#this whole arc has been fantastic to read from start to finish but this final installment was

[thefanciestborrower]

Haha lol Ice Emperor goes Brrrr part 10

Wind snapped at his face like blades, cutting in its chill, yet familiar in the ways it swept between his metal plating. At his back, Boreal’s wingbeats hit the air like drums, rattling the sky with the force of each downstroke. Below, trees blurred into indistinguishable stripes that raced Boreal’s shadow as they soared.

It was an hour, maybe two, that Lloyd spoke up. “I thought you sent the palace guards.”

Julien, who had thus far been doing little but staring blankly at the white landscape, blinked back to himself before answering. “I did.”

“And we’re flying out, too?” A hand against the inner lining of his stomach. Minuscule compared to him as it lightly brushed along the ripples, and folds, and scars. “Not that I want to turn around, but…?”

When he considered it, it was acid on his tongue. Burning and tearing as it dripped from his teeth in tar-like strings. As he made into words what had only been impulse and thought. As form took from shadow. And, in the end, he swallowed the fire and let only the steam rise from between his lips. “Something came up. It will be faster to resolve it now.”

While the warmth of implications drowned in his throat, he steered Boreal off the face of a cliff, keeping the cloud-muffled sun to his back and letting their combined shadow fall across the frozen fields below. A herald to his arrival in shades of blues and blacks, even as storm swept up behind him in a swirling mass that howled like the ghosts of those grieving. Flecks of ice gathered on his shoulders.

When the sun fell too low to travel, the group set down, and a simple wave was all he needed to raise a dome of ice. Vex, for all his muttered complaints, slept quickly that night as Julien listened to the woods. The hum of… something. A presence, almost.

Come daybreak, they were back in the air again.

It was early dawn when Vex spoke again. Lloyd was still inside, though the puff of his breathing against Julien’s nerves soothed his fears of hypothermia.

“M’lord, are you entirely sure you know where these… ninja are?”

Boreal passed low over trees, the thick rumble rolling from his chest shaking the snow from most. The powder that fell bloomed into the air in plumes, dusting what it touched in a fine white.

“I am sure.” He wasn’t. He wasn’t, but the snow stretched below in wide swaths broken only by sparse forest. He wasn’t, but Boreal hummed whispers of knowledge. Of something so quiet and subtle that it ran undetected through the air. A taste in the wind.

A taste that only grew stronger as his familiar dipped, brushing the snow with a wingtip, and skimming along a ridge with ice so fine, it barely glimmered. Such that there was not a point to gather light, nor a facet to reflect it. There, atop the claws of the world, the song of metal rang and danced to smile in their face and beckon them down. The sound of battle rose in a cry for blood, and the thump of ice samurai boots. In the smell of blood and the corroding metal. In the crumbling snow and reddening ice.

A beat of Boreal’s wings, and Julien’s eyes caught on the black-blue-red of dyed clothing. Backs pressed against each other, thin, blurry figures darted in a practiced pattern. Like a lotus unfolding, each struck individually, fanning out in ever-widening circles. Their movements spiraled in graceful loops, like a dance, pushing back the armored forces trying to press in on them with blades of ice.

His forces.

Boreal landed like a cataclysm, his claws coming down with a sound like cracking rock. Vex was nearly thrown from his back simply from the force of the jolt, and Lloyd woke with a startled movement inside.

The Emperor slid from his dragon’s neck, ice crackling in his footsteps as he raised his voice to be heard over the clashing of swords, and cracking of steel. “Enough!”

His army stilled as if they’d been struck, hundreds of wide, enchanted blue eyes turning to look at him. “What is the meaning of this?” The question spilled from his chest without any command from him, echoing against his teeth.

The army fell to one knee, a general appearing from the ranks with his hands folded at his back. He dipped into a deep bow at the waist, voice carrying a rasp as—

“Zane?”

His attention drifted lazily to the ninja despite the rattle in his chest as his systems stalled. A shudder as his breath came in a puff of blue frost that seeped past his mouthguard and crystalized against his face. The ice keeping his hand bound to his staff flaked even as black bled into it. Even as a thickness rose in his throat like tar. Even as Vex’s protests fell into the blank buzz that had taken place of his thoughts.

When his voice rose to the backs of his teeth—when the ice cleared to let a breath pass—when his eyes blinked in and out of functionality—when he managed to speak, it was little more than a whisper. As if they may fade away if he spoke too loudly. “I… I could be called that.”

The last piece moved on Zane’s mental chessboard, trapping the memories of The Falcon. Whispering the names of what he once may have known. Pushing the guilt, and loss, and grief  into his eyes as silence reigned between them. As his mind remained quiet, and blank, and empty.

“Zane!” They were coming toward him. Running. Weapons in hand, yet they only smiled at him even as Vex shouted. Even as he slipped out of their way with a step, the ninja turned just as quickly, gesturing, and talking, and cheering.

And yet, as he turned to face Vex, his voice, no more than a whisper, carried to his advisor.

“Did you know?”

Silence fell on the mountain. Boreal flaked away one shard of ice at a time, head lowered and rumbling quietly in the back of his throat. Something that Zane thought may be a sound of mourning.

“My—my lord. You must understand—”

“Did. You. Know?”

“No, my lord. I didn’t.” And the Emperor smiled at him. A soft, sad sort of smile as the words of the formling he’d imprisoned hissed a symphony.

“But you still lied to me.” Lloyd was active again. He was moving, and shouting, and pushing at the synthetic walls. Zane did not hear him. “Why did you lie to me, Vex?” The ninjas’ presence behind him was like a rock wall. As if he could back up and be pinned between them and Vex. As if he could not simply fly away.

Then again, as Boreal’s eyes shattered upon hitting the ground, Zane supposed he couldn’t.

“Zane…” From behind. Quiet, pleading, he would say if he considered it. A raised hand was enough to silence them.

“Why did you lie to me?”

“I—I recall no such thing, m’lord! I have been your loyal advisor for decades—”

A tilt of his head. Just slightly. He did not blink. “I was not the original emperor, Vex. Grimfax usurped no throne, for the throne was never mine to begin with, was it?”

His advisor’s face turned hard. A dark scowl twisting into something like a snarl as white teeth flashed at him in the light. “You seem to have made up your mind.”

“I have.” He could not have been the emperor before Grimfax. He lived with his fellow ninja… brothers. He could not have been usurped by formlings, for he had no throne to usurp. “What else was a falsity?” A step forward. “Who else have you misled?” His space encroached on Vex’s.

“You never really loved me, did you?”

Vex’s eyebrows raised. Two black streaks that grew clouded in Zane’s wavering vision. “No—no, my lord—I promise—”

The knot in his throat unraveled into something hot. Like lava had been poured down his throat and into his core. Like everything he’d never said tied him at the wrists and forced his mouth open. “Your promises mean nothing!” It was a roar more than a shout. Such that it rattled his plating and he loomed over Vex. Such that he found a hand ripping Vex’s helmet off in a single movement before he could even think about it. “What do your words mean to me when you have fed me nothing but lies? Did you—” a crackle in his voice. Like his modulator failed. “—did you lie about the formlings, too?” A breath. Inhaled sharply through his teeth as he raised a hand to unclip his mouthguard. To tear it from his face in a crackle of shattered ice.

His voice gave rise to the thought even as it spilled something warm and wet down his eyes. “What… what have I done? What—what have you asked of me?”

Hurt. Hurt and grief and emptiness settled in his frame. Weighed down his metal even as Vex’s face shifted from something unreadable to… to angry. To rage and anguish.

Lloyd’s voice. Echoing in the depths of the dungeons. The barest sound before he changed his mind.

“It was you who ordered the attack on the ninja, wasn’t it?”

Vex’s back straightened, and acid rode his voice as he pressed himself into Zane’s space. “You question my motives? After all these years? My Emperor—”

“I. Am not. YOUR EMPEROR!”

Like a wave, ice rose behind him, arching up in nothing but solid black ice. It cut out the sun, swallowing the sky and parting Vex and Zane from the world. An unbreakable dome, it surrounded them in cold darkness.

“And you will die for what you have done.”

He was across the makeshift arena in a heartbeat, ice coalescing into a blade-sharp shuriken in the same instant he pushed off.

Vex’s blood steamed as it hit the air.

It was barely a scratch, really, dripping crimson lazily into the snow and melting spots in the ground. “Tell me the truth, Vex. Tell me what happened. Tell me or let your spirit rest in ice forever.” Zane touched down at the adjacent point from Vex, his steps ghosting against the snow. Vex’s snarl dripped of malice as he looked up at Zane.

“They banished me!” Vex’s shout rattled the air in the dome, but Zane’s scowl bared his own ice-tipped teeth. “The formlings left me for dead in the ice for not having a form. They mocked me! Whispered about me!” He lashed out, and Zane danced out of the way, one of his shurikens shattering against the opposite wall where it missed. “I did what I had to do!”

When Vex lunged again, Zane caught him around the neck, claws made of black ice digging into his ex-advisor’s neck as he pushed Vex’s face into the blood-dappled snow. “And what—” a push against his stomach. Lloyd’s voice, yet muffled by Zane’s own shouting—“did you do?”

Vex’s spittle poked more holes in the snow when he tried to spit at Zane. “I convinced you that you were the emperor. That you ruled this realm. That Grimfax stole your throne from you.” The slightest slice of flesh. Warm red ran down Zane’s fingers. “When the formlings took ill to your encroaching onto their territory, I commissioned one of them to try to assassinate you. The little eagle woman—do you remember her? She screamed for hours after you impaled her. The formling healing factor is impressive.” His ice spire had pierced flesh and bone. At the time, he hadn’t realized he could do that. “And when the formlings organized to figure out what to do about you, I made plans. Sketched up scores of them for your guards to find.” Etchings carved onto beast hide. Plans. He suspected spies at the time. The castle diagrams were too… perfect.

“And you fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Every formling frozen solid or imprisoned.”

The warm, wet dripped down Zane’s faceplate, splattering against Vex’s armor. His ex-advisor’s face softened. His smile was sad.

“I really was just doing what was best for you, you know. With your powers, they would have come after you a—” His hand clenched, cutting off Vex’s breath. As he clawed at Zane’s hands—ripping his gloves and tearing his sleeves—Zane peeled him off the floor, snow falling in clumps.

When Vex hit the ice wall the first time, it cracked.

A second, and the structure creaked.

When he was thrown—bloody, broken, and trailing red—his body shattered the dome, sending Vex’s limp body into the snowdrift Boreal had originally landed in.

When he moved, it was the gait of a predator. A low stance laced with blood and trailing a carpet of red. His eyes fixed on the still figure of his former advisor.

It was only when hands—cloying. Clinging. Familiar—snagged onto his clothing and dug into his shoulders that he heard it.

Shouting. Yelling. Begging.

Lloyd’s voice in his ear. Over, and over, and over. “Don’t do it,” he screamed, voice raw and hoarse from something Zane didn’t remember. “Don’t do it, don’t do itdontdoitdont—”

His hesitation was just enough for the hands around his shoulders to drag him back, his dorsal column hitting something warm and firm, and steady, even as arms wrapped around his shoulders and a head buried itself into his neck. As people dressed in odd colors gathered around him and pressed their hands—foreheads—faces into his sides. As the liquid in his eyes spilled over properly and he buried his own head into a security he didn’t remember.

======================================== The close of arc 1 Fun facts: >Total word-count: 12882 words. >Total page-count: 36 pages >Each part was made the day it was posted save for part 4. >My favorite scene is the one with Kataru in it (read; bear boy)

[speakergame]

Progress Update - 3/4/24

Hello and happy March!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? 😅 Well, I finally have some good news for you this time: I have some actual news!

I'm happy to be able to announce at last that an update is on its way! I’ve still got some assets to make and code cleanup and testing to finish, but I should finally have something to show you soon.

I’ll put a cut at the end of this and go into more detail about the what and why of what I’ve been working on during this long and unintended hiatus, but the tl;dr is that I hope to have an update out by the end of the month, and that said update will break any saves made in Chapter 4. Unfortunate, but unavoidable, since Chapter 4 had to be recoded from the beginning 😞

I just want to thank all of you once again for sticking with me through my extended silence! Especially to my patrons who’ve put up with me putting everything on pause month after month while I dealt with my real life shit, and to everyone who’s sent me kind and supportive messages to let me know Speaker hasn’t been forgotten. It really means a lot to me.

Okay, enough of that sappy shit! I’m gonna get back to work finishing this up 😁 I’ll put out another update later this month once I have a more definite release date.

Thank you all for reading! I hope you’re having a fantastic 2024 so far, and that the rest of the week treats you kindly. See y’all soon! 💙💙💙

(For those who want a more detailed breakdown on what’s been happening and what to expect, hit the readmore)

I won’t go into the personal life stuff I’ve been dealing with this past year that has slowed down my work, but as far as the actual game goes: 

To put it simply, I just wasn’t happy with it. Some of it could be because of how many times I had to reread the same section while I was coding the scenes that would’ve taken place after the last update, but no matter how much I edited or rearranged it, I didn’t like how that scene turned out. There was something… formulaic that had been happening with the way I always laid out scenes, and a bit of stagnation in the story, character, and relationship development that bothered me.

So I rewrote it. And when I still didn’t like it, I rewrote it again. And I still didn’t like it. I thought about scrapping the whole thing on more than one occasion as I struggled to get out of the corner I’d written myself into.

Inspiration finally struck at the beginning of this year, thanks in part to another interactive novel I follow, and I really like the direction I’ve taken it now. 

Instead of the RO split scenes happening where the last one left off, Speaker, Seer, and Gavin are gonna have a chat about Things™ to move the next story arc forward. Then Speaker will get some downtime, by themself at first and then in an extended scene split with the RO of their choosing. 

All the Big Plot Things that were going to happen in Chapter 4 will be moved to Chapter 5 instead, and 4 will be a bit more of a filler episode. A deep breath before the plunge, as it were.

This split won’t just be a quick conversation/reaction from the RO, but a full on different direction for the rest of the chapter based on who you choose. Most of them will involve leaving the house; all of them will involve actual one-on-one time (or one-on-two time, as the case may be) away from the others. And though romance isn’t required, all of them will have the potential to really move the romance forward if you so choose. One or two might even have a lock-in choice (maybe. I’m not 100 percent on that, so don’t hold me to it) 

These scenes won’t be in the next update, because they’re all very complex, but the update will definitely have the Seer chat and at least some of the by-yourself stuff. The update after will have the rest of the alone time stuff (including the clothes/body CC you’ve all been waiting for), and then the one after will start the RO scenes. I think.

I may actually split the RO scenes into separate updates, and let my darlings over at Patreon vote for the order they’re released. That way I can focus on one at a time instead of trying to split my attention six ways at once.

Okay, that’s enough rambling for me today. Time to get back to work! Still got a lot to get done before this is ready, but it’s so close now.

[chevaliersnumberoneguy]

I just finished Ward and was inspired by a friend to make a review about it here so uh here is my semi-non formal review of Ward.

So to provide a bit of context I became a Parahumans fan back in 2019 and read alongside it with a veteran Worm fan and it easily became one of my favorite pieces of fiction. After a decent break I began reading Ward on and off again for a little bit (not because of the quality I’m just weird when I dedicate time for reading) and after about 3 years of reading it over work breaks and doing a last hail mary sprint for the final couple arcs I feel as though Ward is an amazing follow up to Worm. I know that may be a hot take since I have heard from a friend that general sentiment on Ward isn’t all that positive, but I found myself enjoying it quite a lot.

Wildbow in my eyes managed to expand upon a lot of things I like about Worm and answered a lot of questions I didn’t think would be answered.

Let’s start with a big thing first. I think overall Victoria was a fantastic pick for the protagonist to follow along for this adventure. Not just because she is overall very well written, but out of all the existing characters Wildbow could’ve picked, Vicky was probably the best one for orchestrating the main message of overcoming trauma and learning to love yourself in Ward. It was very fun and satisfying the overall arc she had in Ward.

Breakthrough as a whole was also full of extremely well written characters with all of them enamouring me with their backstories and character arcs in their own way. I didn’t come to think Chris of all people would become such an interesting “minor” antagonist until the Simurgh reveal.

Overall Wildbow has has gone forth and continued to have shown his great ability to present mysteries or seemingly random moments/information and manage to paint it in a completely different light with a massive reveal later on in the story. Chris is a pretty big example of this with all of his behaviors and relationship to his tinker power being weird at best to making a lot of it make sense in retrospect with the reveal that he was more or less created by the Simurgh to help her out in her grand plan. Another example of this is all of the hype and build up to the reveal of Shardspace and the Cracking as a whole.

Now I’m willing to admit it isn’t perfect with all of the Wildbow moments and pacing at certain parts of the story, but I can really appreciate it for what it is at the end.

The parts that got me loving it the most is the expansion of powers as a whole. I’ve always been a nut for eldritch content and Ward managed to satisfy me with that in dividends when it showed us Shardspace, the Titans, the Agents, the conclusion of Entity cycles and actually giving us a full description for the Entities appearance as well. 

All of the cluster stuff was thoroughly enjoyable as well. I loved every second of Rain and his story that was in the spotlight. Easily provided some of my favorite arcs in all of Ward. It was just so fun to watch him develop as a person as well as watch the dynamic he has with his cluster. Cradle in my opinion stole the show being the antagonist of the group. Everything he did was appalling and I loved it. Whether it was him chopping up people with whips or manipulating people in the dream room it was all great to watch play out.

Also god all of the Titan stuff was amazing as well. From the early preview of it from Dauntless becoming one, to all of the build up to this massive event in the Teacher arcs and finally the beginning of the end when Fume Hood second triggered and started the Cracking off as a whole it was all amazing. Then we get into all of the fun combat with the Titans just showing off how formidable of a threat they are, the reveal that if they win everything is over and that this event may never be over, to all of the exploration of Shardspace it was all so well done and great to watch play out.

Another thing I loved was the Teacher stuff as well. I always knew he was going to play a massive part in Ward ever since his epilouge arc in Worm and boy I wasn’t disappointed (mostly). From the disinformation campaign to the assault on his complex it was all fantastic. The arc as a whole did a great job at planting seeds for what would happen in the future. My only real disappointment about him is how he really didn’t play much of a part during all the Titan stuff, but eh it’s whatever.

I thought the ending as a whole was a satisfying conclusion to the story and tied up a good amount of loose ends while still clearly leaving the door at least ajar for Parahumans 3.

Overall, while not perfect I think Ward as a whole was an amazing follow up to Worm and I look forward to reading Wildbow’s other works.

Anyways thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

[bonebabbles]

Riverstar's Home Finished

It's a good book in the last 5 chapters. It's a bad book in the first 23.

THE GOOD:

It pumped the breaks BIG TIME on Clear Sky's ridiculous "redemption arc," giving him the space to be the fantastic, greedy villain he functions best as.

The dialogue is written very well. It's been pointed out to me that generally Kate Cary writes good dialogue, and it really shows. There are some excellent lines and quotes in this book.

This scene between Tall Shadow and River Ripple is superb.

Riverstar's arc is handled competently. It's a story about learning to balance peace and self-defense, and not lose what makes him special in the face of Clan pressure.

Night, Riverstar's deputy, is a woman who remains his platonic friend. This is a very low bar but it was cleared.

Arc is a positive portrayal of an adoptive parent, though it is only mentioned briefly. Riverstar thinks highly and lovingly of him.

Gray Wing being angry tutorial tips every time Riverstar died was funny.

Clan cats being able to create rafts and use willowbark as binding is now canon

The ending action is commendable. The struggle over the bridge was compelling, and excellently showcased both Riverstar as a unique perspective who handles conflict in his own way, and Skystar as a xenophobic dictator who uses his religion to justify his greed.

THE BAD:

So many characters come out of nowhere, they are introduced endlessly.

Which especially sucks because those intros aren't terrible, but you don't get the chance to see their traits in action.

A lot of Riverstar's most interesting traits have been removed, or are not complimented by the story.

For example; in Chapter 19 he starts having an identity crisis about who he is and what makes him special; but because he's frustrated and lost about this for several chapters, you just get Grumpy Riverstar until he has his epiphany while fighting Slash.

MOST of this book is recap that destroys a MASSIVE draw of the character by making him less mysterious.

For example; Turns out he couldn't swim until the second book of DOTC, he hasn't been in this territory longer than the other cats, and he spent 6 months locked in a house doing nothing.

It's a real slog and PACKED with filler. God it's boring. The first 18 chapters have nothing to do with the last few and 5 more are dedicated to traveling.

They managed to brutally kill another female character (Flutter) in an arc already notorious for its misogyny, give her no speaking lines before that death, and forced blubbering romantic pining onto a character who was popular in large part because he didn't have that.

His new mate, Finch (later Finch Song), appears suddenly in chapter 24, three quarters of the way through the book, and they fall in love at breakneck pace. She's pregnant 4 chapters later.

Finch also ends up giving up everything she loved, her whole life, including her friends and family, to follow Riverstar home and give him biokittens so he can finally get over Flutter. (they dont even name a kid after her)

Final rating: 4/10 Should have been a novella

It's not as fucking awful as Onestar's Concussion or Leopardstar's Hernia. It is a readable enough book and does have a solid ending, but you could skip more than half of the book and miss nothing.

Fans of Riverstar will probably be disappointed by the pointless retcons, but will enjoy the last 10 or so chapters when he's true-to-form. The original content that's worth reading would have fit just fine into a novella.

If you want to read it but aren't interested in a DOTC recap, I would recommend just reading the Tall Shadow/River Ripple scene I linked above and then starting from Chapter 19 onward. I wouldn't buy this one unless you're a dedicated Riverstar fan, or don't plan to read DOTC and want to use this book as your only experience of the main arc.

[redheadgleek]

Quarter reads 2023

At the beginning of the year, I posted on facebook for book recommendations to read over the new year and had multiple friends comment with recommendations. So I’m reading books this year that I might not have otherwise.

January – The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness by Joel Ben Izzy. FB recommendation. I was really hesitant to read this book, as it sounded very much like “all things happen for a reason” and “God has a purpose for all suffering” which is one of the things that I left behind even before leaving my religion. I’m glad I read it, as it’s been one of my favorites of the year. Beautiful interweaving of story-telling and grief. – The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson. Friend recommendation. A story of a time in history that I knew little of (the last sultan in the Iberian peninsula). It started out so good – the first 3rd was fantastic, the second 3rd was mediocre, and the last 3rd painful. So disappointing. – The White Allies Handbook: 4 Weeks to Join the Racial Justice Fight for Black Women by Lecia Michelle. A finish up from last year. I was really hoping for an anti-racism 201 type book and this was not it. Still some good points. – Flying Solo by Linda Holmes. I saw this on a friend’s end of year list and thought it sounded good (plus I really love Linda Holmes’s writing for NPR). For being written by a happily single woman, there was a lot of emphasis placed on dating relationships. – Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko. Friend recommendation. I have never read a book like this. Creepy and mind blowing in a philosophical way. It’s so very Russian (or rather Ukranian) and the whole thing felt foreign. I’m on the waiting list for the sequel. – Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis. Jane Austen meets pet dragons. Recommended in one of my fantasy groups as cozy fantasy. – A Charmed Christmas by Alison Cochrun. A short-story epilogue to The Charmed Offensive. I could have done without it. – Woman on Fire by Lisa Barr. Started reading this in November of 2022 for a book club that I couldn’t attend, so it kept getting bumped. It was a good thriller, but I didn’t buy the antagonist’s motivations. – Twitter Crush: A Gen-X Medical Romance by Em S A’Cor. I got this as an ARC from a physician writing group I’m part of. The writing was fine. There were several subplots that I had issues with, including the guy getting black out drunk on their first date, a “shrill” ex-wife, and a “romance” between the vixen chief fellow and the chair department, which was gross and lecherous and blamed entirely on the fellow. And while I really do appreciate writing from one’s own experiences, descriptions of vaginal dryness from menopause and impotence from antidepressants do not fit well with a romance novel. – I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston. Much better than One Last Stop. – The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, read by Andy Serkis. I’ve read the LOTR trilogy countless times – but I will admit to being guilty to skimming over Books 3 and 5 and getting to Sam and Frodo climb to Mount Doom. So there was a part in the beginning of Book 5 that I had to listen to twice because I’m pretty sure I’ve never registered it before. Anyway, Andy’s voice was amazing as always and I almost want to listen to the whole thing again. (He’s recording the Silmarillion right now, so maybe I’ll be finally about to get through that book). – And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. My first Christie. It was a good murder mystery and I hadn’t quite figured it out by the end. – All Systems Red by Martha Wells. An enjoyable read, although I think I need to read the rest of the series in order to properly judge it. – They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera. Pretty much as it advertises on the tin. The premise gave me anxiety.

February – Moloka’i by Alan Brennert. Friend recommendation. Read this on my way back from a vacation in Hawai’i. Lovely story of perseverance and a good picture into old Hawaiian culture and the perfect cap to a wonderful vacation. – Healer and Witch by Nancy Werlin. A young healer tries to find a teach while navigating investigations by the Inquisition. Reminded me of T Kingfisher’s A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking. Not fond of romances between 15 and 24 year olds though. -* Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. Loved this one. Emily’s a professor in the study of fairies exploring a small village trying to figure out their secrets and she can’t get along with the villagers and her too charming colleague sweeps in. I can’t wait for the sequel. – I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. Audiobook. Friend recommendation. This one has been circulating my social groups because she was raised Mormon. That ended up making up very little of her memoir, rather it was more focused on her eating disorder and her relationship with her mom. It was an abrupt ending though and felt incomplete. An easy listen – each chapter was ~ 2-5 minutes. – Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion by Gabrielle Stanley Blair. Like everyone else, I was completely taken by her viral twitter thread about how men bear all of the responsibility of unwanted pregnancies. This was a meatier exploration and well worth the read.

March -* Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. Book club read. A beautiful book exploring mother-daughter relationships, grief, and culture. One of my favorites that I’ve read so far this year. – Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent by Katharine Angel. Book club read. It’s been a while since I read a book where “feminism” was flung around like a dirty word (and yet, I think if you asked the author, she would tell you that she’s a feminist). The last part, exploring vulnerability, was great, but there was absolutely no discussion about how it was as unrealistic in sex as consent culture, which she chided for pages. – Autoboyography by Christina Lauren. Friend recommendation. Two boys fall in love in a high school in Provo, UT – the setting was so perfectly Provo that I was transported back there, but there were inconsistencies in the depiction of Mormonism that I’m pretty sure other fans wouldn’t have picked up on. – Fairy Tale by Stephen King. Friend recommendation. Also my first King book read. There was so much that I loved about it – the world setting was fantastic. It started to drag and become formulaic towards the middle end. I did nearly throw the book in disgust at the ending, because we couldn’t possibly have a 17 year old boy go back to the Real World without losing his virginity to a random character he never interacted with, right? Bah. – This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley. Friend recommendation. I’m not sure that I am the right audience for this book as I no longer see myself as Christian or really believe in God or Christ at all anything, but, the storytelling was gorgeous and poetic, and some parts resonated deeply. It certainly is a brand of Christianity that I wish more would get behind. – The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna. Very much enjoyed this story. Had a lot of the same charm as The House in the Cerulean Sea. – The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper. I was expecting a weightier book, something like The Darkness Outside Us. It was okay for what it was. – The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian. I walked into the book thinking it was a sapphic romance – nope! A fun little gay highwayman romantic romp, but was left a little unfinished. – The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian. The sequel to above. The questions were mostly answered here and it was a good conclusion to the series. – The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older. A friend and I tried out the “Buddy Read” function on StoryGraph for this and it was like a virtual book club where we could make comment and respond to each other. The mystery sort of fell apart for me, but it was an enjoyable novella.

Currently reading: – The Ten Thousand Doors of January. Picked this one up in January and just haven’t gotten into it. – Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde. I’ve realized that I’ve read very little in terms of classic feminist works. It’s just a slog for me to get through nonfiction works. – Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clark (audiobook). I started to read JS shortly after it was published but I didn’t get more than half way through before it was due back to the library. It’s a slooooooow going book. Over 32 hours. It’ll be my commute book for the next 2 months at least. – A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. Book club read

Other friend recommendations for the year: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan What My Bones Knew: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo Frogs in A Pot by K.D. Kinz (written by a nurse I used to work with.) Scythe by Neal Shusterman Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zavin Anxious People by Fredrik Backman The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson Sweet Like Jasmine by Bonnie Gray Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelk (What would you all recommend? I’d like to round it out to 24 books).

Books picked up from the library: Glitterland by Alexis Hall, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green, The Rose That Grew From Concrete: a collection of poetry by Tupac Shakur.

[poochiray]

Two Wrongs, Three Rights

As I finish the final chapter to The Middle, I’m starting to get really emotional. This story came to me almost a year ago based solely on the desire to have more of Black’s story. People often think I’m weird to say that my favorite character in Not Me is Black. He’s (arguably) disturbed and intense. But I’ve always been drawn to the flawed and damned characters. And through Gun’s fantastic portrayal of the twins and the sheer difference between them, I was hooked immediately. People say Not Me is the story of a guy going undercover to discover his twin’s attacker, and finding love through this journey. And though that may be true, I say it’s the story of a guy waking up from a coma and discovering his whole world turned upside down. How does he cope with seeing his brother (whom he hasn’t seen in years btw) kissing on his frenemy? How does he cope with the knowledge that his childhood bestie attacked him? 

He fights. My little fighter.

From the very beginning, I knew I wanted to write BlackSean. The scene of Black watching SeanWhite kiss and the fury in his face haunted me for weeks. I saw possessiveness. And yes, perhaps it was solely Black being possessive of his own life. White was posing as him and Black wanted his life back. I get that.

But the fanfic story bug wouldn’t leave me alone. What if it was more than just that? What if there were complicated feelings from Sean involved? What if Black had something more with Sean in the past? And what about Todd? What the hell was that, I mean honestly?! WHAT IF WHAT IF WHAT IF

Thus, Two Wrongs was born. I wanted to tell Black’s story from his teenage years with Todd, to post-show with Sean. And I think I’ve more or less accomplished that. I do still need to finish the last story arc at the end of Two Wrongs leading up to the coma, so look for that. It will be coming. But yeah. I’m emotional finishing this story. This trilogy has several running themes throughout but it feels like I’m finally at the point to close the chapter on the bigger picture. Had I always imagined it would end this way? In a way. I wanted earlier Black to deny and fight all of these things about himself that he didn’t like. There was internal homophobia, some minor external homophobia too. He was not in a good place. But seeing him now, seeing how far Sean and White could change him...it just feels right. He’s came a long way to now verbally admit that he’s bisexual. He also has allowed himself to be loved. He’s allowed himself to open up, and if anyone deserves that I do believe it should be him.  I guess what I’m trying to say from this extended author’s note is thank you. Thank you for taking the time to read this story that is so close to my heart. I hope you took something away from my work, even if it was just a brief moment of joy or thinking, hey this scene was pretty hot lol. Will we get more of Two Wrongs? Yes. Will we get a sequel to The Middle? Not exactly. I might write more spin off stories from the same universe (like I did with the SeanWhiteYok story, The Mess). But the novel-length, slow getting together story of BlackSeanWhite will be finished. 

The boys are home now.

[keepoffthetardis]

it's time to play tag games again! today we're putting the "on repeat" playlist on spotify on shuffle and listing the first ten songs that come up. i was tagged by @quensty and i am tagging @prongs1997 @corazonlicantropo @bandedbulbussnarfblat @enterprisery and @holodeckprotocols as well as anyone else who would like to talk about the music they've been listening to lately!

Wilson (Expensive Mistakes) - Fall Out Boy: This is the only song I actually like off MANIA. "I-I was - I was - I was gonna say something that would solve all our problems, but then I got drunk and I forgot what I was talking about" is an incredible note to start on and it only gets better from there. Fall Out Boy is my favorite band and I am out of my mind excited to see them in Chicago.

What Is Dead May Never Die - Ramin Djawadi: I'm actually surprised it was this one and not The Throne Is Mine. One thing about me is that I like listening to classical music while I read, and I was rereading A Song of Ice and Fire recently. Thus: the soundtrack for Game of Thrones. Also, Ramin Djawadi is a fantastic composer. Loved what he did with Westworld and Person of Interest.

I Am Hers, She Is Mine - Ramin Djawadi: We're back on the Game of Thrones soundtrack. Now I'm worried this list is gonna be all GoT. Anyway: I love sad and/or emotional strings. Probably my favorite section of the orchestra.

Daylight - David Kushner: I was listening to this much more recently than the others. "Oh I love it and I hate it at the same time / You and I drink the poison from the same vine" gets me every time. I love daylight imagery, as evidenced by my obsession with the way it gets used in Black Sails.

Warrior of Light - Ramin Djawadi: I'M BACK IN THE FUCKING BUILDING AGAIN. I'm gonna have to start skipping these if I want to have any discussion of my music taste at all. Anyway, when I was rereading A Song of Ice and Fire this time I started paying a lot more attention to Stannis and the whole arc with what I'll call "Team Dragonstone" (so, him, Selyse and the other Florents, Davos, Melisandre, etc.) and I thought it was a really interesting look at what could have otherwise been a very boring character but because we see him exclusively through other people's eyes, he becomes layered. To me anyway.

End Titles - Irwin Koshner: This one is the end of The Sound of Music! Which is something I have loved for years, but I recently started revisiting it because of Ted Lasso (and a fic that I'll never finish) who said that.

My Favorite Things - Julie Andrews: See above. Also I had a HUGE crush on her about a year before I figured out that I was bisexual which was a really interesting time in my life. I still do, but I used to too. Top 5 compliments I've ever gotten in my life was about ten or twelve years ago when a family friend told me I sounded like her.

Anna - The Menzingers: My sister just introduced me to this song about a month ago! It's so fun and sweet. Listening to it reminds of reading The Name of the Wind (because she and I did that together as well, right after she showed me this song) and driving around our hometown looking for books and a Mother's Day gift for our mom. "This place ain't the same without you Anna" INDEED

Climb Every Mountain - Peggy Wood: I think we'd all like a dream that will need all the love we can give every day of our life for as long as we live. Enough said.

Kyoto (Copycat Killer Version) - Phoebe Bridgers: This was another one that my sister introduced me to. This song has everything: sad emotional strings. Deep connection to younger sibling. "I wanted to see the world through your eyes and then it happened / Then I changed my mind". You would not believe the number of Succession edits I've seen with this song in the last couple of weeks.

That was fun! I should do it again when I'm fixating on something that isn't a TV show soundtrack. And speaking of, the finally tally of of GoT season 2 skips was: 1. This is what I get for falling asleep to it so much.

[thewertsearch]

Asks Compilation 09/06

God, I really should, shouldn’t I? I’ve heard only good things about it, and obviously I love alt-self shenanigans. I might go in a week or two - it’s been way too long since I took a trip to the cinema.

Yeah!!! Welcome to the party! It’s a good time for you to catch up, since I’m pausing for a week or so before I start Act 5. (I’ll probably start it late next week, but that’s subject to change!)

Illuminating, eh? *Adds 5 points to the Light Player column of my notepad*

Never too late to analyze something you love! And doing a close reading of something you’ve read before sometimes works even better, because you know exactly how things are going to pay off. You can see all the foreshadowing you missed!

The obvious answer is Dave and Bro, but I think the most likely Player to do the tbh stare is actually AT.

I think he stared at his computer exactly like this when Dave rapped him into oblivion. 

Totally missed it. We don’t learn muck Mark Twain Lore here, but it seems that in the universe of Homestuck, he lived a double life...

Who knew not having a schedule to speak of would ever be a positive? My old manager clearly didn’t know what he was talking about. 

It really does keep happening. I’ve already made an OC, and it’s a good thing I don’t write fanfic, because otherwise I’d be fending the writing impulses off with a stick. 

[ it goes around a lot as a rumor. I think people get confused because the team put effort into making it canon compliant - and it also uses an official (unused) HS song. 99% sure Hussie never said anything about it tho... - Cat ] 

Ah, I see. Still, it definitely sounds like a fan project worth checking out! 

Honestly, my excitement is immeasurable. SAHLEE is evolving...

Been a while since I watched any new ones, but yeah, I’m a huge anime fan! I actually re-watched Mob Psycho 100 last week in preparation for the new season. The final two arcs of the manga are fantastic, and I, for one, cannot wait. 

I watched Your Name a couple of weeks ago, and I’d definitely recommend that. It’s gorgeous, and the story goes to some places that I didn’t expect it to, going in. 

I could talk a lot about the movies I like - and I will, if people are interested - but it’d take a while to gather my thoughts. Like I said before, it’s hard for me to pick out favorites. 

They’re completely unnecessary - but then again, so are their glasses and headbands. It is my intuition that Sburb wouldn’t make it so easy for Players to realize that they weren’t born naturally, since they’re supposed to learn about their destiny themselves. I think they probably have bellybuttons. 

All I’m getting from it is that Life does not equal Doom, which I’m sure is too obvious to be the right answer. In other words, this is just another intriguing hint about what’s up with Aspects. 

Aw, fantastic, I’m happy you enjoyed!! Even learning some basic computer science reveals a whole new dimension to this comic. If you ever want any pointers, or links to resources to learn more, let me know!

That game’s a real standout among idle games. Last time I played, I’d just finished completing all the game’s Milestones, and I won’t spoil you on what happens next ;) 

It’s funny how things work out. Weird chains of causality aren’t something that Homestuck has a monopoly on!

I have to wonder what Toby would be up to now without Homestuck’s influence. Would we have got radically different versions of Undertale/Deltarune?

Definitely going to do it! I’m actually probably going to catch up on it in the next week or two, before Act 5. 

...yeah, that tracks.

The question of probability as it applies to Homestuck’s cosmology is kind of complicated. Sburb’s lore seems to treat things like the Paradox Clones as certain outcomes, with a probability of 1, even as its multiverse disproves this. 

This is the kind of thing I really want to see more of, going forward. Just what are the real rules here? 

Universal translation is as good an explanation as any!

It would be kind of funny if, when the kids complete the game and exit the Incipisphere, all the trolls’ messages instantly turn into gibberish, because they never actually shared a language. 

lmaoo considering how the trolls talk to these kids, especially in earlier conversations, I think it’s more likely they found a human disetiquette book! 

My favorite is probably a more saturated version of my text color - something like this:

I think you can probably get a pretty picture out of any color if you use it right, but I’ve never really been into muddy brown.

I need you to know that I spent an hour earlier trying to edit Jack Noir into that Eggman scene I referenced earlier, so I could post it with this ask. I failed, but this ask succeeded in making me laugh my ass off. 

If anyone here hasn’t watched the Snapcube fandubs, I implore you - check this shit out. You won’t be sorry!

She’s no man!

I actually like that more than the ‘8 looks like a snowman’ explanation that I came up with. That ‘quarters = 1/4′ thing is a good secondary pun, too. 

This is a good point, regarding why Jade’s prototyping didn’t show up on Prospit’s iconography. Whatever comes out of Jade’s kernel, it will enter the Spire of a planet in ruins. There might not even be anyone to see it arrive. 

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “The Final Word”

Well, we made it to the finale, everyone, and if you're reading this it seems you've survived the watching of it too. Barely. To say that some questionable choices were made across these 20 minutes is... an understatement.

But before we delve into the episode, I want you to cast your mind back to November 7th, 2020. A horrible year that heralded a horrible RWBY volume. There, coming off the shaky writing of Volume 7, I posed a number of questions and concerns that the show needed to tackle, with the promise that we would return to these expectations in four months time. Now, here we are! Let's refresh everyone's memory, yeah?

Taken directly from that recap, what RWBY promised us, through various teasers and Q&As, included:

Emphasis on Ruby’s leadership and how Summer’s death has impacted her

Insight into Ren and Nora’s flaws

May Merigold will supposedly have a larger part

More information about The Long Memory (Ozpin’s cane)

Theme of the volume is that you can respect someone but that doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with them

Very short timeline (supposedly just two days)

Yang in particular is very suspicious and distrustful

And you know what? They did all this. In the spirit of being fair and honest to this show, RWBY succeeded in delivering on everything they promised... it was just our foolishness that expected that these ideas would be delivered well. Ruby's leadership took center stage in the form of her hiding for multiple episodes and then others telling her she's still The Best before the plot dropped a solution into her lap... one she could have used at any point prior to this. Summer's death certainly has an impact, though it's an impact born of a crazy reveal that Summer likely isn't dead, but turned into a horrifying grimm monster. Ren and Nora both delve into their flaws, but heaven forbid either grow from that reflection. Ren learns that if he pushes past his primary flaw of keeping his emotions buried and actually expresses his doubts for once, he'll be yelled at and ignored until he admits how wrong he was. The "real" flaw is being a bad friend, with "bad friend" equaling "Not agreeing with Ruby 100%." Meanwhile, Nora considers that maybe she shouldn't rush in recklessly and hit things with her hammer... which is why she rushes in recklessly, hits something with her hammer, gets grievously injured, and is told that this is just who she truly is. No growth there, not unless we count her sudden desire to figure out who she is without Ren... but that exploration hasn't started yet. Too bad she wasn't the teammate separated at the end of the volume!

Meanwhile, May did indeed have a larger role to play, one I quite liked, it's just that this role — like all the others — inevitably circled back to realizing how wonderful Ruby is. May challenges Ruby to make a decision, but instead of being the catalyst for Ruby's growth, May becomes another forgotten side character who does a sudden about-turn regarding her perspective, leaving the group with the contradictory message that Ruby is actually doing her best, she's just a kid, no need to try any harder... everyone who claimed otherwise up until now was mistaken. May is another Cordovin. She's another Qrow. She's another Maria.

Fun fact: we don't even know if Maria is alive right now. That's how little she means to the show!

Actually, wait... anyone remember this nonsense from Volume 7? 

I was too lazy to change the date.

Moving on, Ozpin's cane turned out to be a stakes obliterating bomb that came out of nowhere, makes no sense logistically — how do battles store energy that only hurts grimm? — yet nevertheless seems to have killed Hazel? It's a disaster of unanswered questions. Similar to the disaster of our two day timeline when, I'm fairly sure, we've had an unnatural number of sunrises and sunsets. I'll have to take a look back at the volume as a whole now that it's complete to be sure of that though. As for our themes... did we really explore the idea of respecting someone even if you disagree with them? Because Ironwood wasn't shown any respect. Ren wasn't shown respect. I think the closest we got was Oscar calmly validating Yang's worry about getting buddy-buddy with Emerald, but the whole point there was that Yang was wrong. She wasn't wrong, but that's what the text would have you believe. She is indeed "very suspicious and distrustful," but that's hardly unjustified in these circumstances. I'm still boggling at the fact that it took the group three volumes for forgive Ozpin, even while he was actively working to assist them, yet I-helped-destroy-Beacon-and-tried-to-kill-everyone-you-love Emerald is the group's new BFF after she... ran away with Oscar? She didn't save him, she just went along for the ride. At the very least we might have gotten a scene where Penny was like, "Hey, why are you all laughing with the woman who just tried to kill my dad?"

But oh yeah, the story doesn't remember Pietro exists either. His daughter is DEAD and he hasn't been on screen since Episode Five, let alone there when she passes.

I had my own list going in, including such expectations as "Ozpin bb you got done dirty please acknowledge this" and "Queer baiting, queer baiting… you’re on thin ice at this point, RWBY. Just skate on over to the queer snack bar before you fall straight into the lake." Obviously these needs were not met.

So what, given this mess of expectations, did we end up with?

Our finale — for some reason — breaks the one word title trend with "The Final Word." It's an expression that refers to the final word in an argument or a discussion, the idea of winning by making a last, devastating point. It can also refer to making the final decision on something, which is the best way I'm able to apply the title to this episode (outside of any “final” comparisons). Penny's death is certainly all about choice and making some kind of decision... but on the whole, this title doesn't feel like it fits well. Not like "Worthy" or "Creation" or "Risk." The two latter titles had obvious connections to the episode in question through dialogue and plot, while the former was a deliberate callback to Watts' speech. "The Final Word" feels... less obvious in what it’s trying to say.

That's a minor nitpick though. Let's get into the meat of the episode.

We open on the grimm whale still disappearing, which is weird. I get that it's massively bigger than any other grimm we've seen, but they all turned to dust near instantaneously and it's been, what? At least an hour since Oscar blew it up? Likely longer when we factor in their walk back to the manor, the fight with Ironwood, fixing Penny, and this entire evacuation. It certainly makes for a nice visual, but like so many details in RWBY, it raises unnecessary questions along the way.

The important bit though is that amidst the whale carcass a blob of evil is swirling about. Salem, obviously. 

She’s not reforming in time to actually do anything though, don't worry.

Instead, we cut to the Ironwood vs. Winter fight and there's at least some dialogue this time. Ironwood yells that he's sacrificed everything to keep Remnant safe. Winter yells back that he actually sacrificed everyone else. Obviously, Ironwood should be called out for things like, you know, his unprompted murders, but instead they have Winter listing stuff that she was never shown to have a problem with before. The embargo? "Squeezed Mantle until it broke?" She, as Ironwood's second hand, understood and supported both the decision to close the border and the need to collect resources for a plan designed to take out Salem. I hate that no only did she turn without an ounce of hesitation or grief, but now they're having her act as if Ironwood forced these decisions on everyone, rather than everyone supporting him through them. We all remember Volume 7 when Ruby pressured him to finish Amity, right? And in trust RWBY fashion, most of these words are meaningless. Mantle "broke"? What does that mean? The class disparity did not come about through Ironwood: that's been in the works for generations. The lack of resources made things harder, yes, but when they were reclaimed by Robyn nothing improved. Watts is the one who turned off the heat and Salem attacked Atlas, leaving Mantle alone. Now, all the citizens have escaped through magical portals. So how is Mantle "broken" exactly? More importantly, why is Winter upset over this vague, nonsensical dilemma when she could be yelling about Ironwood wanting to bomb Mantle?

Again: this woman watched Ironwood shoot the councilman, shrugged, and continued to believe in him up until she realized his bomb threat was real. That was one of the main reasons why I thought the councilman might be alive, with Ironwood only shooting a warning shot past him. Because this is how you react to a good person unexpectedly killing someone else

whereas this is what we got from Winter and Harriet.

Hell, Weiss has more of a reaction to Yang telling Ruby things aren't super great right now.

So either Ironwood didn't do something that bad, thereby justifying these tame reactions (unlikely, given where his character ended up), or we should believe based on the animation that everyone was super chill with him killing an unarmed civilian. Which is then directly contradicted when they're like, "You're going to shoot Marrow? Bomb a city?? How could you do such horrible things??? 😲" Friends, buddies, fictional pals... you already watched him murder a dude.

The point is, there's a lot for Winter to be upset about, but she's not upset about that. There's a lot that Winter herself believed in, but the writing has forgotten that. This entire arc went off the rails a volume ago.

Also, why is Ironwood fighting with that giant gun? This is his final battle, presumably ever, and he's wielding this awkward, sluggish weapon we saw him randomly pick up two episodes ago? Let him use his regular guns! Give us a fantastic battle like he had with Watts! Instead, RWBY's final showdown consists of him using this no-name weapon as a unwieldy club in some of the most boring choreography we've seen to date. It doesn't help that this fight needs to share time with three others. Instead of an epic showdown, we're given glimpses of the battle before continually cutting away from it. 

During that first cut we return to the Team RWBY battle where Penny, doing her best to stay out of Cinder's reach, is whisked away on Weiss' wasp.

Too bad she didn't do that for Yang...

Jaune and Nora watch this horror unfold until Jaune says, "Priority one!" and they split. Except... what is priority one exactly? Helping the civilians? I guess, because they don't enter the fight until the very end of it, when everyone else seems to have made it to Vacuo. And you know what, I like that. For once it feels like the group — or at least the B Team — is acting like huntsmen, putting the needs of the people over their own, personal desires. I'm sure Nora wants to help the group after Yang's (presumed) demise and that Jaune would like nothing more than to get his hands on Cinder, but they put those grievances aside to do the work they signed up for. Good job!

My only real gripe is that we don't really see this struggling in the animation, I'm just assuming it's there. In particular, there's a moment when Jaune sends Nora through the portal for reinforcements — not knowing they can't return — and they seem a little too jovial when, by this point, three friends have died.

There's letting your cast be supportive, and then there's having them ignore that three teammates have perished in an abyss. It really doesn't help to sell the idea that Yang, Ruby, and Blake are in any danger here.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Penny tells Weiss that since Cinder is really just after the Maiden powers, she can buy the rest of the group time to escape. Weiss, obviously, isn't fond of this idea... and then the both of them are blasted off the wasp by Cinder's fire. Which they deserve, frankly. They're just having this casual conversation about sacrifice while in the middle of a battle. Did they somehow forget that Cinder can fly too?

Note that multiple attacks from Cinder, another blast, and a hard landing on the pathway gives their auras a knock, but doesn't break them. The primary defense for Yang's aura shattering in a single, simple hit was that everyone is exhausted and running on little to no power... yet here the rest of the cast is, tanking multiple hits as we've come to expect. There is no explanation for Yang's defeat except that the writers chose to ignore the rules of their world for a dramatic death scene... even though that drama was erased a week later as half our team falls into the void too.

We'll get to that though. For now, Cinder corrects Penny's belief with "I want it all" and proceeds to try to finish them off, only for Blake to arrive, having made her choice from last episode about who to help. It's a legitimately nice attack, but I happened to pause at the bEST MOMENT

Anyway.

We leave that fight to return to Qrow and Harriet who have, off screen, started an entirely different battle. What I mean is, last we saw Qrow had broken through the windshield of the airship, roughly pinned Harriet, and was taunting her about getting the fight she wanted. Now, suddenly, he's going “You’re making a mistake, Harriet, what happened to Clover—” as if he's been trying to talk her down this whole time. It's jarring, especially when we consider that Qrow had a volume long "kill Ironwood" arc that was dropped because... Robyn reminded him that murder is bad? RWBY feels like a storytelling pinball machine. Characters bounce from one personality to the next, one perspective and another, round and round until you don't know where they'll end up.

Harriet screams for Qrow to just shut up already and honestly? Same. I love Qrow, he's one of my favorites, but I can't deny that he's been done dirty like so many others since Volume 6. I love who Qrow was, not the mess RWBY has created the last few years.

Time to delve back into fic after recapping!

Sadly though, this strange dialogue wasn't the only "wtf" moment. Harriet is still trying to drop the bomb — which is its own mess of confusing motivations — when Vine and Elm show up on Harriet's ship. Elm begs Harriet not to do this "because you’re our friend!”

Am I glad that they finally acknowledged that the Ace Ops have always been friends? Sure, but why did we spend two volumes claiming otherwise? They were friends, a fantastic team, then Harriet announces that's a lie and we get a bunch of "Team RWBY is superior because they're actually friends" messages. Except this entire time we're still watching the Ace Ops be kind and playful with one another. But they're not friends, the story says. Not friends as they fight these battles. Not friends as they grieve for Clover. Definitely not friends as they react in horror at Ironwood nearly shooting Marrow. No, there's nothing there... until Elm claims there is! Then Harriet reacts in shock. I have friends?

Except Elm was labeled the one "just following orders" by Yang. Elm is the one who shook off Vine after the whale exploded. This isn't the story of one character, Harriet, thinking she was alone and then realizing that people do care for her, this is a story that, seemingly at random, had this group being BFFs or acting like they hated each other — and at each point the visuals are contradicted by the story's message. When they act like friends, we're told they're not friends. When they don't act like friends, we're told they really have been this whole time. I mean, do any of them even care that Marrow teamed up with Qrow and Robyn to take them out five minutes ago? All three were going along with Ironwood's scheme until they were physically stopped, but now Elm is convinced this is a bad decision she needs to talk Harriet down from with the power of friendship?

None of these characters are characters, they're just slapped together reactions based on whatever the plot needs. Who is Elm? I've got no clue. Her personality changes every episode.

Also, love that Qrow moves to stop the bomb from dropping and Harriet screams at him to "Get out of the way!" rather than just... attacking him? She even throws her hands out like she's having a temper tantrum. This feels like schoolyard bickering, not a life or death struggle.

Even though, you know, the audience is aware that the people of Mantle have already been evacuated and Qrow's group is aware that Atlas is falling on top of Mantle as they speak, so... why does the bomb matter? It's going to, what? Destroy the city thirty seconds before Atlas does? Oh no, the horror.

Things then, if you can believe it, get even worse. The bomb is still about to drop, so instead of doing anything to stop it — I mean seriously, we know it takes four people to shoulder the bomb's weight, but you're telling me Qrow and a reformed Harriet can't snag it in a pinch? — Qrow sits there, looks at Clover's pin... and the bomb careens towards the side of the airship instead, stopping.

Because I guess Qrow has good luck now? Or always did and somehow never noticed it? Or his semblance evolved?? Again, we don't know, but it's a bad moment any way you slice it, imo. Qrow has always been defined as the guy with a bad luck semblance and, much like Penny's android struggles, the allure was in watching him overcome those challenges, not having the show erase the challenge entirely. Especially when we don't even understand how it was erased. Qrow just... stops drinking, stops caring for Ironwood, stops wanting to kill Ironwood, stops causing bad luck, I guess. RWBY takes major character traits and flips them off like a light switch, leaving the audience with no emotional tether. We didn't watch Qrow overcome his drinking, or realize he can't bear to kill Ironwood, or discover a way to live life with the horrible hand he was dealt, he just blinks one day and those things are gone. Why? No one is sure. Not even the writers, I'd wager, because otherwise they would have written explanations into the text.

Many in the fandom insist that any basic information provided by the story amounts to "hand holding" when in fact there is a massive difference between the sort of unnecessary exposition that bogs down a tale, and having facts enough for the audience in its entirety to be on the same page about what is actually happening. For example, recently someone argued strongly that the "Penny is human" take is incorrect because Penny isn't human, she has an inhuman body made entirely of aura... yet where in the world does this exist in the story? Ambrosius may have been unsure about what Penny would be prior to removing her robotic parts, but that ambiguity is gone once her body forms, the equivalent of worrying about that gun only for a flag with 'BANG' to appear instead of a bullet. Worrying about something doesn't mean that something actually occurred. Penny appears human, expresses human sentiments, and then, this episode, dies as a human. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck and succumbs to the mortal peril that all ducks face... it's probably a duck. As I said in a recent ask, I implore the fandom to stop writing RWBY's scripts for them. Or rather, do so in some amazing fanfics. Don't do it on critical posts as a means of insisting that your revision is canon.

So Qrow has good luck now, maybe, but this character change doesn't amount to anything because Watts remotely starts the bomb's countdown.

At least he’s entertaining and competent. We had that for a time. 

Back to the main battle, Neo is kicking Ruby's ass. Why? Because there's no consistency in power levels in this show. The ancient woman who hasn't fought in decades dances circles around Neo, highlighting how weak she supposedly is, yet now Neo dances circles around our main character. None of us should expect fights to follow the logic of the world, only what drama the plot wants to stir up. Ruby is eventually knocked down from a hard hit — yet her aura's intact! — and is saved at the last second by Weiss tossing Neo into one of the portals. 

Far more of a problem than the power leveling is that Ruby gives no indication here that Neo just murdered her sister. Again, that's what the characters are meant to believe, yet Ruby is as stoic as she would be fighting a bunch of White Fang grunts. If you showed this scene to a RWBY fan on its own and asked, "What do you think happened prior to this?" the answer would be, "Uh... nothing? Ruby is just fighting Neo like she did on the airship in Volume 3." Nothing about this scene — from dialogue to animation — sells the idea that Ruby just lost the person most important to her in the world.

When we do finally mention Yang, it's Weiss who goes, “Come on, we have to do this for Yang” and the delivery is... meh. Honestly, I normally don't pay much attention to the voice acting, but I had a problem with most of Weiss' lines this episode. The "Leave her alone!" during this fight and later a "Get back!" as she attacks Cinder both fell really flat for me. Given the devastation and charged emotion that's supposed to be here, we can't give her anything better than generic cries that, again, she’d throw at any grunt? In that later scene the animation absolutely helps sell Weiss' distress, but the dialogue is common and the delivery has no emotional punch, leaving it feeling like Yang is just hanging out in Vacuo and they promised they'd beat the baddies before catching up with her. No one but Blake is acting like Yang died.

In fact, we see more emotion from Ruby when Weiss shoves her back, taking the brunt of Cinder's blast.

Weiss' aura breaks, not that that's a danger or anything. Everyone falls before they're injured, Winter gets the Maiden powers, Ren barely has to fight. Losing aura in this show used to be a moment of peril, where just last volume Winter was bruised, bleeding, and now needs an assistive device because she had to continue a battle with no aura. Now it's a joke. Aura breaks left and right across the volume with no repercussions attached to that.

We see a bit of the Blake and Penny vs. Cinder fight where Cinder blasts Blake off the edge. Penny rushes after her because at least one character remembered that they can fly.

Ruby, meanwhile, remembers that she can fly when it benefits her. After getting hit down onto a lower level and watching Crescent Rose plummet, she taunts Neo into an attack with a move that's actually quite good. I like the confidence with which Ruby riles her up and I like the strategy of darting behind Neo to knock her off the path instead. “Whatever you wanted, I hope it was worth it."

The only thing I don't like is that this speed and ingenuity had to disappear to justify Yang falling.

Cinder breaks Ruby's aura from behind though, sending her over too and grabbing onto Neo's leg. In an obvious moment born of the trope, it looks as if Cinder is reaching to help Neo, only for her to snag the Relic instead. “You should have never threatened me," she tells Neo and to Ruby: "you should have never been born.” 

Love that they erased all that cool growth from last episode! And by "love" I mean "hate." As I said last recap, I'm not going to pretend that Cinder's character isn't riddled with problems, but realizing she was stronger by teaming up with Neo and Watts was one of the best things they've ever done for her. It made Cinder dangerous again and showed Watts' speech having a clear impact. It also made her more entertaining, creating a new dynamic among the three villains. Now though, Cinder is just... Cinder. The same boring, stupid Cinder we've had since Volume 4. She betrays Neo and then later betrays Watts.

So Cinder kicks Neo and Ruby both over the edge because why would we want to make her interesting? Neo falls, but Ruby has friends there to catch her! Unlike Yang. Jk. Weiss’ aura is gone and Blake actually tried both times, so major kudos for her. Using momentum supplied by Penny, she snags Ruby and hooks her weapon into one of the pathways... only for Cinder to cut the ribbon. Both plummet and once again Penny has a more believable reaction to all this, just like she did last week

Speaking of reactions, does anyone else find it weird that Cinder finally succeeded in killing Ruby and... doesn’t seem to care? 

No? Just me? 

At least we get that good animation with Weiss I was talking about before, even if the dialogue is lacking. I love that she snagged Blake's weapon and uses it to try and take out Cinder, shaking the whole time. Those are some great details. 

Back to the bomb, Qrow is trying to escape, but Harriet says there isn't enough time to get out of the blast range. "I've killed us all." Vine has the solution though, using his semblance to wrap up the airship, thus containing the blast when it goes off. His final words are to reassure Elm that he can give his life, "if it means saving all of my friends." Just in case you missed the part about the Ace Ops being super close this whole time. Even though they also weren’t. Trying to eat your cake too, RWBY? 

Frankly, I didn't feel much of anything during this scene, not when Vine made the sacrifice, nor when Elm and Harriet look on sadly while Robyn pilots them away (that's her contribution this episode). 

All I can say is, good on RWBY for not killing one of the three dark skinned characters, or just murdering the Ace Ops as a whole. What the story is going to do with them though, who knows.

Jaune and Nora have that ‘You can do it!’ moment after three of their friends have presumably been killed. I swear, about 80% of Jaune's scenes do not work tonally and oh boy, things only get worse from here.

First though, I like his entrance. He slams into the fight against Cinder and lines up with Penny and Weiss, who is still dual-wielding her and Blake's weapons. That's an epic shot.  

It looks as if they stand a decent chance against Cinder — Weiss' lost aura notwithstanding — except then Cinder's arm starts going crazy and she gleefully announces that Salem has returned.

Working on a time limit now, Cinder unleashes a volley of attacks that Penny steps in to protect the other two from. It's here that Cinder grabs hold with her grimm arm.

It's here that Penny dies. Again.

For the third time.

Friends, I am tired. This moment honestly deserves the most epic of rants, but that, in turn, requires energy. Energy? In this economy? Ha! That's hilarious. Taking this seriously though, the problem here can — as usual — be boiled down to a single question: What was the point?

Penny died in a horrible attack that shook the cast and audience both to their core.

That emotional impact was erased through her resurrection.

The resurrection did not create a new emotional impact for our heroes to grapple with.

Penny is given the Maiden powers, solidifying the fact that she's always been a "real girl."

That lesson was erased when the story decided to make her human for unexplained reasons (because no, she never needed to be human to survive the virus).

Penny then dies, passing the power to Winter... who was set to get the power in the first place.

We have, once again, come full circle. You can take Penny out of the story and nothing changes. Does Ruby lose any lessons or emotional growth? No. Does anyone survive who would have otherwise died? No. Does her getting the powers lead to someone unexpected snagging them upon her death? No. Penny's existence was filler. She was put in the story to take up time and, that done, was removed from the story once again. It's a choice that wouldn't be half as horrible if that filler hadn't done so much damage along the way.

First is the obvious: that Penny didn't deserve this. As a character, she didn't deserve to be brought back just to be killed off again, seemingly without narrative purpose, serving only to draw in viewers who RT knew loved the character. Second, keeping her in the story led to her entire arc unraveling. Initially, Penny died as an android in the world's eyes, but those who actually knew her — Ruby and Pietro — mourned the girl she really was. Now we have this horrible message that being a machine isn't real enough, so she has to die as a human being. It's a disservice to her character and, as an allegory for many minorities, downright insulting to the audience. Third, this offensive 'better to die as a human than live as a robot' message is wrapped up in the claim that Penny finally gets to choose something — “Let me choose this one thing. Trust me” — but she already did that when she chose to take the Maiden powers. We already had the better written version of this last volume!

And the fourth issue...well.  

Fourth and fifth are the real kickers. Fourth is that Penny's death was an assisted suicide. She explicitly asks Jaune to kill her so she can ensure she's thinking of the right person when she passes (never mind that her thoughts would probably be on Jaune while this is happening) and that's... pretty horrible. Look, I'm no purist. I like a great deal of dark, gritty stories whose plot exists to make us uncomfortable. That's a valuable emotion that fiction can generate. The problem is not that RWBY is tackling a sensitive topic, but that they aren’t tackling it well. Yes, they put in a content warning and (from what I've heard) a suicide helpline as well, but providing the already necessary resources is not the same thing as writing that kind of scene with respect and care. All of the above tells us that, no matter what RT may have intended, that respect and care weren't communicated to the audience. Like Yang, they didn't even bother to keep Penny's death within the rules of their world. Jaune is right there ready to heal her and Penny says no, there's supposedly not time.

Um... since when?

Jaune's aura boost is instantaneous. The second he amplifies aura is the same second the healing starts and their talk could have been spent saving Penny. There was certainly time to save Weiss in Volume 5. To have a character go, 'Nah, it's too late' when the solution is right there is the ultimate cop-out. Suddenly announcing that the solution will no longer work For Reasons is not a legitimate limitation and it's made doubly insulting that RT didn't simply use the limitations already available to them. Jaune has been running low on aura since the whale. He then expended a great deal of aura boosting Penny to keep the virus in check. Every other ally has had their aura broken in this fight so, there. That's your solution. Have Jaune take a few hard hits from Cinder, his aura breaks, and then when Penny is mortally wounded he no longer has a semblance to heal her. It's that easy! Yet instead they had Penny reject help so that she could ask to die. That's what's offensive here.

Finally, reason number five... why is this moment given to Jaune? That's another easy solution: Jaune has gone through the portal and can't get back to heal Penny. There. Done. But logistics aside, this scene should have gone to any other character. Who is Jaune to Penny? Or Penny to Jaune? No one! They don't have a relationship. I get that the writers didn't want any of the girls at her side because then it would be hard to justify Penny not passing the power to them (which I get: making one team member a Maiden changes the show drastically), but you know who should be there instead of Jaune?

Pietro.

Pietro, who built Penny as a weapon and who was never given the chance to apologize for that. Pietro, who told Ruby he could only rebuild her once more, setting up an expectation that he'd sacrifice himself for his daughter (despite the complicated racial issues that would bring up). Pietro, who watched Penny plummet and has no idea what happened to her, let alone that she's been made into a human girl. Pietro should have been at her side, saying goodbye to his child and helping her complete her last wish.

And it would be so very easy to pull off. All it takes is a single line where Penny remembers that her father exists, asking Ruby to ensure a portal opens up in Amity. There's a quick reunion along the pathways before Cinder attacks. We hear a cry of despair as Penny falls and she looks, seeing her father racing towards her, though she thought he'd already made it out. There, you’re done. We open ourselves up to a lot of attacks whenever we say, "Why didn't RWBY just do ____?" because those who vehemently defend the writing like to go, "Oh, you think you could write RWBY better?" and no, I don't. I struggle with long-form storytelling and massive casts. I don't think I could do justice to the sort of show RWBY wants to be, but I do think I'm a decent enough writer to spot when there are major problems like this. The question of "Why doesn't Penny remember that her beloved dad exists?" and "Why, out of that massive cast, is Jaune the one to do this deed?" are both things that a newbie writer can spot, and a sometimes okay writer can figure out how to fix them both simultaneously. A good writer will start thinking about themes — what might it mean for Pietro to kill the creation he made? — and a great writer will find a way to pull that off without having that insulting, discomforting feeling pop up. At this point, our RWBY crew feels less like new writers making mistakes (because they're not new, not at all), but rather just writers who haven't bothered to learn from their mistakes after eight years. That's a lot harder to watch.

Because putting Jaune here doesn't just mess with RWBY's internal rules (not using his semblance) and it's not just useless in terms of Penny's development (she doesn't know him outside of "dude who boosted my aura for an hour"), but it also falls back into a pattern I thought RWBY had finally broken from: making Jaune the story's emotional center. This is not the JAUNE show. It's the RWBY show. Yet here, once again, we have Jaune in the spotlight. Why, after a whole volume of Ruby avoiding making decisions, does Jaune finally make the hard call? Why, after a scene where Penny asked Ruby to kill her, does Jaune do that deed? Why, after a divisive arc where all the grief for Pyrrha went to Jaune, is Jaune now set to shoulder the grief of Penny? At least Jaune had a relationship with Pyrrha, even if Nora and Ren did too. Yet with Penny he seems to be there solely because the writers can't bear to keep him out of that center spot for long. All of Team JNOR make it through to Vacuo... except Jaune. Jaune falls into the abyss too because, if the show goes this route, we apparently can’t have a volume just about Team RWBY, the main characters. The main characters are separated from the rest of the team and it's Jaune, not Oscar and Ozpin with a connection to the lore, not Nora or Ren whose development now hinges on them learning who they are without the other, it's Jaune who follows the title characters into a new dimension. 

The issue is not whether Jaune deserves to grieve over the truly traumatic thing he just did now that he’s done it. He obviously does. The issue is the writers setting up a scenario where Jaune is situated to do that emotional work in the first place. 

I like Jaune as a character. I don't like how the writing uses him as a character. RWBY is built on the idea that these four girls are the heroes of this tale, not the expected blond, blue-eyed, sword wielding guy we’ve seen in so many other stories. So why does that guy get the most important scene of the finale? Yes, Jaune had much less screen time this volume than he did in the past, that’s a good thing given the number of important characters RWBY has to balance, but that hasn't erased the problem of him being given significant moments that should be going to title characters. Does Ruby’s team rescue Oscar and take on Salem? No, Jaune's team does. Does Ruby's team save Penny? No, Jaune's semblance keeps her grounded and then holds the virus off. Not everything is a problem — we've also got good choices like having Ruby defeat the Hound and Ruby's team take on Cinder for the majority of the fight — but that doesn't erase that Penny’s death wasn’t something Jaune should have been a part of. Not unless he was going to heal her. Doing better than they have in the past doesn't mean that RT isn't still slipping when it comes to giving him undeserved focus.

They took one of the most controversial characters, controversial because of how much emotional focus he's gotten in the past, and had him help a fan favorite commit suicide while he cried about it, showing more emotion for a near stranger than our title character showed for her sister. This is a character who, up until two or three episodes ago, had no connection to the victim and still has no reason to thematically be the one committing this act. That is why the fandom goes, “The crew loves Jaune and does everything they can to put him in the center of the action.” Ruby, as main character and Penny’s first friend, is the obvious choice here. Pietro, as Penny's father, would be a good choice too. Hell, Nora is a better option given their moment in the Schnee manor this volume. Or Winter given their moments in Volume 7! Have her escape Ironwood, find Penny, receive the powers, and then finish him off. Literally anyone would be better than Jaune, not because Jaune is a bad character, but because Jaune has no emotional stakes here and putting him in a position where he could heal Penny but doesn’t is massively stupid. No one should be surprised that a lot of the fandom is upset about this. It was one hell of a reach to give him this moment and, since Jaune's problem has always been getting too much screen time and emotional nuance compared to our main cast, it's no wonder this act brought up a lot of bad memories. RT fell back into an old pattern after two volumes of improvement and they did so at the worst possible time. 

The tl;dr is that Penny's third death is a writing travesty, just like her second. I shouldn't be surprised, given that this is the same volume that tortured a kid and the only thing they did with it was have him blindly trust his torturer... yet I find myself surprised nonetheless. Because Penny had such potential as an android Maiden and, as much as I personally hated it, potential as a former android learning to be human too. But why explore any of that when you can kill her off instead? Again.

As a final, far smaller note about this scene, we have the continuing problem of what purpose Cinder's arm is serving. If everyone recalls, its threat comes primarily from the fact that she can "siphon off" power from other Maidens.

She did it to Penny during the Amity battle and now she does it again, a great deal of green energy absorbed into Cinder. So what's left to give to Winter? Why doesn't Cinder become noticeably stronger with each successful theft? Like so much else in RWBY, we're told it exists without actually seeing the impact of that. Winter isn't a weaker Maiden for having lost power and Cinder isn't a stronger Maiden for having snagged it. It's just.. there, hanging out and looking vaguely menacing, I guess.

Outside of this unnatural not-transfer, we get to see how the power normally passes as Penny meets with Winter in some in-between place. It's a soft, heartfelt scene... with the exception that Winter says, “You were always the real Maiden at heart. I was just the machine. Just following orders."

I don't know how any viewer can doubt that RT now believes machinery = evil. Penny's machine body is magicked away so she can be a real-real girl. Yang announces that the arm she worked hard to make a part of herself is just "extra." The man with half a metal body is made this volume's villain and losing his second arm is, by the authors' own admission, a symbol of his lost humanity. Mercury with two metal legs remains a bad guy while Emerald and Hazel are hastily redeemed. Tyrian with his cybernetic tail is the most devoted crazy of the bunch. Maria, blind and in need of assistive lenses, is so forgotten by the story she was left in the tundra nine episode ago and won't be mentioned again until next volume (if then). Pietro, the guy in the wheelchair, is forgotten too, despite it being his daughter who dies on screen.

Now Winter, also bearing an assistive device, says that she's the real "machine" here and tells Penny, now human, that she was always the "real Maiden." I don't know what happened to make RT do a 180 lately, but the disability rep is no longer what it was.

Penny reassures Winter that she'll always be a part of her and then passes on, for good this time.

The rest of the episode feels lackluster, if I'm being honest. Images of Cinder beating Weiss are intercut with Ironwood beating Winter, getting her to a point where her aura breaks. 

But then the powers appear and, as we'd expect, she easily turns the tide. 

Gorgeous animation there. 

But RT once again rewrites earlier scenes by having Ironwood claim that the "destiny" he chose for Winter has finally arrived — isn't that Cinder's MO? — and Winter shoots back that he chose nothing, this was a "gift." Except, it was never about destiny or orders? This was why Weiss' anger in Volume 7 was ridiculous. She acted like Ironwood forced Winter to accept the powers and Winter told her point blank she chose this. Ironwood didn't decide anything, he offered and Winter chose... kind of like how Penny is choosing now. I hate how nearly all of Ironwood's character has been ignored or, during times like this, outright lied about to make him seem super duper evil. He tried to bomb a city! You don't need to make him seem evil anymore, that job is done! Like their sudden change regarding disability, RT now seems to be allergic to nuance. Heaven forbid Ironwood be allowed to have valid points like he did in Volume 3. No, if you've got an antagonist every single thing they've ever said must be twisted into a display of their evilness.

Unless you're Hazel, who Oscar trusts for #reasons. Unless you're Emerald, who the group immediately embraces. Unless you're Cinder, who gets to cry on a rooftop and secures the trust of her allies long enough to betray them again.

But Ironwood? Nah, screw that guy.

Salt aside, the fight is pretty boring. Winter literally just throws up a wall of ice and Ironwood's blast rebounds, taking him out.

Winter flies through the portal and we return to Jaune. His sword is broken by Cinder, so weapons should be quite the problem in Volume 9. 

There's a bit of sword vs. sword Maiden battling — this episode really pulled heavily from both Volume 3 and 5's finales — before Cinder gets smart again and attacks Weiss, currently trying to escape with Jaune. Weiss goes right off the edge and Winter isn't able to reach her in time. That's the entirety of Team RWBY, lost to the magical void.

Kudos to Winter's VA and the writing here though. This feels like an appropriate reaction to losing a sister. Screaming, sobbing, falling to her knees and beating the floor... Ruby, take notes.

A roar sounds through all the portals though, the sort of roar a pissed off witch might give. Jaune convinces Winter they need to leave Cinder behind, but before they can escape Cinder... makes a new wish?

Look, it works on all the major fronts. Cinder has the staff, check. We've basically established that Ambrosius can make an unlimited number of things per era, check. We know the previous thing disappears when a new wish is made, check. My only question is the timing. In all honesty, I'll have to re-watch the scene to be sure, but at the time it felt like the portals began disappearing almost the second Cinder left. Did she really have time to summon Ambrosius, deal with his explanatory nonsense, and get him to make a new wish without any fiddly concerns? Sure, fire is just fire, but it still felt like way too much happening too fast off screen.

Either way, the portals are gone and Winter makes it through in time, but Jaune does not. He falls through the void along with Team RWBY. And Neo.

Neo is the only addition I'm looking forward to here.

We get a few shots of our other characters as Winter arrives, saving the day by taking her grief out on the grimm. So glad something came of Ren breaking his aura again! Maybe they'll be more fighting at the beginning of Volume 9? If we see any of this group outside of 9's finale. My worst fear right now is that we'll spend an entire season away from the main action — remember how I said it would be stupid for Team RWBY to go on a side adventure while Salem is attacking the world? — and when they return there will have been some major time skip. Salem has destroyed most of Remnant, only pockets of survivors remain, it's all dark and dystopian... and oh look, every bit of character development happened off screen. How did Nora discover who she is without Ren? She did it while Team RWBY was gone. That merge we've been teasing for five years? That happened while you were gone too and, btw, Ozpin has ceased to exist. So sad, right? Not that anyone will actually mourn. Just take comfort in the fact that his last line was an "Oh no" about Ambrosius and his last major scene was apologizing for how the group treated him. Emerald's redemption? Off screen. Winter's grief? Off screen. Any and every one of these challenging beats to tackle can be waved away with, "We went through that arc while you were lost in the magical realm. Just get to know our new, improved selves now!"

Please, oh writing gods, don't let that happen.

Though I do worry because my last prediction came true.

But we all knew we’d end up here. My current theory? The portal should still be open at the vault. Winter will fight Ironwood, escape through it, and it will close right before he escapes too. He’ll fall with Atlas and everyone will act as if it’s some beautiful, poetic justice for him to perish with the city. 

Ironwood didn't make a break for the portal — too busy being unconscious — but we got everything else. Winter left him, he falls with Atlas, and this is some poetic justice, I guess. Really, it's just an undignified death. I'd hoped for a sympathetic kill, something that showed the characters still cared about him even if they knew Ironwood had to be stopped. Baring that, I'd hoped for an epic battle that took him out with style. Instead, no one even bothers to kill him. Ironwood is now beneath the entire cast, not even worth finishing off. Winter casually tosses his blast back at him and leaves. Cinder throws out a "that's checkmate" and leaves. I don't think Salem even looks at him. Ironwood (presumably) dies with no one and nothing, just a casualty of the city Team RWBY made fall. And I say "presumably" because the audience isn't even given the satisfaction of being sure he's passed on. Like Hazel, Ironwood's death is this weird, ambiguous moment that, based on the other character reactions, isn’t meant to be ambiguous. Is he dead? Most likely. Is it possible, based on what we've seen, that he'll pop up two volumes later like

Yes and, memes aside, that sucks. I don't want to be wondering for the next couple years if Ironwood survived and if they'll bring him back just to drag his character through the mud again. Move on.

But no, we don't even get that.

I've spoken at great deal about Ironwood both in these recaps and on my blog more generally. Last week, I said I'd covered it all and there was no need to rehash it all again. I stand by that, so let me just conclude this travesty with a final note: if your bad guy's final moment is using the last of his strength to point a gun at the actual villain of this story, and you don't realize the problem of how this image contrasts everything else the story has insisted about his character? … I just don't know what to do with that.

Oh, actually, final-final note: Ironwood’s semblance is officially a Schrodinger's semblance. It is both canonical and noncanonical simultaneously. Wooo. 

Cinder tells Salem she used her wish to "add more flames to the first of Atlas" and we cut to Watts, trapped in a roaring fire, unsuccessfully trying to break his way out. Wow, I hate that too! Next to Tyrian, Watts was our last remaining, entertaining villain. He carried a lot of the last two volumes and, I had hoped, was going to add some bright spots to the coming volumes as well. Apparently not.

Just another waste.

In addition to this casual, second murder of her ally, Cinder successfully convinces Salem that Neo killed Ruby and Ruby used the Lamp's last question, but she's back in her good graces since she snagged the Relics anyway. “You’ve done well, Cinder. Our work here is done" and they leave, blasting off like a less cool Team Rocket as Atlas plummets into Mantle.

Let's spend a second to tally things up then, shall we? What happens if Ruby, instead of throwing a moral fit, says, "You're right and we never should have lied to you, or betrayed you. But we want to help now. You get the Relics and the Maiden to safety in Atlas, if you can, we'll defend the people of Mantle"?

Well, they can still tell the world about Salem and call for help, much more easily now since Ironwood would likely just give them the code rather than them needing to spend an episode stealing it.

The Staff at least may not have ended up in Salem's hands and the group could have actually focused on getting the Lamp back (also solved if they'd been smart and just put it in the vault to begin with).

Mantle would still have been safe because Salem was never interested in Mantle to begin with.

Atlas wouldn't have fallen.

Ironwood wouldn't have died.

Penny wouldn't have died.

Even Vine wouldn't have died!

Our heroes unambiguously made the situation worse. Rather than banding together with their allies to fight the real enemy, Salem, they pushed until they made enemies of Ironwood and the Ace Ops both. Then they asked for help — which a pinch of logic said would never arrive — and twiddled their thumbs waiting for it. When it was clear none would come they...did nothing. They sat around, upset that the people were in danger, but not willing to do anything about it. It's only when one of their own, Penny, is threatened that they kick into high gear, hitting on a solution that they could have posed to Ironwood from the very start if no one liked the fly away plan. Yet instead of taking a few minutes to brainstorm other ideas — doing anything other than denouncing Ironwood to the rest of the group and attacking the Ace Ops — they spent two days sitting around, fixing minor messes they’d helped to create, then rushed through the portal plan, messing up the wish and stranding an entire kingdom in a sandstorm, with only Winter now to protect them from grimm.

Fantastically done, team. 

The villains won, yes, but not because the villains were smart and compelling. Watts' hack on Penny and the heat petered out to nothing and Salem... well, she sat around for the whole volume, expending energy only to torture Oscar and try to (unsuccessfully) stop some escapees. Neo and, miraculously, Cinder did the most damage, but only in the final hour, with this "damage" being that our characters fall into a void that we now know looks remarkably like a paradise! Everything bad that happened was a result of our heroes being stupid and stubborn. That's a compelling story to tell... but RT isn't trying to tell it. Our heroes caused so much damage, yet that damage goes unacknowledged — or worse, ignored into silence like with Ren — and everything else is waved away with the magic wand the series claims isn't there. The cold doesn't kill anyone. Oscar has no problems walking off the torture. Nora hops back out of bed. Ruby one-shots the Hound. The civilians lost to the void must have survived too. The entire kingdom successfully makes it to Vacuo... unless you count the massive army we never saw making use of the portals, but who cares about them, right?

The villains won, there was indeed something resembling consequences, but none of it was emotionally satisfying. Not even when the series tries so hard to insist that emotion is there.

Qrow watches Atlas fall, mouthing Ruby and Yang's names, but it's too little, too late. Where was this care for his nieces when he was obsessed with killing Ironwood? When did they care about him? Was it when Ruby shrugged at his arrest, when neither cared that he was missing, or when they were designing an escape plan that didn't include putting a portal where Qrow could reach? RWBY markets itself around the found family-ness of its cast, but they're done a poor job in recent volumes (not others) of convincing me that most of these characters care for one another. We went from Ruby denouncing all adults, to Ruby pulling an Ozpin with Ironwood, to Ruby watching blandly as her sister falls to her presumed death. This is my hero? This is the simple soul we're supposed to rally behind? Ruby doesn't feel like a character who cares about other people anymore and, given that she leads the charge, neither do most of her friends. Or, when that emotion appears, it's jarring and undeserved. Jaune cries over Penny's death? That's tonally and characteristically backwards.

This volume was the culmination of so many mistakes over the past two years. No, Covid couldn't have made things any easier for the crew — the fact that they got a volume out at all is amazing — but the pandemic isn't to blame for the problems in the story. These seeds have existed since Volume 5, with some (like Jaune) going back even farther. I don't think we're ever going to get that flawed, but emotionally fulfilling RWBY back. The show has dug too deep and unless it somehow manages to create a clean slate — those time travel ideas get more and more alluring! — there's nothing they can do but keep on digging. At this point, I can only hope that the series does wrap up within the next two volumes, rather than dragging RWBY to a Supernatural-esque length.

Our final shot of the episode proper feels fitting for what this volume has been. Atlas and Mantle flood rather than exploding, something that makes a certain amount of sense, sure, but definitely wasn't what I was expecting. And after all these shocking images — Penny dying, the grimm attacking, our main characters disappearing in a puff of gold dust — we end it all with bits of random debris. It's strange and underwhelming. Out of everything you could have done with the options you had, you choose to do this?

Of course, RWBY always has an after-credits scene (RIP Raven's, still amounting to nothing). Here, the sounds of water return to show us a beach. Crescent Rose imbedded in the sand, mirroring its classic pose in the snow.  

There's a tree. It's a very different kind of tree from what we saw in Volume 6, but the height and shape is nevertheless reminiscent of Light's domain.

A tree of life, anyone? After all, the group has fallen into a dimension created by a Relic, the gift of Light himself. It certainly seems as if RWBY is heading towards another encounter with the Gods, though what that will look like and how narratively satisfying it will be remains to be seen.

As for our bingo board, RWBY certainly pulled its weight! Only three squares got gold stars: Watts and Jacques didn't manage another team up because both are dead, Oscar didn't apologize for getting shot because he was too busy being tortured, and Qrow didn't drink likely because he didn't have access to any alcohol across the whole volume. Can't say that's a stellar result. The final image is something to behold though lol.

What a mess.

And on that less than exciting note... we’re done. This has been the volume of desertion, with a large number of fans telling me that they will no longer watch RWBY, but baring something entirely unexpected in my future, I'll be back next volume, for whatever that's worth. It never ceases to amaze me that even one person would give these nonsense recaps the time of day, so in all seriousness: thank you for reading. You rock.

Now go forth and fill the hiatus with great RWBY content!

✌️

[twh-news]

"Loki" Director Kate Herron Talks The Epic Season 1 Finale And The Easter Egg Fans Should Go Back And Listen For | Buzzfeed

Warning: There are MASSIVE spoilers ahead for Season 1 of Loki!

Welp, Loki Season 1 just came to an end and I think it's safe to say that the Marvel Cinematic Universe will never be the same. Following the Season 1 finale, we sat down with director Kate Herron to talk about everything — like how it felt introducing the multiverse and Jonathan Majors to the MCU, casting this incredible ensemble cast, Loki's bisexuality, and so much more. Here's everything we learned:

1. First, Kate has always loved Loki, so she knew she wanted to be involved in the "character's next step" in some way.

"Basically, I love Loki, and I found out they were making a show about him. As a fan, I was like, 'I need to know where he's gone.' Then, I just wanted to know what the story was going to be. I loved the character. I think Tom Hiddleston's performance is amazing. I really wanted to be part of whatever this character's next step was because I think Loki's had one of the best arcs in the MCU."

2. Directing all six episodes of the first season felt like filming a six-hour movie.

"Directing all six episodes was a really unique experience, right? Because normally TV is run through the showrunner system, and Marvel didn't do that on Loki. It was incredible. It was quite an undertaking to do six hours and run it like a giant film. I'm so grateful for the opportunity, and I'm really proud of what we made."

3. When Kate signed on to Loki, only the first few scripts had been written, the "rough shape of the show" was in place, and they knew Loki would be arrested by the TVA.

"When I started, Michael [Waldron] had written the pilot. Then, there was a second episode written by Elissa [Karasik], and Bisha's [Ali] episode was written. So, there was a rough shape of the show. It was already fixed in that Loki was gonna be arrested by the TVA and then it had this twist that he was going to try and solve the mystery of who this other Loki was, but then it pivots and becomes this love story about him falling in love with himself. I just thought that was so inspired and the message that had about self-love. I just really wanted to be part of that."

4. And they always knew the show would end at The Citadel at the End of Time and the multiverse would be born.

"As we dug into it with Kevin Wright, our producer, the studio, Michael, Tom, and also our whole team, I think it was always thinking like what was the best story, in particular during the second half of the show. We always knew they were going to The Citadel, something would happen, and the multiverse would be born, but we didn't necessarily know it would come out of Loki and Sylvie fighting. That idea came out of discussions with me, the writers, and the studio."

5. It was "always the plan" to introduce Jonathan Majors to the MCU during the Loki Season 1 finale.

"I think me and the writers were just like, 'Well, they haven't told us we can't introduce that character. I guess we're doing it.' It was really exciting and I felt really honored that I got to be part of it."

6. Kate was involved with Jonathan's casting for He Who Remains/Kang alongside Peyton Reed, who will direct Ant-Man: Quantumania, and Marvel Studios.

"Being part of the casting discussion with Marvel and Peyton was amazing. It was massive. I was just like, 'Wow, I can't believe I get to be part of this conversation.' Everyone was just so excited about Jonathan. He's one of the best actors. I just couldn't believe we got him."

7. Jonathan brought a lot of "cool ideas to the table" once he was cast, and Kate gave him "space to play."

"He just brought so many cool ideas to the table. I think when you're working with an actor like Jonathan, it's really just about giving him space to play, and let him find the character and give him a cool way to do that. I really enjoyed working with him. We finished the shoot filming in The Citadel, so it was really interesting that we finished filming with Jonathan. I just felt very lucky I got to direct him."

8. Jonathan actually voiced the Time-Keepers in Episode 4, which added to the Wizard of Oz homage.

"Obviously, the Time-Keepers were being made in post, and we hadn't cast anyone [for the voices] yet, and I thought, 'Well, Wizard of Oz. Like it should be the wizard, right?' So I thought it would be cool if it was Jonathan, and I think the key thing then was just working with him in a way that we could disguise his voice. I think the fun thing was, Jonathan is an amazing character actor. So we just sent him the art and he was sending audio clips to me and Kevin Wright and being like, 'What about this voice?' It was just so much fun to do that with him. I think that was just joyful."

9. Kate's favorite Easter egg from Episode 5 was Throg — in fact, Chris Hemsworth recorded new lines and sounds for that small part.

"That one I was very proud of and it was very fun. I had that shot designed for a while. I think I'd seen it in Futurama, and a lot of animation does it, but I love the idea of going through the dirt and it reveals something. I always felt like that shot would be the place to insert an Easter egg. When we had Throg in there, it was so much fun and it was perfect. We also recorded Chris [Hemsworth] for that. It was just so much fun."

10. She also loved the Thanos Copter and said it was a "funny" detail the producers loved from the comics, so they had to include it.

"The Thanos Copter was great. Kevin Wright, our executive producer, was really obsessed with that copter, I was like, 'We have to put the helicopter,' and it was so funny. Episode 5 is our best Easter egg episode. There's so much deliberately because of the nature of The Void as a place where deleted things are sent."

11. There's one Easter egg/detail Kate hasn't seen fans catch onto yet, and it involves a "familiar" voice at the very end of the Season 1 finale.

"The one I would say is — it's less Easter egg and more cool story-wise. So, at the very end of the finale, when Loki is in this alternate TVA, there's a character that runs behind him and is going to the armory and people should listen to the voice. It's very quick, but it's someone familiar."

12. Loki was inspired by numerous iconic sci-fi movies, like Children of Men, Alien, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Metropolis, Starship Troopers, and more.

"Bisha, in the episode [she wrote], she spoke about Children of Men and also Before Sunrise as a reference, so I was really inspired by that and the idea of bringing these sci-fi things together. Across all the TVA, I wanted it to just be a big love letter to sci-fi movies, like Metropolis, Brazil, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, [and] Alien. A reference I could never talk about early was Starship Troopers just because, obviously, the TVA are bad guys and in that movie they also use a lot of propaganda film and we had our Miss Minutes film. So, that movie played a hand. There was so much across the show. We had references from everywhere."

13. And the inspiration for how The Void would look in Episode 5 actually came from Teletubbies.

"I never really spoke much about it, but basically in Episode 5, The Void was originally written like a desert, but when I pitched, I said I thought it would be cool if rather than like a Mad Max desert apocalypse, it's more like an overgrown garden. Like, this is the place where the TVA throw their rubbish in. I just loved the idea of that. I think I realized as it started to unravel that I'd basically pitched the British countryside. As we were building it, I was like, 'Am I just homesick?' I remember trying to explain it to the visual effects artists who were making it, and I was like, 'You know, it's like the Teletubbies. You know, rolling hills just one after another.' So, yeah, the Teletubbies became a useful reference when describing The Void. So, that's how they played a hand in it."

14. Kate was the one who suggested Sophia Di Martino audition for the role of Sylvie.

"Sophia was in a short film of mine called Smear. I was very happy to pay her, finally, for her talent. When we were reading for the role, I was like, 'There's this actor I know and I think we should ask if she wants to read.' Everyone was like, 'Yeah, sure.' So, she read in these audition tapes, and we were all watching the tapes back and I remember everyone at the studio was like, 'Wait, who's that?' And I was like, 'Oh, that's my friend Sophia.' They thought she was amazing."

15. Sophia's audition tape was so good that she was immediately cast.

"Basically, everyone was really excited by her tape and I think she got cast in the room, which is incredible. I was excited because I got to bring my friend along. She's such a good actor. She's fantastic in Flowers and I was just so happy that she was coming along for the ride. I think she's done such a beautiful job with Sylvie."

16. One of the most important things when crafting Sylvie and the other Loki Variants was making sure they were their own characters, and not just Loki copies.

"I think the most important thing, minus just tiny little gestures, was really making it important that Sylvie was her own character and that all the Lokis weren't just 'faded photocopies.' They were all their own Loki. It wasn't even that they stood in a similar way or looked similar, but what in their soul made them a Loki. I love that line, 'Lokis always survive.' That idea goes across all our characters who are Lokis."

17. Casting Sylvie was one of the hardest things, and Sophia was able to bring her own spin to the character and she was the perfect "sparring partner" for Tom.

"Sophia has this talent — and I think Tom has it as well — where she's so funny and naturally so witty and charismatic that you can't take your eyes off her. She's also really good at playing characters with a lot of anger, pain, and vulnerability. I just felt that those qualities were so Loki to me. She brought her own spin on it too. Tom's performance is so iconic, so Sylvie was a tough role to cast because you need to give him a good sparring partner, but also, it's another Loki and people love Loki. So, it was really making sure that she felt distinctive enough that she was different, but also that we gave Tom a really fun actor to play alongside. It was really fun watching them. It was really fun seeing their chemistry grow."

18. Sylvie's fighting style was actually crafted to have similar movements to Loki's, thus showing that they are basically two sides of the same coin.

"I know Tom and Sophia spent a lot of time together. I think the fun thing with Sophia was the little things, like the fighting styles. She has a very different life to our Loki. Loki is very balletic in his fighting style, because he grew up in the palace, whereas Sylvie grew up in apocalypses. So, she was going to fight a bit more like a feral cat. I thought that was fun to play with. We worked with Mo [Ganderton], our stunt coordinator, and it was really fun to find little mirror image stuff they would do when they fight. We did a little bit of that on Lamentis and there's little bits here and there where we've done that. There's also little gestures that they do that are quite similar."

19. Kate had a "four hour" phone call with Owen Wilson before he was cast. They talked about Marvel, Mobius, and Loki.

"Everyone was so excited to cast him. I remember, they were like, 'Kate, just call him and see if he's up for it.' That was a lot of pressure. But then, I spoke to him on the phone and we spoke about Marvel and Loki in Marvel. Also, we talked about what our show was doing, who Mobius was, and then just getting his take on it. It was a very detailed conversation. I think we spoke for like four hours. At the end, he was like, 'I'm in.'"

20. Wunmi Mosaku's role was originally supposed to be a male character, but Kate suggested having an "open casting" because she thought Hunter B-15 would be really great as a female character.

"When I spoke to the studio, I was like, 'This character is cool, but I just think it could be really interesting if this was a female character. So, could we do open casting? We'll have men and women read, and we'll just see who's the best person for the role.' So, Wunmi read for it and just blew everyone away. We were like, 'We have to cast this person!' So, we kind of remade the role, really, around her."

21. Kate loves the idea that Hunter B-15 joins this club of sci-fi female characters who were originally supposed to be men.

"It was cool because I love Ripley in Alien and I love Kara Thrace in Battlestar Galactica. In the original Battlestar, Kara Thrace's character was played by a man, and Ripley in Alien was originally written as a man, so I liked that Hunter B-15 was joining these badass women in sci-fi. That was really cool to me."

22. When Kate pitched her ideas to the studio, she include Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the actor she wanted to play Ravonna.

"Gugu was in my pitch when I spoke to the studio. I was like, 'I think she'll be really great.' I love her work as an actor. From Belle to the episode of Black Mirror she's in, everything she's in is so different. I think that's so interesting with Ravonna because in the comics, Ravonna's been good and bad, and she's such a big character. I was like, 'I'd love to see Gugu's take on that character.' The studio was really excited by that and so was Gugu."

23. Kate said it was "important" to recognize Loki's bisexuality in the show, and she loved how it was naturally worked into a conversation between him and Sylvie.

"It was just important for us to do it in a way that made it canon, acknowledged it, and also done in a way where like, if someone asked me, I would just be matter of fact about it, like, 'Yeah, I'm bi.' I think that was the important thing for it and building it into the conversation. It was important to the whole team and the way that it was written was really beautiful. It felt like the right place to do it because these two characters are starting to open up to each other and are being a bit more honest about who they are. So it felt like the right place to have that moment."

24. The TVA weren't always going to be Variants/humans. That idea was born out of conversations with Kate, the writers, and the rest of the Loki team.

"When I started, I think it was a bit more up in the air with like, who are the Variants who work for the TVA? Are they Variants? They actually weren't Variants when I first joined. Casey was an alien, for example. I think something we all locked onto was it was more effective to make them more human. It was already in there that the Time-Keepers wouldn't be real and that would be a big Wizard of Oz rug pull. But the extra rug pull we added was that, on top of all of that, the TVA don't realize that they're actually Variants."

25. One of the things Kate enjoyed the most was figuring out the "inner workings of the TVA," like how the Minutemen would operate.

"I think it was really fun, in terms of the bigger structural stuff, to work with everyone. Also, figuring out the inner workings of the TVA, like every squad of Minutemen would have a hunter and they'll be little details sprinkled across all the world building in the show. Generally, we always looked at the characters and what was the best story and how to get to the end goal in the most effective way."

26. The season finale intro — which included seeing space, the sacred timeline, and hearing quotes from the MCU and history — was an homage to Contact.

"Basically, Eric Martin, our writer, he'd written in this amazing idea that for the opening we do an homage to Contact, and kind of move through space to the end of time. Then, we'd see the physical timeline, and then we see The Citadel. I love Contact, and I was like, 'Oh, that's so cool.' We took that idea to Darrin [Denlinger], our storyboard artist, and me and him just nerded out about space and about how we wanted to pay homage to Contact but not be completely the same.

So we played with the idea of time and he was bringing in so many cool ideas. But then, the amazing pitch he had as well was like, 'What if when we pull out at the very end, the timeline isn't a straight line like how you guys have been showing it in the show? What if it's actually circular?' I thought it was such a good idea."

27. Kevin Feige helped come up with the idea to include Marvel quotes over the Marvel logo because it was something the MCU had never done before.

"I had this weird idea where I remember saying to my editor, Emma McCleave, I was like, 'Oh, can we add a baby crying or the sounds of the city? And it's like we just hear life.' So her, me, and Kevin Wright got really into that. So we were adding all of these different sounds into the timeline. We also had quotes from just life, not Marvel. Then, we showed that cut to Kevin Feige and the rest of the team.

They all thought it was cool, and then Kevin Feige was like, 'Oh, do you know what? We've never done quotes on the Marvel logo before.' So, we thought that was cool and we added the quotes to the Marvel logo intro. Then, me, Kevin Wright, Emma, and Sarah Bennett, Emma's assistant, decided to just put the MCU quotes across the whole thing."

28. Going from hearing all of the voices in the season finale opening to utter silence in The Citadel was also a way of learning something about He Who Remains.

"I loved the idea of all the noise and this Greek chorus building because when you finally pull out and see The Citadel and how isolated it is, it tells you so much about He Who Remains' psychology because he's surrounded by all this brimming life, but he's completely isolated and alone. I thought it tells you a little bit about his character and who he might be before we see him."29. Kate loves that the season finale opening is a "beautiful handover" from the previous phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into this one with the multiverse.

"It was a real group effort, and we were just really excited at the idea of it being this really beautiful handover from the previous phase of Marvel. Also, we get to encapsulate a little bit of our world as well, which was really fun. The editing team put so much time into that. I really want to watch it in a planetarium or something."

29. Kate loves that the season finale opening is a "beautiful handover" from the previous phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into this one with the multiverse.

"It was a real group effort, and we were just really excited at the idea of it being this really beautiful handover from the previous phase of Marvel. Also, we get to encapsulate a little bit of our world as well, which was really fun. The editing team put so much time into that. I really want to watch it in a planetarium or something."

30. And finally, even though Loki sets up a lot of upcoming MCU projects — namely, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Ant-Man: Quantumania — Kate didn't have a lot of conversations with other MCU directors and writers.

"Kevin Wright and Stephen Broussard from Marvel were our producers on Loki, and they worked with Kevin Feige, Louis [D'Esposito], and Victoria [Alonso]. They always steered us in terms of the Marvel big picture and let us know if anything was off base. It's so secretive at Marvel, so I only spoke to Peyton just because our timelines crossed [with Jonathan]. Generally, Marvel manages everything internally and keeps us all in check."

[carriagelamp]

Weirdly enough, I often find myself reading less in the summer, since I have more time than I do during the rest of the year to do other things. Also artfight has been eating up more than a bit of my free time! But here’s a collection a graphic novels I sat around on the hammock reading, and some novels I finished up...

(Everyone go read All Systems Red, holy crow guys)

A Whale of the Wild

The “sequel” to A Wolf Called Wander, though it doesn’t actually connect to the previous novel except in the stylistic/thematic sense. A Whale of the Wild is very much a standalone novel. And a pretty decent one! Personally, I think I liked Wolf more, but this one was a pleasant, informative read, with just the right amount of crushing dread sprinkled in. It’s about a young orca called Vega who is learning to become a new wayfinder for her pod but who still has a lot to learn, especially in an ocean that is becoming increasingly hostile to orcas and the other sealife that live alongside humans. When a devastating earthquake hits, Vega and her little brother find themselves separated from their family, lost in a now horrifyingly unfamiliar environment, and fighting starvation as the salmon that sustain them become more and more unreliable. It’s a desperate fight for survival as they search for food and their missing family. This book is written for a middle grade level, and does a really good job of putting the current environmental crisis into an animal’s perspective while giving the readers something to hope for.

The Adventure Zone: The Crystal Kingdom

Every July I eagerly anticipate the next Adventure Zone graphic novel. This one is for their fourth arc, The Crystal Kingdom, in which Magnus, Taako, and Merle respond to a SOS from a floating laboratory that is gradually being consumed by crystals and which threatens the entire world should it fall into the ocean. Carey Pietsch’s art continues to be absolutely fantastic, so beautifully and hilariously expressive, and this one delivers some great Merle moments, lots of Carey Fangbattle, and, of course, Kravtiz. Kravitz, my beloved…

Anyway, I obviously always recommend these. If you’ve never gotten into The Adventure Zone, I totally recommend either trying these graphic novels — or even better, just go listen to the podcast because it really is both hilarious and creates a shockingly good and heart-wrenching story by the end.

All Systems Red

I’ve seen The Murderbot Diaries on my dash occasionally, and it always looked interesting, but a friend’s recommendation finally compelled me to read the first novella of the series. And holy shit y’all. Absolutely the best book I’ve read this month, it’s amazing. Mind-blowingly good. Also, if you’re like me and want a good audiobook, it’s a nice three-hour listen, very chill!

Anyway, All Systems Red is about a Security Unit, an artificially created being that’s part-organic part-mechanical and all-company-owned-and-controlled. However, self-named “Murderbot” has managed to hack into the system that suppresses its own will, and is now coasting along, doing the least amount of work its job requires not to be noticed, while preferring to spend all its time watching the hours and hours of soap operas it has downloaded into its brain. And it’s a tolerable if somewhat dull life, until the science team that it's currently rented to is attacked and the whole mission goes pear-shaped. Suddenly Murderbot has to scramble to keep its humans alive… while its humans scramble with the realization that their “SecUnit” isn’t actually a mindless robot like they had all believed...

This story is both gripping and hilariously funny. Murderbot has such a unique voice and perspective and it’s an absolute pleasure to follow its story. I reallly need to read the next book...

Asterix and the Banquet

A classic. I was startled when I realized I hadn’t actually read this Asterix story… but hell I’m not gonna complain, it lets me read one of the originals for the first time again! In this Asterix volume, the Indomitable Gauls and the Romans end up arranging a bet — the Romans intend to keep them under siege, trapped in their village, while Asterix is confident that he can easily evade them… and will prove it by going on a tour around all of Gaul, collecting iconic foods from each region in order to return and put on a fine banquet. So we get a fantastic adventure in which Asterix and Obelix run all over the country, pursued the whole way, while making cheerful stops at the various eateries along the way. Also the first book Dogmatix shows up in! All around, a wonderful read, fun like all the best Asterix comics are.

Beauty Pop v4

A less impressive graphic novel. The first Beauty Pop is one of my guilty pleasure manga because… it really is pretty stupid but in the best possible ways. I mean, the whole thing is framed around hairstyling battles, like a shojo sports manga without the sports. It’s bonkers. Unfortunately, the series does not really manage to hold up, and it really begins to feel repetitive and dragging as it continues… as a lot of series like this do. *shrug* Unsurprising but still kinda disappointing I suppose. The building three-way romantic tension is mildly interesting if for no other reason than the main character Does Not Notice and Does Not Care about any of it, which is amusing and refreshing.

FRNCK v5

Now this series only gets better and better as it goes. This is the first book of the second arc, and somehow the danger just seems to be ramping up and up and up. The cavefamily have lost their home… as well as Léonard and Gargouille. Heartbroken, shocked, and angry, Franck is the one who ends up shouldering the blame for their presumed deaths as the others mourn. Things only get worse when Franck finds himself separated from the family, and in the territory of another tribe, this one hostile and cannibalistic...

Haikyuu v5

I continue to read this series because it continues to be charming… though it is beginning to feel, maybe, just a little repetitive. Kind of an inevitability with sports manga. But so far it continues to be good enough to overcome that. I’m not sure what I can say about this series that I haven’t already, so I’ll simply say it continues to be one of the most impressive sports manga I’ve read, and the author does a fantastic job of creating engaging characters, fleshed out teams, and really compelling relationships. I do genuinely adore all the main members of Crows, along with a number of characters from the rival teams as well. And of course it has some kickass volleyball scenes that are just drawn so dramatically they can’t help but take your breath away a little.

M*A*S*H Goes To Maine

Meh. The original book of the series was actually quite good in my opinion. This one… considerably less so. The first part I enjoyed more, since it was about Hawkeye, Trapper, Duke, and Oliver Jones trying to set up the FinestKind Clinic and Fishmarket in Crabapple Cove (which… is just the best premise I could have ever asked for). However, the book spends most of its time describing the quirky lives and times of other people living in the area and I… just… don’t care. It was funny at times but… I just don’t care. I wanted to hear more about the main cast. Also I found this book felt more racist and misogynistic than the first which also put me off :/ Wouldn’t bother if I were you. Go read the first book instead, or better yet just watch the TV show which is an obvious banger.

My Heart’s in the Highlands

I have had this on my “currently reading” list for so long but I’m officially giving up. It’s a really good book in theory but my god I can’t get over the pacing.

It’s about Lady Jane, a woman studying medicine in Edinburgh in 1888, and who suddenly finds herself back in the Highlands in the 13th century. Lost and confused, Jane is now at the mercy Clan Donald’s hospitality while she tries to adjust to this new world and hunts for her broken time machine. Fortunately, this hospitality include a burgeoning friendship with a red-haired warrior woman, Ainslie nic Dòmhnaill, who opens Jane’s eyes to the way the world could be.

Listen. It drives me nuts. This book should be completely up my alley, it has everything I like — IT HAS ALL OF ITS HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES CITED AT THE BACK, LITTLE EXTRA DETAILS ABOUT EVERY CHAPTER. THAT’S MY SHIT RIGHT THERE. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LIKE BEING ABLE TO GO OVER HISTORICAL DETAILS?? AND WELL RESEARCHED FOOTNOTES?? And yet it doesn’t. Fucking. Work for me. It has a kickass Scottish warrior lady as a love interest! It has a badass lady doctor! It has fish-out-of-water culture shock! But it also has a completely meandering plot, no sense of building tension, and a romance that just happens out of nowhere and feels completely unearned and uninteresting.

I would genuinely just rather read Outlander again, which I know has its own host of problems, but at least Outlander felt exciting and interesting and tense and funny. The romance built in fits and starts, it was complicated, and kept me interested. That book had me hooked (and has me hooked every time I reread it) whereas this book I’ve been sadly picking at for months like its a plate of overcooked spinach. This felt like an attempt at a queer, historically accurate knockoff which I would normally be super into but which just could not stick the landing.

Moomin on the Riviera

My first time actually reading anything from the Moomin canon. I have zero idea how to feel about it! It certainly is as feral as I’ve heard described! Overall, I think I enjoyed it but it sure made me feel strange emotions I didn’t know existed. I’m not even going to try to describe it. Read it if you want a batshit insane anti-capitalist comic.

Surviving the City

This was good in some areas, less good in others. It had a very interesting indigenous perspective on life in the modern city, the foster system, and The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women issue, which I’ve never seen handled in a book before. Something about the pacing did not completely click with me and I found myself getting easily distracted, but it’s definitely worth the read just to experience it and look at the issues it deals with through the characters’ (and author’s) eyes. It did give me a lot to think about and wrestle with, which is sometimes the best thing a book can give you.

Torchwood: Pack Animals

A really fun read, more so than I had ever expected! If you like Torchwood and want more stories about the team before everything goes to shit, this is perfect for that. It includes the entire cast, an interest mystery to be unravelled, lots of slavering monsters, Rhys being really wonderful and sweet (which I didn’t know I wanted until I read this book), and all the humour I expect from Torchwood. I had to send a lot of quotes to my long-suffering girlfriend who a) does not watch this show but b) needs to tolerate it because I find it too funny to keep to myself. It was good enough to make me go out another book of the series since this was the only one my library carried.

[bsd-elle]

Thoughts on the SK8 The Infinity Episode 12

So the final episode just aired. And I’m having majoorrr mixed feelings.

This show was truly something that kept me going, with it’s story, animation and the whole found family thing. I have loved this show from the beginning and I will till the end.

But as a lot of people in the fandom I do have some strong opinions on the finale

First off, I just want to say that everyone is allowed to have their own opinion but please do not send hate or any negative energy to studio Bones and Hiroko Utsumi. They have worked incredibly hard on this series. In fact I put them on a pedestal for giving us something so poignant and wonderful during such trying times. I looked forward every Saturday to watch the new episode and that feeling, that rush while watching it, never changed throughout the show’s run!!

Now on to my thoughts on the finale.

1. Shipping

I saw many people in the fandom criticizing the studio for queerbaiting. Now I can definitely not give an accurate perspective on this, as I am not part of the LGBTQIA community, though I am a strong ally.

Let’s talk about the main ships: Renga and Matchablossom

Renga: In my opinion they’re pretty much canon. All the hints, the loving looks, Langa jumping to hug Reki, Langa basically saying Reki is his happiness, Reki wanting to skate beside Langa (Infinitely). In my eyes, they’re canon.

Of course it would’ve been amazing to have a canon queer relationship, but we have no idea what happens behind closed doors. The rules in Japan, unfortunately are totally different from other progressive countries. As someone who lives in a country where they just decriminalized gay marriage, seeing canon queer relationships is honestly rare.

I think they did whatever they could to show that Renga is canon.

I mean come on, Langa basically said he liked Reki in episode 8

I think it would be very very cool and progressive to have a them outwardly admit to it, but we know both these dumbasses never finish their sentences. lol

I’m happy with the way their relationship evolved.

Matchablossom: I honestly can’t give a clear reasoning to this, because personally I don’t ship them. But the thing is, they could be canon, who knows?

I mean everyone was talking about how Joe went out with 2 girls in the end sequence and because of that they aren’t canon. But by that logic we couldn’t ship them from the beginning, since Joe kissed girls in the first episode.

I mean I totally headcanon that Joe is a bisexual king, so that means he could be hanging out them girls while still majorly crushing on Cherry.

Who knows, maybe Joe brought the girls to Cherry’s signing on purpose to make him jealous. Lol

Let your imagination run wild, people. It’s up to your own perspective. I personally don’t ship them, but I don’t think it’s queerbaiting when you pretty much have several hints to them caring deeply (love) about each other.

2. Story

This is where the critiquing comes.

One of the main reasons why I loved and still love Sk8 was one, obviously because of Renga and two because I absolutely loved the story.

From eps 1-11 the story was so compelling and written in such a fantastic way. Every week I’d have some assumptions and every time it would completely blow my mind.

In particular ep 10. When I originally saw the title “Dap not needing words” I was so worried.

They need to talk, they have to communicate. But wow, that episode was just phenomenal, if you guys want me to make a review on each episode I would be happy to, I have so much to say.

Sure, ep 10,11 was wayyy too rushed, but I just know it’s because they had to fit a lot of story in such a little time period. If they had maybe 24 episodes, they would’ve knocked it out of the park.

Either way I had no complaints.

My issue with ep 12 is the beef: Adam Vs Snow

I thought animation wise and as a beef it was really impactful (similar to Reki Vs Adam)

But why God, why did they give Adam a redemption

I’m sorry but he doesn’t deserve it.

I knew for a fact that as much as I wanted Adam to go to jail (so badly), I knew it wouldn’t happen. That was just not possible (in my eyes). I thought they would take a page from Fugou Keiji: Balance Unlimited, where his family (those evil ass aunts) and send them to jail (for clear mental, physical abuse and who knows what else), and Adam would go in isolation somewhere.

There he could properly heal from his trauma and abuse, work through it, heal his relationship with Tadashi and just work to be better.

There was a part of me that expected the show to end with a typical “oh we’re all friends and everything is forgiven” bullshit and I prayyedd that wouldn’t happen

But boy was I wrong

Why did they try to sympathize with him?!?

I get it, he’s clearly had severe trauma and abuse, and he uses skateboarding and entering the “zone” to get away from his terrible reality.

But why did they have Langa say this to him??

“Skating is fun because you can do it with your friends!”

It’s sweet that he’s trying to teach Adam what Reki taught him, but this implies that Adam is his friend. Or atleast that’s what he wants

“hey, you’re a crazy monster and you assaulted my friends (boyfriend), but I still wanna skate with you, cause it’s fun with friends”

I’m sorry, in what universe is this.. your friend?

Your actual friend, Langa, who taught you everything you know, who’s been with you from the start, he has been attacked and traumatized multiple times by Adam. Not to mention several other people.

I could’ve accepted it if they used the line

“Don’t ever end up on your own”

That makes more sense in this context, it’s like saying “hey you evil monster, you’re crazy but don’t end up alone, treasure the people in your life”

I think that implies more on the sense that Adam has to figure shit out on his own, by himself. Not with Langa and the people he’s assaulted.

Then it would make atleast a bit more sense to heal Tadashi and Adam’s relationship.

You just cannot build up a character like Adam, for 12 episodes and then completely forgo that for the sake of “friendship”, that just makes no sense

Not to mention, Kirako the detective, the fact that she worked so hard and got absolutely nothing, is preposterous.

That whole thing put a really bad taste in my mouth.

Also, during the beef, like I mentioned, Langa basically implies that they should have fun because they’re skating with friends.

This basically just throws out Langa’s friendship with Reki.

I mean Reki was so badly hurt and injured after their beef, both the times.

Yes, he did have a lot of fun and that was the point of ep 10, 11 to show Reki that he didn’t have to skate to be the best (like no one ever wass.. dun dun dun. If you know that reference, here’s a chocolate) he skated to have fun(even though in my eyes, he’s the best)

Ep 12 was that arc for Langa, for him to realize he also skated to have fun.

But when you’re condoning and encouraging Adam, idkk.. it just rubbed me the wrong way.

I didn’t like it at all. They made him into a gag character in the end scene, which is literally the opposite of what he’s been pictured for the past 11 episodes.

3. Side characters

Shadow did not deserve that in any way whatsover.

He was completely glossed over. I thought his injury would be a pivotal plot point for improving his relationship with the manager, but they just used it as a way to remove him from the tournament

Tadashi, babyy, that’s Stockholm syndrome

When I saw that dog comment:

Godd... he deserves so muchhh moree..

So, overall the finale, honestly disappointed me. But my love for sk8 is everlasting and the finale will never change that

4. Future

Hopefully, and I pray for this

A season 2, movie, OVA or anything tbh.

There’s so much potential

Reki and Langa go to Canada, they visit Oliver’s grave, Langa teaches Reki snowboarding

Kirako finally arresting Adam

Tadashi becoming true friends with Langa, Reki and the gang

Shadow getting the love he deserves

Matchablossom canon

Renga canon

Miya getting the apology he deserves

But whatever it is, Sk8 the Infinity owns my heart and I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life.

Other than reading Renga fanfiction

[orsuliya]

Just finished Emperor’s Conquest and I need a moment to process. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming in a moment. First, some random thoughts. I may do an actual comparison after I get through the finale. Or I may not, we’ll see.

Is the book better than the drama? No, they’re both equally amazing. There are some things that I like much better in the book. Politcs, for one, world-construction, all military-adjacent scenes and okay, I will say it, book!XQ is the sexiest thing to ever exist, he only needs to appear in the distance and I’m gooone a really fascinating character. On the other hand TRP fleshed out many plotlines in a really solid way and gave us something that the book lacks - actual personal relationships between characters other that Awu and Xiao Qi. Sorry, but Emperor’s Conquest is guilty of a metric tonne of tell-not-show. We get informed that Awu feels this or that way about somebody for this or that reason, which sometimes gets coupled with a reference to past events and that’s it. And since she’s our only point-of-view character, other places and events only get reported on. The whole book narrative is very introspective, which is fine, but not everybody’s cup of tea.

How is TRP as an adaptation? Is it faithful? Well, some things got lifted from the book almost word-for-word, certainly the first half of Awu’s journey. Other events and especially characters are wildly different! Don’t worry, Zitan is still as useless as ever, even if less actively malicious. And seriously, thank you, dramagods, for our badass Ningshuo officer Hu Yao, for Best Bro Guanglie and especially for the hilariously magnificent and magnificently hilarious bastard Daddy Wang.

The most startling difference - for all that their relationship with each other remains mostly unchanged - can be seen in our main characters and it is closely related to how the main themes of the story have changed going from book to drama.

Book!Xiao Qi is a magnificent bastard with twice the army, four times the ruthlessness and twenty times the ambition of his drama counterpart. Oh, and he’s got STYLE, the showy, showy son of a bitch. There’s no quiet self-control there; if there’s self-control, then it will be pure mithril, cold smiles and chilling calculations included. Oh, he still goes soft with Awu, but it’s such a startling contrast to his usual coldness, that it’s much more noticeable than in the comparatively consistent drama!XQ. Oh, and he cries. A lot. Which... hnnnnng! In the book XQ switches back-and-forth, going from arctic gale to summer day in a matter of seconds; in the drama he goes from tiger to kitten, so at the end of the day still a cat, if of a different coat.

This whole Ningshuo-soldiers-as-a-family thing? Pure drama invention. Book!XQ has comrades and brothers-in-arms, not brothers-brothers. He still bankrupts himself for his soldiers, but there’s no sign that it’s because of any guilt or personal feelings; 100% feudal warlord, 0% humble fatherly figure, that guy. In fact this whole theme centered aroud family is largely a drama invention. Book!Awu goes ride-and-die for Xiao Qi very early; the only member of her family she ever goes against him for (although very spectacularly) is her brother.

Also, book!Xiao Qi is no beggar shepherd orphan. An orphan, yes, but not a completely lowborn one; his mother was not even a concubine, but he still comes from a noble if rather isolated clan of talented loners. He ran away at thirteen, true, but it’s not the same. For one, the book doesn’t really stress the class issue all that much. There’s absolutely a conflict between the old families and Xiao Qi’s new military elite, but there’s no hint of any kind of greater social change. Book!XQ wants to change the dynasty, that’s it. And that’s his goal from the very start, one which Awu fully supports; at one point she’s the one to urge him on, even as he leaves the choice to her. The issue of kneeling or not kneeling to the throne, so prevalent in the last arc of the drama, is not really an issue in the book - Xiao Qi has nothing against kneeling masses, as long as they kneel to him.

Awu... Oh, that was a surprise. Although it really shouldn’t have been. Guys, book!Awu is a cold magnificent bitch. I am not kidding. She makes for a perfect partner to book!XQ; it’s not that she’s completely ruthless, she will still save her aunt, if needed... It’s just that if she’s forced, she’ll stop at nothing. Her inner commentary is also absolutely callous in some situations; her reaction to Yuxiu’s suicide gave me chills, I kid you not. They really are a matching pair!

And you know what? I like both versions of our heroes. I am fascinated by this cunning, cold and ambitious book take; it’s very gritty and very daggers-under-magnificent-silks, very realistic at the end of the day. Drop book!Awu and XQ into TRP-world, they’ll have it conquered before lunch and even Daddy Wang in his evil lair will never see it coming.

But as a hopeless romantic, I can’t help but melt when faced with the much more fantastic drama take; a pair of truly noble characters who do not really want power, but are forced to take it up for the greated good? Sign me up! And let’s face it, as hot as this whole only-good-and-soft-for-you thing really is, sometimes you just need a man who is, in every single aspect of his life, undeniably Good with a capital G.

My advice? Go and read the book after you finish the drama, otherwise you risk getting serious whiplash. Also, be careful if you have ever experienced weird feelings when faced with magnificent ink-black horses, shiny swords, epic cavalry charges and unfurling standarts, it gets... intense.

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Manga Review - Fragtime (Complete Series)

I recall reading the first few chapters of Fragtime on Manga Cross and not being very impressed. I did not care for it much, as, other than the time stopping element, it was mostly generic and had a few too many unsavory elements. I was content to let it rest and be forgotten along with a hundred other girl-meets-girl school Yuri romances until Tear Studio and the people behind the excellent Kase-san and Morning Glories OVA announced an anime adaptation of the work, a full five years after it ended. Inevitably an English adaptation of Sato’s original manga was announced, and so here I am, somewhat reluctantly reading and reviewing the two-volume series. It may sound like I am pessimistic or already had my mind made up, but that is not true. I went into Fragtime with as open a mind as possible, and I am happy to say that I did find several favorable aspects that appealed to me. Sadly, the manga mostly lived up to my poor initial impressions from all those years ago.

Fragtime follows timid high school student Moritani Misuzu, who can stop time for three minutes a day. While using her power, she attempts to look up the skirt of one of her classmates, Haruka Murakami. To her horror, Moritani discovered that Haruka is the one person immune to her ability. The two form an unlikely friendship and spend those few minutes when all others freeze together. As Moritani’s feelings for Haruka grow, her powers begin to fade, throwing their time together in jeopardy.

At first, this story appears to have some promise, along with some obvious issues. The supernatural aspect of Moritani’s powers and its connection to her emotions and relationship with Haruka provide excellent possibilities and avenues to explore the series’ romance and characters. Sadly, Sato delivers an unwieldy story with unlikeable and inconsistent subjects, a poorly paced narrative, and far too many sleazy moments to excuse. This last point is the most prominent of all and will be a turn off for many readers, myself very much included.

Moritani begins the story by “upskirting” one of her classmates. It is later revealed that she reveled in exploring the time-frozen school to pry into people’s most intimate moments, many of which frankly do not happen in schools nearly as much as the story would like to believe. Following this event are multiple scenes with characters flashing each other their panties, or else stripping to whatever the opposite of readers’ delight is. These moments are not sexy, and while a few of them appear to have been attempts at comedy, they will elicit few laughs. These factors create an overwhelming blanket of immature perversion that stifles any enjoyment in the audience and characters.

Another egregious element is a plotline where Haruka is continually sexually abused by her teacher, something used by her to manipulate Moritani, then joked about, and never resolved despite being referenced a good half-dozen times throughout the manga. More than anything, this speaks to Fragtime’s inability to treat its characters with any respect or focus on a plot arc and complete it satisfactorily. For indeed, even if one undergoes the arduous task of shrugging off the uncomfortable fanservice, there is not much noteworthy content left underneath.

Fragtime’s highschool Yuri romance plot is pretty unextraordinary. Even though it did attempt to include a few interesting plot points, like when Haruka and Moritani begin dating partway through the series, it is not awful, but too often, these plots are picked up and then never resolved properly, such as Moritani struggle to avoid the ping-pong club, and her discomfort after finding out about Haruka’s boyfriend. Yet, there were some positives along the way, sweet moments between characters or satisfying actions taken by them. It is just hard to find one uninterrupted by an unwelcome twist or panty flash. The one unconditional plus I will give is that I really liked the ending. There is a fantastic scene of role-reversal where the usually quiet Moritani confesses all the mischief to her and Haruka committed to the class and reveals the truth of their relationship and her feelings for Haruka. Afterward, a stunned Haruka is forced into a crisis of character and her true self is seemingly revealed. It is appropriately dramatic and delivers a fulfilling ending for the characters. Sadly, these revelations and character arcs are not supported by the rest of the story.

A manga like Fragtime lives or dies by its characters. Readers will sympathize with likable characters met with appropriate challenges and growth, or else they will laugh with endearing figures who try their best despite their flaws. Sadly, Fragtime’s Haruka is neither. Haruka is instantly dislikable, manipulating Moritani upon their first meeting, and does little to improve. She often jumps between ignoring Moritani and controlling her, demanding that she only use her powers at her command. These traits are never addressed, and the whole time readers are expected to accept that she is an unreachable beauty, and we should love her alongside Moritani. She is hopelessly inconsistent, apparently changing personalities and acquiring new traits at the drop of a hat so that Sato can shoehorn a new element of drama into the convoluted romance. The ultimate motivation behind her character, how she tries to please everyone and do what they want her to, is contrary to half her actions, and everything we have learned about her up to that point, making the reveal in the penultimate chapter, which is well-executed, feel forced.

Even through all the misery, convolution, and smut, there were, thankfully, some great moments sprinkled throughout Fragtime, mostly from Moritani. I loved seeing Moritani in the moments when she struggled with jealousy and accidentally stopped time, or else was uncertain about how Haruka would react when she confessed something to her. It was really human and relatable, and if only she were not going around looking up girls’ skirts, she would have been an excellent character. It also helps that her journey is also much more believable than Haruka’s, as Sato mostly keeps her story and development moving at a steady pace.

Moritani is much more consistent than Haruka. She starts the series as a timid and quiet girl, using her ability to run from confrontation or frankly, any form of human interaction. Once she meets Haruka and the solace of those frozen minutes is taken from her, she is understandably confused and traumatized. She even has a few moments of growth through the series, taking more confidence in herself as she plants a pair of panties (yup this again) on Haruka’s cheating boyfriend’s head. It is almost enough to sell her eventual ending and deliver a complete character.

Finally, we come to the art, which is good though not extraordinary. Characters have distinct designs and are consistent. Backgrounds and details are well managed, and nothing ever caught my eye as warped or out of place. However, there is not much that jumps out either for its quality. Sato uses very basic paneling, which is easy to read by also just slightly dull. The time-stopping elements were crying out for some sweeping panels of objects frozen mid-movement, but we never got any such content. In fact, there is no noticeable change in the art during those movements when time is stopped, other than Misuzu and Haruka acting like a pervert and exhibitionist respectively. If the writing did not specify when time was stopped or started, readers would have no idea.

Fragtime has an interesting concept but neither the grace nor charm to pull it off completely. The story is meandering and clumsily tries and fails to incorporate heavy topics and complex characterization into a generic Yuri school romance. The characters, particularly Haruka, are mostly unlikeable and wildly inconsistent, and readers have to force themselves to cheer for them or event finish this two-volume series. Most of all, Fragtime leaves an unpleasant and unsettling feeling with all its sleazy fanservice and perverted set pieces, clearly attempting to cater to specific audiences while utterly misunderstanding how teenage girls, or frankly, sane human beings, act. Any silver linings in its more relatable moments and competent presentation are whisked away by a mixture of contempt and disgust. Sadly, I do not recommend this manga, although I do appreciate that Seven Seas published the whole series in one omnibus volume so that it takes up less space on my bottom shelf.

Ratings: Story – 3 Characters – 4 Art – 6 LGBTQ – 2 Sexual Content – 7 Final – 3

Review copy provided by Seven Seas Entertainment

Purchase Fragtime in paperback and digitally today: https://amzn.to/32mzVmg

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[duhragonball]

What I’ve been up to

I feel like I’ve been neglecting this blog for a while, and to some extent that was intentional.  All that fanfic writing I did from November to January took a toll on me, and I told myself I needed to rest up in February, but I found myself writing blog posts instead, which wasn’t exactly helping.  My wrists were bothering me, but that seems to have cleared up a few weeks ago.  The funny thing is that writing stuff at work never seemed to bother me much, so I probably need to take a hard look at my ergonomic situation at home.

Anyway, I’ve been using the time to binge-read old Fantastic Four comics.   In 2008, I lost a bunch of my comic book collection in a flood, and I bought a DVD-ROM Marvel had published that contained .pdf scans of every issue of Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer.  Really, I only bought the thing to replace my Surfer comics, but I always meant to go back and read FF, and so I started in on that a couple of years ago.  It was slow going for a while, mainly because the 1970′s FF comics were so dull.  I mean, the one where they fought a glowing yellow space gorilla obviously holds a special place in my heart, but the story isn’t nearly as awesome as it looks.   “You’ll GASP at the startling SECRET of Gorr!!” No you won’t: He’s a talking gorilla sent by the High Evolutionary to enlist the Fantastic Four’s help in protecting Counter-Earth from Galactus.   I mean, even that sounds pretty epic, but somehow they found a way to make it... not.   I mean, I’m just a hobbyist when it comes to writing cool shit involving giant golden space gorillas, but I’ve been at it for a while, and I feel like Marvel kind of dropped the ball with this arc.  There’s a reason everyone always points to the John Byrne run when they talk about the FF, and that’s because they were just phoning it in all through the decade before he showed up.   I’ve got some gripes with John Byrne’s work, but I can’t deny that I burned through his era a lot quicker and with more enthusiasm.   He should have brought Gorr back and gave him a cooler origin, though. 

Speaking of giant golden space gorillas, I need to get back on the horse posting my damn wienerfic.  For those of you who aren’t in the know, I’ve been writing a giant-ass story featuring a Super Saiyan OC of mine.  I felt kind of burned out on the whole thing after January 30, but now I’m tanned and rested, and finishing up the Steve Engelhart run on Fantastic Four has recharged me batt’ries.  So my new objective is to update the fic on AO3 and get the tumblr crossposts caught up to the same point.   I don’t know that anyone’s following the fic via tumblr anymore-- frankly it’s a lot easier to navigate via AO3, but I’ve always published it this way and I feel weird breaking the tradition.  I have to get all this updating done by March 31, because I’m going back to the salt mines in April to try to crank out another 30,000 words.

And yeah, that seems to be my only agenda for the year: Luffa and Fantastic Four.  I was going to try to play Final Fantasy V last month, but I never got going and honestly I don’t see that happening anytime soon.   I feel like I should be doing more with my time, but lately, I just haven’t felt any pressing need.  Maybe that’ll change, maybe not. 

But I’m still around, in case anyone was wondering.   And I’ll probably be a little more active in the next couple of weeks.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Some Reasons I Love One Piece

So I set up a poll to ask what I should do for my 4000 follower milestone, and something like 85% of the responses to my poll said you wanted me to do a compilation of stuff I love about One Piece! So hell yeah, get ready for me to talk about pirates for way too long (a sentence that could also serve as an accurate blog description).

Before that though, lemme just say- thank you all! Seriously! When I started this blog I figured I’d be extremely lucky to end up with like a thousand followers, and now I have four times that and it just keeps growing, which just constantly baffles and amazes me. I adore every one of you, and you’re providing me something fun and productive to do in quarantine, and I love you for that.

Anyways! Let’s talk good shit.

Let’s start with Luffy. The whole story starts with him, after all.

I love Luffy, just as a character. He’s one of my favorite protagonists in anything, ever, when ordinarily protagonist characters don’t really appeal to me all that much. I genuinely think he might be my favorite character in One Piece now that I sit down and really think about it. I love how unconventional of a main character he is- he actively shuns the idea of being a hero and is in fact the most chaotic neutral motherfucker on the planet, and yet he’s so friendly and loyal and fun that you straight up can’t not love him both in-universe and out. 

I also love the Strawhats just in general, both as a group and individually. Found family is one of my all-time favorite story tropes, and they do it better than like, the vast majority of stories out there. They’re all so completely unique from each other and play off each other so well and they really do feel like a family. I love how often Oda just shows them fucking around and hanging out. (One of my only gripes with post-timeskip is how much time they spend split apart.) I think it says a lot about them that I struggled so much when someone asked me to rank the Strawhats a few months back and had to rearrange the list like four times. I just!! Love them all!!

One of my favorite things about One Piece is that it’s the story of Luffy’s rise, and that it occurs in a world that’s so solidly scaled and well-developed that all progress he makes actually feels tangible and impactful. Some of my favorite moments in One Piece are the ones where we can see how far he and the crew have come and see other people’s reactions. His reappearance at Sabaody after the timeskip is my favorite scene in the manga, full stop. His entrance at Marineford and all of the Decks of the World cover stories delight me for the same reason.

Speaking of the worldbuilding, god it’s so good? I think one of the greatest potential strengths of a long manga is that its just got so much time to establish and build on so much information, and sometimes that leads to mangaka kind of tying themselves in knots with too much lore and explanation, but Oda just fucking nails it. 

I recently read a conversation during Zou where the Strawhats are talking to Inuarashi, Nekomamushi and the Wano folks about all their mutual acquaintances on the Roger Pirates- Brook asks about Crocus, Franky mentions Tom, etc- and I had a moment where I realized how in pretty much any other series all those connections might seem contrived, but in One Piece it works so well. So much time has been dedicated to establishing all these facts and characters and connections over years and hundreds of chapters that when they do come together, it just feels so satisfying. 

Like, at Twin Cape Crocus mentions he was a ship’s doctor and then mentions Roger as the Strawhats leave, at Thriller Bark we find out he’s Brook’s friend, at Sabaody in conversation with Rayleigh we find out for sure which ship he was a doctor on and that he joined them to look for Brook’s crew- and it all just falls together so nicely. One Piece is maybe the strongest series I’ve ever read in terms of how it establishes its characters and concepts and how they all fit into the world and cross over and connect with each other. The world of One Piece is huge, but it also feels so alive and interconnected, and that’s just wonderful. 

I love how hopeful One Piece is. I was talking to a friend a couple months ago who doesn’t watch it, and she kind of dismissed it as ‘a show where nobody dies.’ Which- setting aside the fact that that’s just not fucking true- my first response to that was, “So?” I think it’s nice that we can all know for pretty much certain that the Strawhats will achieve their dreams in the end. There’ll be a happy ending, and Luffy’s going to be Pirate King, we’ve known that from the start. The fun is in seeing how they get there. 

Aside from a few specific cases, I also really like how Oda does his character writing just in general. The female characters in One Piece generally get a bad rap, largely from people who haven’t watched the show and judge it on the (admittedly exaggerated) artstyle, but fuck if I haven’t seen such a widely varied and developed and flawed female cast writing-wise since- I don’t even know. Oda does a really good job of giving his characters, both male and female, unique and memorable personalities, which is super fucking impressive considering just how many there are. Similarly, I’m impressed by how new characters are introduced without getting repetitive or annoying, and very often those characters are really fantastic. I could talk about all the different One Piece characters I love and why, but we would legitimately be here all day. 

I also love how unlike a lot of long-running series like this, characters don’t just go away when their time in the spotlight is done. In just about any other series, characters like Buggy and Coby and Crocodile would just be gone and never to be heard from again after they’ve served their purpose. Instead you have the stupid clown villain from the second arc becoming a fucking shichibukai several hundred chapters later, and it makes sense in the context of the story! The whole concept of the cover stories works really well towards this aspect of One Piece, letting us see what all these other characters are up to without taking attention off the main story. This fits in with the interconnectedness I mentioned earlier, too. 

And I like how (and I know there are people who will argue this, I have had them in my inbox, but I do not care) One Piece has stayed so strong for so long. I’ve mentioned before that both of my favorite big arcs are pre-timeskip- Alabasta, for the civil war storyline and great supporting cast and villains, and W7/Enies Lobby, for the epic emotional highs and lowers + ANOTHER great supporting cast. But like, I’ve been enjoying the more recent arcs just as much! Honestly, now that I’ve finished Dressrosa, I think it definitely ranks up there among my favorites as well, for how chaotic and fun and high-stakes the whole thing felt when I was binging through it. I’m only a few chapters into Whole Cake Island so far but it seems very promising, and I’m really excited to get to Wano from what I’ve seen of it.

I haven’t even really touched on the art yet, either. I know the artstyle turns some people off of the series, for how kind of cartoony it is sometimes and how different it is from most other series, but honestly I just love it. I wasn’t sure about it at the start but it grew on me very fast. Hell, I have a whole tag (which I should use more) dedicated just to appreciation of pretty panels.

And the action scenes in One Piece are so fun and expressive and creative and almost always at least a little silly just by the nature of Luffy’s powers. I don’t think I’ve ever been bored during a One Piece fight. And the splash pages are frequently just breathtaking. I’m a writing person, not an art person, so I’m bad at putting this kind of thing into words nearly as well, but- yeah. One Piece Art Good. (My friend Narramin also has a really, really good series of posts about how great the visual storytelling in OP is starting here that I highly recommend, if you’re interested.)

Finally, I think my favorite thing about One Piece is that it’s all one story, start to end. I kind of touched on this above with the worldbuilding thing, but you can see what a ridiculous degree of thought and planning Oda has put into his story, and how well everything comes together. It’s the main aspect that got me to give One Piece a try in the first place- I heard how good and thought-out the long term storytelling is, and I just eat that shit up. I don’t think I’ve ever had the level of trust in a creator to handle and end their story satisfyingly that I have in Oda. It’s a good feeling.