adam with a goddamn motorcycle while doing a flip off of it. There’s no world in which that isn’t badass.

Now we know how she gets rid of bumblebee. Yang couldn’t drag it on their adventure for forever. I’m glad it became something symbolic—Yang giving up a precious momento that carried her off into her new life, doing so without a moment’s hesitation for Blake—as opposed to just something like, “Yeah I shipped it off back to Dad!”

RIP Bumblebee. You will be missed.

Here though we get to the portion of the fight that (dare I say it?) feels a little un-earned. Look, I’m thrilled that we got these girls protecting one another and standing tall in the face of their abuser, but like Qrow’s sudden mood change, these kinds of payoffs are 100% better when we see how characters got there. The last time we touched on Adam in Blake and Yang’s lives:

Both of them were still having PTSD flashbacks, to the point where they instinctually flinch away from him in terror.

Blake was under the impression that she has to protect Yang and had no idea why that might not be what she wants.

Yang got pissed at Blake’s protective instincts and refused to communicate, shutting down the conversation.

Yang was coming out of a situation (Ozpin) where her anger had reached new levels and she was once again ready to punch her way through her problems.

Now, suddenly:

Neither Yang nor Blake hesitate for an instant. Yang in particular, who had no idea what she’d find when she went after Blake, is 100% confident in facing down Adam. Her hand shakes, yes, but that doesn’t actually have an impact on the fight. PTSD isn’t that kind. If you’ve been cowering instinctually for months now upon seeing visions of someone, that doesn’t conveniently disappear when you meet the real thing.

Blake announces that she’s not protecting Yang… even though two-three days ago that was her position. What changed?

Yang doesn’t react in surprise to hearing this sudden change of heart. Why is she acting like they’ve always been on the same page about protecting one another when they explicitly haven’t been? They had this disagreement literally days ago.

Yang is perfectly calm during the whole fight. She doesn’t use her semblance, immediately listens to Blake’s info about Adam’s, never once loses her temper. I’m thrilled to see the improvement but again, where did it come from? If Yang is going to get that worked up at Ozpin, why would we expect her to be perfectly cool when facing Adam, of all people?

As said, these are all things I wanted to see, but it feels like we skipped over a big chunk of the journey. And honestly part of that journey could have been worked into the fight itself, pretty easily. Let Yang jump off that cliff, see that it’s Adam, and immediately freeze. Blake has to block a hit to save her and comments, “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.” Yang gets pissed. She doesn’t need Blake to protect her, she’s doing the protecting, and she starts the first half of the fight in a temper that Adam takes advantage of. You can have them realizing in the moment that they need to protect one another so that by the time they’re holding hands we feel like we’ve evolved to this point naturally.

Let Yang realize halfway through the fight that this head-on approach isn’t working so that when she suddenly tells Adam to leave this feels more like growth instead of, “Wait. Yang’s just gonna let this guy walk away? Since when?” Like so much in volume 6, I’m thrilled with what we got… just not in the way that we got it.

Each fight is only half over though. Presumably Episode 12 will wrap things up and then Episode 13? That’s up in the air. At this point though I’m still really hoping for some repercussions. Give me a moment where Cinder and Neo show up, but the gang is so exhausted from needlessly fighting Cordovin that they don’t stand a chance. Let them encounter a swarm of ocean grimm drawn up by how scared the Argus population is,

but they’ve destroyed the mech specifically designed to fight them. Let the kids face some actual consequences for their actions so that they can finally realize how stupid they’re being.

Then Ozpin can show up and save them all. I want them to learn something, not die lol.

I doubt we’ll get it though. Most likely? The airship is fine, the battles are won, we’re encouraged to cheer for our current “heroes,” and they fly off towards Atlas without consequence. Yuck. I’m preparing myself for it though. We’ll see…

Until next week!

Other Things of Note

Just for the record, that team up with Ren could have been a perfect moment to slip in Qrow’s semblance. You recklessly shoot at the dust generator creating shields for a mech? Bad luck causes it to blow up in your face, launching Ren into the water, explaining Nora’s yell about giving her back her man.

Kinda surprised by Adam’s blue eyes. Not gonna lie. I mean, not that anyone else in this show is following real world genetics (Yang’s eyes are purple and red I MEAN), it just wasn’t what I was expecting.

“He gets to dish out damage without having to feel it? That’s just cheap.” Ah, that feels like a sentence with more than one meaning…

I brought up in a previous recap about how RWBY treats disabilities, emphasizing that they’re either ignored (Maria’s blindness isn’t a problem! She can still fly just fine!) or we reach a point where there are only upsides (Yang able to detach her arm and escape Mercury). We see another example of that here wherein Yang’s new arm is able to withstand the blow that would have otherwise torn through flesh. She’s now stronger not just because of what she’s survived, but because her arm is literally better in all respects from the one she was born with.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #mymetas #RWBY Recaps

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thatdoublenine · 5 years

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About Del Luna

*Updated with information up to Episode 7.

About Hotel Del Luna

The Moon Geusthouse, known originally as 달의 객잔 月의客棧. Renamed as 만월당 滿月堂, then finally as Hotel Del Luna. It is a place where the souls of the dead gathers before they proceed to the next phase, particularly those with unfinished business in the living world. In Episode 5, Chan Seong said that by following the Moon, one can find Hotel Del Luna.

About Jang Man Wol

Man Wol is the leader of a nomadic triad that rob for a living. Except for the flashback where she's wearing a completely red traditional wedding gown, she dressed in Mens’ clothing all the time.

At the ancient Pojangmacha, where Mago Shin is serving Man Wol alcohol, Mago Shin looked at Man Wol curiously and asked if she’s a Muzu 무주 武周, a Georan 거란 契丹, or a Malgal 말갈 靺鞨. She suddenly noticed her sword and asked if she's a warrior.

Although Man Wol appears (or dressed like) to be from Muzu, she’s not familiar with some of the geographical terrains in Muzu. Unlike Cheong Myeong, for example, who knows how to deal with a quicksand.

Muzu, refers to Tang Dynasty during the period under Empress Wu Ze Tian’s rule. In Hanja it is written as 武周 where the first hanja character refers to Wu. In the characters introduction on the official website, Man Wol, Cheong Myeong and Yeon Woo are all Muzu people. But they’re speaking the same tongue, Korean. This is due to the fact that Goguryeo’s territory used to spread out to within Tang Dynasty’s boundary. Hence it is not difficult to imagine that there would be people of Goguryeo remaining in their original lands after Tang took over.

In modern day, Man Wol is stuck in the state between the living and the dead world. She is paying back the sins she committed during her lifetime by serving as the owner of Hotel Del Luna. In her own words, she is neither dead nor alive, she just “exists”. The tree in the garden symbolises her life, which is standing but dried and lifeless. Her life is paused and her time started to tick again when she meets Chan Seong.

About Gu Chan Seong

Chan Seong is not an ordinary human that just happened to become Del Luna’s newest General Manager. His arrival brought changes to the tree in the garden, which remained dried and dead for a millennia. The tree sprang back to life, sprouted leaves when his father’s soul arrived at the garden. When Chan Seong arrived, the tree sprouted even more leaves and even bloomed flowers. Chan Seong could be the reincarnated soul of either Yeon Woo or Cheong Myeong. Although the chance of him being Cheong Myeong’s reincarnation is slightly higher. Chan Seong is having dreams about Man Wol’s memories while she was still alive but it is unclear why he is having these dreams or whether he needs to payback for watching these flashbacks.

About Yeon Woo

Yeon Woo, together with Manwol, and some other Goguryeo nomadic people from Gaori village belong to a triad gang in Muzu that rob for a living. He is described to be greatly skilled with his hands, be it with weapons or musical instruments. Someone with an easygoing and great personality. He is like a friend, a sibling, a subordinate to Man Wol. Man Wol mentioned later that Yeon Woo is the person who loved her the most in the universe when Chan Seong asked her if there’s a possibility he could be the reincarnation of Yeon Woo.

About Go Cheong Myeong

According to official character descriptions, Cheong Myeong is a descendant of a noble family from Goguryeo. His father surrendered to Muzu dynasty and their family had settled in Muzu ever since. He is the Chief of guards at the Yeong Ju Fortress, a settlement located near the frontier borders of the Muzu dynasty.

About the Shin(s)

About Mago Shin 마고신 麻姑神. In this universe, Mago Shin is interpreted to be a set of 12 sisters with distinct personalities. Up to now (episode 7), we’ve seen four of them.

The Eldest Mago Shin, the first one who appeared before Man Wol in episode 1 at the ancient Ponchangmacha.

The second Mago Shin, is the one who makes medicine at a traditional pharmacy.

The third Mago Shin is the one who weaves and knits.

The fourth Mago Shin dresses in black and goes around catching evil spirits who are roaming around the living world.

The Grim Reaper 사신 死神. The grim reaper is in-charged of maintaining order between the dead and the living worlds. He was furious when he found out that the guest of room 13 escaped the hotel into the living world. He even told the employees of Hotel that he would not let them off easily if the no.13 ghost caused troubles in the living world.

#hotel del luna #korean drama #kdrama

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thorne93 · 6 years

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Curious Conundrum (Part 19)

Prompt: You’re John Watson’s sister. One day you decide to visit your brother for lunch, only to meet the infamous Mr. Holmes…

Word Count: 2469

Warnings: language, flirtation, sexual innuendos (maybe? idfk), murder/crime/case related stuff, angst, jealousy…

Notes: Beta’d by @carryonmyswansong Not only did she beta, but I literally couldn’t have written half these scenes without her help. She contributed majorly, even wrote some parts of scenes. I am forever in her debt.

Also, this starts AFTER Season 2, episode 1. I don’t follow all the episodes, but it does follow the timeline and hit some major events : )

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You followed the men outside, where Sherlock and him managed to get away. Within a few minutes, you got a text telling you an address. It wasn’t Sherlock’s number, but you had a feeling it was a message from one of his homeless network.

You ducked out of the back of the apartment and made your way through town to the address. When you got there, Sherlock and John were waiting for you outside an apartment.

“I’ve nearly unlocked it...There we are,” Sherlock noted as he stood up and you two went inside a small apartment.

Sherlock asked that you find something to cut the cuffs with. You found some bolt cutters and set them free.

“Where are we?” you asked.

“This is a writer's apartment. Kitty. Remember the frisky fan I told you about?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s her. Not a fan at all. She wanted an exclusive interview and I wouldn’t give it to her.”

“Okay so why are we here?”

“She wrote a story called Kiss and Tell, claiming that a man named Richard Brook has shed light on my fraud.”

“And we’re here to…?”

“To see who Richard Brook is.”

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

The three of you sat in the dark to wait for her. She got to the door, opened it, clicked on the light and Sherlock asked, “Too late to go on the record?”

Once Kitty got settled in, Sherlock set in on her. “Congratulations, on the truth about Sherlock Holmes. Scoop that everybody wanted and you got it. Bravo.”

“I gave you your opportunity. I wanted to be on your side, remember? You turned me down so…”

“And then someone turns up and spills all the beans, how utterly convient? Who is Brook?”

She shook her head.

“Oh come on, Kitty, no one trusts the voice at the end of a telephone. There are all those flirty little meetings in cafes, those meetings in hotel rooms. How do you know that you could trust him?” Sherlock pressed. “Man turns up with a holy grail in his pocket. What were his credentials?”

At that moment, the door opened to the apartment and a disheveled Moriarty walked in. “Darling they didn’t have any ground coffee so I just got normal.”

Sherlock spun, his eyes wide with shock, yours as well. Suddenly you felt your heart drop into your stomach, your veins filled with ice. John, you, and Sherlock all looked as if you’d seen a ghost. What the ever loving fuck was he doing here?

“You said that they wouldn’t find me here,” he stammered as he backed into a wall, dropping the grocery bag. Your eyes narrowed on him. “You said that I’d be safe here.”

“You are safe, Richard,” Kitty assured and your face whipped to her. “I’m a witness. They won’t harm you in front of witnesses.”

“Wanna bet?” you muttered, utterly put out with all of this nonsense.

“So that’s your source?” John demanded. “Moriarty is Richard Brook?”

“Of course he’s Richard Brook. There is no Moriarty. There never has been.”

A dizzy spell hit your head at that moment.

“What are you talking about?” John wondered.

“Look him up. Rich Brook, an actor Sherlock Holmes hired to be Moriarty.”

Your eyes flashed to your better half, his face unreadable. Then your eyes flashed to Moriarty.

“Dr. Watson, I know you’re a good man,” Moriarty started. “Don’t--Don’t--Don’t hurt me,” he pleaded holding his hands up.

Oh he was good. Playing the part of victim. Playing the part of a scared little man, but you knew better. This wasn’t real. He was as sick and twisted as they come.

John lost his nerve and started shouting. “No, you’re Moriarity! He’s moriarty!” he insisted glancing back to Kitty. “We've met, remember? You were going to blow me up!”

Moriarity continued his charade as he said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. He paid me. I needed the work.” He gestured to Sherlock and you thought you’d rip his head off then and there. “I’m an actor. I was out of out work.”

“Sherlock, you’d better explain. Cause I am not getting this.”

“I’ll be doing the explaining,” Kitty interjected. She went on to hand John and you papers, explaining how Sherlock had invented Moriarity and all the crimes.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Ask him, he’s right here!” she insisted, pointing to Moriarty.

John went back and forth with the two of them but all you could hear was a rushing in your ears, feel the pounding of your heart, your stomach lurching. You were getting more pissed by the second.

Suddenly, Moriarity had been begging Sherlock to tell John “the truth”.

“Tell him! Tell them! Tell him!” he repeated frantically and you’d had enough.

Shaking your head, you cried, “You sick son a bitch!” Then you lunged at him, his voice getting on your last nerve. This story. The lies. The games. All of it.

“No! No! Don’t you touch me!” he said, falling over himself, getting just out of your grasp. “Don’t you lay a finger on me!”

You continued to march towards him. “Oh I’ll lay more than a finger you sniveling, lying, little snake!”

“Stop it! Stop it now!” Sherlock shouted at Jim, demanding he put this charade to bed. But he didn’t. He started to get up and run away where you and John took off after him.

But he got away. The three of you stormed out of her apartment, your minds still reeling. John was asking if any of this was possible, and Sherlock seemed to surrender and say it was possible.

“There’s only one thing he needs to do to complete his game and that’s to…” Sherlock said, stopping suddenly.

“Sherlock?” you softly said.

“There’s something I need to do.”

“What? Can we help?” John asked.

“No, on my own.” With that he started to walk.

You shook your head, gritting your teeth. “He is such a --”

“Bastard? Annoying dick? Egotistical ass? Patronizing son of a bitch?”

“All of the above,” you muttered.

Just then you got a text message from Sherlock. “Find the computer program. -- SH.”

You showed John.

“Let’s go,” you sighed.

“Uh, you go ahead. I need to take care of something.”

“What? Not you too.”

“Y/N, someone sold Sherlock’s life. It wasn’t me, I highly doubt it was you, so who does that leave?”

It only took you a second before you answered, “Mycroft.”

“Right.”

“But why…?” you started to ask.

“I don’t know, but that’s what I intend to find out.”

“So I’m on my own?” you asked, exasperated as he started to walk away.

“For now, yes! I’ll meet up with you when I can,” he called over his shoulder.

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

You worked all night trying to find the code, not hearing a word from either one of them, except that they were at St. Barts working. Giving up a little after dawn, you decided to head to Barts to see what headway they’d made.

Just as you arrived, Sherlock called you. You stepped out of the cab and answered.

“Hey. You okay?” you greeted.

“Turn around and walk back the way you came,” he instructed sternly.

“What? Why would I do that? I’m coming in.”

“Just do as I ask! Please.” His tone made you nervous so you obliged.

“Yeah, alright. Where am I supposed to go?”

“Stop there.”

“Okay?” you said, looking around for him.

“Okay, look up, I’m on the rooftop.”

Dizziness hit your head like a freight train.

“The rooftop? What the hell are you--” you demanded, angry with him at first, until you actually saw him standing on the ledge. He wasn’t just standing on the rooftop, his tiptoes were over the edge. You gazed up in nauseous horror as you covered your mouth and gasped.

“Sherlock?! What the hell are you doing up there?! Get down this instant!” you nearly shouted into the phone.

“I... I can’t come down so we’ll just have to do it like this,” he said softly.

Your insides twisted.

“Do what?” you asked, a sob already forming in your throat. You didn’t want an answer to your question, but you half hoped it would be something benign, not the horrors that danced through your head at that instant. One horrible thing about your mind was that it quickly worked things out. Moriarity must be making him do this. “Sherlock… What… What’s going on?” you tried to speak through threatening tears.

“An apology,” he said simply.

“For what?” you tried again.

“It’s all true.”

“What’s all true?”

“Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty.”

You shook your head, your heart beating a million miles per hour. Maybe you could get up there but… Sherlock had told you to stay put.

“Why are you saying this? Sherlock this is mad. Stop this right now.”

“I’m a fake, Y/N.”

“No, no you’re not. This is just…”

“The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell John, Lestrade; I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and Molly... in fact, tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes.”

“I’m not going to do that,” you insisted, still biting back tears and your ever-swelling throat. “You know things about people, intimate things, that no one could possibly know in one glance. But you do.”

“Noone is that clever. I couldn’t even tell you anything other than you being an attorney, an obvious deduction. I’ve never been able to read you.”

“So? Sherlock, you can tell people their life story with one glance. I’m the exception.”

It sounded as if he gave a short, sorrow filled laugh before saying, “You always were, weren’t you? My one exception.”

His words. Those words. They sent tears over the edge.

“It’s all one big magic trick, a ruse. I research people. That’s all.”

“You’re lying and I don’t know why. I’m coming up,” you said, starting to move before Sherlock stopped you.

“No! Stay exactly where you are! Don’t move.”

Against your better judgement, you obeyed him and moved back into your spot.

“Alright. I won’t move.”

“Keep your eyes fixed on me,” he requested. “Please, will you do this for me?”

“Do... do what?” you stammered, trying to keep some composure and failing. Not being next to him, seeing him on that ledge, it made your bones, your very soul ache.

“This phone call – it’s, er ... it’s my note. It’s what people do, don’t they – leave a note?”

A strangled sob escaped your throat as you stared up at him.

“No, Sherlock. No. Just... tell me, I can help you. Please let me help you. We can solve this another way. I don’t know what he has on you but please,” you begged.

“There is no other way. Y/N, I’m so sorry for the pain I’ve caused you… For the pain I’m about to cause you. When we met… I never meant for this to happen. That’s why I told you no, the day you asked me to dinner. I warned you. I told you this would be dangerous.”

“I know, and I still said yes.”

“Do you still say yes now?” he asked ominously.

At first you weren’t sure what he meant, but as you stared up at him, it became painfully clear. He would be dead. You weren’t sure when, but he was going to end his life. Today. And he was asking if it was still worth saying yes.

“Yes,” you breathed.

“I’m so sorry you feel that way,” he apologized.

“Please. Sherlock. Don’t do this. Please, for the love of God don’t do this to me,” you pleaded. He was your first and only love. In your mind and heart, he would be your last love. He couldn’t do this. He just couldn’t. “I love you. Do you hear me? I love you!” you shouted, angry at him for doing this, for putting you in this position. Maybe the anger was just an early stage of grief yet to follow.

“I know,” he quietly says into the phone. “But you were just another part of the game.”

At his words, your heart fell out of your chest.

“I… what?” you gasped, trying to catch up.

“Just another step in the plan to make me seem more normal. John had been on me about being more human so... so I chose you, to play the part.”

“No,” you whispered, disbelief coloring your tone as you shook your head.

“Yes,” he insisted. “If I had it my way, I’d have picked Irene. She was, after all, the first woman to truly catch my eye. I could never love you, because you’d always be the other woman in my eyes. It was Irene that I loved… Not you.” Another moment passed, and you wanted to say something, anything, but your mind was spinning too fast for you to fathom a response. “I’m sorry.”

Before you could respond, he held his had out and dropped the phone beside him.

“Sherlock!” you screamed, louder than you’d ever screamed in your life. Your heart was beating so fast, you thought a heart attack was imminent.

But he ignored you, he held his arms out to his sides and stepped off. He fell for what seemed like forever, and yet, it seemed like an instant. You wanted to move, to catch him, to break his fall, to… something! But you couldn’t move.

Not until you heard the sound of his body hitting the pavement. That sickeing sound. You’d never heard anything like that.

For a moment, you swayed, sure that you would throw up or that your buckling knees would give out. Then your mind started to work again and you began running towards him, but a bicyclist had hit you, knocking you to the ground. In your shocked state, you didn’t feel it, but your head had smacked against the pavement.

Finally, you stood up and stumbled your way over to him. There was blood... so much blood. A crowd of people tried to hold you back.

“No, he’s my boyfriend!” you shouted, pushing through them until you landed in front of him. Within a second, your brother was at your side.

“Y/N...Y/N,” he said, looking at you. “Oh, God,” he moaned, his face going to Sherlock’s body. “Sherlock… Sherlock…” he whispered in a daze.

You went to reach towards him but people kept pulling you off of him. John tried to take his pulse, but someone had gotten his hand away too.

A gurney rolled up with paramedics and they turned him over, his lifeless eyes staring up, his hair matted in blood. That was all you needed for the light to leave your own eyes as you passed out on the ground next to his body.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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exxar1 · 4 years

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Episode 7: New Year, New Project (Sort Of)

1/11/2021

Happy new year!

Things aren’t looking so good for the nation right now, but I’m pleased to say my new year is off to a good start. Sticking to my resolutions has been pretty easy thus far, especially the first one. Thanks to the Bible app on my phone and iPad, I’m able to keep up with my daily devotions on my lunch break. I also bought myself a Bible and a cover for it on Amazon as a Christmas present to myself. While I normally enjoy reading books on my Kindle or iPad, I decided that I prefer to read my Bible the old fashioned way. So I use that one for my devotions right before bed.

This week I also began work on one of my other resolutions. Last month, as I was browsing Amazon, I stumbled across a book titled “Single, Gay, Christian: A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity”. It’s by a young man named Gregory Coles. Both the title and synopsis intrigued me, so I bought it for reading later. This week, I decided to use my lunch break to read instead of just playing games or surfing social media on my phone. I started Greg’s book on Monday and finished it by Friday.

And…wow.

This is the synopsis from Greg’s website:

Let’s make a deal, you and me. Let’s make promises to each other.

I promise to tell you my story. The whole story. I’ll tell you about a boy in love with Jesus who, at the fateful onset of puberty, realized his sexual attractions were persistently and exclusively for other guys. I’ll tell you how I lay on my bed in the middle of the night and whispered to myself the words I’ve whispered a thousand times since: “I’m gay.”

Is it possible to be gay and still follow Jesus? And if so, what happens next? If you believe the Bible calls you to celibacy, is it possible to embrace that calling without feeling like a divine typo?

Single, Gay, Christian is the story of one person’s journey through these questions. It’s about acting like your own alter ego, about getting epiphanies from mosquitoes, about singing happy birthday to yourself while literally hiding in a closet. It’s about being gay, loving Jesus, and choosing singleness in a world that fears all three.

Greg is only in his late twenties, and he published his story just four years ago. I was immediately captivated by his writing as he put into words so many thoughts, feelings, doubts, questions, and fears that I wrestled with in my teen years and, again, have started grappling with after reaffirming my salvation and faith in God four months ago. Like him, I was terrified of anyone discovering my secret. Like him, I questioned why God had made me this way. But unlike Greg, the only way that I could reconcile my conflict was to reject God, the church and the Bible altogether. I chose to walk into adulthood on my own, living my truth as I saw fit.

Greg, however, stuck it out with God. The end result is that he came to believe it was God’s will for him to remain celibate. He’s currently serving as worship leader in his local church while teaching English part time at the university as well as writing a second book. As for me, I’m about to start the very same journey that Greg just completed.

Four months ago, when I finally surrendered to God in a heartfelt, pleading, somewhat awkward prayer on a quiet car ride home from work late one night, I knew in the back of my mind that I was going to have to return to the very same issue that I had wrestled with in high school. That was one reason I created this blog, and I’ve spent the last four months mentally preparing myself by slowly opening various doors to my past and peeking hesitantly behind them. The first door was episode two of this blog.

This week, as I read Greg’s story, I slowly realized two things. One, it was time to tell my story, and two, it needed to be more than just a blog. One of my new year’s resolutions was to tackle the issue of homosexuality and Christian faith, to reconcile this once and for all so that I could move on with the rest of my life. Greg’s story gave me the realization that the best way to tell my story was to also write a book. So that’s what I’m going to do.

But then something else occurred to me. I don’t want to tell just my story. I want to broaden the scope of the book to discuss this issue in more detail. I want to interview pastors and church leaders of different denominations to hear their interpretations of God’s view on this issue. I also want to talk to others like me who have been struggling with reconciling their faith in God with being gay. I want to deep dive on Google and Amazon to find books and other resources that will help me learn the history of the church and its relationship to the issue of homosexuality. My story is going to provide the frame. All of my interviews and research will be the painted portrait. I’ve even come up with a title: Living Beneath the Rainbow: Reconciling my Homosexuality with my Christian Faith.

Early in my senior year of high school, as part of a joint assignment for my Bible and English classes, my teachers assigned my class a religious topic that we had to research and write up in a term paper. In addition to the usual library research, we were required to interview the pastor and other leaders in our church. As with everything else in high school I did the absolute bare minimum required to complete this assignment. I loved English but despised Bible class, and I can’t even remember the topic my partner and I were assigned. I think it was predestination. Whatever the case, I did the library research, we both sat down for all of 10 minutes with the pastor, and then I wrote the paper. I have no doubt that our teachers gave us a “B” at best, or, more likely, a “C”.

Mrs. Tutty, I know you’re a regular reader of my blog postings, so I want you to know that I’m here for my makeup assignment. This time it’s just me, and this time I promise to do more than just the bare minimum. This project will require my heart and soul. In addition to the various research methods, Bible reading and prayer, I will be returning to my own past. There’s a scared, angry, frustrated, lonely – so desperately lonely – kid that’s been waiting 25 years for me to talk to him. I am going to have to peel away the faded scars of old wounds that I assumed were healed long ago. I need to reconcile with myself before I can start reconciling and building my new relationship with God. I know already that this is going to be painful, and part of me really doesn’t want to do this. I would rather just focus on the main issue and go from here.

But, in the last couple months, as I’ve been my Bible and learning all over again how to pray, I have felt God strongly reminding me of that burden that I thought I had thrown away years ago. In many ways, I’m right back where I started as a freshman in high school. How do I reconcile my faith with being gay?

But that’s not the only reason I need to write this book. Last year I decided that I wanted to get a boyfriend. I was tired of living the single life, and I had felt a need for quite some time to find that “special guy”. That was back in June when I created the Tinder profile and I met “Alfred”. And those of you who read my blog already know how that turned out. But that didn’t stop me from continuing my search for true love.

But, right about that same time is when God started to actively work within me, flipping all kinds of switches that woke me from my 23-year-long selfish complacency. I gave myself back to Him started this new journey.

Sometimes irony can be a real bitch.

After finishing Greg’s book, I have been having all kinds of new inner conflict. The main question now is, what if God’s will for the rest of my life is that I remain celibate? Just when I have begun experiencing a new kind of loneliness and the accompanying desire to satisfy that romantic hunger, I am now faced with the prospect that that hope will be forever denied me. My secret hope for this new project that I’m embarking on is that I will find the answers I’m looking for. That I will find a new peace with God and I can finally put to rest this issue once and for all.

But, deep down in my soul, my super-secret hope is that not only will I resolve and reconcile this issue, but that I will also be rewarded with finding love in a lifelong relationship with another Christian man. I desperately want to experience that love that my parents and all my brothers and so many other people in this world – especially other gay Christians – have already had the joy of living and experiencing.

But…

But what if I reach the end of this particular journey and I get the answer I don’t want to hear?

I promised God four months ago that I was His completely – heart, mind, body and soul. I will do whatever He asks of me. And in my head I know that He will give me the strength and resolve to follow through on that promise when He finally gives me answer to His will. But in my heart, I just don’t know if I can accept the answer if it’s one I don’t want to hear.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. In my typical, type-A personality fashion I’m listing all the things that can wrong with the car before I even begin the road trip. It’s time to just get in, turn the key, and start driving.

There’s also one more good reason to embark on a project like this one. I came back from Christmas vacation transformed. Not only did I feel well rested and refreshed, I also felt a very distinct sense of inner calm and centeredness as I jumped right back into a full time work schedule at both jobs. I hadn’t realized until now, looking back over the last seven months, just how angry, frustrated, and downright hostile I’d become, thanks to all the shenanigans of this country’s citizenry. I spent most of my free time surfing social media, arguing with strangers, ranting and raving like Chicken Little on speed and steroids, and most of it was for very little real result, except maybe fueling my own warped sense of righteous indignation and moral superiority. (But, for the record, I was right about almost all of it.) It also didn’t help that I was charging through most of my days on just 4 ½ hours sleep per night, thanks to the two full time jobs.

My ten day vacation was a Godsend, in more ways than one. Not only did I catch up on sleep, but I also took the time to do some serious reflection and prayer. When I returned to Las Vegas last week, I felt an eerie mixture of calm and peace, as if my whole self was enveloped in a nice, warm invisible blanket. Even that whole, crazy shitstorm on Wednesday at the capitol didn’t ruffle me. I completely ignored the TV in the break room at Walmart as I devoured Greg Coles’ story on my Kindle app. Even my interactions with the customers at both jobs were different. The old me would have been silently judging and cursing all the annoying people – the ones who take forever to do a simple task like printing off a bank statement for a loan application, or they ask dumb questions about common sense stuff, or they want to give me their whole life’s story while the ten people in line behind them silently glare at both of us.

But not the new me. I came into the new year with a new attitude. I knew I needed an adjustment. That’s why one of my resolutions was to be more kind, sympathetic and understanding to the people I interact with daily. But I think my calm, peaceful state of mind is also due to my renewed faith in Christ. I know that no matter how shitty the world around me is going to get, I have faith in the One who’s really in control of it all. And now, thanks to my new writing project, I have something into which I can pour all of my free time, my energy, my passion and my creativity.

I don’t know how long this will take. I’m hoping no more than a year, at most. I’ve already made contact with someone I found on Twitter who runs a ministry in Nashville, TN, that helps churches to create their own ministries specifically to help LGTBQ Christian teens who are struggling with their sexual identity and their service to God. I also contacted Greg Coles via his website to thank him for his book and I asked him if he would be willing to correspond with me to discuss his story – and my own project – further. No response as of yet.

But now I have a special request for all you out there reading this. If you know of someone like me who’s going through this same struggle and is willing to talk about it, or if you belong to a church that is either gay friendly or not, or if you know of any resources that you can point me to that will help in my study and research on this topic, I would greatly appreciate the assistance. I especially would like to speak to pastors or church leaders of the Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian or Methodist denominations. (I already have a Baptist pastor in mind for my first interview, hopefully later this week.)

Happy New Year, folks! It’s going to be a good one! I can feel it!

As my brothers would say, “Hoo-Rah!”

#single #gay #Christian #life #writing

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stevedonnellyfaith-blog · 5 years

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A Visit to Pam (Post 97) 7-15-15

Natalie still gets the giggles whenever she thinks about the incident. Let me explain. Because I usually have to be out of the house so early in the morning for work, I am pretty meticulous about preparing my clothes for the next day before I jump into bed. Saturday night was no exception. We were staying overnight in a Maryland hotel and didn’t have to be at my in-law’s house until 10:30 Sunday morning to join the caravan to Mass, but I still had my two little piles of folded garments ready to go, when I received the auto-voice reveille from the Best Western BWI front desk.

That morning, for some reason, my socks were giving me trouble. After my workout, one of them seemed to be playing hide and seek with me, as I moved the second pile into position in the bathroom for my after shower adornment. After shuffling through my stack of garments for the third time, I finally retraced my steps back to my suitcase and found the sock about half way back up my back trail. Without further incident, I took my shower with my now recovered pair of socks at the ready atop my belt and shoes. Clothed but unshod, I woke Stephen and Natalie and began raking together our belongings into neat piles ready to be stuffed back into the appropriate piece of luggage for the haul to the checkout transaction. Worried about the schedule, I chivied my two roommates out the door, with orders to wait for me at breakfast while I began the full final cram of the pack up.

With everything in the bags, I went to recover the final essentials of my outfit in eager anticipation of my own turn in the buffet line. To me extreme aggravation, I discovered that now both my socks had left their perch on my shoe and belt pile and eloped to parts unknown. I checked under everything in the room and began to seriously consider unzipping one or two of the soft luggage pieces into which I had power stuffed everything from my rake up. I figured the dirty clothes bag was the more likely candidate and was busy size up the operation. Would some kind of head gear be advisable to protect me from the likely concussive force that would surely be unleashed like the boxing glove on a spring that knocks Wylie Coyote in the face at least once in each episode of The Roadrunner? Instead, choosing the cowards path, I just donned my shoes without socks. Not very stylish, but I supposed that I might pretend they were sandals for the two hours until Mass was completed and I was able to switch into shorts and a tee-shirt at Pam’s parents’ house for the drive back to Ohio,

About then Natalie and Stephen marched back into our room, saying that all the seating was full downstairs and that the line was too long anyway. Irritated by their lack of commitment to the concept of free breakfast, I prepared to invoke the ancient Donnelly tradition to rally my family back to the abandoned buffet. I implored both of them to perform an immediate about face. Then a non sequitur idea struck me full in the forehead.

I ordered Stephen to pull up one pant leg. I discovered that he was wearing a pair of socks that was suspiciously of the white variety. I had purposely packed him only black socks for the trip. The only pair of white socks available would have had to have come off my prepared pile. I had caught the felon with the goods on his person, quite literally.

Now came the difficulty of solving the equation that would result in my having a shovel-ready Styrofoam plate of eggs and sausage in front of me with the least possible expenditure of time and hassle. Rather than go through the trouble of swapping, I told Stephen to retrieve and surrender the pair of clean black socks I had packed for his use this Sunday morning. He procured and prepared to deliver the required merchandise, but then noticed that I was in the process of removing my shoes. In obvious consternation, he looked at my with an expression that was a Fro-Yo mix of confusion and offense. His very visage asked, “Why would anyone use someone else’s socks?”

As I stood idly contemplating a suitably painful end for the life of my oldest my son, I must have had a silly look on my face because Natalie erupted in a giggling fit that relieved the tension of the moment. For the rest of the day she breathlessly described the scene for each new audience while repeatedly interrupting herself with impromptu peals of laughter. Because she had no idea what led up to the great sock standoff, her story left everyone who heard it very confused as to what the little girl thought was so outrageously funny.

Other than the sock theft, we had a good visit. It was the first time that I have been back to Maryland since Pam’s funeral. Abby, Nick and Natalie made a short visit in June, but, for the most part, we have been very busy getting our life restarted here in Ohio. Work has mostly devoured my time since Stephen and I arrived. Nicholas and Abby have both been busy as well. Nicholas was working for some family friends that sell and distribute fireworks, kind of a dream job for him. Abby started a chemistry class with a full lab during the short summer session at a local community college within days of her arrival. She is also occupied with some office assignments at my sister-in-law’s dentistry practice. Summer vacation has been a Barbie-fest for Natalie as she has a willing best friend with similar interests living right across the street. Stephen and I also made our trip to Gettysburg last week. Summer is flying by.

So it took a while for me to meander back to Maryland where my marriage and family life began long ago under a bridge of swords and a shower of rice. My in-laws still live in the same house where I visited each weekend during my trips back from Rhode Island as Pam and I were completing our wedding preparations. The basement at 5110 Kramme Avenue in Baltimore became like an apartment to me over those several months. The Zauggs have made many improvements to the house in the quarter century since I was courting their daughter, but the basement is mostly used for storage now. They had a flood in their cellar several years ago and had to remove the carpeting. The odd mix of old and new in the basement mesmerized me for a good while on one of my forays downstairs to use the less popular of the two household bathrooms.

I stood there in the dark downstairs for several minutes while staring at the position on the back side of the staircase where a desk used to sit on which Pam and I used to assembly 1000 piece puzzles when we weren’t arguing about whether a cream or white color was more suitable for invitations. The desk wasn’t there anymore. I was disappointed. I wanted to the place as it was at the very second when Pam discovered the case with an engagement ring on the floor under the desk. Slyly I had asked her to pick up a non-existent puzzle piece that I didn’t really think I had dropped by her foot. She was delighted with the simple diamond and band and said yes to my proposal. I expected she would; Pam had dropped plenty of hints that our relationship had reached ring-time.

It was sad to be in the dark basement staring at the place where missing furniture had once sat. Things change and joy passes. After a while I ascended the stairs again having not found the wardrobe back into Narnia for which my subconscious had scanned my former living area. As I climbed I waved a silent goodbye to an old friend, the dated green couch that had accommodated me each weekend for those eight happy months an impossible tunnel ride back twenty-six years into the past.

That odd spiritually amputated feeling seems to be my lot in life, most of the time, since losing my bride to cancer two and a half years ago. Now back in Ohio, I drive around the streets of my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood with vague feelings of unrest, half recognizing houses to which I think I used to deliver newspapers on wintry mornings for customers long since moved. Mostly my memories are vague unscratchable itches. Houses have been painted, trees have grown, businesses have changed hands, buildings have been erected, and eighth grade classmates are receiving AARP cards in the mail. The venues of my youth no longer match the photographs that I find in the albums that my mother keeps in the sea chest coffee table in her living room.

I think that the scattered condition of my memories is a natural process which has been accentuated by the fact that our family has moved around way too much. The effect of all the moving coupled with Pam’s death is that the figurative pieces of my love for her has been scattered about the country with as if shot from a pneumatic stadium tee-shirt mortar. For instance, Nicholas and Abby drove miles out of the way to swing by our former house in Fort Wayne, Indiana on their way back across America. I would never have done that, as the closed front door would have been needlessly anguishing like a diabetic peering in to the window of an ice cream parlor or an old man returning to the scene of his engagement.

An admission: on my weekly drive to Mass I do travel mildly out of my way to pass by the house in which I resided from age five until my matriculation to USNA. There is always a part of me that wants to stop, knock on the door and ask to search the premises for the missing pieces of myself. I know that I wouldn’t find them no matter how long I looked. I also know that I would never knock on the door, because all I would find would be a house of other people’s stuff, while if I choose to just ride on by, my memory can remain vague but whole like a cheap snow globe of my childhood.

My life has become a little like one of the partially finished puzzles that Pam and I used to work assembling to pass our time while we waited to begin our life together in earnest. I think it is the same for everyone; some people may have done a better job of keeping track of their pieces, but by the time you reach fifty there will certainly be some permanently missing ones. Natalie’s puzzle was thoroughly scrambled at the age of seven and her pieces have been tossed about throughout the last three years. I expect that she will be eventually assemble a gloriously beautiful landscape as she progresses through adulthood towards the later period of her life when the pieces of her life begin to slide off the edge of the table for her again,

Certainly, we are not the only family that has suffered loss. As I drive my meandering path through the neighborhood where I grew up, I sometimes think about the other families that lived in this or that faculty house and when they departed for retirement or different schools over the nearly five decades of my father’s tenure at Western Reserve Academy. Two former faculty members died over Father’s Day weekend. Another faculty wife suffered a massive stroke in the last couple of weeks. She is unlikely to recover. I’m sure that many of the men and women with whom I grew up with also feel like their life’s pieces are begin removed and lost.

For me, my expectation is that I won’t be able to reassemble a complete and coherent life in this world. When I sat at the little desk with Pam, I was in the process of building my life. As I type from the guest room of my father’s house, I understand that time will slowly erode what I had thought I had put together so firmly. While I am no longer hope for wholeness on Earth, I do hold a guarantee that the pieces I am now missing will be restored in the many rooms of My Father’s house in the world to come. I’m not sure what that really means at this point. Will the little puzzle desk be present in the basement of my apartment in the new Jerusalem? I have no inkling, no expectation of knowing, and really I just trust in Jesus’ promise that I will be whole again. So I move forward to the best of my ability, assembling a new corner of the mosaic of my new life as the trailing edges of my old life seems to fall away into eternity.

#God #Jesus #The Holy Spirit #The Virgin Mary #grace #hope #faith #love #bereavement #joy #change #engagement #USNA #memories

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bloojayoolie · 6 years

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Anaconda, Andrew Bogut, and Cats: Gladiator His parent dead, a senior boy and his siblings a bunny and 2 turtles, grieve. Gladiator dreams of going home....Gladiator needs a hero! Id 55770, 8 Yrs. 0ld, 75 lbs. Erooklyn ACC INTAKE DATE – 2/25/2019 “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” Maya Angelou He sits in his kennel. Gladiator doesn’t feel much like a warrior. He feels broken, sad and confused. He spent all 8 years of his life with his beloved parent, and when his parent passed away suddenly, Gladiator was left behind along with his siblings – a bunny and 2 turtles. Gone is the world he loved, the long cuddles on the sofa with his parent, his parent whispering in his ears “I love you big guy.” You know Gladiator was loved. You can see it in his chunky body, a face so sweet his parent could never deny him the treats he loved. You see it in the way he behaves now – lacerated, terrified, a family pet now plunged into the horror of the shelter system. He just wants to go home, and no one knows how to tell him that this dream is going to die with him. It will die with him if no one steps up to give him his life back. Because he is scared, he has been slapped with a New Hope Rescue Only rating, meaning the person who wants to help him must fill out apps with the rescues to save his life. If you are an experienced foster or adopter, and can give this poor gentleman a soft place to land, hurry and Message our page or email us at [email protected]. A Staff Member Writes: “Gladiator was brought in when his owner sadly passed away leaving him, a rabbit, and two turtles behind. This chunky pup has been very fearful with staff and has shown potential resource guarding tendencies (growling over food in kennel when staff approached). He’s been a bit jumpy with loud noises and snapped during his exam. Due to the high level of fear witnessed at the Brooklyn Care Center, we recommend placement with a New Hope partner who can provide an experienced, adult-only foster/trainer prior to placement in a permanent home.” GLADIATOR, ID# 55770, 8 Yrs. old, 75 lbs., Male Brooklyn ACC, Large Mixed Breed, Tan / White Surrender Reason: Owner passed away Shelter Assessment Rating: NEW HOPE ONLY Medical Behavior Rating: Orange SURRENDER NOTES - BASIC INFORMATION: Gladiator is an approximately 8 year old tan and white large dog that was brought into BACC when his owner passed away. INTAKE NOTES – DATE OF INTAKE, 25-Feb-2019: Gladiator stepped out of the carrier on his own, allowed to be scanned for a microchip. Gladiator did become rope reactive and started to chew on the rope the handler was using. No further handling was done due to being brought back to the kennel right away. SHELTER ASSESSMENT SUMMARIES - Date of assessment: 27-Feb-2019 LEASH WALKING Strength and pulling: Mild pulling Reactivity to humans: None Reactivity to dogs: None Leash walking comments: Highly fearful while on walks SOCIABILITY Loose in room (15-20 seconds): Easily startled, distracted by noises outside of the room, cautious of rope, whale-eyeing, freezing upon sudden movement, wary Call over: Approaches readily Sociability comments: Did not leash, stayed on rope HANDLING Soft handling: Did not conduct due to high level of fear Exuberant handling: Did not conduct due to high level of fear Handling comments: AROUSAL Jog: Did not conduct due to high level of fear Arousal comments: Knock Knock Comments: Growls Toy Toy comments: No interest PLAYGROUP NOTES - DOG TO DOG SUMMARIES: Gladiator was surrendered as a stray so his past behavior around dogs is unknown. 2/26: When off leash at the Care Center, Gladiator is introduced to a novel female dog. He is sexually motivated when he greets the female but does not attempt to mount the female. He does give whale eyes and lip licks when having a face to face greet. INTAKE BEHAVIOR - Date of intake: 25-Feb-2019 Summary: Leash biting, allowed some handling MEDICAL BEHAVIOR - Date of initial: 25-Feb-2019 Summary: Growling, snapping, whale-eyed ENERGY LEVEL: We are unable to assess Gladiator's energy level due to his high level of fear. IN SHELTER OBSERVATIONS: A Behavior Team Member was walking up to Gladiator's kennel when he began to low growl at her. She looked at Gladiator and saw that he had his tray of food still in his kennel. She attempted to give him a treat to divert his attention when he stood up and continued to growl placing himself to stand over the food. He stopped when she walked away. BEHAVIOR DETERMINATION: New Hope Only Behavior Asilomar TM - Treatable-Manageable Recommendations: No children (under 13), Place with a New Hope partner Recommendations comments: No children: Due to Gladiator's overall level fear, we feel he would be best set up to succeed in an adult only home at this time. Place with a New Hope partner: Though he has shown some improvement, Gladiator remains highly fearful in the care center and has exhibited handling sensitivity and resource guarding. We feel he would be best set up to succeed if placed with an experienced rescue partner who can allow him to acclimate and decompress at his own pace; force-free, reward based training only is advised when introducing or exposing Gladiator to new and unfamiliar situations. Potential challenges: Resource guarding, Handling/touch sensitivity, Fearful/potential for defensive aggression MEDICAL EXAM NOTES 27-Feb-2019 Progress Exam. History: 2/25/19: Owner deceased. Overweight on exam, otherwise healthy. Started trazodone. ACS noted one episode of vomiting with a small amount of blood. Subjective: BAR, no coughing/sneezing, no vomit or dt in kennel. Objective: Cageside exam performed. Eyes: Clear bilaterally, no discharge. Nasal Cavity: No nasal discharge. Lungs: Eupneic. Musculoskeletal: Ambulatory x 4 with no appreciable lameness. BCS = 7/9, Integument: Unremarkable haircoat. Neuro: Appropriate mentation. Assessment: -Vomiting (r/o dietary indiscretion vs foreign body vs liver/kidney dysfunction vs hypoadrenocorticism). Plan: -Continue trazodone 100 mg PO q12h until 3/2/19 -Start Cerenia 2mg/kg PO q24h x 4 days. -Monitor for further instances of vomiting +/- diarrhea. -Sedate for full exam and diagnostics if clinical signs persist 25-Feb-2019 Spay-Neuter Waiver Documentation. It is the policy of ACC not to perform surgery on any animal over the age of 8-10 years due to the higher risks incurred in a shelter setting. The veterinarian is hereby issuing a permanent spay/neuter waiver, from the spay/neuter requirements of the City of NY due to the estimated age of this animal. ACC does recommend you consult with your veterinarian to determine if surgical sterilization is appropriate. 25-Feb-201 DVM Intake Exam. Estimated age: 8 years. Microchip noted on Intake? No History : Owner deceased. Subjective: BARH. Observed Behavior: Growling and snapping during exam, whale eye, tucked tail. Muzzled for examination. Evidence of Cruelty seen – No. Evidence of Trauma seen – No. Objective: P = WNL, R = WNL, BCS: 7/9 EENT: Nuclear sclerosis OU, ears clean, no nasal or ocular discharge noted. Oral Exam: Muzzled, unable to examine. PLN: No enlargements noted. H/L: NSR, NMA, CRT < 2, Lungs clear, eupnic. ABD: Tense--animal very nervous during exam. Non painful, no masses palpated. U/G: Male intact, two descended testicles. MSI: Ambulatory x 4, skin free of parasites, no masses noted, healthy hair coat. CNS: Mentation appropriate - no signs of neurologic abnormalities. Rectal: Not performed, externally normal. Assessment: 1) Overweight--otherwise healthy. Prognosis: Good. Plan: 1) Awaiting behavioral assessment. 2) Start trazodone 100 mg PO q12h, reassess in 7 days. SURGERY: Permanent waiver due to age *** TO FOSTER OR ADOPT *** GLADIATOR IS RATED NEW HOPE RESCUE ONLY. To foster or adopt him you must fill out applications with New Hope Partners. You cannot direct adopt him at the shelter. Please Message our page or email us at [email protected] for assistance. If you would like to adopt a NYC ACC dog, and can get to the Shelter in person to complete the adoption process, you can contact the Shelter directly. We have provided the Brooklyn, Staten Island and Manhattan information below. Adoption hours at these facilities is Noon – 8:00 p.m. (6:30 on weekends) If you CANNOT get to the Shelter in person and you want to FOSTER OR ADOPT a NYC ACC Dog, you can PRIVATE MESSAGE our Must Love Dogs page for assistance. PLEASE NOTE: You MUST live in NY, NJ, PA, CT, RI, DE, MD, MA, NH, VT, ME or Northern VA. You will need to fill out applications with a New Hope Rescue Partner to foster or adopt a NYC ACC dog. Transport is available if you live within the prescribed range of states. Shelter contact information: Phone number (212) 788-4000 Email [email protected] Shelter Addresses: Brooklyn Shelter: 2336 Linden Boulevard Brooklyn, NY 11208 Manhattan Shelter: 326 East 110 St. New York, NY 10029 Staten Island Shelter: 3139 Veterans Road West Staten Island, NY 10309 *** NEW NYC ACC RATING SYSTEM *** Level 1 Dogs with Level 1 determinations are suitable for the majority of homes. These dogs are not displaying concerning behaviors in Shelter, and the owner surrender profile (where available) is positive. Some dogs with Level 1 determinations may still have potential challenges, but these are challenges that the behavior team believe can be handled by the majority of adopters. The potential challenges could include no young children, prefers to be the only dog, no dog parks, no cats, kennel presence, basic manners, low level fear and mild anxiety. Level 2 Dogs with Level 2 determinations will be suitable for adopters with some previous dog experience. They will have displayed behavior in the Shelter (or have owner reported behavior) that requires some training, or is simply not suitable for an adopter with minimal experience. Dogs with a Level 2 determination may have multiple potential challenges and these may be presenting at differing levels of intensity, so careful consideration of the behavior notes will be required for counselling. Potential challenges at Level 2 include no young children, single pet home, resource guarding, on-leash reactivity, mouthiness, fear with potential for escalation, impulse control/arousal, anxiety and separation anxiety. Level 3 Dogs with Level 3 determinations will need to go to homes with experienced adopters, and the ACC strongly suggest that the adopter have prior experience with the challenges described and/or an understanding of the challenge and how to manage it safely in a home environment. In many cases, a trainer will be needed to manage and work on the behaviors safely in a home environment. It is likely that every dog with a Level 3 determination will have a behavior modification or training plan available to them from the behavior department that will go home with the adopters and be made available to the New Hope Partners for their fosters and adopters. Some of the challenges seen at Level 3 are also seen at Level 1 and Level 2, but when seen alongside a Level 3 determination can be assumed to be more severe. The potential challenges for Level 3 determinations include adult only home (no children under the age of 13), single pet home, resource guarding, on-leash reactivity with potential for redirection, mouthiness with pressure, potential escalation to threatening behavior, impulse control, arousal, anxiety, separation anxiety, bite history (human), bite history (dog) and bite history (other). New Hope Rescue Only Dog is not publicly adoptable. Prospective fosters or adopters need to fill out applications with New Hope Partner Rescues to save this dog.

#funny #lol #humor #memes #meme #memehumor #dank memes #funny pics #rolf #lmao #Anaconda #Andrew Bogu

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residesatshamecentral · 7 years

Text

Dying Ashes

Hey @me-fish, I know you are working on a comic just now, but doing a fic in comic-script form was a really interesting experiment and I could not resist trying it. If you want to do a long comic in future, well, here is a script to work from showing my version of how the Berlin!AU begins.

Warning: This is the saddest thing I have ever written. Just so sad. Really, brutally sad. If you want a different story @me-fish I could write one.

Also, warning for a major character death.

....

PAGE 1

WHOLE-PAGE IMAGE

A disused airfield at night. The rebel unit are scattered across the view, backlit by the spotlights of the Nazi armoured vans driving into view. Archer, Harry, Sylvia and the King (in his wheelchair) are silhouetted in the foreground, all in attitudes of horror.

Rebel 1: Get the king out of here!

Rebel 2: It's an ambush!

Rebel 3: Everyone, draw back!

Off-screen rebel: Quickly, here, we have to get His Majesty away.

Title: 'Dying Ashes' emblazoned on the image.

PAGE 2

A SERIES OF THREE JAGGED IMAGES SLOTTING TOGETHER

Archer turns to see a rebel soldier beckoning from a dark doorway. He is armed with a machine gun.

Rebel: Down here. It's a tunnel.

The group follow the soldier down a sloping tunnel into the darkness, Sylvia pushing the King's wheelchair. Harry brings up the rear, looking uneasily behind him towards the viewer. He is the nearest and most brightly lit.

The airfield from Harry's viewpoint: the SS unit are engaged with the rebels, flashes of gunfire illuminating the darkness. The back of Harry's head all we see of him.

The next image shows Harry following the others, retreating out of sight into the shadows.

LONG RECTANGULAR PANEL

The group emerge into a dark underground chamber with several tunnels leading off it. The rebel has turned on his torch now, illuminating a wet stone floor and the entrances of the service tunnels.

Rebel: If we are lucky we can get him away while the unit are distracted -

Of screen: Hey!

PAGE 3

LONG RECTANGULAR PANEL

Hausser and several of Huth's men, all armed, all with blank pitiless faces, arranged in a line against the mouth of a tunnel. Hausser is front and centre.

Hausser: Surrender.

LONG RECTANGULAR PANEL

The rebel soldier fires his machine gun, mouth wide, face absolutely desperate. Behind him, the group look on in horror.

Rebel: GET OUT OF HERE!

LONG RECTANGULAR PANEL

An areal shot of the chamber. The Nazis fire back against the rebel, some already dead or injured. Sylvia wheels the King into one tunnel, while Archer and Harry run into another

PAGE 4

A SERIES OF SQUARE PANNELS, LIT IN BLACK AND RED

Archer twists round, realising the separation. Harry is behind him.

Close on Archer's worried face.

Archer: Sylvia!

Close on Harry's regretful face.

Harry: Too late now. Leave it, Doug.

They proceed into the darkness

WIDE PANEL

There is a red light attached to the wall up ahead. As the men advance, an open space comes into view at the mouth of the tunnel. There are crates stacked against the walls, and a service elevator.

Archer stands with his back to the viewer. Just behind him is another entrance leading off the tunnel they are in. In his hand is a pistol he has been carrying from the start. Harry is up ahead, looking out of the tunnel, into the open space. A shadow in the foreground cuts across the floor, warning us that the two men are not alone.

Archer: We have to try to find them.

SERIES OF SMALL PANELS

A black gloved hand brutally grabs his wrist from the side tunnel.

Huth's stick comes down on his wrist hard, and he drops the pistol with an exclamation of pain.

A black boot kicks the pistol, sending it skidding out of reach.

PAGE 5

A ROW OF THREE TALL, NARROW IMAGES

Huth is out of the side tunnel and attacking without mercy. He and Archer are entirely silhouetted, black on red.

First he hits Archer in the stomach, doubling him up.

A second blow knocks him to his knees.

A third blow sends him to the floor.

THREE LONG, RECTANGULAR IMAGES

Sylvia from behind, wheeling the King rapidly through a partially-flooded tunnel.

The same view is transformed as the light from a Nazi torch silhouettes her, turning the image into black and blinding white as he blocks her escape.

Nazi: [unseen] surrender

Sylvia draws a gun, frightened but defiant in the face of impending death. She aims over the head of the King.

Sylvia: You have a fight on your hands, you bastard.

PAGE 6

LONG, RECTANGULAR PANELS

Archer's eye takes up the whole image, big and black and shocked. In the pupil, a reflection of Huth. He has a gun in one hand, his stick in the other. The mouth of the gun is a black hole in the centre of the image.

Huth: Surrender

Harry: [off-screen] Hey!

Huth turns towards Harry, his back to us. Harry is furious, protecting his surrogate son, gun in hand. He has never looked more human, or more outmatched. Behind him, a dark row of SS men are advancing across the water-filmed floor.

Harry: Get away from him you Nazi bastard.

Huth, from a high angle, looms over Archer, turned away from him and towards the advancing Harry. Archer, prone on the floor, is clearly losing consciousness. At the edge of the image, the advancing SS are closing in.

Archer [Small] No.

Archer's eye as he loses consciousness, still holding a dark reflection: Harry standing to fight as the SS move closer still, Huth in the foreground.

A black panel as Archer loses consciousness.

Archer: Please no.

PAGE 7

A SERIES OF IRREGULARLY SIZED PANELS

A panorama of a room in the house Huth uses in the last episode. Archer is lying on a mattress laid out on the floor in one of the rooms. A blanket is half-pulled over him. Their is an air of bareness and abandonment about the room, but it was clearly beautiful once. It is the earliest hours of morning. The light is very different to anything seen previously, bluish and diffuse.

Archer wakes. His head is bandaged. He is lying on his side, his face and one arm in the foreground. He is oblivious to Huth, who is leaning against a doorway in the background, watching him.

Huth: Good morning.

In the foreground, Archer pushes himself onto his elbow, not looking round. There is a tear in one of his eyes. Huth watches from the background, now more obviously concerned.

Huth: Glad you're awake. I was afraid I had hit you too hard.

Archer touches the bandage on his forehead, still not looking round. Huth begins to advance across the room.

Huth: Courtesy of the medic. I had him take time to look at you after you were injured in your struggle...your brave struggle...with the terrorist Harry Woods.

Archer finally looks around as Huth squats beside him. We cannot see all of his face, just his chin and mouth as he speaks.

Huth: You have spent days observing the traitorous Woods, who I knew to be working for Mayhew. On my orders, you tracked him as he made this attempt to free the King. And heroically, you engaged with him and retrieved the plans.

Huth takes the case containing the plans from his breast pocket. His face is out of sight, only his gloved hand and a portion of his torso visible. Beyond these, Archer's battered face.

Huth: I was just in time of course, or he would have killed you. Who better to keep the plans for Mayhew than a man most people would overlook? Who most would take for a fool? He was to accompany the King to America, taking the plans with him.

He replaces the plans in his pocket. Archer's expression barely changes.

Archer: No.

Huth: No?

PAGE 8

Archer's face, cropped close, his eyes taking up much of the space.

Archer: Is Harry dead?

Huth's face is in profile, shown from a low angle, Archer's viewpoint.

Huth: He died bravely, I will say that for him. Brave...hard to tell the difference from foolishness sometimes...he loved you like a son.

Archer sits against the wall, looking up at Huth who looms over him in the foreground. Huth's attitude is odd: solicitous, conciliatory but the manner of a captor. Archer is beyond dissembling, just staring up at him.

Archer: Did you fire the shot that killed him?

Huth: No.

Both their profiles. Archer tries to read Huth's expression. Is he lying?

Archer: And Sylvia?

Huth: Got away. Killed one of my men. The King is in custody though.

A SERIES OF SMALL IMAGES

Huth's hands as he takes out two cigarettes, lights one and hands the other to Archer. He is still wearing his black, fingerless gloves. He talks as he handles the cigarettes.

Huth: Mayhew is a master. He almost had me believing I had him in the vice. Within days of my arriving here, he was confessing to a plot to fly the top scientists out of Britain.

Archer takes the cigarette. Huth lights it for him.

Huth: All he wanted was for me to cause a distraction while a real attack was launched. In the meantime he sent you and the King -

Archer: To die.

Archer's lips, the cigarette between them.

PAGE 9

A SERIES OF IRREGULAR IMAGES

View through the doorway. Archer sits against the wall on one end of the matress, smoking. Huth has made himself comfortable, settled on the other end of the mattress.

Archer: The King was never meant to escape. He was infirm. Britain would have looked washed up, had he tried to represent us. The plan was for him to die a hero, in the same operation as brave Americans. What about the attack?

Huth: I had a spy in Mayhew's inner circle. He forewarned me days ago. Anything of value was removed from harms way, and I ensured there were more than enough defences. The Americans will have had a wasted trip.

Archer, alone, against the wall. He closes his eyes, then opens them in terrible realisation.

Archer: It was Mayhew who killed Spode. It was him who burnt the papers. He just didn't want the Americans to get the information too easily. He wanted them to fight for it.

Huth's face as he processes this.

Archer: Spode came to him for help, in getting the papers to America. If he had let him send them off as he intended, America would have gotten the weapon...but not necessarily have entered the war.

Archer looks down.

Archer: So. You're the hero of the hour.

Close on Huth's face. His heart is breaking for Archer.

PAGE 10

Huth, leaning forward, concerned and irritated.

Huth: were you not listening? So are you.

Archer's eyes, taking up the whole space, blank and hurt.

Archer: It's a lie.

Huth: So?

Archer: Like spitting on Harry's grave. He...

Huth: Let the dead take care of the dead. You are alive. Life is better than death, Archer.

Archer's face. Feeling is coming back to it now, brittle and edging on hysteria.

Archer: Tell me why.

Huth stands up. He does not look at Archer as he speaks.

Huth: I told you I like winners. You have so much potential.

Archer, alone against the wall.

Archer: What a winner. You got me. You got us all.

Huth, tall and bitter.

Huth: No. Life got you. You have to come to terms with reality, or the world will tear you apart. Well, it tore you. I warned you that it would. I wanted none of this, Douglas. I came down rather than attend to the attack in the hope that I could get you out alive.

Close on Huth's face.

Huth: Don't cling, Douglas. Don't cling to the lies you were told. Don't die because you want those lies to be true. You have a son to live for. Remember?

Archer, looking up. He feels like Faust, looking into the eyes of Mephistopheles.

Huth: Be what you were meant to be, Douglas.

Archer closes his eyes. How he feels about Huth, he really could not say. He opens his eyes and looks at Huth, at the viewer.

Archer: I surrender.

#fanfiction #comic script #script #Berlin!AU #angst #major character death #sorry harry #douglas archer #poor archer #dr oskar huth #archer/huth

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