YEAAAA BOIIIII

Dire Crowley SSR ✨

Oh Theodore looks AWESOME, even in 2D!

A bonus of getting a Crowley card is that we can finally get him to actually do his job as headmaster!

Can't help us save Riddle because you're evacuating the students? I don't think so, you're literally on the team!

We have to investigate Scarabia while you're on vacation? What do you mean, you're coming along with us to solve that mess!

The students have to deal with the whole "Fairy Gala" thing by themselves? But you're RIGHT HERE in case we have to fight something!

We can even have him save his son and meet his dead wife in Lillia's dream!

Just Crowley having to actually help the Prefect, even if it's just because his card is on the team.

RWBY BEYOND EP2

Do you ever feel life is laughing behind your back

banana boy forever

Spoilers ahead

So, very interesting episode Firstly the lose end,Alex was from vacuo pre war as many suspected.

Then the merge of Oz and Oscar, many people will be scared by how "quickly" Oscar has merged but remember it has been a good few months by the time RWBY&J get back to vacuo and we don't know when this little chat is happening.

I wonder if Jaunes journal will become significant later, perhaps he'll get inspired by it and know how to trap Salem or something

But I am enjoying it, it brought a tear when JNPR where at that campfire and the art style is still amazing.

I'm probably going to do a terrible job of articulating myself here but every time I think about the worldbuilding in Hatoful Boyfriend, I think about the implications of having the birds simply have adopted the structure and policies of human society and go insane.

It's clearly originally just for the ridiculousness of it all for the players, but AGH it explains so much regarding the extremely rampant classism/racism/speciesism and how apparently normalized it is. It also, to me, adds a bit of moral nuance to the Dove - Hawk Party conflict.

(Long post under the cut. I'm so sorry I just kept going.)

First off, I'm obsessed with the concept of the birds becoming sapient and simply... taking over a society that was not structured for them. It leads to difficulties in universe! Bird wings are not made for doing tasks that human hands can do naturally - there's a couple instances where the characters ask for Hiyoko's assistance or express envy since she can just do the task more easily than they can. The birds are outright disadvantaged in certain areas of life, and yet, the society is in such turmoil due to the newness of it all that there still aren't really any workarounds for stuff like this.

Not that there haven't been any suggested solutions, such as the Labor 9 series, put forward initially by the Dove Party. Yeah, you know, that one throwaway line about how the party that up until this point have been the "good guys" wanted to take still semi-conscious human brains and make robotic slaves out of them Cyberman-style? What the hell. And what gets me is that Shuu was able to find the initial proposal, which he really only made tweaks to, which means that the project was at least close to being finished on the conceptual/planning/design phase before somebody went "hey this is a little fucked up actually".

The Dove Party wants peaceful coexistence with the humans, while the Hawk Party wants to eliminate humanity entirely. But we don't really go into how these two lines of thought evolved. I believe I have a suggestion for at least one part of the puzzle though.

Of all the birds in Hatoful, who enjoys the most privileges and the highest status? Fantails, it would seem. A breed of pigeon that is popular as a pet, considered beautiful and sought after, and achieve high accolades in shows and competitions - for clarity's sake, fantails were valuable in human society, and this status appears to have transferred when birds became sapient and took over. Conversely, which birds are ranked lower and often blocked from entering certain higher class places? Rock doves, who, in human society, are given an unfairly bad reputation, and considered anything from unclean and dirty, to nuisances, to pests. Again, this status transferred over when the birds took over.

So, while we don't know too many of the birds who make up the agents of the Dove and Hawk Party, let's take a look at who we do know of.

Fantails (Yuuya, Dove Party) are considered valuable over other doves and pigeons for being specially bred for their striking tail feathers

Cockatiels (Leone, Dove Party) are some of the most popular and beloved companion birds, kept as pets and considered very friendly

Rock doves (Ryuuji, Hawk Party) are considered unclean pests who receive a bad reputation, and are generally not treated with respect or appreciation <;- notable thing to mention here is that Ryuuji actually does like humans - I think he was only Hawk affiliated for the grant money and research facilities, which... fair enough man.

Chukar partridges (Shuu/Isa, Hawk Party) are game birds, specifically bred and released to be killed and eaten, and considered a delicacy

...do you... see what's going on here?

(I haven't mentioned Tohri as he's a special case. Give me a minute and I'll get to him!)

The birds we see in the Dove Party are those birds that were already viewed in a more favourable light by humans, a favourability that transferred over to their new society. Of course they are more likely to advocate for coexistence! They have less to lose, overall. And the Labor 9 series, and how that could've ever been suggested in the first place, suddenly makes a lot of sense. For many of these birds, society the way it exists now benefits them. Some of these high ranking Dove Party folks may be less about actual peace and justice (like Yuuya or Leone) and more about maintaining the current order of things - humans coexisting under their control, while they get to maintain their status... which is itself a product of human invention.

The birds we see in the Hawk Party, by contrast, are looked down on or hunted. Historically, even before bird sapience, they did not have a harmonious relation with humans - and it's likely this status carried over to their new society also, with many of these birds being more likely to have been disenfranchised. Their goal of elimination is therefore reactionary towards perceived threat. After all, the people who suffer when things go wrong aren't the ones at the top - it's all the people who sit at the bottom of the social rung; the vulnerable members of society who do not enjoy the same advantages as others.

Of course, the Hawk Party has built itself up into such a powerful group that they may have lost touch with this starting foundation - the only thing that remains is likely that reactionary fear. After all, people caught up in the actual conflict - Nageki, Hitori, Ryouta, and Hiyoko - see this kind of horrible bloodshed firsthand (firstwing?) and just want it to stop.

Again, it's not usually the people in these political factions who are the ones caught up in their conflict. It's the individuals who lack power or influence.

But that's just the political groups themselves. On an individual level, it's kind of interesting to look at and theorize where along the spectrum our core cast falls based on their species/breed.

Ryouta (rock dove) is actually rather indifferent towards humanity as a whole - he just likes Hiyoko. However, his witnessing of the Heartful House tragedy led him to abhor violence and unnecessary loss of life, and I'd imagine his mother's later illness solidified this. Ryouta doesn't seem overly interested in political struggles or the broader implications of a lot of things - he's actually a rather self-oriented character when it comes down to it (this is not a judgment, nor a bad thing! I love my boy!). Ryouta just doesn't want to lose people, really. A conflict would mean more loss, and rock doves seem to have to struggle enough as is.

Hiyoko (human) is the daughter of two diplomats, but interestingly, we don't get to see much of her political views on things - perhaps because even if she expressed them, it wouldn't really matter - she's not herself a diplomat, and humans are the lowest of the low - her going to a fancy school doesn't really change that. Social-wise, except with her friends, she is tolerated, not accepted. Yet, it's safe to say that Hiyoko strongly disapproves of people who flaunt their status - she's quick to not take crap from Sakuya, to get angry on behalf of Ryouta and herself over the gull clerk's assholery, and also to defend Miru and Kaku as living beings worthy of respect. Interestingly though, she also uses Okosan's status as a fantail to get Ryouta to let go of him and let him do whatever he wants so... it's kind of unclear what her firm beliefs are. Perhaps, as a human, she still values fantails more highly. I don't know honestly. Implicit bias?

Sakuya, Yuuya and Okosan (fantail pigeons) may share the same breed, but their experiences are highly different. Sakuya is largely separate from the human-bird conflict, as he is unlikely to be directly affected by it. As such, a lot of his story and development has to do with actually learning and un-learning about the world outside of the limitations of his "father's" classist views, which he simply mimics without understanding the larger implications. Yuuya and Okosan, on the other hand, may be fantails, but are also looked down on and often treated as inferior - Yuuya for being a "half-breed" and for his reputation, and Okosan for being closer to feral than a lot of other doves. Interestingly, these two show more interest and respect for the individual than Sakuya does, who often makes sweeping generalizations based on status - which makes sense to a degree, as they've been on the receiving end of this kind of treatment, whereas Sakuya hasn't. Okosan believes that each person has their own "wonderful names" (read: identity outside of breed or status), while Yuuya is a genuine fighter for justice who is able to get to the heart of people, especially in Holiday Star. However, even though they have experienced classism, they still have certain privileges with regards to species/race - take Okosan's shock when Hiyoko and Ryouta are barred entry from his favourite store. None of them are quite as out of place in everyday society as some of the other birds here, and it's notable that "diverse" St. Pigeonations still apparently has a significant fantail student population.

Shuu (chukar partridge) is really interesting, as he doesn't particularly care for the politics of the Hawk Party, and yet his role as a killer/hunter of both his fellow birds and humans is an interesting reversal of the chukar being a game bird. Shuu also has a disability (his semi-paralyzed right side) which hinders him in bird society even more than most. His extreme, yet coldly logical solution to kill all humans to stop the fighting between them, could be as much his rationality, as his joy in the sadistic, as a reactionary survivalism (remember he was caught up in a human terrorist attack as a child - while overall he considered this beneficial to him, he also did lose much of his colour vision and the use of his right side, so it did leave him weakened). Shuu attains control by "flipping the script" as it were.

Tohri (golden pheasant) starts out in the Hawk Party, but much like his colleagues, doesn't seem to care much for their politics. Golden pheasants are game birds whose eggs can be eaten, but are more often bred and kept for their plumage - they're not prey, but they're not exactly pets either. All this puts Tohri in this interesting position of being somewhat in the middle of this conflict, and indeed he goes on to be a part of (found?) the Crow Party - an opportunistic group that seeks to benefit from the overall conflict. Golden pheasants are birds intended to be admired for their beauty and intelligence more than anything else, benefitting in some ways from humans without a strong connection or a reliance, and Tohri's opportunism fits nicely with that. (As an aside, our sole crow character, Albert, is also something of an opportunist, being an assassin on the fringes of society.)

Hitori and Kazuaki (button quails) are somewhat interesting. It would be both expected and understandable if Hitori held hatred for humanity after the Heartful House incident, or even before then, considering they were all war orphans. Instead, he doesn't seem to harbour any particular ill-will - he seems totally fine around Hiyoko, and her being a human has nothing to do with his reticence with letting Nageki hang out with her in the shrine universe. Kazuaki, too, doesn't seem to mind Hiyoko being human and isn't afraid of her any more than he is anyone else. While quails are game birds, with both meat and eggs being eaten, button quails are too tiny for that and are mostly kept as pets - they are considered cute, silly, and entertaining, though a bit too jumpy to be outright companion birds. The quails don't seem to experience too much in the way of speciesism (except arguably with the whole mistaken identity of Kazuaki's corpse... there may be a bit of an "all quails look the same" thing going on perhaps). At the very least, they are able to occupy teaching positions at a renowned school as respected intellectuals, and did go to university. Still, it's kind of a known thing that you don't put button quails with bigger, more dominant birds, since larger birds will often pick on them or even outright try to kill them simply because they're small and shy - this may, in hindsight, explain some of Kazuaki's demeanour.

Nageki (mourning dove) and Anghel (luzon bleeding heart dove) are the two who are uncommon bird species in Japan. Nageki is another war orphan, who would be forgiven for harbouring resentment for humanity, but instead is appalled at the violence and made a huge sacrifice to get it to stop. It's kind of unclear how Nageki fits into this society, as mourning doves are not prey or pets - they're wild birds. They live on the outside of the human world, and while Nageki exists within current bird society, he likely doesn't have a designated status within it. Nageki is unfortunately also alienated from much of the action due to his illness and later his untimely death - this is why a lot of Nageki's thoughts are somewhat from an observer's perspective, with his most emotional moments being derived from his rare direct experiences - specifically the Heartful House tragedy and the human killings he was forced into, which solidified a really firm stance of not wanting anyone to suffer like that. Anghel is another outsider, this time genuinely a foreigner, as opposed to Nageki. Again, Luzons are wild birds, not prey or pets, and so it's a bit unclear what his status is. This might explain why Hiyoko repeats Sakuya's remarks towards him without apparently realizing they're actually insults - Anghel is removed enough from the conflict she is familiar with that it seems she doesn't quite... get it. Again, Anghel's role is as this strange kind of omniscient observer, whose perspective is closer to the player's than to the rest of the cast. He definitely frowns on the Hawk Party's overall goal - the Demon Spores are evil to him, and his main objective is to stop them from spreading, as they would cause damage to both birds and humans. I attribute his morals to his mother having raised him right lol. The lack of a clear status for both of them may be why they appear to take the stance of judgment based on individual actions, but are not heavily involved in the conflict itself - while humans tend to like mourning doves and luzons, there isn't much interaction that goes on between them. Nageki and Anghel are simply less embroiled in bird society's human-derived status conflict, which makes them both outsiders and observers.

As a bonus note, Azami, Rabu and Kenzaburou are all species of birds that can be kept as pets (java sparrow, budgie, parakeet), which may account for some of their friendliness towards Hiyoko, and Kenzaburou's willingness to hire her. Kenzaburou is even a bit old-fashioned it seems - he sleeps in a cage, which implies his ancestors were probably pet birds themselves. It's likely he, in particular, has more positive views on humans.

...Please tell me I'm not the only one who spent ages thinking about the implications and workings of a fictional post-apocalyptic bird society. Also I hope this made sense I kind of went off the rails here.

Decided to do my other two favs from RWBY: Before The Dawn 🌟

Theodore and Rumpole truly give off platonic life partner vibes 🤭🧡

When Odasaku said "There is no forgiveness in this world. Only retribution" in Emo!Atsushi's voice.....

What for? And WHY?

Sir, this is a Wendy’s.

Art by @seshirukun Their blog seems to be inactive, so here’s a link to their Instagram page

The most tragically ironic thing about Ironwood's fall is that Salem likely had very little to do with it, at least originally.

His panic-induced breakdown is triggered by Cinder leaving the Black Queen on his desk - but Cinder was still a rogue agent at this point. She hadn't rejoined with Salem's forces after her near-death at the hands of Raven in V5. Her plan was to throw Ironwood into a panic, because she knew he would immediately respond by sending Winter to guard the Winter Maiden - and in so doing, leader Cinder right to her.

Cinder is acting completely on her own here - nothing she does is at Salem's orders. The only reason Salem is able to jump into this scene is because Watts' bag - which Ironwood recovered after he defeated the rogue scientist - had a Seer in it, so he could stay in contact with Salem while he was in Atlas. When the Seer bursts open and Salem appears, she is quick to push on Ironwood's fears - but we're never given a reason to believe she specifically planned for this interaction to happen. She's extremely good at improvising on the spot, but that's because she's had thousands of years to learn how to play off of people's fears. The alternative is to believe that she intended for Watts to be captured just so she could get a Seer in his office, which just seems too convoluted to be true. Especially considering that Cinder's actions proved how easy it would have been to sneak the handbag into the office without having to lose one of her top agents in the process.

In his state of panic, Ironwood ultimately out-thinks himself. He assumes his enemies are more coordinated and prepared than they actually are. He convinces himself that by protecting Mantle, he was playing right into Salem's hands - opening himself up to sleeper agents, tiring his forces thin trying to defend the citizens of Mantle, etc. But Salem never had any plans to capitalize on this. Her only plan was to send Watts and Tyrian to cause panic and fear in preparation for her arrival. If Ironwood had been more sound of mind at this point, he would have realized that going through with the evacuation made the most sense tactically. Concentrating his population in one area would have meant less ground for his forces to defend during the impending Siege of Atlas.

There were no sleeper agents hiding in the populace of Mantel - but it didn't matter. Ironwood saw threats everywhere he looked, and he let his fears blind him from reality. He tried out-think Salem, plan for every possible scheme she might devise, and in so doing did her work for her. She didn't have to concoct elaborate plans - all she had to do was apply some pressure, and let humanity destroy itself. Just like she always has.

In the end, the Tin Man was unable to find a heart - just like the Cowardly Lion was unable to find his courage.

can you imagine they're having official, super important, no one else allowed meetings that include oscar (ozpin), theodore, three maidens. . .

and qrow.

Bungou stray dogs Beast except after Dazai explais everything, he looks at Atsushi's tear stained face.

And says "I can't order you, so take these words as not orders from your boss. But the advice of your mentor."

Dazai looks around at the destruction around him. "Outside, their are monsters that make me appear like a tiny ant. And you will face them, out there someday."

He smiles.

"When that time comes, hate me Atsushi. Hate me with all your heart and soul. Curse me to every hellish plain of existence if you must."

He looks at Atsushi, his smile soft. "But never, never hate yourself."

Why is nobody talking about this??!?

having a lot of emotions over anti-authority anti-establishment disabled dropout edalyn "the owl lady" clawthorne, the boiling isles' most wanted, famously arrested and almost petrified for the crime of practicing wild magic, growing up to be the founder and headmaster of the university of wild magic. like. sorry im genuinely going to cry

RWBY BEYOND! EP1!

Spoilers ahead go watch for free on

So first look at Theodore and a likely the summer maiden in just 1 episode!

Wow...I'm actually a little cautious about that much in 3 minutes, I'm worried that RB is trying to rush out lore and try to catch some loose threads out of fear there won't be a V10, which might make V10 harder to pace should it ever happen, I understand the theory Im just a little apprehensive about it.

But yeah this was a great first episode, hearing Neptune and Sun again is really nice and I love the art style, it's more different to world of remnant than I thought and I love it, plus that team rocket reference at the end was great

Can't wait for more

extremely funny that even after everything, guel did not learn jack shit from his experiences on earth and is trying to rebuild his dad’s war profiteering company like, this man learned nothing!!!!