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psyga315 · 4 years

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Prelude

First, a bit of backstory. There was an interview made during the summer in between Volumes 4 & 5 that had the cast say what sort of themes one could expect for Volume 5. Among these were stuff like “building yourself back up again”, “shouting ‘we’re not done here!’”, “solving problems on your own”, and lastly, from Barbara herself, “Strength” and “Growth”. For someone who was just starting to realize why people were turned off by the darkness of Volume 3, this was uplifting to say the least…

Shorts

The Character Shorts kinda hyped the Volume, though they sunk in their own way. Weiss’s Character Short effectively foreshadowed her loss to Vernal. This tough and talented girl gets her ass stomped rather quickly and needed to be bailed out. Winter’s line about how she “won’t be around to save her” was foreshadowing to her not actually being in the season, but when I first heard it, I thought she meant “Hey, I’m going to die this volume, lol!” and that’s without bringing up how the trailer fails to hype Weiss up like the other trailers did.

Blake’s Trailer was alright, especially in taking steps to address a problem regarding Menagerie, but it felt more like Ilia given the backstory dump we got that feels all the more like mandatory reading. The problem is that, and it’s perhaps the very first problem I’ve heard about RWBY, is that the trailers (and by extension, anything that’s a spin off of RWBY like World of Remnant) feel more like you need to watch this rather than you can watch this. It’s confusing, but let’s use Blake’s Short as an example.

Ilia talks about her backstory as it is contrasted with a chase between Blake and a random dude we never see again. Assuming you’ve never watched the trailer, you’d just get the truncated version of “MUH PARENTS ARE DEEEAAAD!” and not the bits where she was forced to resent her own race because it was easier to blend in to her surroundings, like a chameleon. It’s ironic, since RWBY would do the reverse problem with Adam, where his trailer isn’t mandatory but we barely get a backstory for him beyond “I got branded, but everyone will speculate that it’s because I did something bad and not that it drove me to do bad things”.

First Episode

The first episode proper promised a lot. In fact, a good chunk of the first half promised a lot. However, it became much clear in a second viewing that a lot of it was just padding at worst and showing us where the characters are at best. But what I think was done dirty the most in this episode was introducing Mistral. We were hyped in Volume 4 (thanks to World of Remnant) that Mistral was this dichotomy of rich, cultural people and the seedy underbelly of criminals and that, at least one of the elements would be utilized in Volume 5. Unfortunately, all we got were a few mat paintings that contrast what Lionheart was saying in regards to Mistral being in chaos.

And so, the most we get out of Mistral are those mat paintings and a perpetually raining downtown that we don’t see much of, even when it gets briefly revisited in Volume 6. We’re supposed to be invested in the city and yet all we get are empty rooms and 2D art. They took great steps to improve this in Volume 6 with Argus, though, so if there’s any consolation, it’s that they learned from their mistakes here.

But we now get into the biggest problem of why Volume 5 is disliked. Because of the situation, the group are left to basically wait until Lionheart convinces the council to get them some Huntsmen. The heroes. Wait. In a volume where the writers were talking about the themes of improving yourself and pulling through with your own strength.

Do you guys see the problem here? I know people have bitched about Volume 5 to hell and back and you’ve probably heard the complaints to high noon, but this entire issue is what rots Volume 5 to the core the most. Not the piss poor fight scenes, not the inconsistent characterizations, it’s that the plotting decides to take a back seat when the volume was meant to be about taking action.

As the episode goes on, you see the problem unfold. Ruby and friends hit a dead end until Oscar appears and has Ozpin exposit things to them, Weiss is denied a chance to save people and fight the Grimm until the Grimm come to her, Blake is hit with the dead end of the Albains deflecting blame, and Yang had the chance encounter with Bakugou where he knows the hideout of her mom.

The closest person who is taking action here is Yang, who established that she is actively looking for Ruby (technically Raven, but as we see later on, moot point). Blake’s situation is being handled by her dad, Weiss is sitting in the plane until the Grimm come for her, and Ruby is sitting on the couch that I’m pretty sure has her grooves molded into the cushion with how many times she’s sat there.

Episode 2

A minor complaint before we go to Episode 2, we had the Stinger repeat itself because the crew thought that people wouldn’t see the stingers. This is the show, mind you, that makes a point to include scenes at the end of every volume, regardless of how long they are or what point they serve in hyping the next Volume. Hell, one of the major complaints about Volume 2 was about the stinger not mattering. So why did they suddenly decide that the viewers might not see the stinger in a culture where the MCU exists?

Alright, cooling things down, we have three major scenes in Episode 2. Salem’s chat with Lionheart was meh at best and wtf at worst. I get the idea of Salem using different approaches to get people to do what she wants, but the cool aspect of Salem was that her approach was not what a villain would normally be. Instead of berating or choking her minions should they fail or talk back, Salem instead talks people down like she’s a mother to them. Even when Tyrian fails, she doesn’t hurt him, but rather tell him that he disappointed her. So, having her choke Lionheart, even when in hindsight it made some sense, is kinda an odd thing to do.

But not as odd as Salem’s whole “Not you, Arthur” bit. A lot of people drew points to that and the best I can explain is that it’s either a typo (she’s meant to say not yet or not now) or Arthur and Watts are some sort of Jekyll & Hyde thing. Unfortunately, it seems Watts is more a parallel to Watson rather than Jekyll, so that brings me to believe that it’s a typo and so, rather than have an easy explanation for a problem, we just have a compounded problem. One of many.

And there’s something funny to be said about Salem warning Cinder about Silver Eyes when Ruby barely learns about it this Volume. And also that she wants to speak with Tyrian but we never see what comes of it. At all.

I only have one new thing about Weiss vs. the Bees. Originally, the pilot was supposed to be gay, but held off on it because they’d be killing off their first revealed gay character, something that wouldn’t look good to the fanbase. Now, while I understand the reason behind it, I have to question the logic behind why they think it isn’t okay for their first LGBT character to be offed, but instead be someone who seemed okay with murdering her crush’s parents while sending said crush to her abuser.

But more on that later, we have Sienna to discuss. Now, there’s a lot to dissect. For one, RT has obviously realized that they’ve messed up and brought Sienna back for a bit (while taking the heat for “if she’s so badass, why did she go out like a chump”). However, in hindsight, what purpose did she actually serve outside of some cute nod to Shere Khan?

All she did was tell Adam that he’s going too far and that’s it. And really, it just seems hypocritical for the leader of the White Fang to effectively restructure the organization into a terrorist group, murder tons of people, and then suddenly back away and say “woah, too much” when Adam proceeded to help torch Beacon. It’s to the point where one question most people want to ask at cons is “did Sienna order the hit out on the SDC”, since we don’t actually know and that it could be a radical leader of that quadrant like Adam.

It felt more like Sienna should have been just the leader of Mistral’s White Fang faction instead of ruling over all the White Fang, which would make more sense as Adam would need permission to attack a kingdom that isn’t his stomping ground. Then there’s the introduction of Hazel, who at first is presented to be a pretty decent character, not wanting to kill people if he had no choice, but as time goes on, is basically your stock “big soft guy with a secret hulk side” character.

Unfortunately, this episode didn’t help enforce the theme of taking action when it’s the villains who are doing it and seeming to be two if not twenty steps ahead of the heroes.

Episode 3

Episode 3 has that whole speech thing I overlooked. Barring Ghira’s speech that the crew said is based off Obama’s “we killed Osama” speech (which, if it is, paints the whole situation of Sienna’s death in a rather dark light) before Ilia interferes. Now, I actually liked that Menagerie is hesitant to stand up for Haven. After all, humans hated their guts so much that the island was originally planned to be a place where people could dump Faunus on. There were lynchings and enslavements that are still going on to this day, just in subtler forms, Of course the Faunus wouldn’t want to fight.

Then Ilia swoops in and robs Blake of any agency she has with the scene. If RT wanted to not let Blake convince the people until three quarters to the end, they should have cut the subtlety and have some annoying kid go “IT’S TOO EARLY IN THE PLOT TO DO YOUR SPEECH!”. Hell, let Blake tell her story about her team, but the audience balks at the fact that she’s not only friends with a Schnee, but also a human who crippled a guy on live television. Remember that plot point?

We then cut to Oscar and this is perhaps the reason I decided to do this revisit of Volume 5. The way Ozpin talks of action and resolve, it felt like we’re going to the root of the themes of taking action. No more being subject to the events of the plot like in previous Volumes. Now? Now is the time to fight back! And that built up to… what? One training scene and Ruby learning headbutt?

Granted, we see later on that there was a bit more to the plan, but for the most part, it seemed like an excuse for “character growth” as opposed to actual character growth. A training arc isn’t just some short scenes of a person lifting weights and jogging up stairs. Its meant to be a sort of means of growth for the character. There’s a reason most training montages have the character suck at first, but then get better by the time the montage ends. It’s because it’s the quickest way to show growth. But even without that, you could get some serious mileage for a pulled off training arc.

Rocky IV and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back have some good examples of it. Rocky IV had the titular hero train and work out in the middle of a cold, mountainous range, while his opponent is simply given steroids. It shows the dichotomy between the two and how they view their eventual fight. Empire, on the other hand, had that masterful scene with Luke in the cave, where he has a huge moment of both foreshadowing and character growth.

Here? We just have Ruby learn headbutt like she’s nothing more than a Pokemon. There could have been a lot more done with it, like having Ruby put a lot more force in her punches, causing others to realize she’s extremely angry about what happened to Pyrrha and Penny, or, if the need to exposit about Semblances is needed, bring something new to the table that isn’t going to confuse the fuck out of people… Something like:

“Your Semblance might not reveal itself until you need it most” or something like that. Not “A semblance is someone’s personality, but not. Wow! Exposition!” or “Hey, remember how we said Aura was passive? Welp, not anymore!”

Not to mention that Jaune is seemingly cool with Ozpin suddenly coming back from the dead. Here’s the thing, last Volume had him upset with Ozpin about what happened to Pyrrha, something that didn’t seemed to resolve itself. Keep in mind that, for all rights and merits, Jaune believed Ozpin to have died. In fact, it was that confirmation that Ozpin had lost against Cinder that convinced Pyrrha to kill herself. Now here he is, seemingly stuck in the body of another kid and he just outright said this is a normal thing for him.

You’d expect him to have something more than “golly!”. The fact that he didn’t seem to have any aggression towards Ozpin until after he ran to his hidey hole in Volume 6 seems rather odd given that his entire character is that he’s angsting about Pyrrha and angry at Cinder for what she did. The group seem rather content to just sit back and let the plot happen, which is the opposite of what the crew was trying to convey with their themes.

Episode 4 and Episode 5

I still stand by what I said regarding how Episode 4 was a good episode, finally having a reunion between two members of Team RWBY, but it’s perhaps one of the last good things about RWBY we’ll ever see in Volume 5. Because Raven’s promise to tell Yang “the whole truth” turns out to just be regurgitated exposition at worst.

But first, we need to have Blake, the woman who doesn’t want her race to be labeled, turn out to have labels for her friends. Okay, granted, it’s not that dumb but it is kinda patronizing that we need to have a character tell us what another character is. While the rest of her speech is pretty effective in defining Blake’s character, making her perhaps the only character these themes of growth and strength actually apply to, it still is annoying that the most we take away out of this is her boiling down every character to a single word, then bringing up how Adam is going to ruin everything for the Faunus. You’ll see why this is a problem later. I liked the setting of Menagerie’s Shallow Sea marketplace thing and felt like Menagerie is wasted potential.

Ruby’s whole speech still feels like damage control, but with the added complaint of Ruby deciding to blame Salem for something Cinder did. Now, I heard the common excuse a lot: “Salem told Cinder to do it so it’s all her fault”, but that problem with that? Cinder told Emerald to kill Penny. So… Yeah. It is her fault. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded this if Ruby didn’t word it like Salem personally killed Penny and Pyrrha. Like as in, she just up and appeared out of nowhere and shot both Penny and Pyrrha in the head.

It still doesn’t fix the fact that Ruby is basically “hey, remember how I’m supposed to be upset?”

Lastly for Episode 5, we have the White Fang do the brilliant plant of murdering the chieftain who just spoke out against them. It’s dumb. Extremely dumb. What the hell do they think will happen after they murder the chieftain in cold blood? Menagerie is just gonna magically bend over and obey the White Fang? But perhaps the biggest waste is the White Fang in general.

You have these two sneaky fox brothers who seemingly oversee everything and even state that they’re only letting Adam do what he wants until he’s no longer of use to them, a buff bat dude, and a spider-lady… And they’re never seen again after this Volume. I get the idea, because RT is trying to wrap up the Faunus subplot as quickly as possible, but the problem that you can’t exactly introduce new characters or hidden depths if you’re just gonna throw them out with the bath water.

If they wanted to end the subplot, why did they put all the effort in some random characters that are just gonna be defeated off screen with a tea tray? Then again, this is a problem endemic to RWBY. Introduce this character, then quickly shoo them away before you’re committed to writing a plot for them. If you know you were going to half-ass the White Fang conclusion, why bother with stuff like more White Fang members or the SDC brand? In fact, why bother with the White Fang to begin with if you’re going to do so little with them?

Episode 6

Moving on before I lose my cool, we have Qrow aimlessly walking around downtown Mistral. Now, the crew said that Maria was supposed to be here… But… Why? What purpose would she serve? If she’s just gonna be a “hey, look, cameo to foreshadow Volume 6”, then that’s a horrible purpose. You know how most Cinematic Universes tanked because they spent more time hyping the next twenty movies when they should focus on their pilot? That’s what she would have been like.

Not to mention that she would have been caught in the crossfire of why Volume 5 was bad. “So here we have this random old lady who doesn’t matter at all to the plot so why is she even there” and then “Oh wow, she’s a SEW. They’re doing damage control to justify her unneeded presence in Volume 5”. And, don’t get me wrong, Maria is a fun lady and all that, but there needs to be a reason she was there beyond “hype for next Volume”.

What makes the problem worse was that they’re planning to include Maria so as to have a sort of Yoda to teach Ruby. This makes the complaint of “why didn’t Ruby ask about the Silver Eyes” even more of a complaint because now it seems like they decided “hey, we’re going to address it next volume, so let’s not bother bringing it up here”. Which is even worse than “hey, people noticed we didn’t address this so let’s completely invent this character for the sole purpose of addressing it!”

And then there’s Raven who is all “lol, I know more than you realize but I’m not actually gonna answer anything trolololololol” AARHG!

Okay. Okay. Before I completely lose my marbles, there’s one thing about the scene with Raven that’s stupid.

It’s the “there’s no such thing as magic” thing.

Okay. I get it. Turning into a bird is something that, in the world of RWBY, seems impossible. But there’s a ton of problems with this:

What makes summoning dead Grimm to fight for you so much more different than magic?

You’re willing to believe in magic rocks that augment your fighting style and are in fact part of a company that profits off magic rocks, yet turning into a bird is the messed up thing?

The guy who gave her this ability is currently inhabiting the body of a young boy and has said to basically devour his soul in due time, as well as create the magic that’s responsible for torching your school and your friend… And the BIRD is the most messed up thing!?

“But Raven made it sound like she was forced into it”. She didn’t seem to have any fucking problem with it though. Not only that, but it didn’t seem like a big dark secret that Ozpin wouldn’t want uncovered. In fact, he even said he gave Qrow and Raven the ability to turn into birds in an amused way.

Even more so when everyone but Yang seemed to respond to it with disbelief rather than outright anger. There’s a reason this whole bird issue was made fun of in Jello’s “So This is Basically RWBY” video.

Also, before we move onto Episode 7, I wanna bring up that the scene where Qrow visits the Shields is perhaps the reason why I hold Ozpin’s censorship of Lionheart’s role in the Battle of Haven to be one of the most scumbag moves he could have made. “Your mom’s dead, but don’t worry, the guy who sold her out is a hero!”

Episodes 7-10

Right, back to Episode 7. Okay, I’ll admit, it was a nice reunion scene all things considered, albeit with some rather unnerving things like Yang asking Weiss if she let the Boarbatusk skewer the trophy wife or even the dumb, patronizing “we haven’t made character arcs for us to go through so I’ll just say we had some”, since they had the great idea to use Ren, who is voiced by Monty’s brother, as the mouthpiece for that.

Unfortunately, this is the episode I always think back to when I think of Volume 5. The perfect epitome of a slow, monotonous Volume. The problem I have is that, yeah, it’s meant to be this breather episode, a calm before the storm, but this just feels like a long lull that’s made even more insulting with the cliffhanger. All it has is people dumping exposition that viewers have either figured out or weren’t even burning questions and I think the awkward silence that followed Ozpin saying how he was the wizard that gave the Maidens his power is the perfect epitome for just how boring the volume is. The dude just revealed a massive plot twist and it’s treated as nothing more than a “did you know” factoid.

While I liked how they addressed that Blake leaving Yang would have had some serious negative emotions in Yang, it felt rather half-assed that they basically resolved it with “hey, my mom’s drunk, so shut up and accept Blake the moment she comes back”, especially since it comes from Weiss, who told Blake at the end of Volume 1 that if she ever runs away again, she best let RWBY know. If they wanted to ship Bumblebee so badly, this would have been a great hurdle for them to come across instead of just “hey, let me resolve this plot for you”.

Now, the whole thing with Ilia… Let’s get the elephant out of the way. The way they revealed her sexuality, I feel, could have been done better. “You wanna know why I’m gonna kill your parents and bring you to your abuser? Because I wanted you to look at me like a lover!” There’s a reason why some fans label her as a “psycho lesbian”.

However, I want to bring up that Rooster Teeth did an excellent job at building tension during the climax of the Menagerie Arc. Sure, the cliffhangers were tiresome, but you couldn’t help but admit you were at the edge of your seat and it even did a good job at subversion. Even if they allegedly didn’t even intend for it to happen.

The constant dryness of exposition and dialogue exchanges is what made Episode 10 so much better than the other episodes. Not just because it’s action-orientated, but because it finally tries to get back to the themes that it was originally supposed to tell. Throughout the entirety of the middle portion of Volume 5, the group basically took a backseat and allowed characters and plots to happen to them rather than advocate for themselves. The closest thing we got to the theme of “building yourself back up” is Weiss talking to Yang about Blake.

In fact, the only actual characters taking action are the villains. Constantly roadblocking the cast, setting them in for a trap, and even aiming to screw each other over. These guys have more advocacy and agency than the main characters. The most any of them did was…

Burn down their own house and blamed everyone else for it, all while saying that the house is the message Adam wants to send.

Use a girl’s unrequited feelings towards them to their advantage, straddle them, and guilt tripped her enough for her to consider switching sides.

Cry about how things are not going their way until their hands start magically glowing.

Yelling at someone until they cry bitch tears and then have them run away without even bothering to close the door leading to the dangerous artifact everyone had been working so hard to keep out of enemy hands.

In the volume where the theme is “solving problems on our own”. Just because Yang drops the word strength a few times when bitching out at Raven doesn’t mean that the theme had been accomplished. In fact, they do nothing of their own accord and just follow a script. Even Ozpin, the supposed smartest guy in all of Remnant, doesn’t even bother to figure out a way to counter the trap. Just instead walk in. Hell, if Yang didn’t spot Raven, they’d be mulched.

But, back on track. Episode 9 was an entire waste that failed to pay off the expectations of what we had with the cliffhanger set up in Episode 7. “But it subverted your ex-” NO. There’s a good way to subvert expectations and being promised a fight after episodes of bland exposition only to have it be “lol, no, it’s just gonna be more talking” is not a good subversion.

No. Here’s a better way. Set up the cliffhanger like normal, but don’t show Cinder’s dragged out negotiation with Raven. Instead, have her “allying” with Cinder be a twist. That way, people’s expectations for what happened are actually, you know, subverted?

The Battle of Haven

But, you know where this is leading to… The Battle of Haven. Really, I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t been covered by someone else. We all know it makes all the Vytal fights look like masterpieces by comparison, we all know the jokes about useless Weiss or Lionheart hogging the staircase, or even the plot holes of Raven knowing Cinder’s arm being Grimm but doing nothing about it or Blake, despite spending the past volume saying how Adam must be stopped, suddenly doesn’t care about him…

So let me cut it simply:

The reason this battle sucks might have to do with the crunch.

We don’t know how long this issue with Rooster Teeth had been going on for, but if it is indeed what people say it is and that animators don’t get paid for the last quarter or third of their work, then that might explain all the cut corners animators and writers made. Why the fights are broken up into one on ones or why fights are cut out entirely. Maybe they weren’t getting paid enough and thus, the quality of RWBY suffered as a result of it.

And that’s perhaps the shittiest thing about the Battle of Haven. It could have been this epic fight that would have made up for all the boring, drawn out scenes of exposition and chatting, but because Rooster Teeth got too greedy or even because of our own impatience (which, again, isn’t helped by the aforementioned long, drawn out scenes), we are treated to a final battle so broken and tiresome that the Battle of Winterfell manages to be a better final battle, with the only thing holding it back being that Haven had a better identity twist.

And if, for whatever reason, it isn’t due to crunch issues, then we have another problem. This was meant to be this hyped up rematch between the heroes and villains, who haven’t seen each other since the latter ruined the lives of the former. This would have been excellent to see how the killers of Jaune and Ruby’s friends would interact with them, how Yang would react to the person who framed her, even how the group had grown since their last battle…

But… if crunch wasn’t to blame for the quality dip and the writers intended for the fight to go the way it went… I have to say… What the fuck were they thinking!? So many moments could have been brought up here and yet they decided that they weren’t important enough to focus on! And now, with this battle over and done with, those moments lost their luster. If they decide to bring them up, it’d be too little, too late at best and “why the fuck are you bringing this up now” at worst.

I’ll deal with one commonly used example to get what I mean. Adam was established in Volume 3 to be a threat only made strong because he uses Blake’s emotions against her and has a Semblance that lets him dish out aura-breaking damage. Blake easily defeats Adam and has him on the ropes, only to let him run with a few excuses that some people have debated to death and back, when it would have been much easier for Blake to have to choose between apprehending Adam and helping Yang. Then, when he inevitably returns to haunt Blake next volume, suddenly he’s a threat that Blake is afraid of again despite Blake having “grown” to oppose him.

They wanted that “triumph” over him, but realize that by doing so, they’ve burned that opportunity to have the triumph be meaningful. Same goes with Emerald and Mercury. They had a good opportunity for Ruby to effectively call them out for their crimes like how Jaune did to Cinder, but instead she just headbutts Mercury. Yang had at least some closure on her arc with Mercury, but it was meh.

The Point in All of This

Hell, speaking of wasted opportunities, the reunion of Team RWBY, something that the opening had hyped and one that the fans had been waiting for since Volume 3 ended, is nothing more than an afterthought. They couldn’t even be assed to show Blake’s first fight back with Ruby and Weiss. That’s how little they cared. It’s like everyone was just wanting to get that paycheck but they needed to rush that final episode out the door and also need to make room for Gen:Lock and Nomad trailers. They didn’t even care about the stinger, as they basically ignored any sort of information relating to the stinger.

Perhaps the biggest reason why Volume 5 sucked so hard was that it was running off the heels of Volume 3. Everyone basically accepted that Volume 4 was meant to be a breather Volume, with lower stakes and lower drama (with the exception of possible death flags for Ren and Nora), but the moment they made Volume 5 the grudge match everyone wanted, then the stakes got raised back to the heights of the third Volume, only for it to fail to live up to the expectations. Sorry, I think I mean to say “subvert the expectations” in this day and age.

Though, I think the huge problem with all of this, and perhaps the biggest bottom line I can say, is that it might be due to Volume 3 going too over the edge. By killing important characters and even dividing the team, the villains had raised stakes up so high, that people began to take the show more seriously. When characters were vaguely hinted to die, be it through threats from the villains or even flashbacks, people fretted that they would die. When the villains go back to striking distance with the heroes, people desired a grand battle. When the show tried to deal with the ramifications that happened with RWBY separating, people wanted to know what was going through the characters’ heads.

And when Volume 5 failed to deliver/“subverted their expectations”, people considered it a bad volume.

But worst of all, it failed to live up to its own themes. Jaune was the only person to build himself back up again through deus ex hands, and we saw next Volume that it needed a statue for him to feel better. No one was in a position of giving up only to be defiant and shout “we’re not done here”, but instead cry “it wasn’t supposed to be like this!”. The big problem of Volume 5, make sure the relic is secure, is only solved because two characters had a catfight in the basement and the survivor didn’t bother to lock up because their daughter was too busy bitching at her. No one really grew or strengthened their resolve. The triumph… wasn’t theirs to have.

Although, it seems Rooster Teeth had learned from their mistakes, with Volume 6 being leaps and bounds better than Volume 5, regardless of what you thought of the latter half. Best of all, the themes promised in Volume 5 were shown prominently in Volume 6, albeit some of the scenes capitalizing on those themes feeling more like a child is having a tantrum because they couldn’t have the airplane.

To close out this rather long winded discussion, and to give people a tl;dr on the whole matter, Volume 5 failed to address the themes it had presented and instead just padded itself out, expecting people to accept it because it’s RWBY.

#RWDE #RWBY #Volume 5

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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RWBY Recaps: The Greatest Kingdom

Hello, glorious RWBY fandom! It’s that time of the year again. No, not the holidays. Rather, it’s the roughly twelve weeks where my Saturdays are lost to the void of churning out 4,000+ words of typo-laden analysis for our favorite web-series. Does that sound like a good time? If so, stick around and keep reading.

Now, those of you who joined us last year will recall that I took issue with numerous aspects of Volume Six. Many of you are capable of summarizing these aspects in great detail considering that the conversation never stopped on my blog between January 26th and, well, today. But for those of you who don’t otherwise suffer my metas or who might be joining us for the first time, here’s a very short guide to the stuff we’ve been chatting about the last few months:

Holy shit they really went all in on dragging Ozpin, huh?

Is the group part of a collective consciousness now? What happened to diverse thinking?

Should un-licensed teenagers steal military property and start grimm-drawing battles with national allies? No or double no?

We hate adults? Is that really a thing?

When will Oscar’s on-screen development come back from the war?

There are numerous, numerous other connected topics, from Rooster Teeth’s handling of physical assault all the way to theories regarding the relic’s potential influence and Jinn’s motives, but that’s the basic gist. Oh, and we now have a subset of the fandom who got big mad over fans headcanoning trans!Nora based on her new color scheme. ... So that’s where we’re starting this volume off.

Just so we’re all on the same page:

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Anyhoo, with that bare-bones context out of the way, let’s dive in.

We begin, as usual, with a shot of the shattered moon. Except this is the first volume where we know precisely what happened to it and all it may mean for humanity. It lends a certain amount of gravitas to our start. Now, rather than the more generic, “Ah. Right. That motif. Still a mystery, huh?” shots of the moon function as a quick reminder of the group’s new stakes. 99% of the time the focus is on Salem and our heroes’ attempts to keep this genocidal dictator from destroying and/or enslaving the entire world, but “The Lost Fable” set up that the true, end-game antagonists have always been the gods. Even if Salem is destroyed, they still exist as a continued threat to humanity. If they wish to use the gods to help them in their quest against Salem, they likewise risk their judgment. Having introduced them, that’s a tricky problem the show is going to have to solve before its end.

For now though we pan down to the Atlas military, numerous ships and lots of chatter over the radio setting up precisely how massive, organized, and deadly this army is. I would like to remind everyone that this is what the group deliberately decided to piss off by not merely stealing an airship, but unnecessarily attacking the head special operative of the Argus base. The fact that the military has grown more “aggressive” in Weiss’ absence has no bearing on her original knowledge that stealing/attacking this group would be a horrendous idea. She knew it. Qrow knew it. Everyone ignored that in favor of Jaune’s idiotic plan. I bring this up not to rub more salt in a long open wound, but to re-establish how the group is, thus far, unable to think ahead and accurately weigh the consequences of their actions. More on that later.

Their ship, Manta 5-1, is welcomed home and instructed to land so that a security team can debrief them. Whoops. Jaune, again in his infinite wisdom, reminds everyone that they achieved their goal of getting to Atlas. So now they just need to find some answers, yeah? Not quite. Weiss immediately points out that landing with a stolen ship means that security won’t let them anywhere near Ironwood… which, again, is something that holds true regardless of whether the military got more aggressive and their leader more dictator-y. This is not new information. Oddly enough, a group of teenagers with only one licensed huntsmen among them (considering that Maria is presumably still keeping a low profile) flying a stolen airship doesn’t exactly breed the sort of confidence that lets anyone---paranoid or not---approach a leader. These were all issues from the start that the group didn’t bother to consider in their haste to finish this mission.

“They might even take me back to my father,” Weiss says. Another concern that they’re only realizing now, yet one that the fandom latched onto immediately. Though mostly in the wrong way. It’s because Jacques is a threat that they should have found a more covert way into Atlas, or waited to hear from Ironwood, or just send Weiss herself with Cordovin’s blessing… Yes, much of the fandom got quite defensive at that suggestion, claiming that sending Weiss “alone” (she never would have been alone. Bird uncle. Fits into a suitcase grandma) was tantamount to handing her to Jacques wrapped up in a bow. Except, as is made perfectly clear here, it’s their illegal activity that endangers them. Which is more likely to get you sent off to daddy? Acting like a child by stealing military property and then getting caught? Or entering Atlas as a huntress with a special operative’s blessing, carrying instructions that you are to meet with Ironwood as soon as possible? To say the team dropped the ball on this one is an understatement.

Those, however, are all past options now far out of reach. Weiss decides then that she’ll simply call Winter and I absolutely adore Kara’s voice acting here. She managed to imbue so much into a single name, conveying Weiss’ realization, hope, and love for her sister in just two quick syllables. I feel like I got more insight into Weiss through that moment alone then the entirety of Volume Six. Only problem? Blake notices another feed where a recording of Winter emphasizes that anyone found breaking Atlas law will face punishment---something our group will be quite familiar with by the end of the episode---and Qrow decides that they probably shouldn’t go charging into Winter and Ironwood’s hands until they know more about the situation.

Which is the smartest decision we’ve seen in a while, considering that Ironwood’s own feed leaves little to the imagination. He continues to sport that beard, giving him more of a disheveled appearance compared to Volumes 1-3. His voice is as authoritative as ever and he literally towers high above all the people he’s supposedly protecting, keeping his distance from both the city and the airships that ‘govern’ it. A few moments earlier we got to see the startling contrast between the military life and the civilians’. Warm reds and browns give (in this case a literal) down-to-Earth feel and the neon signs are easy markers of a low-class neighborhood. You know the stereotyped kind: cheap food and cheaper entertainment. Compared to the whites and blues of the Atlas clouds, paralleling their elite (and thereby expensive) technology, the city below feels like a slum in comparison, reinforced by the dirty, drunk, and at times violent background characters that populate it.

As Maria says later, “A home in the clouds is as bright as it gets,” to which Nora responds, “Unless you’re the one having to look up at it,” something she’d be very familiar with as a child stealing bread in the otherwise plentiful looking Kuroyuri. There are contrasts in coloring, dialogue, as well as framing here. Compare Ironwood’s sky-high observation to Pietro’s existence as a black man, in a wheelchair, doing volunteer work in what’s established as a dump. He’s as “low” as he can possibly be and acknowledges that he prefers to actually be among the people, not standing literally or figuratively above them. Just in case the audience misses these cues, we get some rather ominous music on top of all that and fearful looks between Ruby and Yang.

Ironwood’s recording says that some people may view these as “uncertain times,” likewise contrasting Glynda’s recording in the very first episode, announcing that they live in an “extraordinary time of peace.” Whether there’s uncertainty or not, Ironwood promises that Atlas will remain “safe and strong,” even if the other Kingdoms have begun to falter. The speech has a very ‘Us vs. Them’ quality about it.

“He looks tired,” Ruby comments and I just need to chuck another fandom into the mix real quick because:

Under these circumstances, “tired” doesn’t just require the John Mulaney advice of, “Get some rest, tall child!” It’s a clear dig at the leader’s capabilities and even their mental faculties. “James… what have you been doing?” Qrow asks, thereby re-framing “tired” as the nice euphemism for “gone off the deep end.” It remains to be seen though precisely how much of Ironwood’s paranoia is literal paranoia in the sense that it’s illogical and undeserved, and how much of these changes are highly undesirable, but potentially justifiable decisions. After all, we as the audience know precisely how dangerous Salem and her crew are. We know why Beacon fell. We’re privy to the stakes in a way that the average, angry Atlas citizen is not. All Ironwood can do in the face of such odds is try to prepare for every eventuality… it just looks like he’s reached a point where those preparations have started infringing on basic human rights. It’s a very sad setup. A classic case of the wrong things done for the right reasons.

There’s a check-in from the radio tower, whoever’s in charge wondering why Manta 1-5 hasn’t gone towards their landing pad yet. Maria comments that the lady should take a hint and starts finding a different place to land. Which in hindsight is kind of funny because they obviously did take a hint… and then sent out a special team to deal with the implications of that hint.

As the group starts exploring we get a lovely shot demonstrating how much they stand out in this new environment.

Though there’s some color in the neon signs, the otherwise overwhelming brown/beige/black/red makes elements like Nora’s pink skirt and Weiss’ white hair stick out like sore thumbs. As we’ll see in a minute, there are obviously in-world difficulties with them passing as average citizens, but it’s also a signal to the audience that, for now at least, they’re really out of their depth. This is the “greatest kingdom” referenced in our title.

Maria is leading them to a friend of hers when a bot takes an interest in these obvious outsiders. It approaches Yang at the back of the group, takes an unexpected picture, and she responds by kicking it into the street where it sparks with damage before getting hit by a truck.

(Flashback to Ruby and Penny, anyone?)

Now, I’m honestly on the fence about this moment. You could make the case that they’re all traumatized fighters and responding to that flash was a logical, instinctual response. You can even argue that, just hours after taking her first faunus life, Yang is more than a little on edge—even though the premier doesn’t reference this incredibly significant event at all, outside of Blake’s quick realization that her blade is still broken. Both are valid and easily supported readings. However, I’m still hyper aware that this is Yang. The character who, for two volumes now, has been characterized very strongly by her, “attack first, ask questions later” attitude. Out of all the characters we could have seen instinctively attacking something that hadn’t actually done her any harm, choosing Yang holds the most weight. The story also lightly acknowledges that this was an extreme response, what with the group staring at her and Yang’s sheepish expression.

Whether it’s specifically in the context of trauma over the fight with Adam, or more broadly acknowledging Yang’s tendency to both assume and act on the worst in people, I hope this volume helps her manage these instincts. One talk with Tai about not punching through problems isn’t going to cut it. Especially when her forceful attitude has caused much of the internal conflict recently.

It’s after this that the group is accosted by a drunk man, functioning largely as exposition to explain what’s been going on in Atlas and why the people are so scared and angry about it. Pissed enough to get literally pissed, of the inebriated variety. Here then, we return to the “this group of teenagers is really bad at thinking ahead” issue that I mentioned earlier. Ruby is all ready to start a fight---referencing her newfound willingness to escalate situations that don’t necessitate escalation---and it’s Blake who holds her back, reminding Ruby that they can’t afford to cause a scene. Which is fantastic. Except they end up causing a scene anyway when the drunk calls Blake a “stupid faunus” and Weiss uses a glyph to chuck him into the trash.

Is seeing a racist asshole get his just desserts extremely satisfying? Absolutely and from a representation perspective I’m thrilled to see Rooster Teeth taking a hard stance in their story. From an in-world perspective though, that was an incredibly bad decision. We’ve been establishing since minute one of this premier that the group needs to be cautious. Blake herself, the victim here, just told Ruby not to endanger the whole group by defending her honor… and then Weiss swoops in to do it anyway. There are two priorities here, to your friends and to your mission, and the issue is that Team RWBY has a tendency to consistently prioritize the former, something that wouldn’t be an issue if this was still a low-key story about a group of students and not would-be, formal huntresses trying to save the world. The choice to attack rather than walking away---paralleling last volume’s final battle---speaks to their inability to think ahead and weigh their priorities. “It was worth it,” Weiss says, but is it? Now that you’ve caused the scene that you couldn’t afford? Now that this guy recognized your glyphs and you’ve blown your cover? I realize I’ll probably get heat for this, but there’s a difference between calling out micro-aggressions in everyday life and calling them out when you’re fugitives trying to keep an invaluable relic safe. It would have said more about the group’s maturity if Blake had succeeded in avoiding a scene and they expressed anger/sympathy among themselves that she had to put up with that shit. Throwing guys into dumpsters is satisfying as hell, but it’s not the action of a level-headed adult conducting a job.

Provided that the story actually acknowledges how young they are and that it’s expected they make such mistakes, we’re golden. As it is though, these issues are usually brushed aside. Later Maria says that Pietro “likes to keep a low profile. Something I’m coming to realize you know nothing about,” but it’s said in a joking, fond manner. This isn’t treated as an actual flaw and is therefore not set up as something for the team to work on. And that, right there, is the heart of the conflict between RWBYJNR and Ozpin. He’s a fine scalpel. They’re a sledgehammer. RWBY continually introduces threats that require a delicate touch---whether it’s the possibility of spies in your midst that force you to carefully monitor who has what information, or needing to move through a city without drawing attention to yourself---these battles require a certain level of strategy and without fail our heroes are characterized as people who can only solve their problems through direct, immediate violence. You don’t walk away from a fight. Ever. Be it Cordovin or a racist drunk. The more I see of their behavior, no matter the good intentions behind it, the more it makes sense to me that Ozpin lied and kept his secrets. Our heroes simply don’t have the patient, level-headed, forward-thinking personalities required to fight this kind of delicate war. Their talent lies in the hack-’em slash-’em situations.

Anyway, I’m getting off topic. The group runs from the guards that show up after the drunk guy incident and they manage to make it to Pietro’s place. After some fun dialogue about whether he remembers Maria and the state of his shop, we get a potential explanation for Maria’s strange behavior on the train. Everyone remember this?

Obviously the camera focusing on Maria helps us, the audience, realize that she’s a character who will eventually become important to the story, but it’s also a bit coincidental that she’s hanging out near Team RWBY’s room. Especially when she inexplicably ends up on the back half of the train when everyone else was evacuated. It was clear at the time that she’d deliberately stayed back, but to what purpose no one was sure. Here, Maria gives a general answer about how she thought this group might have needed her guidance while fighting all those manticores… which is still an odd explanation to my mind. Because up until her confession leaving the farmhouse, Maria wants to keep that low-profile. She’s done with being the Grimm Reaper, so why get involved now? Especially when, with hired huntsmen to protect the train and a large group of teens with their own weapons, she probably would have assumed they were all in good hands? Even if it was just a fighter’s natural instinct to help, what would that guidance have looked like? Pretending to be a normal, formal huntress lending a hand where she can? Admitting she’s the Grimm Reaper? Is she still able to fight? There’s still the highly coincidental nature that Maria, the greatest huntress of a generation, just happened to be traveling the same route as and randomly became interested in the group involved with Salem, gods, and the relics.

To be clear, I’m not really arguing that there’s some big conspiracy surrounding Maria. Coincidences are common in all fiction because if things happened based on real-life probability, it would all be pretty boring. Rather, I’m simply pointing out that between losing her eyes as a young adult and coincidentally getting involved with Team RWBY now, we pretty much have no idea what Maria has been up to for most of her life. If the story wanted to establish some sort of betrayal/trickery/what-have-you, there’s room for it.

That would make me super sad though. I quite like Maria.

We learn more about Ironwood’s increasing paranoia, a hint that not everyone on the council is happy with his changes---that mysterious woman we keep seeing on the posters, perhaps?---and the acknowledgement that whoever helped bring down Atlas’ tech at Beacon has to be “Either a genius, or one of our own.” Probably both. Enter Watts, seen typing at a computer in our opening.

With all this info bearing down on them, a few characters like Jaune and Oscar start asking whether they can just leave and yes, please tackle that, because it’s a very important question. Right now the show has stalled the, “Will the group continue the fight against Salem and what’s their reasoning for doing so when they all think it’s pointless?” question by throwing up another roadblock with the relic. They got it to Atlas, but they’re not sure they can hand it off to Ironwood yet, which just leaves them twiddling their thumbs. That portion of the quest isn’t technically complete yet, putting off an answer as to whether and why they’ll go onto the next portion. We need to tackle the group’s new motivations though. Soon. I sincerely hope that when Ironwood announces he has a way of defeating Salem, we finally get the group challenging their own assertions that such attempts are fundamentally useless. We had a whole volume of, “Oh no. Oh god. Salem is immortal and all our work is for naught.” We need at least a little attention paid to the development of a new perspective to counteract that.

Before things can get too bleak though, Pietro recognizes Weiss as a Schnee. Yang, in a lovely moment of support, desperately tries to re-direct the conversation back to the council. Pietro then recognizes her arm, puts it all together to get Team RWBY, and drops the loaded comment, “My daughter has told me so much about you.”

Many fans saw it coming. Even more hoped for it. Honestly? I think that’s great. Too many shows nowadays rely on “twists” that don’t actually make sense, or even undermine the original setup. Those are frustrating beyond belief and feel like the authors are selling out good story for cheap, undesired shock value. The fandom saw Penny’s resurrection coming a mile away? Great! That just means Rooster Teeth did a good job of setting up that possibility and then following through on it.

I’ll talk more about Penny’s introduction in a moment, but first I just want to throw out that I legitimately enjoyed the fight scene. Good action and creative teamwork at times. I particularly liked Weiss and Ren working together to take down four grimm in as many seconds. Oscar likewise takes a grimm out with a very impressive strike… more impressive than I was expecting from him, honestly. Right now I suppose I’m just inclined to shrug that off with, “He and Ozpin are slowly merging, so he picks up stuff way faster than everyone else,” most notably Jaune. Also, I’ll be blunt. I wouldn’t touch canon-based rosegarden with a ten-foot pole. You know, because of all the issues like a massive age difference, two minor characters involved, questions of consent, the fact that Ruby was Ozpin’s student---pesky ethical concerns like that. AUs though? I think the ship is adorable. Provided that Oscar is fully his own person and there’s consent on both sides appropriate for whatever ages they currently are in your fic or fanart? Very nice. So, it’s for those fans that I point out an entirely coincidental parallel: Ruby saves Oscar from a grimm with a bullet in nearly the exact same manner that Blake saves Yang from a grimm with a bullet. Make of that what you will.

Back to Penny though. Overall, am I thrilled that she’s back? Absolutely. I actually spoke about this recently while answering an ask, expressing how much I’d enjoy this very scenario: having her consciousness saved and thus allowing for her resurrection. Do I think her new look is adorable? Yes, yes I do. “And yet,” you say, “It sounds like there’s a ‘but’ somewhere in there, Clyde.” Yeah. Sadly there is. Because although I’m happy to have Penny, I wasn’t particularly taken with how they re-introduced her.

Simply put, there was far too much humor for what should have been a touching, emotional scene. With the exception of one moment where Ruby tries to voice the word “killed,” everyone treats Penny’s resurrection as a surprising, but not terribly notable event. Yang, Weiss, and Blake express a sort of long-suffering fondness as they comment on how wholesome this is. Pietro laughs at any shock over her “death” and shrugs about how yeah, it technically was. Whatever. Qrow takes the time to nonchalantly say that things are going better than he expected. Ruby is holding it all together with barely a blink. Penny herself is nothing but exuberance and funny dialogue. Maria cracks a joke about how she has no idea who this child is. Jaune goes, “Well, that was unexpected” as if Penny had showed up in Atlas when they all thought she was in Vacuo. That sort of surprise. The whole thing is treated flippantly with, “Never a dull moment.” Summarized, all this really isn’t the appropriate reaction to realizing a friend is no longer dead.

Yes, Ruby was the closest to Penny by far---we can’t expect everyone to get misty-eyed---but does everyone remember what her death was like? It was the turning point of the entire series, not just for the audience, but the characters as well. Penny was the first casualty of the Fall of Beacon and her death was appropriately gut wrenching. It was then shown across every TV turned to the Vytal Festival, the moment where the whole world watched their golden girl, Pyrrha, unintentionally murder a newcomer who turned out to be a robot. Moments later grimm start attacking and the safest place on Remnant is destroyed. Penny’s death heralded all that. The one time we see Ruby tackling the trauma of it all is when she speaks with Oscar and, notably, crumbles a bit when she instinctively uses Penny’s catch phrase.

What I had hoped for was the group grappling with the sudden, completely unexpected shock of getting one of two losses back; working through the knowledge that their lives have been defined by two friends’ death and now one of those has been retroactively erased. Perhaps we’ll see that in future episodes, but right now it feels like a disservice to the impact Penny’s death had on the characters and the story to treat this as such a comic, light-hearted moment. Let Penny tackle-hug Ruby and then let Ruby give her a much more sincere embrace. Let her cry. Have Yang put a hand on Ruby’s shoulder, giving her a look that expresses how she understands what this means to her. Have Jaune looking away, devastated that Ruby miraculously got her friend back, but such an event is impossible for Pyrrha. Let him or Oscar or Ren or anyone seriously acknowledge that, holy shit, this is a joyous occasion we never expected to experience. We’ve spent months dealing with trauma and pessimism, now here’s Penny, reminding us that there’s still so much good in the world. Have someone acknowledge that sometimes the impossible happens (cough-defeatingSalem-cough). You can allow the moment to function as the momentous occasion it is and then lighten the mood by having Maria announce that she has no idea what’s going on.

This isn’t the first time Rooster Teeth has implemented comedy when they were better off sticking with drama. See: the choice to animate punching Ozpin last volume in an absurd, cartoon style. So yeah. Happy to have Penny back, but that first moment felt underwhelming, to say the least.

We then have an admittedly very cool shot—

— (semblance? Just awesome drama?) right before the group is taken out in seconds by Atlas’ elite. They’re… I don’t know how to spell their name yet. Is it something like Ace-Ops for elite special operations? Or Aesop like Aesop’s fables? Potentially both? Idk. The fandom will figure that out in the next day or so, if they haven’t already. What’s important though is that this group charges our team with stealing an airship, illegally entering the city with it, and starting an unauthorized fight in the streets. If I could just take one second to…

Ahem. I’m good. Seriously though, if I’m at all optimistic for Volume Seven it’s because the story is finally acknowledging that the group made some pretty massive mistakes last volume. Not that it looks like there will be much punishment attached to that. Between them meeting with Ironwood in the trailer and the Blah-Blah-Ops’ clear status as heroes this volume (they’re in the opening a bunch and seem to be working with RWBYJNR), I’m not yet convinced that this arrest will lead to anything other than getting precisely what they want: seeing Ironwood. To be clear, it’s not like I want the group languishing in jail for twelve episodes. That would be one hell of a boring volume. But rather, I’m interested in whether the story will continue to imply that Atlas is in the right for arresting them, or whether Episode Two will quickly turn that on its head and forcefully announce, as they did in Volume Six, that these actions are an egregious insult because we’re the protagonists. How dare you not let us do whatever we want?

Because the group was in the wrong here. It can be easy to miss considering that the rules they’re refusing to obey are tied up in a dictator-like society---aren’t we the heroes for ignoring and circumventing evil Ironwood’s laws?---but what they actually choose to do has far more of an impact on innocent civilians than it does on The Man. Like endangering all of Argus with your needless battle. Or, to a much smaller extent here, jumping into a fight when you’re not authorized to do that. Now, I actually don’t blame RWBYJNR for that one. They are huntsmen and it’s their job to protect the people. Going out to defeat grimm is 100% their thing. Rather, I’m talking about stuff like their commentary on Atlas’ defenses. When the fight starts we get, “I guess the city’s defenses aren’t doing much” and “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” It’s more of that, “Us huntsmen are the only true defenders of the world. Your attempts with robots would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous” attitude. It’s a certain level of arrogance. As we see just a minute later though, Ironwood’s setup works. Because the civilians all know to get indoors. Because he has Penny. The robots hold off the grimm until she arrives, defeating the rest with a speed and an ease that frankly doesn’t compare to what we saw the group accomplishing. She does from above what it took nine of them to manage, often (as we saw with Oscar and Yang) with great danger to them in the process. When they’re bound and accused of unauthorized fighting, it’s clear that they were, in fact, shouldering their way into a situation where they weren’t needed---and potentially causing trouble in the process. Rules exist for a reason. Are they always perfect? Far from it, but in the characterization folding over from Volume Six, the group has forgotten that most of the time rules are there for others’ safety. They have been thought out. This particular situation is easily defendable (of course they’re going to go fight grimm) and there were no consequences to the group jumping in when they weren’t allowed (like property damage or injured civilians), but this moment does function as a good representation of the overall problem. Just because there weren’t consequences for saying, “Screw your laws” this time doesn’t mean there won’t be in the future. Or that there hasn’t been in the past.

It likewise stands out to me that Qrow consistently tires to use his “I’m a licensed huntsmen” as a justification. He flashes it at the two goons on the train to get them to back off. He tires to use it to get past Cordovin. He now tells his captors that he has every right to fight and protect the people because of this card he carries. Qrow is well aware of how important the status of a huntsmen is in this world… yet he’s running around with eight fighters who don’t have that legal backing. I don’t think the show would ever go for my suggestion of another school arc so they could finish their training, but at the very least we should provide some sort of loop-hole for these characters. Have Ironwood provide special licenses based on their heroics at the Fall of Beacon and their work since. Because right now we have a world that’s continually emphasizing being a huntsmen as a job, something you earn the right to call yourself, yet 95% of our group doesn’t have that right in the eyes of their society. We know they’ve done great, secret work to protect the people. But the people only know that these are a bunch of teens with one year of formal training. So you really can’t blame any officials for going, “Sorry. We’re not in the habit of letting random people with weapons cross our borders. Or fight in our streets.” It’s like if a bunch of 14-18yos arrived at a crime scene with guns and demanded that they be let in on a case. No, we never graduated from an academy, but you should adhere to our demands anyway. The good intentions are there, but you need to iron out the formalities first.��

Really, RWBY should just fix the whole license thing with a throw-away plot point if they’re not going to tackle it seriously, just so this isn’t an ethical issue anymore. I’d rather smooth it over soon since the story doesn’t seem interested in tackling whether a group with one year of formal training should be allowed that status. So just give it to them and let’s move on. They might still run into issues with Atlas, but at least the rest of the world won’t be expected to trust them purely on faith. Not everyone belongs to a small town terrorized by a geist, with four random teens as your only option for safety.

Which finally, as the doors close on our group with heavy heads, brings us to the opening. Some things to pay attention to:

1. We get a glimpse of that mysterious woman shown in numerous posters across the city.

(I’m likewise interested in the very long shot we got on this “show your teeth” graffiti.)

2. Watts and Tyrian are presented as primary antagonists. Interesting that Neo and Cinder aren’t there (not that I caught anyway), especially since we know they were heading to Atlas last volume as well. It makes me think that they’ll be the true threat at the end of the volume. Keeping things quiet, even in the intro, so we have no chance of guessing their plan.

3. The main conflict seems to be between Weiss and Winter, as opposed to Weiss and Jacques as many originally assumed. Those expressions don’t bode well.

4. We still see an image of Ironwood briefly flickering to Jacques though as an angry citizen throws a rock at it. Implying Jacques is secretly pulling the strings? James has simply become too much like him? We’ll have to see.

5. We get a shot of Oscar and Ironwood… training? Fighting? I’m inclined to say fighting based on his and Ozpin’s past difficulties, but that’s also up in the air.

6. The image of our staff…

…and 7. an absolutely massive cast this volume. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m concerned with RWBY’s insistence on continually introducing so many new characters, particularly characters who are important enough to warrant decent development. There simply isn’t time for them all.

(Although, is Maria in that shot? Wonder if she’ll leave the group now that she’s done her duty of helping Ruby out with her eyes.)

Which brings us to the end of the premier! Finally, I’d like to end with a personal note. As is quite obvious, I’m still watching and recapping RWBY, but I feel like I should be upfront about my overall lack of investment in the series right now. Chock it up to getting burned last volume, fading interest in a long-running show, just growing up and changing… I don’t claim to know precisely why I’m no longer jazzed about a new volume like I once was. But, if I perhaps appear overly critical of what I generally thought was a good—and honestly better than expected—premier? That’s probably why. The details just don’t cut it for me anymore. All caps, screaming excitement over Penny’s return or Qrow’s new outfit just doesn’t resonate much, which leaves me with a more critical perspective on the show overall. So if that’s something you’re interested in, stick around because, baring unforeseen circumstances, there will be more metas over the next three or so months. More invested in a flailing celebration of RWBY as a whole? You’re better off hitting up another blog.

Basically, you know that shot in Pietro’s?

Note the “Days since our last nonsense” sign combined with the defeated expressions. That’s what RWBY feels like to me these days. A lot of nonsense and limited enjoyment. Ah well. Maybe Volume Seven will prove me wrong and I’ll be re-invigorated by the end of the season!

Until then, ❤️️

Minor Things of Note

Maria refers to the group as “kids” in the airship and Penny as a “child.” Acknowledging last year’s debate, I stand by the argument that just because many (but not all) of the group have reached the age of maturity in our world doesn’t mean they’re on par with the adults they were so recently rejecting. There’s a reason why the very old Maria naturally uses “kid” and “child” and it doesn’t come off as weird.

I really like the design of Pietro’s chair. Giving him something that walks on four legs is both different and a nice nod to nature among all the tech. Also, kudos to the Pinocchio reference on his bookshelf in the form of a whale.

Nora remains as adorable as ever. I particularly liked her energy in Pietro’s and her high-key annoyance at Ren getting a jump on the fight. I’m interested in what we’ll be learning about her this volume.

Not sure I’m a fan of Rooster Teeth using these squeaky toy noises whenever the group is comically surprised by something. Comedy is great, we need it in this story, but sound effects like that are remnants (ha) of a tone we haven’t really seen since Volume 1. I think the show can still get away with exaggerated facial expressions---Nora in her excitement, Ruby laughing at Jaune’s Pumpkin Pete’s sweatshirt---but this feels a bit out of place now.

“Maybe Atlas isn’t as safe as we thought” and yet, astoundingly, no one is inclined to ask Ozpin to weigh in on this. Even now that they know he’s listening. I think I’ll start a tally. See how many episodes it takes to actually acknowledge, let alone act on, the primary conflict of Volume 6.

Image Credit

Personal screenshots from RWBY

Transflag: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Transgender_Pride_flag.svg

Doctor Who GIF: https://tenor.com/view/doctor-who-tired-harriet-jones-gif-5627138

How I Met Your Mother GIF: https://giphy.com/gifs/celebrate-2o5Ypf4fP6ahq

#rwby #rwby volume 7 #rwby volume 7 spoilers #mymetas #rwby recaps

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stellar-imagines · 5 years

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SCENARIO REQUEST: ❝obtuse and innocent.❞

[ Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia ] [ Characters: Bakugou Katsuki ]

「Bakugou with S/O who’s just slow on the uptake when it comes to dirty jokes.」

BAKUGOU KATSUKI

Bakugou realized a few things about you. It took him forever to even come to terms with his feelings towards you and a lot of things happened for him to realize that he truly loved you. You were the type of person that’s easy to talk to and easy to get along with. It wasn’t hard for you to befriend the class’s angry hot head. The first thing he realized was how slow you were when it comes to jokes and puns. And what stood out even more was the fact that you were slow on the uptake when it came to dirty jokes.

“Can you just put it in and then take it out slowly?” you mumbled as you watch your friends fiddle around with the key to the gym.

“That’s what she said.” you heard someone snicker.

“Pfftt!”

Nearly every day, his friends would crack dirty jokes and comments when the opportunity arises. Bakugou wasn’t even ashamed to admit that he understood every single little comment that Kaminari and Sero would make but a little bit surprised that it takes you a while to fully digest it. Normally you would get embarrassed and mad at the boys for spouting lewd comments so boldly in public. Those comments were normally pointed out whenever you or someone else say something that is the slightest but suggestive.

“Hey, Bakugou, thinking awfully hard about something aren’t you?” Kaminari snickered, finger gunning at the ash blonde who was working on his homework in the common area. The male clicked his tongue and glared at the blonde.

“Shut up, Pikachu.” Bakugou shot back as he wrote down to the next problem in his textbook. You slowly made your way over to the common area and took a seat on one side of the table. You placed your own homework onto the table and pulled out your pencils.

“What’s bothering you, Bakugou-kun?” you mumbled.

“Oh, [First Name]-chan, he’s just having a difficult time because he’s working on a really hard problem right now.....maybe you should help him with it.” the blonde winked. You blinked owlishly at his statement, moving closer to Bakugou to see if he was working on a difficult problem.

"I thought you were smarter than I am.....this question isn't even hard, you're the one who taught me this too." you glanced at the blonde who face palmed, with a fiery blush on his face. He can’t say it to you as it was really inappropriate. Kaminari took a seat across you and brought his own homework.

“By hard, I mean by the problem inside his pa―” Bakugou threw his book at the blonde who fell back with a loud thud, making your eyes wander from one male to the other, wondering what they were talking about.

“What?”

“Nothing, [First Name]-chan!” Kaminari waved it off when the rest of your friend finally came to join you, Bakugou and Kaminari.

“Nothing, squirt. Just do your shit.” Bakugou grumbled, hoping that you would drop the topic quickly. With a small frown and displeased look on your face. Soon the conversation changed and you were too occupied with your homework to be bothered by your original problem.

Even though you knew how slow you were on the uptake when it came to dirty jokes, you didn’t make an attempt to learn. You had a basic knowledge about it but you weren’t able to understand when it was more vague. Sometimes it was just really difficult to understand and it just irritates you. What’s more no one seems to want to explain it to you and left you in the dark without knowing what they’re talking about.

On one day, you went out the Bakusquad after school to eat something after a long day of studying. You stopped by a convenience store where there were numerous things being sold inside. As there was still time before dinner, you decided to eat some ice cream. Everyone else helped themselves with some other treats. Kirishima, Kaminari and Sero decided to buy some random food on a stick, Ashido bought some baumkuchen and Bakugou settled for a spicy meat bun.

“Mmm! This Cookies and cream popsicle is really good.” you hummed after licking at the tip. Eating popsicles was usually difficult because it drips so fast that your hand would end up sticky. As you were eating and trying to consume the popsicle before it completely melts, you failed to realize that everyone was staring at you. Your teeth was sensitive and you would avoid using your teeth and use your tongue instead, licking at the parts that were melting, occasionally moaning at the delicious flavor melting on your tongue.

“Why are you guys staring at me like that? Is there something on my face?” you wondered, swiping your lip using your thumb. You managed to get some ice cream that was on the side of your lips and licked it off your finger.

“Well, you’re in a very sticky―” Bakugou jabbed Kaminari before he could say anything.

“Well, nothing.....it’s just that your ice cream is melting really fast.” Kaminari mumbled, rubbing his side in pain.

“I’m sick of it, why won’t you tell me what you’re talking about! I just seriously want to enjoy this ice cream I bought.....” you mumbled as you stopped eating your ice cream, which began to slowly melt and dripping on your fingers. Seeing that it was such a waste, you decided to lick it off your fingers.

“It’s just the way you’re eating the ice cream.” Bakugou grumbled in response and handed you a tissue. You took the tissue from his hands and wiped your mouth and then your hands.

“What? How else am I supposed to eat this anyway? Is there even a rule that you have to follow to eat a popsicle?” you wondered, observing the popsicle in your hands.

“No, you’re just making a mess of yourself.”

“Ah, I see. Does that bother you all that much?” you wondered and began to chow down the remaining popsicle as you walked all the way back to the dorms.

“Bakugou sure looks after [First Name] a lot.” Kirishima mumbled before taking a bite of his corn dog. He had been walking at the back of the group with Sero and Mina.

“That’s because he loooves her!” Mina teased playfully.

“No I fucking don’t!” Bakugou looked over his shoulder and glared at the pink haired female.

“Bakugou doesn’t like it when people make lewd comments of his girlfriend.” Sero snickered.

“She ain’t my girlfriend!” the ash blonde yelled.

“Don’t say stupid things, Mina-chan!” you scolded the pinkette, looking away from Bakugou.

Total: 1108 words Published: 06.04.2019

Thank you for requesting! (ㅅ•᎑•) Uoooo, I’m the type who cracks dirty jokes with innocent people. I’ve been tainted for a long time so I know more than most ww ― author Lou

Thank you for requesting! Well, well, I was once the innocent one who didn’t know anything But now I’m fully armed with knowledge! ― author Natsuki

We opened up an ask meme [?] If you’re interested please have a look here

Please do not mind the grammar mistakes and typos.

214 notes · View notes

deathbyseventeen · 5 years

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Because You Were Gone - Super!Joshua AU

Title: Because You Were Gone || Super!Seventeen AU / Super!Joshua AU || Based on @jejublr Super!Joshua AU!!!!!!!

Genre: Romance, Angst

Member/s: Joshua x Reader

Words: 8.6k

Blurb: You never knew when to give up. It wasn’t your superpower but it sure seemed like it.

A/N: A huge thanks to @jejublr for letting me write an AU based on their Super! Joshua AU (linked so y’all can enjoy that too) which literally gives me so many emotions when I read it. I’m sorry this literally took a year to get out. I hope y’all enjoy! (Excuse the typos guys).

Joshua let his head hit his office desk, not meaning to time it with the sound of another object being thrown against a wall. He let out a groan.

“Joshua—” he heard his friend and closest empath nurse, Seokmin, walk into his office only to be cut off by the static sound of another nurse’s voice coming through his office intercom.

“Doctor Hong, there’s a Super here that would like to have a word with you.”

Joshua nodded and leaned over his desk to reach the intercom’s button. He took a moment to straighten his tie then answered, “I’ll be right out.”

Seokmin smiling nervously at Joshua hit the bottom of his right palm against the clipboard he was holding. “I was sent here to tell you that, guess they couldn’t wait.”

Joshua nodded and dusted off his lab coat. Then, he motioned for Seokmin to follow him as he walked out of his office. “I’m assuming there’s more?”

“Yeah, we have three patients waiting for you, but I’ll pass the two who are in urgent need of attention to one of the other doctors.”

Joshua nodded and stopped a corner away from the main lobby, “Did you...read his feelings?”

“Yeah, and they were really bad.” Seokmin grimaced.

Joshua gave him a small smile, hoping to alleviate any tension that Seokmin may have been feeling. His smile was a lie though. He was terrified of what the superhero in the lobby would do to him if he couldn’t calm him down. But even then, he just hoped Seokmin would let himself be lied to.

“Don’t worry, Joshua! Remember, you’ve got healing aura. You make people feel assured and comfortable! He’ll forget his fury quickly.” Seokmin nodded, a bright smile making its way onto his face.

“That’s how I keep getting into these messes in the first place.” He laughed tiredly. “But you’re right, I believe you.” He smiled for a moment before he turned the corner and come face to face with a tall man in a skintight suit.

He needed to play the innocent doctor card, it was the only thing he knew would most likely save him for a pummeling. So, he gave the superhero his best, innocently oblivious smile.

•*•

Joshua Hong had learned many things over the course of his superpowered life. Naturally, he had compiled a mental list of the most important ones.

1. Although his powers were meant for healing, he should never use them.

If he did…

There was a ringing in his ears and a buzzing on his left knee, coincidentally it was the same knee side his friend had broken and of which he was currently using his powers to heal. A shiver ran down his spine, his knee was getting increasingly warmer-- his body was responding.

‘Wait,’ he thought to himself, clenching his teeth. His knee…it felt like...like it was shattered into pieces...jelly, nonexistent.

The heat and pain grew. He lost his concentration. He fell backward from his kneeling position. Then he groaned but not from his fall, but from the feeling that was coming from his knee.

He blacked out not long after.

...He would suffer the consequences.

Joshua believed it was to keep the world balanced. If he took someone’s pain, it would become his own.

That’s how he discovered that he should treat himself as if he had no powers. Instead of relying on his power to be a doctor at the Heroes Association Headquarters, he’d have to study hard to understand both the human body and the superpowered body.

2. Supers are the same as NonSupers.

Which, Joshua thought, can’t be explained without the third.

3. The heart falls too easily and too fast.

“Hello, Doctor Hong.” A group of first-year medical students, male and female, greeted him as he walked past the courtyard fountain, where they huddled up as a group.

He gave them a hesitant smile, nodding once as well as a hello.

“He’s so yummy.” He heard one of them purr, “I wonder if he’s got someone.”

“He sends me into cardiac arrest.” Another one sighed.

Trying not to shudder, he quickened his footsteps and dashed to his next lab course.

…

“You’ll be allowed to pick your lap partners.”

He dreaded hearing those words, he dreaded them with such a passion that he was nearly sure there was a grimace on his face.

“Joshua!” He heard someone scream. Before he knew it, he was surrounded by all of his fanclub members (Seokmin had told him he found a Joshua Hong fan club months before) “Joshua can we—” “Joshua!”

“Joshua!”

“Oh it’d be so romantic if Joshua was my partner.” He heard someone coo.

‘Who in their right mind would find it romantic to flirt over a cadaver dissection.’ He thought to himself. Yeah. There was definitely a grimace on his face. Not that it mattered to anyone.

… After Graduating …

“Am I dead? Is this heaven? Are you an angel?” His patient said after a couple of seconds gaping at him, awestruck after waking up. “I think this is love at first sight.”

Joshua smiled widely, his eyes turning into crescents, his hands intertwined. “Thank you. I’m sure you’re a great person as well.” He patted the patients head and motioned for Seokmin to follow him out.

When they made it to his office, Joshua slammed the door shut and slid down the door dramatically. Seokmin stifled a laugh and gave him a thumbs up.

“I’ll take that as a sign that my oblivious act was a success.” Joshua sighed and hung his head. “Why do they keep saying that? It’s like I haven’t left med school.”

“You’ve just got this—" Seokmin motioned with his hands like he was trying to grasp something in front of him— “healing aura.”

“I’m a doctor.” He deadpanned.

“You make them feel comfortable and assured, alright.” The rattling door interrupted Joshua, ending the conversation momentarily. Unwilling to move, he let himself be pushed by the door into the room’s corner. Seungcheol, their friend and newly hired trainer, walked into the office, and seeing Joshua facing a corner, smiled teasingly at him.

“Did our dear Doctor Hong break another heart?”

Joshua groaned. “Why?” He whined, laying down on the floor completely now.

Seungcheol laughed, “Just make sure to stay away from anyone who ends up on my team next year. Alright?”

“Next year?” Both Joshua and DK asked confusedly after a beat of silence.

“Next year,” Seungcheol confirmed. “As of today, you are looking at the new squadron leader of the Hero’s Association. Who’s also looking for the approval from the heads of Heros for his picks…” He trailed off, smiling nervously.

“Congrats!” They grinned.

“Yeah yeah. Just stay away from my team, Hong.” He laughed teasingly before walking out.

——

A Year Later - Present Time

“I need you to kick! Roundhouse, Y/N! Roundhouse!” Seungcheol your squadron captain and personal trainer screamed at you. You, however, decided to ignore him and go for a punch instead.

A loud buzz rang throughout the training room and the man you were fighting disintegrated. The once colorful and park-looking room, melted and from underneath, appeared a room of gray walls and blue mats.

“We’ve been at this for a month, Y/N.” Seungcheol lectured you from across the room, stomping his way over to you. As he did, you let your head drop and bent your knees tiredly. Then, as you let your hands rest on each knee and took deep breaths, you watched the sweat off your face drip onto the mats.

Slowly. Languidly.

You could have sworn you even heard the drip as it hit the mat.

“I get that you think that you’re invincible because you’re impervious to bullets and knives. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need to listen to orders. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” A buzzing traveled up your arms.

Seungcheol continued to lecture you, but as he did, his words started to fade. The buzz on your arms spread. No longer were they just a feeling but a sound ringing in your ears.

You blinked, staring up at Seungcheol. His face suddenly morphing from something stern to concerned. He grew bigger. You vision blurred.

Then before you knew it, all you saw as black.

----

There was a low, incessant beeping that echoed in your ears, ringing out like bells trying to grab your attention. A low murmur of voices snaked their way into your eardrums and into your head where the bells were ringing.

You let out a small grown as you opened your eyes and blinked the blurriness away. At first, you only knew that there were a couple of people standing around you. Based on the white out of their outfits, you imagined doctors and nurses. Then, when the blurriness disappeared, you knew you were in the presence of an angel.

He hovered over you, studying you, looking directly into your eyes with his dark brown eyes. His eyebrows seemed to come together in concern, and his pale pink lips moved and a white light glowed behind him like a halo. You realized you had zoned out, staring at the man for so long, almost sure that drool was starting to drip from the corners of your mouth.

“Are you an angel? Am I dead?” You asked. His concerned face morphed into a smiling one, his cat-like eyes narrowing slightly, but not in some menacing way. It was as if he was concentrating all his energy on the expression he was using.

“Seungcheol!” He screamed, ignoring your question. When he noticed you were still waiting for an answer, staring at him and following his every move, he straightened his back and gave you a startling, but dazzling smile.

“You’re in the clinic, Y/N. You fell unconscious, remember?”

You blinked in response, still distracted by the way he tilted his head as he talked to you and the way only a small portion of his hair fell into his eyes.

“Y/N?” He asked again. A small, nervous laugh followed his question, the dazzling smile never leaving his face. The way he questioned you would have been comical to you if you could have moved past his smile. If only you could form some words.

Seungcheol entered the room only a few seconds later, “Oh goodie, you’re alive. Thanks, Shua.” Then paused, the smile on his face slowly crumbling. His eyes locked onto the dopey expression on your face and Joshua’s oblivious act.

He groaned, “Goddammit, Shua, not one of my kids-- this is the third time this month.”

Joshua whipped around, angeling his face away from your view and whispered angrily at Seungcheol. “It’s not my fault.”

Seungcheol sighed exasperated at the, admittedly not so surprising, turn of events. He waved a nurse toward you, “Help me get her off that bed so I can get her out of here.”

A couple of moments later, after the nurse and Seungcheol were done getting a needle and other wires off of you, moments you didn’t register, you were leaning on Seungcheol. It wasn’t until Seungcheol started to force you to walk that the concept of words finally came through for you.

“Wait, noo.” You whined, twisting around as Seungcheol led you out of the room to look at Joshua, “Let me stay with the kind doctor.” The fact that he wasn’t angel registered the moment Seungcheol had walked in, but too distracted with Joshua, you hadn’t bothered to actually say it.

In a moment of confidence, you ripped yourself from Seungcheol’s grasp and stumbled forward. But before you could get very far, he reached back, grabbed you aimlessly, and pulled you by the collar toward the exit.

Joshua in return, let his innocent expression fall for a second, staring at Seungcheol pull you by the collar with wide eyes. What the h--?

Months later, Joshua had yet to leave your thoughts alone. Even when you closed your eyes and the darkness enveloped you, Joshua appeared enveloped in lights of his own. You wanted to see him again. So, you did.

But you, a super whose power made you invulnerable to getting hurt through bullets, knives, and anything of that sort, didn’t have a reason for showing up there. You had almost laughed when the thought popped into your head.

For a month, you found yourself traveling deep underground to the Heroes Clinic if only to see Joshua again. Repeatedly you found yourself claiming to sick. After all, a virus did its work inside your body, not outside where your skin was impenetrable.

Two months later, the nurses were beginning to annoy at your sight. Then a year later, one of them walked up to your cot, where you were lying after telling Joshua that you felt dizzy. He, as a result, had led you to a cot and asked you to wait.

Joshua knew your game, knew you weren’t really hurt, and you knew it too. He waited until he had a lull in his patient queue to act as your doctor.

“Y/N,” One of the nurses sauntered up to you, “you should give up now. There’s no point in chasing him.” Then in your face said, very slowly as if you didn’t understand the language they were speaking, “He. Does. Not. Care.”

“That’s enough.” Another nurse came up behind her, narrowing his eyes at them. Seokmin, your memories served, one of the kinder nurses. One that often helped you in your ploy’s to get Joshua’s attention when he wasn’t busy.

They bristled at his arrival and scurried off before he could tell them anything more. He rolled their eyes at them, “Don’t listen to them. They’re just jealous because they tried flirting with Joshua but were rebuffed.”

It wasn’t a joke but you couldn’t help but laugh at his words, “Then why would they be jealous? Joshua’s rebuffed me too.”

“Rebuffed you? Are you kidding me?” Seokmin grinned as he sat down on the edge of your cot, “He rebuffed you the first day saw him, yeah. But, he hasn’t ever since.”

“Yes, he has.”

“No,” Seokmin insisted, shaking his head, “he hasn’t. Haven’t you noticed he uses two different faces-- an obviously innocent face for those who flirt with him and an honest one with his friends? He hasn’t used that innocent one since he met you.”

You laughed again, not believing what Seokmin was trying so hard to convince you of. When he frowned you remembered he could tell what you were feeling.

“Alright don’t believe me.”

“Believe you or not, I’m not going to give up. I’m going to win his heart!” You whisper-yelled to him. From the corner of you could see Joshua walk into the open space where you and about six others were waiting. It was the low-priority room-- Joshua’s patient list must have been dwindling down.

You could see how smirked at seeing you, shook his head amusedly and neared his first patient. Joshua smiled at them and laughed at their jokes. In the darkness that loomed over everyone, including yourself, he was a light shining so bright and oh how you wanted to be nearer to it.

“Seokmin.” You said, turning back to him but froze when you saw he was distracted by someone else. A nurse? A super? A rare civilian? There was a small smile on his face, you noticed, a dreamy smile frozen in place as he watched them approach the front desk.

“Who’s that?” You teased.

A dark blush ran up his face and in an instant, the dreamy look he had was replaced by one more bashful. “W-Who?” He stuttered. “Oh, look!” He gave you a shaky grin, “Our dear Joshua is coming this way.”

Seokmin left like a gust of wind and in its trail Joshua appeared, picking up the folder that had been left at the foot of your cot. You grinned. Seokmin, in his haste, almost slipped in front of the mystery person.

“So what do we have here?” Joshua questioned, a small smile playing on his lips as he looked inside the folder. “A case of dizziness? And what exactly caused this?” He asked, finally turning to look at you.

“Well, I’m sure you’d know better. You’re the doctor after all.”

Joshua smiled and hummed in response. There was a moment of silence between the both of you as he broke out his stethoscope and started to look over you.

“I have new gossip for you, fresh off the press--” you sat up, letting Joshua flash light into your eyes, “it seems Seokmin may be a bit infatuated with an unknown second party.”

“Is that so?” He responded. You were silent for a moment, hoping that Joshua would have something more to say. But, after a prolonged silence and Joshua still looking you over you decided to continue.

“Yeah,” You grinned at him, “He basically ran away from me only to slip in front of them before running away from them too.” You giggled, “I think he really likes them.”

Joshua let out a single laugh. It was short and breathless and almost like it wasn’t even there.

“Well, I think I can discharge you right now. There seems to be nothing wrong with you, just remember to eat and rest plenty.” It wasn’t much that he had to say, but once he was done, he gave you a single smile and instantly started to turn away.

“J-Joshua!” You called out. “Do you want to hang out for a bit? If you’re on break I mean.”

“Sorry, Y/N. I’ve got some paperwork to finish.”

“Oh, alright.” You smiled, “Don’t overwork yourself!”

It’s been a year.

There was a rock building in your throat. The nurse’s words exploded in your thoughts. It’s been a year and you hadn’t managed to move Joshua past playful banter-- banter that only you were providing. Seokmin was wrong. You frowned at the thought. There was no way Joshua could like you when he didn’t even want to stay a few extra minutes with you.

Your frown turned into a grimace at the thought that followed. This is what pain feels like, isn’t it? Perhaps you were no better than all the others that had followed Joshua around. It wasn’t that hard to know why the other nurses were so off-put by your presence.

Most of them had been in the same boat as you, trying to get Joshua to notice them. Most of them infatuated with Joshua at first sight just as you had been. Maybe that was all it was…

Infatuation.

Perhaps you were only ever infatuated with Joshua. Perhaps that was the reason as to why you couldn’t stop chasing after him, trying to gain his affection. He could probably see that by just looking at you.

Maybe the nurses were right….maybe you should just stop chasing after him. Joshua seemed to have a radar for locating the people only chasing him because of infatuation and if you were only feeling infatuation for him then….

That’s why he continued to treat you like a stranger, not like a romantic interest nor a friend like Seokmin.

You bit back the cry that wanted to leave you.

You were nothing to Joshua.

A WEEK LATER

Seungcheol caught the heel of your left foot midair as you attempted a roundhouse kick on him. The look on his face was passive save for the single eyebrow he was raised.

You smiled awkwardly and giggled tensely. In the past, only once had he been able to block your kick— the first day of training.

Keyword: block. He had never been able to catch your kick before.

Wordlessly, he let go of your leg and positioned himself to block your kick again. He gave you a nod and you positioned yourself to kick again.

You took a deep breath and when you felt like you were aligned with yourself and your goal, you attempted to kick Seungcheol again.

In an instant, Seungcheol was catching the heel of your foot again and twisting as if he were about to throw you onto the mat. But he stopped, and instead, he held you halfway between the mat and your original position.

You breathed heavily as Seungcheol, kneeling on the mat, stared at floor continuously.

“Is there a reason why you seem so unfocused today?”

You gulped. His words were clipped. “N-no.”

Seungcheol shook his head exasperated. After letting go of your leg, he stood up and dusted off his shorts.

You stood up straight as you waited for him to say something.

“You’re distracted.”

“N—”

“Bullshit.” He seethed.

You jumped, startled by the sudden tone of his voice. You could feel the venom dripping from it.

Seungcheol sighed when he saw the startled look on your face. Softer he said, “You’re distracted, Y/N. Now I don’t know why but I’m asking to go fix it and get yourself back on earth.”

He bristled again as you didn’t move and continued to only stare at him.

“Now.” He said urgently, “Go now,” and pushed you toward the door.

———

You stood alone in the hallway that led to the Heroes clinic, still clad in your training uniform, peeing through one of the porthole windows on the doors.

A smile made its way onto your face when a puff of dark, amber colored hair appeared amongst the nurses and patients. Joshua. You sighed.

Your hand was seconds away from pushing the door open when a voice popped into your head. You should give up. There’s no point in chasing him. That damn nurse.

Infatuation. Your own thoughts laughed back at you. That’s all it is, infatuation. Joshua knows this. Why do think he glosses over you when you’re here.

You chewed on your lips as you watched Joshua politely laugh at something a patient said.

A sudden beeping stole you from your thoughts. Your phone buzzed, at a rhythm you were starting to grow accustomed to, in your pocket. When you brought it out and read the alert, you knew you were right, mission time.

You were about to take off running when your steps hesitated and you thought about looking at Joshua one more time. But just as the thought hit you, you shooed it off and ran away.

Inside, at the front desk, Seokmin worked on some paperwork. Despite being concentrated on the papers, he had a sudden feeling that you should have shown up already.

He turned to the clock that was bouncing on the computer monitor and frowned. You didn’t have a set time for showing up but you did have a small pattern.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the feelings around him. If only for a few seconds he could extend his emphatic powers to a distance much larger than only those around him.

Enough distance that he believed he should be able to find you if you were somewhere in headquarters.

He bounced off of people’s emotions, shuddering, trying to find the ones he recognized as yours when you were looking forward to seeing Joshua. But, he didn’t find it.

He did, however, feel one person, running through the hallway that led to the clinic. He thought it might have been you...until he realized they were running away from the clinic.

Determination and heartbreak. His eyebrows furrowed then a thought popped into his head.

‘Another one of Joshua’s poor victims,’ he thought to himself. Another one of Joshua’s poor victims.

————

So this is real pain.

You coughed uncontrollably as smoke filtered into the room where you had chased the villain you were pursuing into. It had only been a moment after you stepped inside that a tickle had invaded your airways. At first you had thought the tickle in your throat was nothing more than that-- a tickle. But, as you searched around the crate filled room, that itch began to burn and your throat began to feel like it was closing.

Box and crates were stacked up and piled in different parts of the room. Under other circumstances you might have taken a moment to joke about the contents of the room-- it was like a maze! But, with the fire in your throat spreading all of your body, all you could really do was look for the door you had come through.

You coughed and blood came out, splattering on the floor at first before you covered your mouth in a panic.

The smoke rose and a haze began to fall over your vision. For a split second, you locked onto the door but realized that a metal sheet had fallen over it.

You were trapped.

Suddenly, the banging on the metal sheet came into focus.

“H-help.” You choked out, blood flowing out with a sudden heave.

You pushed against the floor in a feeble attempt to get up from the floor. To no avail, your body was weakening quickly and all that happened was your body folding in itself and falling over into a fertile position.

The villain laughed somewhere close to you. You didn’t know where though, the lacy smoke was thickening into white clouds.

“You thought you could just follow me, newbie?” You tensed. The villain’s voice was like a snakes hiss, slithering closer to you, hidden behind the stacks of boxes and smoke.

“I--” You tried to answer them, but another wave of heaving hit you and more blood started to cover your uniform. An outfit that you wouldn’t have minded ruining as it was a plain black and gray combo. Maybe that would have made headquarters expedite the making of your reinforced superhero outfit. You were definitely about to need it.

“You might be wondering what you’re breathing in? Why you’re….,” the villain stepped out from behind a stack, stepping forward to only a couple of steps away from you, “coughing up so much blood.”

They laughed as you heaved blood again.

Your jaw clamped shut and you glared at them. With shaky arms and legs, you pushed off the floor and tried to give him the roundhouse kick you had been practicing with Seungcheol.

“Careful.” They said, sickeningly sweet, as they caught your ankle. “You might give away all your moves.”

You shook your leg trying to shake them off, panic starting to settle over you.

“After all, it wasn’t that hard to figure out your little power. OR how to deactivate it. Biology.” They laughed and twisted your ankle to bring you to the floor.

It hurt to whimper. But even then you wouldn’t have wanted to whimper and show them the pain you were in. Nonetheless, you let out a small gasp, one that managed to leave a trail of blood on your jaw.

“Oh, dear,” they clicked their tongue, “you seem to be in pain. It’s in my professional opinion that we do all that we must to get rid of that pain. Yeah?” They smiled.

You shook your heavy head despite knowing it would do nothing. Your lying body would be their latest victim.

Seungcheol had shown you their case file. You knew their M-O. The pleasure they took in what they were about to do to you.

“N—” you’d struggled to say no. Your coughing fits were begging to get stronger and longer.

They smiled and almost instantly brought up their foot to kick your torso. Kick after kick your strength to keep your eyes open diminished. The edges of your vision blackened.

The last thing you saw was their shoe positioning itself above your face.

This is what real pain feels like. The nurse’s voice cackled in your head.

Then, as the shoe came down over you, your strength fizzled out and you blacked out, believing death had finally come for you.

—————

Seungcheol ran down the emergency landing hallway that led to the emergency rooms of the clinic. He pushed the gurney you were on as he did, pushing past the nurses that had been stationed at the landing. He had no time for their gaping expressions or their repentant stares.

“Move.” He growled as he pushed through the swinging, emergency doors.

Seokmin, who was there only to drop off paperwork that he had been given by Joshua, dropped his clipboard when Seungcheol came barreling inside and saw your unconscious and bloody body on the gurney.

“They need immediate attention,” Seungcheol yelled, already running in the direction of the individual emergency rooms.

Quickly coming to, Seokmin chased after him, “There are none. They’ve all already been filled.”

“What do you want me to do? Let them die out here?”

“No.” Seokmin grabbed Seungcheol by the forearm and pulled him in another direction. “I’m telling you there’s no room here. You need to take them to the observation cots. I’ll get someone to make them a real bed and put up some curtains.”

Seokmin pushed Seungcheol to go faster and stayed back himself. He whipped around and started yelling at the nurses who were staring at your diminishing form with horror and regret.

“You,” he called, “find an empty bed to replace a cot. You to find some curtains to divide the observation room from the rest of the patients.” Anger started bubble when they stayed rooted to their spots.

“Now.” He almost growled, snapping them out of it. “And you,” he turned to the nurse that had approached you the other week, “Find Doctor Hong, take him to the observation room. Tell him Y/N’s in critical condition.” Then shooed her off and ran towards the emergency room, hoping he could find a room for you.

————

Joshua was filling out patient forms in his office when the nurse Seokmin had sent came barreling through his door.

“Doctor Hong!” They yelled. “We have an emergency! It’s Y/N!”

Joshua rolled his eyes in amusement. A small smile played at his lips when he responded, “Alright, Alright, I’ll be there in a second.”

The nurse huffed and in a moment if forgotten professionalism said, “Y/N IS DYING WE GOTTA BLAST.”

Joshua froze if only for a millisecond, as he stared at the papers under his hands, then like a rocket shot out of his chair and blasted down the hallway. His pen still rolled on the desk when the nurse took off running after him.

“Observation room! Observation room!” They screamed at him.

Joshua made no motion that he heard them speak but nonetheless, the words registered in his head. He ran down the hallway and to the main lobby where the observation room was, the same place where you always laid on a cot waiting for him to check you over.

He saw Seungcheol pacing outside a small, square-shaped room fastened out of white sheets that had been hung.

“Life hanging from a thread!” Seungcheol screamed as he rushed past him, practically ignoring him.

Joshua pushed past the curtain and stumbled though nothing had been his way. His legs were jelly and his breath caught in his throat your sight.

Life hanging from a thread! Seungcheol words echoed inside him.

You laid pale and lifeless on a bed that the nurses had made to replace a cot. There was dried blood all over you-- surrounding your mouth, trails down your neck and splatters on your clothes…

Bruises adorned your torso, he saw when a nurse ripped your training shirt off with a knife.

His heart grew heavier with the passing seconds. But, seeing there was no time for him to let fear overtake him, he walked forward and with shaky hands grabbed your own.

The nurse next to you quickly started to list off your injuries, and at each and every one, Joshua flinched.

“Broken ribs, internal bruisi--”

“Why?”

“It seems they were kicked repeatedly in the torso regi--”

“Why are they bleeding?” He said, “Their skin is impenetrable.”

“The villain they were after had been keeping an eye on them for some time. They created a smoke bomb with an unknown, poisonous substance that rendered their power useless.”

While Joshua concentrated his powers on you, just to see how the poison was working on you, the same nurse who had been sent to find him, came striding into the make-shift room with supplies to be used. There was a determined glint in his eye that the nurses caught suddenly when they saw him let go of your hand and turn around to grab a chair.”

“Doctor Hong,” the second nurse, the nurse that had come in last, gulped, “what is the plan of action?”

His jaw clamped shut as he grabbed your hand again and closed his eyes in concentration, “I’m going to flush the toxins traveling through their body.”

“But Doctor Hong, you can’t.” The second nurse, again, threw themselves at Joshua and gripped him by his biceps. “It’s too dangerous! You know the risks! We don’t know how it would affect you!”

Joshua shook them off, he had made an oath to do all he could to save his patients. There was no way he wasn’t about to try and save you.

Unbeknownst to them, Seokmin has rushed into the curtain roomed to offer his services. But, when he saw Joshua preparing himself to heal you with his powers and the nurse clinging to Joshua possessively he frowned and coughed aggressively.

The three stopped their doing and glanced at Seokmin.

“You two,” he said, sending a shiver down the nurses' spines who had never seen him without a smile on his face, “out.”

“Now.” He said sternly when they hesitated to move. They scurried past him and the second they had left the room, Seokmin gave Joshua a nod and left himself.

Joshua closed his eyes again. His eyebrows furrowed from the sudden pain that flowed through him.

This was the pain that you had been feeling, he realized. Waves of searing hot pain spreading all over your body, your throat closing in….he felt it all and despite the agonizing scream that wanted to rip itself from his throat, he gripped your hand harder using both of his hands.

To the agonizingly slow beep of the heart monitor, he stayed by your side cleansing your body of the toxins in it. All the while, in the eerie silence of their clinic, he started to realize how you had become a significant part of his life. One that, when seeing a pale light cast on your gray, pale body— signs of which he knew were related to a person nearing death— made him feel the absence of the warmth you radiated when you were near him.

It was making him face reality, the feelings he had been growing for you, but pushing away. You hadn’t been like the others. You hadn’t gone to him crying about your problems, hoping that he would be the solution to everything (not that he would mind hearing about a person’s problems, if only they would ask about his too). Nor had you treated him like a piece of meat…

Another wave of searing hot pain shot down his body. He let out a strangled groan, tears pricking the corners of his eyes.

“Doctor Hong!” He heard one of the nurses partially muffled scream. Seokmin. He smiled through the pain.

Like hell, he was about to let go of your hand. He wouldn’t let go until he knew you’d be able to flush out the remain toxins yourself.

————————————————

You stared at Joshua from the doorway of his office. It was a mystery if he had noticed your presence yet. You had certainly noticed him.

Your head leaned titled against the frame the door. There was a fondness in your eyes that neither of you were able to notice.

Joshua wrote furiously on paperwork on his desk. The first few buttons of his shirt had been undone; and his tie, which he had loosened, hung low on his dress shirt.

When he twisted in his seat as he reached forward to grab something, you noticed he had rolled up his sleeves. Then, when you looked at his face again, you saw light bags starting to take form under his eyes.

“Joshua, you should get some shut eye.” You said, rushing forward to stand beside his desk.

He gave a small jump in his chair from the scare you gave him. He had been so engrossed in the work he had been doing that he hadn’t noticed when you had gotten there. Nonetheless, he smiled at the papers as he continued to write furiously.

“It’s okay, Y/N, my shift will be done in 3.”

“You said that,” You glanced at the digital clock sitting on his desk, “an hour ago. At least let me buy you a coffee ok? Americano sounds good, yeah? Okay bye.”

Joshua paused from working to watch as you scurried out of his office. He smirked in amusement. Then, as he turned back to his work and caught a glance of the time.

3:27 am

He hadn’t realized how late it had gotten. He had been so focused, he had even forgotten that you had stopped by an hour before. But, oh how he needed that Americano at the moment. If he had been any more awake he may have stopped to question how you knew what coffee he liked. But, in his half-awake state, all he could do was wait in anticipation for you to return. His pen hovered over the paper, no words would be written.

When you did return, the coffee you had brought him had never tasted better nor given him enough energy to carry on for a couple more hours.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“Doctor Hong.”

“Joshua, I feel dizzy. I think I’ve got to lie down.”

“Doctor Hong.”

“Joshua, I think I hit my head earlier. Can you check it for me?”

“Doctor Hong.”

“Joshua, Dino scratched my arm earlier. I think I’m bleeding. Please save me.”

“Y/N, you can’t bleed from a scratch.”

“Doctor Hong!” Joshua awoke from his restless slumber gasping for air. His hands still clutched onto yours like a lifeline, though not him to yours but you to him.

“But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt!” He shut his eyes. He could hear the pout in your voice echoing inside him.

“Doctor Hong!” A different voice screamed in his ear.

He jumped out of his chair and fell onto the floor. Streaks of sweat trailed down his face and onto his shirt. Under his eyes, dark bags outlined his eyes.

Slowly, he let his gaze trail upwards to whoever had just screamed in his ear. It was the nurse from earlier.

“Yes?”

“Sir, I think you should go to sleep. You’ve been asleep for 3 hours.”

“No.” He coughed and stood up. “No, I’m fine. I need to stay here.”

“Doctor Hong, they’re vitals have been stabilized. I’m sure they’re capable of flushing out the rest of the toxins themselves.”

“Is that so?” Joshua turned to you and started checking you over. The number of toxins in your body had definitely dwindled. But, he was still unsure of leaving your side.

“Yes, sir. Please go home. Some already offered to take your hours so you can rest. You’re off duty, but you’re also not allowed to be here.”

“No, no— ” He said as he stumbled onto his feet, “there’s no need for that. I’m fine.”

“But—,” The nurse’s gaped at Joshua’s diminishing form like a fish. He was gone before she could have one

————————

(A week later)

His friend would tell him he was overworked— deep black bags under his eyes, droopy eyes, and disheveled hair were their clues. But, if someone were to ask Joshua, or rather tell him that he needed a break, that he should go home and sleep— the answer would still be a giant no.

Seungcheol leaned against a corner of one of the main hallways in the clinic. Arms crossed, in his training clothes, and with a small scowl on his face, he wasn’t sure how he was yet to be noticed.

But, he had only been standing there for ten minutes and he had already seen Joshua limping back and forth between sections of the clinic. From the emergency room to the regular consultation room, Joshua trudged forward. The dark bags under his eyes, his crumpled white dress shirt, the loose tie hanging from his neck, the stained lab coat that he was wearing— they screamed ‘walking mess’ to Seungcheol.

When Joshua brushed past Seungcheol for the fifth time that day, he suppressed a groan and started following him. A left, a right, another left, and Seungcheol was watching Joshua pile bed sheets into his arms.

“Enough. That isn’t even your job.”

At Seungcheol’s huff, Joshua jumped and dropped the sheets. “Crap.” He mumbled under his breath.

“Joshua.” Seungcheol tried again. Joshua ignored him.

His eyes narrowed farther than they were already when Joshua started to walk away. He followed him to the laundry shoot down the hall, “Doctor Hong.”

“What?” Joshua grunted. He couldn’t ignore him, Seungcheol only called him Doctor when he was livid.

“You’re taking a break.”

“Can’t, I’ve got to go check on some pa—”

“Now.” Seungcheol gave him no opportunity to run away. He grabbed Joshua by the elbow and pulled him out of the hallways and into the clinic’s cafeteria. He couldn’t have anyways, Seungcheol knew his friend was running on nothing but fumes.

When they pushed past the doors, Joshua blanched at the sight of their youngest friend Chan standing cross-armed against a table and in an empty cafeteria.

Chan looked at Joshua up and down, cringing at the stains on his clothes. “That is not okay.” He said. He turned around and produced a backpack. “You’re going to change.”

“I don’t need to go change,” Joshua grumbled and pivoted on his heels to leave.

“Not so fast.” Seungcheol glared at him. “You need to go change.”

“No, I don’t.” Joshua rolled his eyes. “Now if you excuse me, I need to go check on patients.”

Seungcheol grabbed Joshua by the arm as he attempted to brush past him. “No. You’re going to go change and you’re going to go do it now.”

“N—”

“No, don’t you dare ‘no’ me. Someone once told me doctors have a responsibility to clean, crisp, and professional.”

“And you’re anything but that right now.” Chan finished for Seungcheol.

Joshua had no energy to fight them. With heavy eyes, he tried to glare at them, but in the end, extended his hand out for Chan to give him clothes.

“You’re using that bathroom over there.” Chan pointed behind himself. Joshua couldn’t be trusted not to run away.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Joshua played with the food on his plate. Every now and then his fork would scrape the bottom of the plate and let out a blood-curdling screech.

Seungcheol and Chan looked at Joshua’s face— a painting of dejectedness, first with pity and soon after with annoyance.

“Joshua, it’s been a week. You need to get some rest.”

Joshua paused and looked at Seungcheol blankly, “I’m fine.”

“Fine is the way you used to look before those bags under your eyes.” Chan took a sip from the smoothie he had ordered, “And just for the record, I don’t think anyone has tried getting your attention since then.”

Seungcheol exasperated sighed at Chan’s choice of words. Nonetheless, he nodded and continued with Joshua himself.

“You’re not fine. You’ve been working 24/7 since they’ve were brought here.” He gave Joshua a hard look that had him gulping and racing to look down at his uneaten food.

“I think it’s obvious to you that you care about them now. But, that does not excuse the way you’ve been acting.” Joshua nodded at his food.

“What? Do you think Y/N going to be impressed when they wake up? And you know it’s when because there’s no way in hell they aren’t going to.”

“They’ll probably take one look at you and decide they’ve made a mistake,” Chan said.

A pained look flashing in Joshua’s eyes had Seungcheol cutting in. “Not that they would actually do that. Y/N isn’t like that.” Seungcheol gave Chan a pointed look. “But they would definitely be extremely upset that you look like that because of them.”

Joshua sighed, Seungcheol speech was nowhere near an end. He’d seen Seungcheol gives speeches before, though not to him. At those times, he could only admire Seungcheol for acting so maturely and guiding their friends through their hardships. But now it was his turn and he knew Seungcheol could go on for what seemed like an eternity.

He was thankful, yes, it showed Seungcheol cared. But at the moment, he had no headspace for it. He stared at Seungcheol, blinking every now and then hoping that he would believe he was paying attention.

Really, after a couple of words, all he could hear was a high-pitched beep coming out at a constant rate from Seungcheol’s mouth.

He watched as his eyebrows scrunched up and he shook his head. His eyes narrowed and unnarrowed. The movements of his face were a dance all on their own.

Then he stopped and his face took a confused look. He would speak and pause, speak and pause, then shake his head at Joshua.

Beep. Beep. Pause. Beep. Beep. Pause.

Seungcheol reached over to grab Joshua’s shoulders and shook him.

Beep. Beep. Pause. Beep. Bee-J. Be-ua. B-shua. Joshua. Joshua. Joshua. Joshua.

“Joshua,” Seungcheol said sternly.

“What?” Joshua answered lifelessly.

“Your pager has been going off. Have you even been paying attention?” Seungcheol said, looking offended at the last bit.

“My pager?” Joshua muttered, slowly twisting to grab the pager he had clipped in his belt.

His eyes widened. It was the code he had given nurses to use when they needed to alert him about you.

The chair scraped against the floor as he stood up abruptly and ran out of the room.

His footsteps echoed through the hallways and against the walls. His elbows bumped and brushed against the walls at every turn. It wasn’t long until he was close enough to see your room door growing as he neared.

Nurses tried to get him to stop, but their pleas went unanswered. He ignored them and ran straight toward your room.

He stumbled over his feet as he pushed past the door and to your bed on the opposite side of the room, then froze.

You were awake and laughing at something your roommate was saying to you. It took you a moment to realize there was someone else in the room, staring at you specifically. More than that, it was Joshua, though that didn’t lift your hopes. He thought he was there as your doctor.

“Hey, stranger!” You smiled at him.

A weight lifted off of Joshua’s shoulders. You watched as his shoulder sagged and his rigid posture suddenly loosen.

When he smiled at you softly and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, you knew something was wrong. You started to study him and he noticed. Your eyes started trailing up from his legs and arms to his face. Dark circles under his eyes, pale face, and disheveled hair made your eyes narrow.

Joshua gulped. Chan’s words rang in his head.

Holding in a grunt you shifted over to the edge of the bed and patted the space next to you.

He smiled tiredly and approached slowly. “How are you?”

“I’m okay, I think.” You said and gave him a small smile.

Joshua studied your face, pale and with sunken eyes but you still seemed to be encapsulated by positive energy.

You, on the other hand, studied the way in which he moved so languidly. His eyes looking like they were fighting sleep though he didn’t seem to know.

Your fingers itched to caress his cheeks and lull him to sleep. But, you knew you couldn’t do that.

“How do you feel?” You asked him softly.

“A little tired but I’m okay.” He chuckled but avoided looking you in the eye.

Your eyes narrowed a sneaking suspicion settling in your chest.

“Joshua, did you use your power on me?” You asked sternly.

A red tint overtook his face and it suddenly hit you. “How could you do that?! That’s too dangerous! You should just use it for more important things! I don’t want you to strain yourself like this!” You huffed.

“But you are important!” Joshua answered back.

For a moment you reeled back, Joshua had never talked to you that way. It was new.

Joshua sighed, the silence growing between you two was tiring and something that he was not used to on your half.

“I realized…” he gulped, “a lot of things when you’re...not awake.”

“Wha—”

“I realized that I like it when you’re around. I realized that you cared about me. I realized that I care about you.” There was a beat of silence between the two of you again. Then he whispered, “But most importantly, I realized that I want you in my life.”

You questioned if you had ever known what it felt like to be alive before that moment. Your heart was pounding rapidly against and you felt heat come onto your cheeks. You dropped his gaze and looked at the bed sheets below you instead.

Joshua placed a hand on your cheek and caressed you for a moment. Then, ever so gently, he placed his hand on your chin and tilted your gaze back up to him.

“So please, stay a while.” He whispered so only you would here. After all, he meant for only you to hear it. He meant for only you and him to share that moment, together.

Your cheeks burned and your heart beat uncontrollably in your heart. A sheen of sweat covered your forehead as you tried to say something-- anything. But, you were only able to stutter out a few nonsensical sounds.

For a moment you questioned if Joshua had actually been able to take the toxins out of your body. There had to be a reason besides him that you were failing to say something and why your body was feeling so frazzled, dizzy, and hot.

“Joshua…” You were finally able to say.

“Can I...kiss you?” He asked softly, a light blush creeping up his cheeks.

“Please.” You answered him breathlessly, almost audibly.

A tingling sensation ran up your body as you closed your eyes and leaned in. Joshua, himself, also felt the air around him shift into something he could only describe as electric. The air around both of you rose in temperature as you both began to lean forward.

You could almost feel the sensation of his lips on yours, centimeters and milliseconds apart from connecting, when you both heard the curtain separating your half of the room open and close almost instantly. A quick and low, “Oh my god,” followed the noise.

Joshua and you spring apart, wide-eyed and stared at each other.

“Have fun playing doctor kids!” Seungcheol screamed from the other side of the curtain, his voice and rapid footsteps diminishing as he ran away.

“Seungcheol there are kids in here!” Seokmin’s affronted scream traveled into the room.

Joshua and you broke into quiet laughter at this. You collapsed onto the bed, finding it hard to keep sitting for longer. A second later, Joshua lied down beside you and brought the sheets over you both.

“There’s another doctor here today, I’m sure they won’t mind me being gone for a couple of hours.” He whispered conspiringly to you.

You hummed in response trying, and failing, to keep a smile at bay.

Joshua quickly leaned in to kiss you and when pulled apart, he pulled you into his arms and pecked your forehead. A goodnight kiss as not even a minute later, you both fell into a peaceful slumber.

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wadey-wilson · 5 years

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Hey there! What do you think of Homecoming's characterization of Peter compared to the 616 and/or Ultimate? I'm curious what you think because it seems like your a Spidey fan and I've seen mixed reviews on this subject!

okay, that’s gonna be long, so brace yourself. (i just woke up so i’m sorry for typos, alright?)

Peter Parker, Earth-616 vs Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming, an essay nobody cares about:

- teenager - he is a teenager, looks like one, and acts like one. he’s a fanboy, he eats chips upside down, he jumps on a bed whining about how he’s not a kid (poetic cinema), he loves lego, he loves old alien movies. he doesn’t even know how to spider-man yet. that batman voice to interrogate people because he doesn’t know how to interrogate people? amazing;

- bitten by the spider when he was 15 - yeps;

- brown eyes, brown hair - that’s a small and tirival thing, but nailed it (i checked and the marvel wikia says ‘hazel’ but hazel is just brown for people in love);

- raised by uncle ben and aunt may - although we don’t get the words ‘uncle ben’, we get the general idea of it when peter mentions ‘after everything that’s happened to her’ and when he talks about responsibility in CW;

- midtown high school - peter indeed attends midtown school of science and technology;

- nerdy, loveable dork - he so is. visibly academically gifted, knows answers without even paying attention, studies when he’s in that warehouse, studies when he’s in berlin to fight cap, is visibly fluent in spanish, and he’s just charming;

- flash thompson the bully - check. i saw some whiners complain about how flash isn’t a jacked asshole beating peter up, but like… do you really expect someone like that in a school for geniuses? no. i don’t even expect bullies like in the comics from 60s to be in high school now. ‘bullies’ that i met are the people who are just coolers and more popular than you and make fun of you publicly.

- outcast/loser - check. no friends to speak of except for ned, he’s rather invisible, he’s not the cool kid skater punk that sony tried to present us in the TASM movies;

- suit - now this one is really what people throw tantrums over. earth-616 does present peter parker sewing his own suit, and then making his suits, and then even have the suits made into super high-tech suits in parker industries, but let’s be damn real here - imagine that you’re a 15-year-old boy and have to sew your own suit. would it really look like that?

i’ll have people know that these suits took days and weeks to design and sew by professionals. this suit, however, looks way more realistic when in terms of making by a teenager:

in the ultimate comics, peter’s given his suit by the owner of UCW (that wrestling place), and then MJ was one to sew his suits. i have zero problems with tony stark being the one to give peter a high-tech suit, especially that the kid doesn’t even fully know how to use it. some might argue with me, but imagine you’re tony stark, and there’s this 15yo kid swinging his ass around new york in a onesie and craving to fight baddies - of course you’d give him the best suit you could come up with;

- friendly neighborhood spider-man - friendly neighborhood spider-man should be damn friendly and he is. peter parker is nice to everyone. he’s the spider-man we love in the comics. he helps old ladies, stops small crimes, he probably would be the one to hold someone’s car up when they change wheels. the TASM movies had this problem that their peter parker was a selfish asshole (and like 733456 other problems, but that’s not the topic of this essay), and you don’t see it in MCU’s peter. when everyone is busy fighting, he’s busy saying sorry and greeting a cloak, come on;

- with great power comes great responsibility - this one is also being thrown tantrum over because some people overshadow peter’s sense of responsibility with him wanting to be an avenger. and yeah, he does want to be an avenger. but the sense of responsibility is really there. he didn’t help the old lady to impress tony. he didn’t stop the ‘car thief’ to impress tony. what he did to impress tony was that one thing when he said it was his chance to prove himself and went after the arm dealers, but it started as a choice when he left ned at the party, and turned into choice afterwards, too. when tony took his suit, he easily could have just stand down, go to the homecoming, have the girl of his dreams, and just be normal. but he didn’t. he left the girl on the dance floor before the party even started, he left his group on the academic decathlon to go after the arm dealers, he left his friend and risked his already shredded social status to go see what the hell that explosion was. he didn’t have to go after vulture, but he went after him in a crappy suit, with old web-shooters, and thinking he’ll probably die. more than that, when the plane crashed, he didn’t have to save vulture. he didn’t have to keep on fighting without professional equipment and polished skills. he could’ve ran away. he didn’t.

moreover, he takes responsibility for everything that happens because of him. he saves the kids in the washington monument after they almost die because of the chitauri core he gave ned. he tries to save the people on that ferry boat after he accidentally tore it in two. he saves dalmar after his place is blown up after peter’s brawl with the robbers. go figure.

”when you can do the things that i can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you” = “with great power comes great responsibility”;

- quips and jokes - spider-man is genuinely funny. he’s not a jackass, and he knows when to stop the jokes and get serious. he was one to joke around when fighting the bank robbers, but as soon as he saw the dalmar’s place being destroyed, he hurried to help, ditching the robbers, because human lives are important. because if you can do the things that he can do, and you don’t, and people die, that’s on you. so he left the robbers and run to save lives. beside that, he’s genuinely funny, even unintentionally funny;

- nobody dies on his watch - that speaks for itself: saving the vulture. he doesn’t kill his enemies and doesn’t let them die;

- not giving up - laugh or not but it’s actually listed as one of his superpowers. did he look to you like giving up when he stepped into flames to save the guy who tried to kill him? nah;

- the avenger thing - so, as i mentioned before, people tend to throw hands about how peter’s only motor for what he’s doing is him wanting to be an avenger. and, as i explained, i disagree. but that’s whatever. in the comics, peter refuses to join the avengers because he’s better working solo. but he’s offered that when he’s older. in the MCU he’s a fanboy, he loves the avengers, they’ve been his heroes forever, of course he wants to be one of them when the fate has it that he can be one of them. who wouldn’t? in time, of course, i turns out that maybe he’s better on his own as a friendly neighborhood spidey, so things play out fine;

some more stuff not strictly related to peter parker:

- liz allen and mj - some people (*glares at the ones who haven’t grabbed a comic in their life but act like they’ve eaten all the brains*) think that the only relationships peter’s ever been in are the ones with gwen stacy and mj. little do they know that peter’s first love interests were actually betty brant and liz allen. mj was actually the one to come as the last one in that line, introduced to him by his aunt after years of talking about ‘that cute girl from the neighborhood’ or whatever. so i’m 100% on-board with liz allen. i’m also on-board with mj not being mary jane;

- the lack of harry osborn and gwen stacy - same people also don’t realize that peter parker met harry and gwen in college;

- ned leeds - i don’t even have it in me to care about the people who whine about ned being torn out from miles morales’ comics because i truly don’t care. it’s marvel’s property, they can do whatever they want, and if they want peter parker to have a good friend in the mcu who’s actually a good representation, then they’ll have it, and i’m happy. (peter parker doesn’t have a pal in high school in the comics, but ned serves great as a second opinion and someone to lean on) (speaking of representation, i love all the chubby and color students in the movie, ugh). also ned leeds is an actual marvel character from earth-616, so get over yourselves;

plus comic references: the movie references to ultimate spider-man #42 and the oh so iconic amazing spider-man #33, and i couldn’t be happier.

that’s it, that’s what i think. peter parker from the mcu is the perfect representation of earth-616 peter parker. the changes that mcu did for the movies don’t burn your eyes, they were made to fit the year the action takes place in and to be more realistic - flash thompson, the suit, the fanboy-ing over the avengers. those are good changes. they actually help the movie and keep the story within the marvel cinematic universe without making peter parker look and feel like someone completely out of character.

#peter parker #homecoming #spider-man #i usually rant to beau how much i hate the tasm movies and how horrible they are #so that was a nice change #thanks for that ask tbh

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r3almellow · 5 years

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It Started With A Touch 2 Dabi X F!Reader

I was surprised that you liked the first part! I honestly was super nervous and wasn’t sure if it would be well received! I guess I was wrong! Sooooo I have here part 2 for you lovely people! Please enjoy and sorry for any typos!

P.s: This is an AU so the timeline is a bit different.

You sat at your desk chewing on the end of your pen absentmindedly. Your eyes were glued to your computer screen as you typed away on your keyboard. You had just finished with two back to back sessions with clients and began responding to the various emails before your next meeting.

You liked your job as an EFT or an emotionally focused therapist for families and heroes, but it was hard at times. You had to talk with families and heroes of all types who were dealing with things like PTSD and so much more. The stories that each person brought to you were mostly gut-wrenching. From the loss of a family member who was killed in the line of duty to a hero continuously reliving traumatic events in their life. Your boss told you, you’d get use to it, but being so in tuned with emotions the way that you were it was highly unlikely.

A small knock sounded from beyond your door before you saw an older man walk through it. “Hello, y/l/n!”

You looked up and smiled softly at your boss.

“Hello, sir! What can I do for you?” You asked.

The man made his way over to you and stopped just short of the chairs that were in front of your desk. “I just wanted to congratulate you on your progress here. You’ve been able to breakthrough to some of our patients that most have had a difficult time with for years!” He exclaimed.

You hated the word patients. You liked to see the people who come here as...well as people. Patients made it sound like there was something wrong with them when all they needed was someone to listen and place where they would not be judged.

Your smile widened trying to hide the slight irritation.

“I do what I can sir. I want people to leave here feeling like they have a new purpose.” You said with pride.

“That’s good to hear. I actually wanted to know if you would be interested in being our spokesperson for an upcoming ambassadors trip.”

You looked at him quizzically. “Ambassadors trip?”

He nods with enthusiasm. “Each year we send our best out to U.A. to speak with the future heroes about mental and physical health. After talking with some of the higher ups we feel that you would be a great fit.”

“M-me?!” It had only be a few months since your start here, so being chosen for something as big as this was something you wouldn’t have expected until you were there for at least a year.

“Oh, yes! Since you are an U.A. alum, we think the students would be able to relate and with your bilingual background you can also communicate with the foreign students as well.”

Bilingual was a bit of stretch. Sure your Japanese was way better than when you were younger, but having to do full on speeches in Japanese was a whole different story. You would need another person there to translate or at least help you not make a fool out of yourself.

Despite the nervous feeling in your gut you accepted the offer. These kids were in for a lot and needed to know that while there were many trials ahead they had a support system behind them every step of the way. Not many had the luxury of having their families or teachers in their corner, so this was the perfect chance to show that there are alternatives.

Your boss’ eyes lit up. “Great! I’ll get the paperwork together! We will send you and a few others out there next week.”

“Looking forward to it!” You leaned back in your chair with a smile once your boss left the room.

For the rest of the day you were grinning from ear to ear. Even as you made your way home the happiness you felt refused to go away.

You were going back to U.A. after five years. You wondered how much things have changed since then. Were all your old teachers still there?

You heard the Symbol of Peace himself, All Might, had begun teaching there. You’d have to find a discreet way of getting his autograph or risk losing your job over fangirling over such an icon. It would be a small price to pay if you wanted to brag about having a future family heirloom on your wall.

And what about the students? Where they going to like you? From your understanding the freshmen were a very interesting group this year especially the class of 1-A.

If you weren’t mistaken Todoroki Shouto was one of them. You remembered seeing him on TV during the Sports Festival. He was an extremely talented young man and clearly made a name for himself. Not really surprisign since he was the child of the number two hero Endeavor. Your growing smile quickly faded at the thought.

You saw Shouto only once when he was younger. It was just by chance you saw him with his older brother. There was only a quick introduction and a goodbye on Touya’s part. The child only looked at you with wonder as he followed closely behind his brother. Touya never really brought you around his family which you completely understood. You learned he had other siblings who he didn’t live with because of their “family dynamics.”

Touya...

It had been six years since you last saw him. There were rumors circling around that he died in a horrible accident involving fire, but something told you that if that was true it wouldn’t have been an accident. Another rumor was that he ran away from home. You couldn’t blame him, but he could have at least said something to you.

The last time you saw him was the night he revealed he had no intention of returning to school. You had voiced your concerns, but he simply waved you off. You remembered caressing his hair and watching him sleep against your lap. You weren’t sure when you had fallen asleep, but you woke up in the morning and found yourself in bed completely alone. You didn’t think much of it and figured you would see him again that night.

You didn’t realize how wrong you were.

Days had passed and you had yet to see Touya. You would visit the abandoned warehouse where he often spent his time, but there was still no sign of him. You even tried calling his phone which went straight to voicemail for a time and later went out of service by your 50th call.

You muscled up the courage to visit the Todoroki home only to be met with grim expressions, unanswered questions and a door slammed in your face. It was like you were the only one that cared to find out what happened to him.

Days turned into a year and by the time you were ready to go to college, you made the decision to travel back to the states where you spent your college years. There wasn’t a day that went by you didn’t think of him. You had to be honest and say he was part of the reason why you returned to Japan. There was something in your gut that told you there was a chance he might still be out there.

You found yourself at the warehouse where it all began. It seemed you were so lost in thought that your body decided to go on a little joyride. Except without the joy...

Against your better judgement you walked in. You were soon filled with sentimentality as you looked around. Not much changed about the place. It was still a rundown deathtrap that should have been torn down years ago.

With a hand you gently caressed the walls that had scorch marks on them. Some of them you remembered from Touya’s time here, but other marks were unfamiliar to you. You touched one of them and analyzed the black soot by rubbing it between the pad of your fingers.

“I was wondering when I’d see your pretty face here again.” A male voice calls out making you jump slightly. You quickly turn around to see a tall man a few feet away from you with an unreadable expression on his face.

“I thought this place was abandoned. I don’t think you’re supposed to be here.” You say effortlessly hiding the nervousness in your voice. It wasn’t your best response seeing as how you were kind of trespassing too.

He doesn’t answer but circles around you slowly, surveying what you assumed was your appearance. The anxiety in your stomach continued to bubble up with each passing second of silence.

“You haven’t changed a bit.” He finally said in a low tone.

He stops next to you facing the opposite direction, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Not a damn bit...” You followed where his gaze fell which was directly on your ass. Your cheeks immediately flared in anger as you take a few steps back from the man. While you were a bit unnerved by this encounter that didn’t stop you from sending him a death glare. “Excuse me?! Who the hell do you think you are?”

While you weren’t the best fighter there wasn’t a doubt in your mind you could get the upper hand if he decided to get handsy.

He straightened himself and frowned at you. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about me already, sweetheart.”

Forgotten? You didn’t keep track of all your old classmates, but you would have remembered this guy. His long coat, casual clothing underneath and his most notable being feature was his skin had weirdly symmetrical burned patches in areas like arms, neck, and under his eyes certainly didn’t ring any bells. The staples that were holding his skin together where the next thing you noticed. Then there was his jet black hair and indifferent blue eyes.

He sighed as the aloof expression he had slipped into annoyance. “Do I really have to tell you?”

You were done trying to play these guessing games. Especially with someone who looked like they kill pretty young women for fun.

“Listen, Frankenstein, I don’t know who you are but I-” Suddenly his hand shot out and grabbed your wrist. You quickly recovered from the gesture and put your quirk to work. If this guy thought he could get away with touching you he had another thing coming.

You were ready to give this guy the worst pain of his life, but something was off. There was a sense of nostalgia that surged through you as you probed through his emotions. A feeling of sadness, anger and loneliness clouded your senses. It was almost suffocating. However, there was a distant feeling of warmth that felt welcoming, safe and...familiar.

Your mouth turned into the shape of an “O” then closed again.

There was no way that this could be...

You looked up at the man and stared into his striking blue eyes. You studied his face long and hard. Seconds passed and your eyes widened as the realization struck you.

“Missed me, gorgeous?”

No fucking way...

Welp...I think this just turned into a small fanfic. I don’t know whats happening, but I can’t stop typing! Anyways, hope you all enjoyed this part! Please let me know if you want the next part!

And before ya’ll correct me I know the difference between Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s monster! Please comment and tell me what you think!

#dabi x reader #dabi bnha #Dabi #bnha #mha #my hero academia #fanfic

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personas-against-antis · 6 years

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My experience with anti-ism and back

Inspired by @huntypastellance's interviews with ex-antis, I decided to post my own story of how I became an anti and how I got out.

My inbox and messages are open in case anyone has any questions or wants to say anything.

Apologies for any typos, my typing is not the greatest.

Names have been changed to protect my friends’ privacy and to prevent certain antis mentioned from coming after me again.

Where It All Started

So back in middle school I fell in love with an anime called Hetalia, about the interactions between anthropomorphized versions of various countries. I had been in fandom for a while (my first big fandom was Sonic, but that was before antis went mainstream), and I was a pretty big follower of "don't like, don't read/look". When I joined, I immediately latched on to the ship AmeCan, or America/Canada.

They were cute and it was my OTP for a long time. The only problem with AmeCan is that, by a large majority of the fandom, America and Canada were considered brothers. I personally didn't see them that way, I saw them as adopted brothers at most, and I was always pretty squicked out by shippy fanfics that depicted them as biological brothers. The ship itself was still pretty big in that fandom, so I ignored the haters and immersed myself in fanart and fanfic.

I met a girl at my school (let's call her Duchess) who also liked Hetalia and we quickly hit it off. We soon asked what each other's OTPs were.

Me: Oh, I ship AmeCan.

Duchess: ...

Me: What is it?

Duchess: You realize they're brothers, right?

Me: Oh, I don't see them that way because [insert reasoning that I don't want to have to explain to non-Hetalians, just know that I explained that I didn't see them as brothers.]

Duchess: But it's canon. They canonly see each other as brothers.

Me: Oh...

In hindsight, I probably should have asked what she meant by “it’s canon”. Either way, I began to drift away from AmeCan due to lack of interest, and towards other ships (Romerica and AmeBela), and then to other fandoms. She still remained one of my closest friends.

Down The Rabbit Hole

I began to get really into kawaii culture and browsed the tags pretty regularly. Over time, I came across CG/L content. It squicked me out at first, but due to some sort of bile fascination, I began browsing CG/L blogs and began learning about that subculture. I actually enjoyed it quite a lot, but I knew that it would be inappropriate for someone my age (around 13-14 years old) to participate in kink, so I kept my distance and admired it from afar.

Soon, Duchess brought it up at lunch.

Duchess: I really hate seeing DDGL stuff everywhere.

Me: Haha, yeah...

Duchess: I mean, It's practically pedophilia!

Me: Mhm...

That's what I had thought at first too, before researching it. But she kept talking about it.

Duchess: They're sexualizing children, and children's toys! It's so gross! I actually made a blog against it.

Me: Whoa, really?

Duchess showed me her anti-CGL blog and I quickly followed it because she was my friend, and slowly began to follow other anti-DDLG blogs as well, even making my own: rise-against-ddlg. I took it down due to lack of interest, but antis had already grown on tumblr, and I was torn between my "don't like, don't look" policy, and wanting to "help" survivors. So outwardly, I became an anti, while guiltily reading "problematic" fic and playing "problematic" games in secret.

One such problematic game was Yandere Simulator, and I began to browse those tags too, when I discovered another anti blog, this time against Yandere Simulator and Alex Mahan, a.k.a. Yandere Dev. I learned he was fairly homophobic, sexist, and transphobic, especially in his own private chatroom, and began to idolize that anti blog. Suddenly, they released an invitation to a Skype group chat. Eager to meet my heroes, I quickly applied and was approved.

The Group Chat Incident

I loved that chat. It started with 15 people, but slowly trickled down to nine, including myself. I found myself isolating myself away from my real life friends and family, too focused on the group chat, as they made dropping out of high school and staying online all day sound cool. I kissed up to them, desperate to be seen as a good person. But, soon, I began to question myself and the group. The mods were very against "problematic" content, like Killing Stalking, and NSFW depictions of minors, but were also quick to draw NSFW of minors (specifically Budo and Senpai from YS). I introduced them tot he game Boyfriend To Death, and one of them quickly latched on to the character of Rire, who brutally rapes the protagonist in game, despite them being against rape. The main mod even introduced the group to a game called Artificial Academy 2, in which you can rape others and be raped.

...There was a lot of rape and NSFW in that chat.

But, there was also a hierachy. At the top were the two main mods of that YS blog, Mod H and Mod J. Joining them at the top was a very cool person and a good artist who acted very much like an older sibling to all of us, Member M. Then, there were three more people who tended to kiss Mod H, Mod J, and Member M's asses, and at the bottom was me, my friend Foam, and Member C. Mod H was the ruler of that chat. Anything they said, went, and if you disagreed, they'd suddenly play victim, manipulating and gaslighting you into apologizing. They loved Dragon Age, and now that game has been forever tainted for me, considering how much they shoved it down my throat. They would also tease me and my interest in Persona 5 (saying that the protagonist looked like The Onceler, subsequently calling me a "Onceler Fucker" for finding him attractive, along with making fun of when my tongue slipped and pronounced "Goro" as "Gort"), only stopping when I had Foam address the group to tell them to stop. There was a livestream that I was really excited for, talking about it since it was announced and they seemed hyped for me as well. Only when I placed a rabb.it link in the chat so we could all watch, only Member C showed up. When I returned to that chat, they were watching Yuri On Ice, and they wouldn't even let me talk about my livestream.

During that time period, I created a group chat for me, Foam, and another internet friend I will call Emilia. I though Foam and Emilia would get along really well, so i formed a Skype chat with them, and allowed them to talk. Slowly though, me and Foam began to use that chat to bitch about the group chat behind their backs, because we were terrified of the backlash if we tried to criticize them to their faces, due to Mod H's tactics of avoiding conflict. We soon added Member C to the chat as well, after they were constantly getting dogpiled by the rest of the chat.

That December, the Bode meme was in full swing and Foam mentioned in the group chat that he didn't get it. The group chat immediately began to make fun of him and I, sick of letting them control our lives, stood up for him. The group chat just continued to dogpile and we continued to try and fight until Mod H eventually left the chat, in one of their methods to get us to apologize to them. I was feeling overwhelmed and also left, and Foam tried to surrender and tell the chat to stop, but they wouldn't let up and he left too. Member C was the only member we remained on good terms with who was still in the group chat.

I made a post on my blog saying that i didn't want to interact with those people anymore and they got mad and began to try and message me. I eventually messaged an official statement, citing their abuse of me and Foam, and blocked all of them across social media.

They created a fake blog to get around the block, and I was dumb enough to fall for it.

Member C even turned on us, revealing me and Foam's messages with her and claiming we were abusing and bullying them. Suffice to say, I cut off all contact with Member C and changed my main blog's URL.

I was harassed and stalked and I carried that fear of them looking at my blog for a long time. I still worry about it sometimes.

The worst part, in my opinion, was that I changed my own name that I had chosen for myself because it had become a trigger for me hearing them say it so many times. And I really, really loved that name.

There was so much hypocrisy, so much fear in that chat. Now, looking back, I wished I had never joined, but in those months after I left...I felt empty inside. Aimless.

Out of curiosity, I looked up cult behaviors, and that chat hit nearly every single one. It's scary looking back on it. Even writing this, over a year after I left, my heart hurts.

But even leaving a cultish group chat didn't knock me out of anti-ism.

Villain Ships and Past Revelations

Remember how I mentioned that I love Persona 5? Well, I ship a ship called ShuAke, which a very loud subset of people claim is abusive.

Spoilers for Persona 5 up ahead.

ShuAke is a ship between the protagonist (shujinko in Japanese, which is where the "shu" comes from) and Goro Akechi. I shipped ShuAke since before Goro's name was announced, when all we knew was his design. Goro turned out to be a detective hunting the Phantom Thieves, the protagonist's group. The cat and mouse aesthetic really suited my fancy, with the protagonist's thief alter ego, Joker, seducing the naive Detective Prince. Swoon.

Of course, the ship shattered when the game was released in Japan and it turns out Goro tried to kill the protagonist, was working for the bad guy, and betrayed the whole group.

I was shocked and essentially went through the five stages of grief. I was torn between abandoning the "abusive" ship and evil character...or ignoring the haters and shipping it anyway. After way too much debate, I chose the latter and stuck with it.

The anti-ism died down quickly due to a lot of the fandom hibernating until the English release, and I happily shipped ShuAke and supported Goro Akechi with little objection. Even when the game was released in English, I stood my ground and even argued in support of Goro with anons.

And yet, I still considered myself an anti.

Late May of last year, some repressed memories came to light. I had been sexually abused by a close family member and a few girls at camp when I was younger, with other fragmented and questionable memories in my brain. It put my past into light, as I had also had a self destructive habit of attempting to seduce older men online, due to low self esteem. That was not a fun week for me, and I found myself diving into dark fic, particularly rape fic, in order to make sense of it all. I even wrote some in an effort to just get it out of my brain.

And it worked. It was really therapeutic for me.

And yet...

I still considered myself an anti. Every word I read or wrote was mixed with guilt over what I was doing, even though it worked. While I'm still a sexual abuse survivor, as I always will be, I'm much more well-adjusted by participating in those dark activities, rather than wallowing in self pity and slipping into a depression, like my old group chat would have expected me to do.

I dropped anti-ism later, with the help of one blog.

Back to "DL,DR"

The blog @anti-anti-survivor was recommended to me, and anti!me, looking for a laugh, clicked on it...and soon found that pretty much everything they said made sense to me. I saw Mod h in the people they argued with, Member C in the people they called out...and I realized that I had never been an anti, just hiding behind that label.

I sent an anonymous message to them (though I guess it isn't so anonymous anymore, ha), thanking them for opening my mind to it, and created my own anti-anti blog. I realize I'm not very active on here, but, well, I'm lazy and I'm more of a reader than anything else.

And of course, there was another problem.

Antis are fucking everywhere.

I'm terrified of posting pro-shipping stuff on my main, and I'm terrified of admitting I like problematic ships. I'm in a Discord server that keeps spouting anti-kink and anti-ship stuff, and I have to keep my mouth shut or risk being banned, just because most of the time they're really nice. Duchess even messaged me one day, absolutely shocked that I admitted to shipping Shidge.

I'm happy now that I don't have to feel that guilt but, reading what antis do and then finding out that people I hang out with are antis...it's horrifying. I'm not a confrontational person. I never have been. But I'm sick of rolling over and accepting what everyone else deems is problematic fiction.

I'm mentally ill, a sexual abuse survivor, and dark fic and dark shipping helps me cope.

Deal with it.

#pro shipping #anti anti testimony

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xseedgames · 7 years

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The Legend of Heroes: Trails Series - Localization Blog #2

Hi, kids!

This is Brittany, Localization Producer at XSEED, editor/graphic text monkey/what-have-you for Trails in the Sky the 3rd, and current head for the Trails series in general. I’m very eager to write this blog, because it’ll be full of updates for FC, SC, and the 3rd.

Let’s get the 3rd’s status out of the way: schedule-wise, we’re currently doing great! When we announced this game last year, I was dead set on getting it out by spring 2017, so I’m very proud to say that goal is being met. Trails in the Sky the 3rd is coming to PC in English on…a date you’ll find out very, very soon.

Barring typos or odd QA hiccups (which can happen when “smashing” PSP and PC code together to get the best of both worlds), the game is in pretty good shape and we’re right where we need to be. It’s cleaning up very well.

| QA is a sexy time and I won’t let you take it away from me.

I’d like to start by properly warning Trails newbies first: please play Trails in the Sky’s first and second chapters before playing the 3rd. Heck, please play them before even reading this blog! Although the 3rd is not a “third chapter” since the Estelle and Liberl’s story wrapped up with SC, this story still relies on knowledge gained by playing those two games. Internally, I’ve said before that the 3rd has only one target audience: people who’ve played both Trails FC and SC. Cold Steel fans will understand some of the lore dumping, but other details will be quite lost on lost you. Though, hey, if you want to purchase it anyway and help support my coffee fund, I ain’t gonna stop you. (Please buy it and play it later. I’m desperate, here.)

I would have loved for this blog to feature more specific details on the 3rd itself, but I tend to consider the series as a whole whenever I do my editing and am constantly referencing/perusing the text from the other games as if they were my current projects. Because of that, I’m going to be noting planned adjustments for the Sky trilogy that I decided were important enough to implement while I was working on the 3rd. We can dig into protagonist and deuteragonist Kevin Graham and Ries Argent in future blogs.

- Dead Emperor Sword > Sword of Abaddon – Loewe’s S-Craft. I meant to fix this during SC’s QA, but there were so many things I was brushing up till the last minute that it was lost in the shuffle. The original is straight-up wrong. - Pillar of Salt > Salt Pale – You’ll learn more about this in the 3rd. - Stainrose > Steinrose – This is a classy alcoholic drink briefly mentioned by Schera in Trails FC. This is clearly meant to be Steinrose and was written correctly in SC, so we’re extending that correction to FC. - Museum Descriptions – Text in the museum in Grancel will either be rewritten or greatly expanded upon in general. These descriptions were shorter due to every editor’s wariness of character limits in games, but that’s not actually a worry here, so woohoo! The Capel will also receive similar tweaks. - Master/King/Guardian of the Lake – I don’t understand how I missed this one, but boy, did I screw up when doing sweeps. You might remember the Guardian from Cold Steel; it’s a legendary fish. Well, the whole legendary fish thing actually dates back as far as the first game. Turns out, we’ve used a mix of king or master to describe it. I’d considered using the more common of the two in the current text, “master,” but I realized “master” is used in several other forms throughout FC and SC. To make its intent clear, I’m going the easy route and replacing all instances of king/King/master/Master with “Guardian” like the way it is in Cold Steel I&II.

| Mysterious boy who isn’t so mysterious if you’ve already played Cold Steel. This marks his first Trails appearance.

- Duke Dunan – I believe that even if he’s Queen Alicia II’s nephew, being a duke, he should be addressed as “Your Grace.” He’s been addressed as a number of things, including “Your Excellency” by Phillip and Kanone, so this will be corrected. - Sky Bandits – I talked about this a bit with the current series translator, and we decided that the term ‘sky bandits’ wasn’t the name of the Capua family’s group in particular. They’re simply bandits…who happen to do their bandit-ing while piloting a sweet airship. It’s not a term specific to them, but as generic as “thief” or “schoolteacher.” It shall be decapped in all instances throughout the trilogy. There are a few more words I decided to decap, and no doubt I’ll find even more in the future. They’re minor in comparison, though, so they’re not really worth listing here.

| Here’s a new feature, the “Remote Ability.”

- Airship/Orbalship/Flying Boats – Here’s one that’s bothered me for some time even though I couldn’t figure out a better solution. There’s an entry in the Capel about orbal airships stating that ships less than 20 arge in length are known as “flying boats.” We don’t actually use that term anywhere else, but no one ever brought it up so I left it as is. While reading through the games again, however, I noticed that we used both “airship” and “orbalship” as generic terms. It’s specifically thanks to orbal energy and the Orbal Revolution that modern civilization in Zemuria was able to achieve flight, so presumably all airships regardless of length use orbal energy. I don’t think it’s a stretch to scientifically classify small ships as “airships,” larger ships which require significant orbal energy as “orbalships,” and have “airships” be used as a generic term among citizens at the same time. After all, we in real life still can’t seem to decide if Pluto is classified as a damn planet or not, even if the population generally seems to refer to it as a planet no matter what its classification is. With this update, I will do away with the clunky and never-used “flying boats” in favor of the current entry.

- Hmm-Hmm!/Hm-Hm!/Etc. – Like Cold Steel I&II, this kind of chortle/laughter isn’t present at all in the 3rd. It was toned down considerably before launch in SC, but it’s still present in both FC and SC. I’ve always wanted to go through the script and alter/remove these, and I finally did! Maybe some will object to this decision, but if they’re not in the newer games, it’s just kinda weird to keep them in the older games, too. In case you wanted to know how much I suffered to do this: o "hmm-hmm" (164 hits in 96 files) o "hmmhmm" (184 hits in 85 files) o "hmhm" (89 hits in 52 files) o "hm-hm" (8 hits in 8 files) o "hmm!" (12 hits in 11 files) o "hm!" (21 hits in 20 files) o "hmm." (36 hits in 35 files) o "hm." (17 hits in 16 files) o "Hm," (62 hits in 41 files) o "hmm," (282 hits in 155 files)

- Duke/Baron Fisher – You might recall the president of the Fisherman’s Guild, Mr. Fisher. (Or maybe you do not recall, which suits me better. HEH.) Apparently, his title is mentioned once in both FC and SC—the first time was the “Duke of Angling” and second time was “Baron of Fishing.” This also comes up in the 3rd, but we thought “Fishing Baron” was a simple enough title for the guy, so this will also be fixed in FC and SC.

| From the 3rd’s opening animation.

- Social Sciences/Studies – This is the program Kloe takes at Jenis. I noticed a discrepancy here and there while doing some digging for the name, so all of these have been changed to “social studies.” It’s social sciences in Cold Steel, but since that’s a different country, I don’t consider the difference a big deal. - Faculty/Staff Office/Lounge – Also noticed this was a number of slightly difference things, so it shall be changed to “faculty lounge.” - Dorms/Dorm – Unless the person mentioning the dorms at Jenis is referencing both the boys’ and girls’ dorms, I made it singular since there’s only one dorm building each. Not really a problem, but it was bugging me. - Olivier: “In fact, I believe the Imperial Academy was to launch an investigation...but then the Hundred Days War broke out.” - *nerd glasses* Okay, this one is really cool to me!! I happened to notice the line and was confused by “Imperial Academy, so I checked the Japanese, which was more like “Imperial Science Institute.” Turns out, this is the very same “Imperial Institute of Science” that’s been brought up a few times throughout the Cold Steel arc. (Ahh, I just love how this series connects the little things.) - Dad/Daddy/Papa/Mom/Mommy/Momma – Estelle as a child calls Cassius “Daddy” in FC, but she says “Papa” in SC. SC will now match FC. Cassius still calls himself “Papa” when babying Estelle, though. I haven’t looked too deeply into this yet, but it’s also been fixed in the following instances so far: o Anya - Daddy(FC), Papa/Daddy(SC) = Daddy o Elke - Papa(FC), Papa/Dad(SC) = Dad o Mirano - Father(FC), Papa/Father(SC) = Father o Louis - Dad/Mom(FC), Papa/Mama & Dad/Mom (SC) = Dad/Mom o Helena - Dad/Mom (FC), Papa/Mama (SC) = Dad/Mom o Lucia - Mommy (FC), Mom/Mommy(SC) = Mommy

I feel ashamed to see all of this...

- Mayor/Lady/Miss/Ms. Maybelle – This one was pretty wild. When checking her address for the 3rd since Lila’s address was translated as “Lady Maybelle,” I went through FC/SC and the results were a mess. Some NPCs referred to her in three different ways, and Estelle went from “Mayor Maybelle” in FC to “Maybelle” in SC. One could argue closeness allowed her to drop the formalities, but I don’t see them as that close. Virtually everyone should be calling her “Mayor Maybelle” now, save for four exceptions: Lila, who calls her “Miss Maybelle, ” and Kloe, General Morgan, and Yahat, who affectionally call her “Maybelle.”

This biggest change affecting all these Sky games, however, will be this:

| You don’t know how happy it makes me to see this.

To refresh your memories, Zin Vathek is an A-rank bracer from the Calvard Republic, and he’s one of the main playable characters throughout the trilogy. However, due to some absurd reason I can’t even begin to understand since I wasn’t with XSEED at the time, the original translation team insisted upon changing his name to Zane.

The series has yet to truly set foot on Calvardian soil, but several characters from there appear to be of Eastern descent. This may lead some to believe that Calvard is mostly an “Asian” country, but personally, I think something very different is going on. Republican names also include stuff like Vathek, Cochrane, or Rocksmith (the Republic’s president). There’s even the Gambler Jack novel that stars a white man named…Jack…and includes characters like Chief Minister Shamrock and Enrique.

I believe Easterners are actually the minority in Calvard, and Eastern influences are reflected in a Chinatown-esque area called the “Eastern Quarter.” Even the writing in Gambler Jack mentions how immigrants tend to gather in the Eastern Quarter, and the writing goes out of its way to point out Eastern features in Halle, the heroine, as if it’s not usual for its author to see.

Throughout the localized games, there have been mentions of people from farther east immigrating into Calvard to the point where it’s become a problem. Incredibly interesting as this is, it’s only been brought up in bits and pieces throughout the series, so I can only make an educated guess on what exactly Calvard is like or what’s going on within. Also, you’ll learn more about this in 3rd and I don’t want to go into detail. These kinds of things could point to racial tension in the future or something else entirely. The more I’ve learned, the more my gut tells me that there’s a reason for these characters—Zin included—to have been given Eastern-influenced names.

While I’ve never been fond of “Zane” to begin with and believe it never should have been changed in the first place, I do understand that it’s been a part of the Trails English canon for many years. Before making the change, I tried to think of various solutions and consulted Falcom’s development team directly with my thoughts. One possible solution was based on many friends who immigrated to the West as children: they had their name from birth, and then they also had a more “white-sounding” name to further blend into Western culture. I thought this method would allow us to keep Zane, finally adopt Zin, and give Zane a few unexpected extra layers.

I’m happy that I expressed these concerns to Falcom’s team, because it gave me the confidence to do away with the more complex solutions and just skip to the overhaul. Moving forward, “Zane” will officially be “Zin” for the entire Trails in the Sky trilogy, and “Zane” will be a thing of the past. I’m excited about this. Please welcome Zin warmly.

| You’ll see cutscenes like these throughout the game.

In the Future/Other Notes

- Gambler Jack – This novel appears in both Trails in the Sky SC and Trails of Cold Steel II. The CS2 version was brushed up. This may or may not make it into this next update, but I’d like to backport this when I can. - Skippable S-Crafts – We added this patch into the PC versions of FC/SC in December 2016, but I felt it was worth noting since it’s not in any other version of the Sky trilogy but ours. You can now skip S-Crafts with the press of a button! Yay! - S-Craft Voices – Years and years ago, before my time, the Trails in the Sky trilogy was all dubbed at once just because it was battle lines and it was easier to get it all finished in one go. Some mistranslations happened here and there in those battle lines. It’s why Kloe shouts, “Radiant Plash!” instead of her actual S-Craft name, for example. The lines from one of Kevin’s S-Crafts gets mentioned as part of 3rd’s story, and you might notice it differs from the text in his actual S-Craft. I’d like to fix the voice someday, but we’ll have to work with the original for now. Just know that it was a conscious decision to not match the story text and battle lines. - NPC Names – Like Zin, a few NPC names I believe have references that were initially missed. Mirano/Trino/Modena are supposed to be Milan/Turin/Modena, I believe, Stain is supposed to be Stein, etc. These all these like relatively minor in the grand scheme of things and have no real impact on the world-building, though, so I’m still compiling a list and debating if it’s even worth touching this. I still want to…but lol. NPCs are truly trouble in this series… I have a bible I made myself for the series, but I’d love to keep filling it in!!

|I’m slowly building stuff like this in the name of obsession.

Ideally, one of the other big changes would be the basic name on Steam/GOG/Humble being displayed. We’ve always gone with Trails in the Sky and Trails in the Sky SC, but I worry names like these as an introductory header may cause confusion among newer fans. I want to someday rename these display names Trails in the Sky First Chapter and Trails in the Sky Second Chapter. We’ll see.

My hope is that outside of Zane > Zin, you guys noticed approximately none of these things and will end up reading this blog and going, “Huh. This person’s obsessed, but okay. Cool.” But how do these things happen? The same way it always happens with text-heavy games: too many cooks in the kitchen. Too many translators, too many editors. Many of these choices are perfectly valid out of world context, but when you’re given thousands of files, no unified index for characters unless you build it from scratch yourself, and some very nasty deadlines, things happen.

The series is much more unified than ever because we realized that when it comes to text-heavy projects, taking our time with a smaller team yields a much better result than throwing as many people as possible at it. CS1, CS2, and the 3rd proved it. In a perfect world, I could go over FC and SC’s text line by line and tweak things in ways fans likely wouldn’t notice just to create further consistency, but considering I do these tweaks in my free time out of pure passion for the series, that’s gonna have to be saved for another day. I’m already very blessed to be given the opportunity to comb through older files and tweak at my leisure. Or maybe I just have a very unusual hobby.

Should you come across any issues that have cropped up unexpectedly with this update (which will be before the 3rd’s launch), please feel free to contact us. Stuff happens, things break, but we’re always willing to look into it and fix it if it’s within our power. My heart belongs to the series forever, so anything I can do if time allows it, I try. Thanks for reading this update, kids, and I hope to write more about the 3rd soon!

| Yes, this actually is in the game.

#XSEED Blog #XSEED #THE LEGEND OF HEROES #TRAILS IN THE SKY #SORA NO KISEKI #POST: BRITTANY #LONG POST

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psyga315 · 5 years

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With Volume 7 just beyond the horizon, I figured to look back at my thoughts for Volume 5 and, through more cooled down eyes, boil down why I consider it to be the worst volume of RWBY. When I wrote my review of Volume 5, it was literally the night the episode premiered, so I was boiling. But now? I’m going to look through the review with fresher eyes and clarify what sort of problems I had with RWBY. First, a bit of backstory. There was an interview made during the summer in between Volumes 4 & 5 that had the cast say what sort of themes one could expect for Volume 5. Among these were stuff like “building yourself back up again”, “shouting ‘we’re not done here!’”, “solving problems on your own”, and lastly, from Barbara herself, “Strength” and “Growth”. For someone who was just starting to realize why people were turned off by the darkness of Volume 3, this was uplifting to say the least… The Character Shorts kinda hyped the Volume, though they sunk in their own way. Weiss’s Character Short effectively foreshadowed her loss to Vernal. This tough and talented girl gets her ass stomped rather quickly and needed to be bailed out. Winter’s line about how she “won’t be around to save her” was foreshadowing to her not actually being in the season, but when I first heard it, I thought she meant “Hey, I’m going to die this volume, lol!” and that’s without bringing up how the trailer fails to hype Weiss up like the other trailers did. Blake’s Trailer was alright, especially in taking steps to address a problem regarding Menagerie, but it felt more like Ilia given the backstory dump we got that feels all the more like mandatory reading. The problem is that, and it’s perhaps the very first problem I’ve heard about RWBY, is that the trailers (and by extension, anything that’s a spin off of RWBY like World of Remnant) feel more like you need to watch this rather than you can watch this. It’s confusing, but let’s use Blake’s Short as an example.

Lastly, there’s Yang’s short, which had the minor hiccup of contrasting what an interview said about running out of Aura means you can’t use your Semblance. The Aura thing is something that can be discussed for another day, but the basics you should take away from this is that, for some time, people didn’t know how running out of Aura is symbolized. Most people take the flickering as the signal as the next hit on those guys are usually the one that does them in. As such, you had this huge debate on what kind of flickering means Aura broken and what just meant Aura is low, which, personally, could have been avoided if the writers and/or animators just utilized that Aura dust thing (seen prominently in the Bumblebee vs Adam fight) as their definitive “aura broken” animation instead of just using it some of the time. The first episode proper promised a lot. In fact, a good chunk of the first half promised a lot. However, it became much clear in a second viewing that a lot of it was just padding at worst and showing us where the characters are at best. But what I think was done dirty the most in this episode was introducing Mistral. We were hyped in Volume 4 (thanks to World of Remnant) that Mistral was this dichotomy of rich, cultural people and the seedy underbelly of criminals and that, at least one of the elements would be utilized in Volume 5. Unfortunately, all we got were a few mat paintings that contrast what Lionheart was saying in regards to Mistral being in chaos. And so, the most we get out of Mistral are those mat paintings and a perpetually raining downtown that we don’t see much of, even when it gets briefly revisited in Volume 6. We’re supposed to be invested in the city and yet all we get are empty rooms and 2D art. They took great steps to improve this in Volume 6 with Argus, though, so if there’s any consolation, it’s that they learned from their mistakes here. But we now get into the biggest problem of why Volume 5 is disliked. Because of the situation, the group are left to basically wait until Lionheart convinces the council to get them some Huntsmen. The heroes. Wait. In a volume where the writers were talking about the themes of improving yourself and pulling through with your own strength. Do you guys see the problem here? I know people have bitched about Volume 5 to hell and back and you’ve probably heard the complaints to high noon, but this entire issue is what rots Volume 5 to the core the most. Not the piss poor fight scenes, not the inconsistent characterizations, it’s that the plotting decides to take a back seat when the volume was meant to be about taking action. As the episode goes on, you see the problem unfold. Ruby and friends hit a dead end until Oscar appears and has Ozpin exposit things to them, Weiss is denied a chance to save people and fight the Grimm until the Grimm come to her, Blake is hit with the dead end of the Albains deflecting blame, and Yang had the chance encounter with Bakugou where he knows the hideout of her mom. The closest person who is taking action here is Yang, who established that she is actively looking for Ruby (technically Raven, but as we see later on, moot point). Blake’s situation is being handled by her dad, Weiss is sitting in the plane until the Grimm come for her, and Ruby is sitting on the couch that I’m pretty sure has her grooves molded into the cushion with how many times she’s sat there. A minor complaint before we go to Episode 2, we had the Stinger repeat itself because the crew thought that people wouldn’t see the stingers. This is the show, mind you, that makes a point to include scenes at the end of every volume, regardless of how long they are or what point they serve in hyping the next Volume. Hell, one of the major complaints about Volume 2 was about the stinger not mattering. So why did they suddenly decide that the viewers might not see the stinger in a culture where the MCU exists? Alright, cooling things down, we have three major scenes in Episode 2. Salem’s chat with Lionheart was meh at best and wtf at worst. I get the idea of Salem using different approaches to get people to do what she wants, but the cool aspect of Salem was that her approach was not what a villain would normally be. Instead of berating or choking her minions should they fail or talk back, Salem instead talks people down like she’s a mother to them. Even when Tyrian fails, she doesn’t hurt him, but rather tell him that he disappointed her. So, having her choke Lionheart, even when in hindsight it made some sense, is kinda an odd thing to do. But not as odd as Salem’s whole “Not you, Arthur” bit. A lot of people drew points to that and the best I can explain is that it’s either a typo (she’s meant to say not yet or not now) or Arthur and Watts are some sort of Jekyll & Hyde thing. Unfortunately, it seems Watts is more a parallel to Watson rather than Jekyll, so that brings me to believe that it’s a typo and so, rather than have an easy explanation for a problem, we just have a compounded problem. One of many. And there’s something funny to be said about Salem warning Cinder about Silver Eyes when Ruby barely learns about it this Volume. And also that she wants to speak with Tyrian but we never see what comes of it. At all. I only have one new thing about Weiss vs. the Bees. Originally, the pilot was supposed to be gay, but held off on it because they’d be killing off their first revealed gay character, something that wouldn’t look good to the fanbase. Now, while I understand the reason behind it, I have to question the logic behind why they think it isn’t okay for their first LGBT character to be offed, but instead be someone who seemed okay with murdering her crush’s parents while sending said crush to her abuser. But more on that later, we have Sienna to discuss. Now, there’s a lot to dissect. For one, RT has obviously realized that they’ve messed up and brought Sienna back for a bit (while taking the heat for “if she’s so badass, why did she go out like a chump”). However, in hindsight, what purpose did she actually serve outside of some cute nod to Shere Khan? All she did was tell Adam that he’s going too far and that’s it. And really, it just seems hypocritical for the leader of the White Fang to effectively restructure the organization into a terrorist group, murder tons of people, and then suddenly back away and say “woah, too much” when Adam proceeded to help torch Beacon. It’s to the point where one question most people want to ask at cons is “did Sienna order the hit out on the SDC”, since we don’t actually know and that it could be a radical leader of that quadrant like Adam. It felt more like Sienna should have been just the leader of Mistral’s White Fang faction instead of ruling over all the White Fang, which would make more sense as Adam would need permission to attack a kingdom that isn’t his stomping ground. Then there’s the introduction of Hazel, who at first is presented to be a pretty decent character, not wanting to kill people if he had no choice, but as time goes on, is basically your stock “big soft guy with a secret hulk side” character. Unfortunately, this episode didn’t help enforce the theme of taking action when it’s the villains who are doing it and seeming to be two if not twenty steps ahead of the heroes. Episode 3 has that whole speech thing I overlooked. Barring Ghira’s speech that the crew said is based off Obama’s “we killed Osama” speech (which, if it is, paints the whole situation of Sienna’s death in a rather dark light) before Ilia interferes. Now, I actually liked that Menagerie is hesitant to stand up for Haven. After all, humans hated their guts so much that the island was originally planned to be a place where people could dump Faunus on. There were lynchings and enslavements that are still going on to this day, just in subtler forms, Of course the Faunus wouldn’t want to fight. Then Ilia swoops in and robs Blake of any agency she has with the scene. If RT wanted to not let Blake convince the people until three quarters to the end, they should have cut the subtlety and have some annoying kid go “IT’S TOO EARLY IN THE PLOT TO DO YOUR SPEECH!”. Hell, let Blake tell her story about her team, but the audience balks at the fact that she’s not only friends with a Schnee, but also a human who crippled a guy on live television. Remember that plot point? We then cut to Oscar and this is perhaps the reason I decided to do this revisit of Volume 5. The way Ozpin talks of action and resolve, it felt like we’re going to the root of the themes of taking action. No more being subject to the events of the plot like in previous Volumes. Now? Now is the time to fight back! And that built up to… what? One training scene and Ruby learning headbutt? Granted, we see later on that there was a bit more to the plan, but for the most part, it seemed like an excuse for “character growth” as opposed to actual character growth. A training arc isn’t just some short scenes of a person lifting weights and jogging up stairs. Its meant to be a sort of means of growth for the character. There’s a reason most training montages have the character suck at first, but then get better by the time the montage ends. It’s because it’s the quickest way to show growth. But even without that, you could get some serious mileage for a pulled off training arc. Rocky IV and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back have some good examples of it. Rocky IV had the titular hero train and work out in the middle of a cold, mountainous range, while his opponent is simply given steroids. It shows the dichotomy between the two and how they view their eventual fight. Empire, on the other hand, had that masterful scene with Luke in the cave, where he has a huge moment of both foreshadowing and character growth. Here? We just have Ruby learn headbutt like she’s nothing more than a Pokemon. There could have been a lot more done with it, like having Ruby put a lot more force in her punches, causing others to realize she’s extremely angry about what happened to Pyrrha and Penny, or, if the need to exposit about Semblances is needed, bring something new to the table that isn’t going to confuse the fuck out of people… Something like: “Your Semblance might not reveal itself until you need it most” or something like that. Not “A semblance is someone’s personality, but not. Wow! Exposition!” or “Hey, remember how we said Aura was passive? Welp, not anymore!” Not to mention that Jaune is seemingly cool with Ozpin suddenly coming back from the dead. Here’s the thing, last Volume had him upset with Ozpin about what happened to Pyrrha, something that didn’t seemed to resolve itself. Keep in mind that, for all rights and merits, Jaune believed Ozpin to have died. In fact, it was that confirmation that Ozpin had lost against Cinder that convinced Pyrrha to kill herself. Now here he is, seemingly stuck in the body of another kid and he just outright said this is a normal thing for him. You’d expect him to have something more than “golly!”. The fact that he didn’t seem to have any aggression towards Ozpin until after he ran to his hidey hole in Volume 6 seems rather odd given that his entire character is that he’s angsting about Pyrrha and angry at Cinder for what she did. The group seem rather content to just sit back and let the plot happen, which is the opposite of what the crew was trying to convey with their themes. I still stand by what I said regarding how Episode 4 was a good episode, finally having a reunion between two members of Team RWBY, but it’s perhaps one of the last good things about RWBY we’ll ever see in Volume 5. Because Raven’s promise to tell Yang “the whole truth” turns out to just be regurgitated exposition at worst. But first, we need to have Blake, the woman who doesn’t want her race to be labeled, turn out to have labels for her friends. Okay, granted, it’s not that dumb but it is kinda patronizing that we need to have a character tell us what another character is. While the rest of her speech is pretty effective in defining Blake’s character, making her perhaps the only character these themes of growth and strength actually apply to, it still is annoying that the most we take away out of this is her boiling down every character to a single word, then bringing up how Adam is going to ruin everything for the Faunus. You’ll see why this is a problem later. I liked the setting of Menagerie’s Shallow Sea marketplace thing and felt like Menagerie is wasted potential. Ruby’s whole speech still feels like damage control, but with the added complaint of Ruby deciding to blame Salem for something Cinder did. Now, I heard the common excuse a lot: “Salem told Cinder to do it so it’s all her fault”, but that problem with that? Cinder told Emerald to kill Penny. So… Yeah. It is her fault. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded this if Ruby didn’t word it like Salem personally killed Penny and Pyrrha. Like as in, she just up and appeared out of nowhere and shot both Penny and Pyrrha in the head. It still doesn’t fix the fact that Ruby is basically “hey, remember how I’m supposed to be upset?” Lastly for Episode 5, we have the White Fang do the brilliant plant of murdering the chieftain who just spoke out against them. It’s dumb. Extremely dumb. What the hell do they think will happen after they murder the chieftain in cold blood? Menagerie is just gonna magically bend over and obey the White Fang? But perhaps the biggest waste is the White Fang in general. You have these two sneaky fox brothers who seemingly oversee everything and even state that they’re only letting Adam do what he wants until he’s no longer of use to them, a buff bat dude, and a spider-lady… And they’re never seen again after this Volume. I get the idea, because RT is trying to wrap up the Faunus subplot as quickly as possible, but the problem that you can’t exactly introduce new characters or hidden depths if you’re just gonna throw them out with the bath water. If they wanted to end the subplot, why did they put all the effort in some random characters that are just gonna be defeated off screen with a tea tray? Then again, this is a problem endemic to RWBY. Introduce this character, then quickly shoo them away before you’re committed to writing a plot for them. If you know you were going to half-ass the White Fang conclusion, why bother with stuff like more White Fang members or the SDC brand? In fact, why bother with the White Fang to begin with if you’re going to do so little with them? Moving on before I lose my cool, we have Qrow aimlessly walking around downtown Mistral. Now, the crew said that Maria was supposed to be here… But… Why? What purpose would she serve? If she’s just gonna be a “hey, look, cameo to foreshadow Volume 6”, then that’s a horrible purpose. You know how most Cinematic Universes tanked because they spent more time hyping the next twenty movies when they should focus on their pilot? That’s what she would have been like. Not to mention that she would have been caught in the crossfire of why Volume 5 was bad. “So here we have this random old lady who doesn’t matter at all to the plot so why is she even there” and then “Oh wow, she’s a SEW. They’re doing damage control to justify her unneeded presence in Volume 5”. And, don’t get me wrong, Maria is a fun lady and all that, but there needs to be a reason she was there beyond “hype for next Volume”. What makes the problem worse was that they’re planning to include Maria so as to have a sort of Yoda to teach Ruby. This makes the complaint of “why didn’t Ruby ask about the Silver Eyes” even more of a complaint because now it seems like they decided “hey, we’re going to address it next volume, so let’s not bother bringing it up here”. Which is even worse than “hey, people noticed we didn’t address this so let’s completely invent this character for the sole purpose of addressing it!” And then there’s Raven who is all “lol, I know more than you realize but I’m not actually gonna answer anything trolololololol” AARHG! Okay. Okay. Before I completely lose my marbles, there’s one thing about the scene with Raven that’s stupid. It’s the “there’s no such thing as magic” thing. Okay. I get it. Turning into a bird is something that, in the world of RWBY, seems impossible. But there’s a ton of problems with this: 1. What makes summoning dead Grimm to fight for you so much more different than magic? 2. You’re willing to believe in magic rocks that augment your fighting style and are in fact part of a company that profits off magic rocks, yet turning into a bird is the messed up thing? 3. The guy who gave her this ability is currently inhabiting the body of a young boy and has said to basically devour his soul in due time, as well as create the magic that’s responsible for torching your school and your friend… And the BIRD is the most messed up thing!? “But Raven made it sound like she was forced into it”. She didn’t seem to have any fucking problem with it though. Not only that, but it didn’t seem like a big dark secret that Ozpin wouldn’t want uncovered. In fact, he even said he gave Qrow and Raven the ability to turn into birds in an amused way. Even more so when everyone but Yang seemed to respond to it with disbelief rather than outright anger. There’s a reason this whole bird issue was made fun of in Jello’s “So This is Basically RWBY” video. Also, before we move onto Episode 7, I wanna bring up that the scene where Qrow visits the Shields is perhaps the reason why I hold Ozpin’s censorship of Lionheart’s role in the Battle of Haven to be one of the most scumbag moves he could have made. “Your mom’s dead, but don’t worry, the guy who sold her out is a hero!” Right, back to Episode 7. Okay, I’ll admit, it was a nice reunion scene all things considered, albeit with some rather unnerving things like Yang asking Weiss if she let the Boarbatusk skewer the trophy wife or even the dumb, patronizing “we haven’t made character arcs for us to go through so I’ll just say we had some”, since they had the great idea to use Ren, who is voiced by Monty’s brother, as the mouthpiece for that. Unfortunately, this is the episode I always think back to when I think of Volume 5. The perfect epitome of a slow, monotonous Volume. The problem I have is that, yeah, it’s meant to be this breather episode, a calm before the storm, but this just feels like a long lull that’s made even more insulting with the cliffhanger. All it has is people dumping exposition that viewers have either figured out or weren’t even burning questions and I think the awkward silence that followed Ozpin saying how he was the wizard that gave the Maidens his power is the perfect epitome for just how boring the volume is. The dude just revealed a massive plot twist and it’s treated as nothing more than a “did you know” factoid. While I liked how they addressed that Blake leaving Yang would have had some serious negative emotions in Yang, it felt rather half-assed that they basically resolved it with “hey, my mom’s drunk, so shut up and accept Blake the moment she comes back”, especially since it comes from Weiss, who told Blake at the end of Volume 1 that if she ever runs away again, she best let RWBY know. If they wanted to ship Bumblebee so badly, this would have been a great hurdle for them to come across instead of just “hey, let me resolve this plot for you”. Now, the whole thing with Ilia… Let’s get the elephant out of the way. The way they revealed her sexuality, I feel, could have been done better. “You wanna know why I’m gonna kill your parents and bring you to your abuser? Because I wanted you to look at me like a lover!” There’s a reason why some fans label her as a “psycho lesbian”. However, I want to bring up that Rooster Teeth did an excellent job at building tension during the climax of the Menagerie Arc. Sure, the cliffhangers were tiresome, but you couldn’t help but admit you were at the edge of your seat and it even did a good job at subversion. Even if they allegedly didn’t even intend for it to happen. The constant dryness of exposition and dialogue exchanges is what made Episode 10 so much better than the other episodes. Not just because it’s action-orientated, but because it finally tries to get back to the themes that it was originally supposed to tell. Throughout the entirety of the middle portion of Volume 5, the group basically took a backseat and allowed characters and plots to happen to them rather than advocate for themselves. The closest thing we got to the theme of “building yourself back up” is Weiss talking to Yang about Blake. In fact, the only actual characters taking action are the villains. Constantly roadblocking the cast, setting them in for a trap, and even aiming to screw each other over. These guys have more advocacy and agency than the main characters. The most any of them did was… 1. Burn down their own house and blamed everyone else for it, all while saying that the house is the message Adam wants to send. 2. Use a girl’s unrequited feelings towards them to their advantage, straddle them, and guilt tripped her enough for her to consider switching sides. 3. Cry about how things are not going their way until their hands start magically glowing. 4. Yelling at someone until they cry bitch tears and then have them run away without even bothering to close the door leading to the dangerous artifact everyone had been working so hard to keep out of enemy hands. In the volume where the theme is “solving problems on our own”. Just because Yang drops the word strength a few times when bitching out at Raven doesn’t mean that the theme had been accomplished. In fact, they do nothing of their own accord and just follow a script. Even Ozpin, the supposed smartest guy in all of Remnant, doesn’t even bother to figure out a way to counter the trap. Just instead walk in. Hell, if Yang didn’t spot Raven, they’d be mulched. But, back on track. Episode 9 was an entire waste that failed to pay off the expectations of what we had with the cliffhanger set up in Episode 7. “But it subverted your ex-” NO. There’s a good way to subvert expectations and being promised a fight after episodes of bland exposition only to have it be “lol, no, it’s just gonna be more talking” is not a good subversion. No. Here’s a better way. Set up the cliffhanger like normal, but don’t show Cinder’s dragged out negotiation with Raven. Instead, have her “allying” with Cinder be a twist. That way, people’s expectations for what happened are actually, you know, subverted? But, you know where this is leading to… The Battle of Haven. Really, I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t been covered by someone else. We all know it makes all the Vytal fights look like masterpieces by comparison, we all know the jokes about useless Weiss or Lionheart hogging the staircase, or even the plot holes of Raven knowing Cinder’s arm being Grimm but doing nothing about it or Blake, despite spending the past volume saying how Adam must be stopped, suddenly doesn’t care about him… So let me cut it simply: The reason this battle sucks might have to do with the crunch. We don’t know how long this issue with Rooster Teeth had been going on for, but if it is indeed what people say it is and that animators don’t get paid for the last quarter or third of their work, then that might explain all the cut corners animators and writers made. Why the fights are broken up into one on ones or why fights are cut out entirely. Maybe they weren’t getting paid enough and thus, the quality of RWBY suffered as a result of it. And that’s perhaps the shittiest thing about the Battle of Haven. It could have been this epic fight that would have made up for all the boring, drawn out scenes of exposition and chatting, but because Rooster Teeth got too greedy or even because of our own impatience (which, again, isn’t helped by the aforementioned long, drawn out scenes), we are treated to a final battle so broken and tiresome that the Battle of Winterfell manages to be a better final battle, with the only thing holding it back being that Haven had a better identity twist. And if, for whatever reason, it isn’t due to crunch issues, then we have another problem. This was meant to be this hyped up rematch between the heroes and villains, who haven’t seen each other since the latter ruined the lives of the former. This would have been excellent to see how the killers of Jaune and Ruby’s friends would interact with them, how Yang would react to the person who framed her, even how the group had grown since their last battle… But… if crunch wasn’t to blame for the quality dip and the writers intended for the fight to go the way it went… I have to say… What the fuck were they thinking!? So many moments could have been brought up here and yet they decided that they weren’t important enough to focus on! And now, with this battle over and done with, those moments lost their luster. If they decide to bring them up, it’d be too little, too late at best and “why the fuck are you bringing this up now” at worst. I’ll deal with one commonly used example to get what I mean. Adam was established in Volume 3 to be a threat only made strong because he uses Blake’s emotions against her and has a Semblance that lets him dish out aura-breaking damage. Blake easily defeats Adam and has him on the ropes, only to let him run with a few excuses that some people have debated to death and back, when it would have been much easier for Blake to have to choose between apprehending Adam and helping Yang. Then, when he inevitably returns to haunt Blake next volume, suddenly he’s a threat that Blake is afraid of again despite Blake having “grown” to oppose him. They wanted that “triumph” over him, but realize that by doing so, they’ve burned that opportunity to have the triumph be meaningful. Same goes with Emerald and Mercury. They had a good opportunity for Ruby to effectively call them out for their crimes like how Jaune did to Cinder, but instead she just headbutts Mercury. Yang had at least some closure on her arc with Mercury, but it was meh. Hell, speaking of wasted opportunities, the reunion of Team RWBY, something that the opening had hyped and one that the fans had been waiting for since Volume 3 ended, is nothing more than an afterthought. They couldn’t even be assed to show Blake’s first fight back with Ruby and Weiss. That’s how little they cared. It’s like everyone was just wanting to get that paycheck but they needed to rush that final episode out the door and also need to make room for Gen:Lock and Nomad trailers. They didn’t even care about the stinger, as they basically ignored any sort of information relating to the stinger. Perhaps the biggest reason why Volume 5 sucked so hard was that it was running off the heels of Volume 3. Everyone basically accepted that Volume 4 was meant to be a breather Volume, with lower stakes and lower drama (with the exception of possible death flags for Ren and Nora), but the moment they made Volume 5 the grudge match everyone wanted, then the stakes got raised back to the heights of the third Volume, only for it to fail to live up to the expectations. Sorry, I think I mean to say “subvert the expectations” in this day and age. Though, I think the huge problem with all of this, and perhaps the biggest bottom line I can say, is that it might be due to Volume 3 going too over the edge. By killing important characters and even dividing the team, the villains had raised stakes up so high, that people began to take the show more seriously. When characters were vaguely hinted to die, be it through threats from the villains or even flashbacks, people fretted that they would die. When the villains go back to striking distance with the heroes, people desired a grand battle. When the show tried to deal with the ramifications that happened with RWBY separating, people wanted to know what was going through the characters’ heads. And when Volume 5 failed to deliver/“subverted their expectations”, people considered it a bad volume. But worst of all, it failed to live up to its own themes. Jaune was the only person to build himself back up again through deus ex hands, and we saw next Volume that it needed a statue for him to feel better. No one was in a position of giving up only to be defiant and shout “we’re not done here”, but instead cry “it wasn’t supposed to be like this!”. The big problem of Volume 5, make sure the relic is secure, is only solved because two characters had a catfight in the basement and the survivor didn’t bother to lock up because their daughter was too busy bitching at her. No one really grew or strengthened their resolve. The triumph… wasn’t theirs to have. Although, it seems Rooster Teeth had learned from their mistakes, with Volume 6 being leaps and bounds better than Volume 5, regardless of what you thought of the latter half. Best of all, the themes promised in Volume 5 were shown prominently in Volume 6, albeit some of the scenes capitalizing on those themes feeling more like a child is having a tantrum because they couldn’t have the airplane. To close out this rather long winded discussion, and to give people a tl;dr on the whole matter, Volume 5 failed to address the themes it had presented and instead just padded itself out, expecting people to accept it because it’s RWBY.

#RWBY #RWDE #CRTQ

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