#episode 7 made me fall for this ship | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

After the announcement of the deal with Yahoo!, there were 170K signatures of unhappy Tumblr users petitioning to prevent the sale in 2013.

#episode 7 made me fall for this ship

ciaonicole85 · 1 month

Text

ESCAPING INTO A SHIP

So what exactly made me latch onto the Sydcarmy ship like a leech on a water buffalo?

It was unexpected (for me)! Yes, the very first meeting between Syd and Carm did make an impact. I thought "Oooh, what's this?!" However, Carmy was/is such a mess that I quickly dismissed it. And Sydney just seemed to want his professional approval and a partner in making something great after the soul-crushing failure of Sheridan. So, the first season I personally didn't feel a mutual sexual/romantic tension, more like an automatic respect and shared goals/passions. Sydney nor Carm were obviously trying to flirt. Most slow burns on TV are 100% obvious like a Jeanine and Gregory (Abbott Elementary), Nick and Jess (New Girl), Jake and Amy (Brooklyn 99), Jim and Pam (The Office)...Until Braciole Ep. 8 that is.

S. 1 Episode 8- I won't get into everything but Carmy was desolate. Yes, he became a psycho chef and two people quit in Ep.7. However, he mourned Sydney more than Marcus. She was in his flashback/nightmare (?), then the way he told Tina that she looked like Syd (the poor pup), him texting her before opening the note from Mikey, and finally the most gorgeous locked gaze scene since Pride and Prejudice (2005). The soft lighting, the music, the colors, the mind-reading...magical. I still didn't get it initially. Silly, blind me.

Mentorship where??? Season 2 Carm and Syd's "mentorship" dynamic is pretty much over. They are true partners and spending more time together. They're dressing alike even when not in uniform, finishing each other's sentences or talking in unison. Sydney is opening up more of herself and Carm is asking to know more. They use the ASL sign for sorry with each other and no one else until ep 10. Then there's that locker scene in ep. 1 or 2, when they almost hang out just cause. However, Carmy misses the moment and there's the return of the kicked pup face. Before being on the ship I was delighted with all of their scenes and was looking forward to the food tour. They just ROCK together on screen.

Classic Love Triangle- Who's Claire? She's "Claire Bear", the prototypical "cool girl", who is willing to chase an socially awkward, wrong-number-giving man, despite being a pretty ER resident with no shortage of options. Did a CW writer get hired? Anyways, why was her presence used almost exclusively to put strain on Carmy and Sydney's relationship instead of The Bear generally? We could have had scenes with Nat, Richie, and Marcus arguing with Carmy about him being distracted due to Claire. They saved 99% of that for Sydney. They CHOSE to insert her in between or just after scenes with him and Claire. Showing Sydney's tattoos and her getting dressed with the stained chef's coat juxtaposed with them was WILD.

I LOVE that both believe their interpersonal problems are solely about The Bear/business partnership. In most "slowburns" the characters are far more conscious and actively work to keep things platonic. Jeremy might be a smidge aware that Sydney means more to him after the panic attack, but I bet he's shoved it down. All he knows afterward is that being with Claire feels wrong hence ignoring her call and recommitting to SYDNEY. He could of said "You all/This/The Bear deserve my full focus etc..." He was also nagged into greeting Claire at Friends and Family, seemed anxious when Fak brought her up right before The Table scene, and also while explaining that "she's great" to Sydney. He was at peace when focused on Sydney in the moment below.

The actors: Jeremy and Ayo's real life friendship is warms my soul and their chemistry onscreen is amazing. DON'T WASTE IT!!!

Jeremy smolders on screen. I want to see Carmy continue to stare, yearn, fall, then eventually confess and for Sydney to reciprocate his feelings. Anyhoo, does anyone else melt when Carm means business?! They do this twice in season one and it's not good for me. Whew, I need to clean my whole house or run a few miles.

Finally, there's so many other parallels between these two. They are fearful avoidants, have a missing or dead parent, jacked up stomachs, use sarcasm, but are generally very earnest, they struggle with anxiety, are compassionate, are perfectionists, peace-makers, give people multiple chances, are workaholics...so much more. A lot of that is also ME, lol.

Sydcarmy is my Roman Empire. I love them as much as you can fictional characters and they deserve the most tender, angsty, triumphant, romantic best-friends to more love story.

#get the straight jacket #I gotta clean my house now #the bear #sydcarmy #sydney x carmy #carmy x sydney #sydney adamu #carmy the bear #carmen berzatto #carmy berzatto #syd adamu #friends to lovers #slow burn #love story #word vomit #thoughts #roman empire

128 notes · View notes

ash-azzzz · 3 months

Text

Rating Hazbin Hotel Ships

!!! THIS IS MY OPINION !!!

Huskerdust : 100/10 absolutely love. i rlly think angel could use someone who is good to him and for him. I rlly like the idea that they'll be super sweet and not rush into anything. I rlly hope husk has a part in freeing angel from vals control if that even happens later in the show!

radiohusk : -1000/10 i rlly dont like alastor ships (for more info on why read last post.) if its platonic then sure but romantic -or god forbin sexual- no.

radiodust : -1010/10 i like this one even less. we know alastor has no interes in anyone, let alone angel (as shown in episode one angel talks about filming him and al going at it as the hotel ad and al laughs and says it'll never happen)

radiostatic : -1,000,000/10 it would be so one sided like omgg. like vox obsessed with al and al being repulsed by him. that is a horrible relationship for voxs mental health.

radioapple : 0/10 could be worse. i get people like enemies to lovers but brah they arent lovers and never will be. like platonic divorsed dads for charlie is fine but people writing about/drawing them going at it like rabbits is just 😬🫣

adams apple : 4/10 not my fav but i can def see where people are coming from. Like in the fight when luci says "im gonna fuck you" he totally could have ment that as "i got both your wives and now i want you." if adam is even in season 2 (tries to get redemed after he died ends up in hell) i wouldnt be too horribly surprised if they end up having a fling or a possible relationship of some kind. still suprised but not too bad

appledust : 3/10 i like them platonically. like they gossip abt the guys/girls they like, talk shit abt val and alastor, vent to each other, cry together, laugh together, and try and get one another with who ever they want (i.e angel w/ husk and luci w/ whoever he might want so like adam if a fling does happen)

chaggie : 10/10 i LOVE them i just want them to have more flavor. i need their relationship to get fleshed out more. like we had one little fight and a sweet like 1 min song. I WANT MORE from the only lesbian couple in that damn show.

sir pen x cherri : 7/10 i love the dynamic despite how little of it we got in the show. like hes hopeless and she that bitch. i rlly hope cherri ends up trying to redeem herself to meet pen in heaven.

cherri x angel : 2/10 platonic is cool but romantic jusy doesnt seem right to me since angel is gay. i honestly dont know how i feel abt their friendship long term because cherri doesnt seem like too great of an influence on him.

adam x lute : 4/10 probably just one sided as fuck. like no way lute didnt have feelings for adam. he made her and she was his favorite ofc she was going to fall in love but i dont think he liked her back man.

lucifer x lilith : 2/10. all im sayin is they divorsed for a reason :/

LMK IF I MISSED ANY ^_^

73 notes · View notes

wolfqueen66793 · 5 months

Text

‼️Sonic Prime Spoilers‼️

Warning: LONG!

Putting my thoughts together on this new season, overall I found it very enjoyable! Definitely my favorite season.

Loved the Sonadow! Lots of great moments from the two hedgehogs, it’s so very important to me that we got to see a softer more concerned side of Shadow, even if you don’t ship Sonadow you have to admit him not being a asshole was great!

However I do wish we got to see more of him, I’m definitely fine with the amount we got, not only for the season but the show overall! But I hate the trend Sega has made where they put Shadow in a show and he quickly gets put to the side lines.

I think a great thing they could have done with Shadow is when he’s separated from Sonic still have episodes with him! We could have seen him recover from the fall into the ravine and fight his way out as a episode, or it could have been a prisoner situation! (Or both) Nine could have some how contained Shadow after being weakened by the Grim Bots, that would let the writers keep a power house like Shadow out of the fight but not out of the plot. Anytime we cut back to Nine we would also be cutting back to Shadow.

There was also the 3-4 Episode fighting, now honestly I didn’t care but I did notice it. Did the fights get a repetitive? Yeah, It was a lot of repeating the same stuff but I forgive it because during this long fight was all the lovely character interactions and growth, which is what I think we should focus on. Dread choosing his crew over Treasure, The Roses, The great moment between New Yoke Knuckles and Sonic vs Nine (though that probably should have been given to Shadow honestly, he was in the fight but we saw him the least it feels) and I loved the relationship between Mangey and Sails.

But I do have a small problem with how they handled Mangey and Sails in the fight, the writers gave them a “Death” scene. Now that I was really down for, but looking back on it It just makes me think “why?” Now logistically it was probably the writers wanting to take some characters out to write less, which honestly fair enough! They had a lot of characters to juggle.

But I wish there “Death” meant something more than just to get them out of the fight until the end where they come back with the Grim Big Bot, now I’m a BIG sucker for Sonic and Tails moments! And I love everything for them, I love there happy moments and I love there sad moments. Sonic and Tails’s relationship is my absolute favorite thing about the Sonic series! And because of that I wished there “death” was something more important, we got to see Sonic be actually hurt about there deaths and I love that! But I wish it just had a little bit more time, have it be the moment where he really starts to see Nine as someone dangerous, someone who can do some real damage, I know sonic is a guy who believes in second chances, and I’m not at all asking sonic to go into a blind rage and attack Nine, that just wouldn’t make sense. But I’d like a moment where Sonic would just yell up to Nine with anger but also sadness, he just had to watch other variants of his little brother die from another one of his brother, because he was too slow. (Or maybe I’m just a big sucker for angst and just like watching Sonic suffer)

And lastly there is the ending, now honestly all the other things I’ve mentioned before this point are things that I actually don’t mind but I’d probably just change a bit. And this also applies to the ending, just a tad less. I found the ending to be very unsatisfying and confusing, we were told we were supposed to understand why prime was so strange for the Sonic canon but we got 0 answers, and the ending is very open (which is a thing I don’t like for show finales, almost entirely) but, we we’re supposed to get 8eps this season but the season only had 7, that’s what Netflix ordered, so where is the last episode? What I’d like and what seems to be what others would like or at least have speculated is that Sonic Prime will get a extra long episode or Movie later down the line, to properly wrap everything up.

I’d definitely be down for something like that, it reminds me what Rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles did with their show, after there show was put on a indefinite pause they were given the opportunity to make a Netflix movie to wrap up the story. And it’s one of my all time favorite movies! There is most definitely more that they can do with this show, and I really wish this turns out to be the case, because if this is where Netflix actually leaves the show off it will kinda suck ngl, a bad ending kinda can put a whole show off for me (not that this show will end up like that for me but still) and it would also mean Sega pretty much lied to us about understanding the timeline.

So I hope the strange cliffhanger we got with shadow taking the prism shards, the shatter spaces still being a thing and that random (most likely) prism energy blast with what looked to be a shadow of a large ship (probably the eggmen) appearing in the sky we will get that last episode Netflix ordered as a longer special that will help us understand things and give us a more satisfying ending!

But there we go! My thoughts and critiques on prime season 3. I definitely loved the season and I’ll be thinking about the Sonadow scenes we got pretty much every day just like the metal virus arc!

Here are some Sonadow pics for making it this far!

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic #sonic fandom #sonic prime #sonadow prime #sonadow #miles tails prower #shadow the hedgehog #sonic prime season 3 #tails nine

62 notes · View notes

chrismcleaneatspants · 5 months

Text

General season 2 opinions. MASSIVE TDI 2023 season 2 spoilers ahead (as well as a huge wall of text.) You've been warned.

Ok, so here's everything I like about the season (I can count them on my fingers)

-There were some funny jokes

-MKulia was entertaining and it's now in my top 5 favorite ships, but it's not perfect, as I'll explain later

-Hockey dudes were a joy to watch I suppose

-Bowie stole the show as usual

-There are a lot of neat challenges (The canoe, slide, and dog challenges was a particular stand outs to me)

-MK herself was really funny

-MacArthur's cameo was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one, and she bounces off of Chris really well

-Duncney is still broken up lol

Honestly that's about it in terms of positives, cuz I have a million other negatives for this supposed sequel to (imo) the best written season of the show.

-The Relationships were the single worst aspect about this season full stop. Ripaxel and Praleb are probably the worst couples the show has ever subjected me to. For Ripaxel, they basically removed anything interesting Ripper had going on and Axel wasn't allowed to live up to any kind of hype she created because one lame ass poem turned her into Ripper's girlfriend for the remaining duration of her run, only for the both of them to be tossed aside in episode 7 in perhaps the worst double elimination in the entire show.

-Praleb started off ok. I thought it was gonna be a one-sided crush plot initially before Episode 6. They had a couple cute moments before episode 8, of which their screentime became suffocating because afterwards is was this painful back and forth where Caleb tried explaining himself and Priya would be mad at him, then ally with him, then be mad at him again like it was so tiresome. By the time they got together in the finale again, I was wishing they had just followed up on Pramien instead. Caleb by himself was funny in the first half of season 2 and Priya was great in season 1, but the two of them together were insufferable

-Speaking of Priya, she went from one of the best characters in season 1 to one of the worst in season 2. Why did she have to make it all the way to episode fucking 12 after winning season 1?? Just for some generic heterosexual romance? They also made her so dumb with shit like knowing Julia is manipulating her but then getting a surprise Pikachu face when Julia manipulated her??? You spent your entire life preparing for this show, how the fuck did you not see this coming???

-Segwayying into Julia, she's the worst antagonist full stop. I've never seen such an absolute downgrade of a character. She was a goat in season 1 who was aware of her situation and acted accordingly because the stakes were real. Here? Reality basically warps around her just to keep her in the game. She does things characters would never fall for in season 1 and they just go with it?? They insist on keeping her in the finale and do basically nothing interesting with her. She's not even as funny as Island Heather at the end of the day.

-I mentioned MKulia earlier, so I'll just get to it here: I like it in concept. Two evil sapphics causing chaos together is really fun. My main issue is that it was very sudden. They both were not fans of each other at the end of season 1 and now I'm supposed to just believe they became friends off screen? I mean, I guess, but it's kinda cheap. I would have really liked it if it was straight up enemies to lovers ngl. Also the fact MK had very little agency outside of being Julia's lackey doesn't help either. I want to point to the fake contract thing, for instance. Why did Julia do that? That sounds like an MK thing to do.

-Time to dive into other characters: Damien is an absolute fucking tragedy. At the end of season 1, Damien had one ambition: win next season. They kinda did that, sure, but they regressed Damien into being a complete coward to do so, not to mention he didn't even go all the way either. Damien didn't get a W until episode 6 and tbh that was his only W. By the end of his tenure, I was left confused on what the point of his run was. (I'll come back to this later.)

-What was the point of Nichelle? Like seriously, what did she contribute to the season at all? They didn't do the ironic underdog story with her, and considering she was getting all egotistical and aggressive, i thought she was gonna be the antagonist for sure...until Julia got rid of her in episode 5 in a way that really shouldn't make sense cuz like Nichelle is an actual celebrity that stars in blockbuster movies, I'm pretty sure she could sniff a fake contract a mile away, right?

-Hockey dudes were great, but I felt like they were very dumbed down at times? Like they were just generic dumb dudes that just meandered around a lot of the time (Wayne in particular just straight up floated away from a challenge at one point)

-Bowie was alright too. His line delivery is great as usual, but let's not kid ourselves: In a well written season, he'd be going straight for Julia the next time his team lost. Bowraj was nice to see even if the season didn't really do a whole lot with it

-Am I the only one who thinks this season is a tad bit misogynistic? Like this is the shortest them phase the show as ever had (to the point where i'd argue teams don't really matter) and 4 of the 5 team phase boots were girls. Millie and Emma in particular were really bad. Like, you could make Millie a team phase boot without like shitting on her that hard. And Emma got like fuck all closure outside of breaking up with Chase off screen like wow, way to utilize such a high potential character, Fresh. And this is saying nothing about how the girls that did make it to the merge had plots basically dominated by romance and like nothing else. And then there's MKulia which is apparently intended to be a friendship but like is written like a romantic one at times. It gives me all-stars gwourtney vibes and (as a fan of gwourtney myself) not in a good way. At least MK and Julia were somewhat in character I guess, but they had their edges really sanded off and honestly as a friendship (situationship?) it's a complete downgrade from Millie and Priya in so many ways

-And another thing: who's the protagonist this season? Outside of Praleb, who am I supposed to care for? Who am I supposed to root for? By the halfway mark, the show doesn't really make any convincing arguments to root for like anyone there outside of maybe Damien? And he went gone in episode 10, so like, hockey dudes? No one has an interesting enough narrative for me to care.

-The immunity idol stinks as usual. Like, why did Damien do THE SAME FUCKING THING HEATHER DID IN ALL-STARS?? That actually pissed me off so much holy shit. The immunity idol as it stands in the show is basically a shitty plot device made to keep characters in as there's no real strategy revolved around it.

-Oh and another minor thing: Owen's cameo sucks, and that's entirely due to him not being physically aged up at all and just being a vehicle for the same dumb jokes they always make with him. so stupid

-Anyways, I spend an entire season with two shitass straight relationships taking up screentime, a whole multiude of potential plotlines from last season (pramien) and this season (scary girl's revenge, millie being the new ripper, damien's comeback, julia having internal conflict over her friendship (feelings?) for MK) being set up and just nothing being done with them, and characters in general just being nerfed or borderline out of character (Ripper) and what am I rewarded with?

-Soar Losers. The most boring nothing finale in the entire show. The choices for finalists suck, Wayne, while being the least bad option for a winner (and i do still like him a lot), is still a mid ass winner in the grand scheme of the entire show. And more praleb drama? fuck off I hate them so much. The challenge did not feel finale worthy at all, and honestly it was the worst challenge in the whole season. On top of being a bunch of nothing, the show decides to bring back the worst trope it ever had: losing hair as karma. I almost ragequit the episode on the spot that shit makes me so irrationally mad. I think it's even worse here because Julia still had hair after the fact, which makes it seem like they were aware it's not a popular TD trope but wanted to half commit to it anyways for the sake of tradition or something. Terrible finale to an already decently sized letdown of a season, but it has some ok MKulia moments I guess. The finale was just emblematic of the entire season, where things just happen and you're just expected to go along with everything. (Also side note how come Chase wasn't the one to jump off of the cart for pizza immediately?)

TL;DR reboot season 2 imo was a step down in every conceivable way from season 1 apart of i guess comedy and it's left a very sour taste in my mouth. I'm probably missing a few points that I'll add onto later but man it feels nice putting my opinion out there.

43 notes · View notes

daughterofthequeen · 9 months

Text

The Last Moments of Solace

Pairings: Ezra Bridger x reader

Request: I saw that your request are open and I was hoping that you could write an Ezra Bridger (season 4) x reader?? Maybe fluff and smutty?? Maybe reader can be also a Jedi of his age? For the plot…mhhh…maybe something based on episode 6 (season 4) or episode 17 (season 3)?

Warnings: Suggestive content cus I don’t write smut yet, yet, fluff, kissing, groans, moans, the overuse of comma’s

A/N: I’ve been wanting to write lately, and I’m so excited to start. And this request just reopened my Ezra hyper-fixation. And I’ve been wanting to write my first series too, I just haven’t figure out which one of the characters I’m currently invested in, to do it on first. You just made the choice harder Anon, you’re no help😫!!! (nahhh I’m just kidding I love you for this, I forgot how much I loved my first Star Wars crush🥰🧡) Ezra had 11 year old me giggling and kicking my feet every Monday night before I had to go to bed 🤭. So I chose episode 6 of season 4 but I couldn’t find a way how to incorporate the reader into the show that I liked so, it’s taking place in episode 7 so technically it’s still based on episode 6. This is my first time doing suggestive too btw and I’m very nervous so cut me some slack pleassse🧡

Y/N POV

How did we get here?!

This was only meant to be a recon mission. But no, Sabine just had to get the data recorder and the hyperdrive. Which is good use for the rebellion, but it still doesn’t stop me from wanting a easy day. Next thing I know there’s cats, Thrawn, a wolf, troopers, me and Ezra falling over crates, then us jumping into the newly designed TIE that Sabine hijacked. Which was a nice touch may I add. Well it was, until we found out it had a kill switch that we barley got out of alive. And that lead to us on top of a nice loth wolf, that only me and Ezra could remember since Sabine fainted and didn’t wake back up until we got back to the hideout. Yeah, it was a lot.

The Next Day

Currently me, Ezra, Zeb, and Jai were collecting the hyperdrive, well trying to anyway we couldn’t find where we left it.

“Hurry up.” Ezra told Zeb after he lifted up his mask to his scout trooper uniform. Identical to the ones Jai and I were wearing.

“Where’s the hyperdrive?” Zeb asked looking around the rocks.

“Over here somewhere.” Ezra replied. “Jai keep watch.”

“Over here somewhere? All these rocks look the same!” Zeb whispered frustratedly

“It was dark and we just crashed, we didn’t have time to make a map!” I whispered just as frustrated, sassily putting my hand on my hip. Suddenly we heard the meowing of a white loth cat, like the one from last night sitting on top of a rock.

“Hey, when in doubt follow the loth-cat.” Ezra said while smirking, causing me to lightly chuckle.

“You’re kidding right?” Zeb asked hesitantly as we walked towards it. “You and your loth-cats.” Zeb told Ezra as they moved the rock revealing the hyperdrive. As they started moving the hyperdrive, a small empire ship flew over us towards the crash sight, and I got a strong feeling that we had to hurry, to speed up the pace I grabbed a hold of the back of the hyperdrive to help them move it onto the trailer.

“Uh, Ezra, we have to problem.” Jai called while he was looking into his binoculars.

“What is that?” I asked while walking up beside Jai.

“I don’t know, and I don’t think I want to know.” Jai responded.

Ezra turned to Zeb. “We’ll draw them away, you get the hyperdrive out of here.” He said as me, him, and Jai, closed our helmets and started walking towards the weird bounty hunter looking guy who was using all four of his limbs to run.

“Just let me blast it.” Jai said anxiously, on the left side of Ezra while I was on the right.

“It’s ok, I can get us out of this.” Ezra said in an unsure tone.

“You don’t sound too confident about that blue.” I said also feeling his unease.

Ezra let out a breathily chuckle at the nostalgic nickname that he remembers you giving him back when you both first met.

“Yeah well, I know you have my back no matter what.” He said. Hearing his smirk under his helmet, I can’t help but smirk too.

“No doubt.” He has no idea how right he is, I would do anything for him. But our small moment was cut short when the assassin made it to us, sniffing?

“LS-3226, LS-3227, and LS-3228, reporting. We’ve checked out this area and found nothing. Should we continue our search?” Ezra once again sounds unsure, but this time it’s understandable given this guy is up close sniffing his armor. Jai slowly raises his blaster, ready to shoot but I try to discreetly raise my hand to tell him to wait so, he wouldn’t blow our cover.

“No.” Is all the bounty hunter said before turning the opposite direction then quickly turning back around swinging at Ezra to catch him off guard, but Ezra was able to dodge and punch him instead until the hunter was able to trap Ezra with his legs, and that’s when me and Jai let loose with our blasters. Though the hunter was extremely fast as he dodged and our stray bullets were landing all around Ezra.

“Don’t shoot me, shoot him! Blast it!”

“I’m trying, I’m trying!” “What do you think we’re trying to do blue?!” I yelled back and the hunter was quickly running towards us and quickly dodging our shots so, I lifted up my helmet and force pushed him into a boulder as soon as he made a jump for Jai.

“Jedi.” The bounty hunter stated as Governor Pryce made it use and recognized or faces immediately.

“It’s Bridger and (L/n), blast them!” Pryce ordered.

As shots were coming towards us, me and Ezra took out our lightsabers and started blocking blast. Then the three of us jumped on our speeders.

“How many of them are back there?” Ezra asked then I turned around to check. “More than enough! Let’s try to loose them in there” I replied pointing to the sea of rocks, as I seen the bounty hunter coming towards us with a disrupter and I quickly took out my lightsaber and blocked him.

“Can’t this thing go faster?” I said already tired of this assassin guy.

“Hold him there. Just hold him there!” I looked to see why, just in time to see Jai in front of us going in between two rocks and understood Ezra’s idea. The hunter caught on and turned off from us to keep from crashing. That’s when the troopers behind started firing, but Ezra was able to dodge them. I seen a overhead we were speeding towards and took out a bomb and threw it. Causing the large rock to explode and block the troopers. But the hunter was moving to fast to stop so he sped up making it over the piles of rocks and I took my shot hitting the speeders engine causing it to explode and the assassin jumped off just in time to grasp onto a rock before he could fall, and glared at us. I smirked, then looked forward to see Ezra do his signature two-fingered salute and we sped off to the campsite.

We made it back skidding to a stop and seen Kanan walking towards us. “Good job, looks like our hyperdrive problem is solved.” Kanan said as we got off the speeders.

“Yeeeah well, you know how one problem usually leads to another?” Ezra asked Kanan

“Yeeah?” Kanan question in an annoyed tone knowing where Ezra was going with that question.

“We have another, and its small, creepy, and very dangerous!” I explained dramatically as we started walking towards everyone else.

————————————————————

Jai, Ezra, and I went to change back into our regular clothes, while everyone else was discussing the plan. Just as I was finished fixing my shirt, I felt two arms wrap around me and a nice sensation on my neck. I smiled knowing it was Ezra due to the affection and me sensing him as he was walking towards me. I sighed in relief, finally able to let my muscles release their tension even if it’s only for a minute. I closed my eyes and rested all of my weight into him taking a deep breath, lazily looking over my shoulder as he moved up from kissing my neck to my cheek. I giggled lightly and turned my body slightly to meet my lips with his and the deep soft groan he let out drove me crazy. I ran my fingers through his short soft hair, causing him to groan again, this time a lot stronger, precisely why I did it. I moved my hands down to rest them on top of his, that had started massaging my hips bringing out a soft moan from me. I released his lips and opened my eyes to see his lips chasing after mine to reconnect them. I leaned back still trying to catch my breath, but eventually I gave back in as he knew I would.

“You okay?” He asked while our lips were still pressed together continuously trying claim each others, I almost didn’t hear him.

“Mhm.” Is all I could reply back, but I knew better, when it came to my well-being mumbled answers are never accepted, especially after a mission but with his soft lips intertwined with mine I couldn’t focus. He pulled away causing me to whine and turn around completely wrapping my arms around his neck to pull him back down to me, but he wasn’t having it.

“(Y/n)” was all he said, I opened my eyes and responded back with a sigh.

“I’m fine, Ezra.” He frowned as if he didn’t believe me. “I promise.” I reassured him bringing my hands up to his face gently rubbing the permanent scar on his left cheek. He sighed and leaned into my touch, then leaned back down to capture my lips again. His hands started moving under my shirt, thumbs starting to rub my stomach. Enjoying the sensational buzz it was bringing me, I reached down to the waist of his pants to start unbuttoning them, until we heard someone clearing their throat and we jumped apart from each other. It was Hera. A strong heat immediately went to my cheeks, as I hurriedly fixed my shirt and smiled like everything was normal, awkwardly seeing Ezra out the corner of my eye quickly rebutting and zipping his pants back up before quickly turning around with the same smile.

“Hera! Heyyyy! What’s up?!” I say trying to act casual, but that was way out the window. I could tell with her with the way she was standing. Arms crossed with her hip poking out to the side with a small smirk on her face. I looked up at Ezra to see him turning red as he looked up somewhere over Hera that I couldn’t pinpoint.

“I came to check on you guys, and to see if you wanted to see how Sabine was coming along with the hyperdrive, but I can see you two are already preoccupied.” Hera stated

“Oh no, we weren’t doing anything important, come on let’s go.” I said trying to move pass the awkward moment missing the way Ezra head swung to me with a offended frown on his face.

We made it to the ship Sabine was working on. “How’s it going?” Hera called out.

“Well it wasn’t easy but I got it patched in. Still I give it a 50/50 chance of working.” Sabine explained.

“I’ll have to live with 50/50.” Hera responded back, when I felt Ezra’s dread and turned towards him and seen what he was looking at.

“Oh no.” He whispered. “We’re out of time!”

We quickly finished packing up a speeder-car with the supplies to send with Jai, to our allies.

“We’ll hold off the Empire until you’re clear, we’ll signal rendezvous coordinates later.” Ryder tells Jai

“And if we don’t hear from you?” Jai asked worriedly

“You will.” Ezra reassured him.

“Alright Bridger, good luck.” Jai said then sped off.

We all got ready to defend Hera for her take off, lining up behind some empty crates. I looked over to Sabine after seeing her move out the corner of my eye, seeing her looking at something behind us. I turned to see Hera and Kanan kissing. I smirked still a little shocked. “It’s about time.” I said as we all got ready to defend ourselves.

“We won’t stand long against those tanks.” Zeb stated

“We have that transport and a bike.” Ryder explained until the transport was blown up.

“How many can we get on a bike?” Zeb asked and I playfully rolled my eyes at the question. Until I hear a wolf howling and felt Ezra nudge my arm.

“There! That’s our way out.” He told everyone as continued to stare at the wolf that helped us last night.

“Loth-wolves?” Ryder questioned

“Look they helped us before, we should follow them.” Ezra told Ryder still a little unsure.

“Are you serious?”

“Do you know the way out?!” Ezra asked the wolf who immediately started running in a opposite direction after his question.

“Come on.” Ezra said grabbing my wrist and running to catch up with the wolves.

“Kanan?” Sabine asked worriedly.

“Seems like the best idea we got, let’s go.” He replied breathlessly

“This is good, when it gets strange like this, it’s a good thing.” Zeb reassured Ryder.

“How have you people stayed alive so long?!” Ryder yelled following everyone else.

We all were running after the wolves. Well Ezra was, we were following him.

“Ezra wait up!” Zeb called out which he ignored

“Ezra!” Sabine yelled this time.

“I don’t want to lose them, come on!” Ezra finally replied starting to run after them again, but stopped suddenly seeing the wolves all laying down, lowly growling as everyone else caught up.

“Hold it, stay back.” Ezra warned

“Why have they stopped?” Kanan asked

“I don’t know.” Ezra replied as he started walking towards the white wolf who seemed to be the leader of the three.

“Ezra, wait!” I whispered trying to reach for him but he dodged me.

He walked up to the white wolf slightly crouched and carefully talking to it.

“There is a way out of here, isn’t there?”

“You wanted us to follow you, didn’t you?”

“What are you waiting for?” All these questions Ezra was asking and the only reply the wolf gave was looking up at Kanan. Which made me uncomfortable.

“Kanan? Kanan it’s looking-”

“-At me I know.” He cut Ezra off and walked up to the white wolf. “What does it want?” He asked, that’s when the wolves got up and walked into a cave.

“I guess they were waiting for you.” I said as I walked up to them.

We all walked down into the cave, Sabine turned on her flag light looking at cave drawings.

“There are images here of people, people following a wolf.”

“I guess we’re not the first ones.” Zeb said

“Hold on. Shut your light off.” Ezra told Sabine. We were in complete darkness all we could see was the wolves eyes and listening to the wolves still lowly growling.

“What now, Ezra?” Kanan asked

“I’m not sure.”

“There wasn’t a picture of wolves eating those people was there?” Zeb whispered to Sabine.

All of a sudden the cave started shaking, dust and rocks falling, proving the cave wasn’t going to last long. The wolves looked up growling louder.

“The Empire’s bombing the mountains.” Ryder stated

“We’ve gotta get out of here!” Ezra stated turning seeing the white wolf tail in his face, and looking up to see the wolf nod.

“Everyone join hands.” Grabbing a hold of the wolf tail.

“Ezra?” I said unsure.

“Just do it!”

“The cave is going to collapse.” Zeb stated.

“There’s no way out of here.” Ryder said

“That we know of.” Kanan said trying to reassure everyone.

As we walked deeper into the cave a bright blue glowing light started to appear similar to hyperspace when we walked into it. Next thing I know, we’re all waking up in a cave, but it’s a totally different one.

“Where in blazes are we?” Zeb asked shocked

“Let’s find out.” Ezra said walking outside, the rest of us following.

Sabine came up with a data pad. “Uh, you’re not going to believe this. We were in the northern hemisphere, now we’re in the southern hemisphere. Somehow we’ve moved halfway across the planet.”

“Huh.” I said seeing the wolves go back into the cave with Kanan, so me and Ezra followed.

“Kanan?” I called out making sure he was ok.

“Look around, tell me what you guys see.” Kanan told us.

“This place reminds me of the Jedi temple here on Lothal.” Ezra stated as I walked to the pictures on the walls.

“The walls are telling a story. There are people coming down from the sky, I think they might be Jedi.” I told Kanan.

“There’s a message here for us.” Kanan said.

“What, because we’re Jedi?” I asked confused.

“Dume.” The wolf said.

“What does that mean? The wolf said it before.” Ezra asked.

Kanan took off his mask, shock on his face.

“Dume is my name. Caleb Dume is the name I was born with.” Kanan told us placing his hand in the wolf’s head.

“How does the wolf know that?” I asked even more confused than before.

“It has a deep connection to the force, to the energy of this planet.”

“Don’t all living things?” Ezra asked.

“This is different. More focused. Like it has a purpose.”

“And we’re apart of it?” I said starting understand in a way.

“I’m getting the feeling building the TIE defender isn’t the worst thing the Empire is doing here. There’s something else, something more sinister.” Kanan stated worriedly.

“Dume.” The wolf said while backing up into the shadow disappearing. And as the sunlight made its way further into the cave revealing that nothing was there but a wall with a picture on it, and a crack through the middle of it.

“So? All the paths are coming together, right?” Era asked

“Yeah, I’m just not sure if we’re going to like where they lead.”

“Do we ever?” I said sarcastically causing Kanan to scoff in amusement .

“No and yes.”

“I wonder if Hera made it.” Ezra said worriedly causing me to wonder as well.

“I know she did.” Kanan reassured us, he then placed his hands on our shoulders and walked outside with everyone else, and we followed.

————————————————————

A/N:

Sorry this took me so long anon. I wasn’t sure if I liked this or not. I’ve edited this too many times, but you’ve waited long enough. Just let me if you like it and if not, I’ll try to edit it to how you like. Thank you for requesting anon! I hope enjoy!

#star wars x reader #star wars fanfiction #star wars #ezra bridger x reader #star wars rebels fanfic #ezra bridger #star wars rebels

82 notes · View notes

0rczy · 2 months

Text

ORCZY'S FAN FICTION RECOMMENDATIONS

For following Fandoms: Varian and the 7 kingdoms, Lego monkie kid, JRWI riptide

Hi there! I tought I would share some of my favourite fanfictions I've read since April last year, as sort of a recap and also recommendations. These are all longer stories btw, ranging from 78K to 236K words. Hope you find something that piques your interest :D

If you have any other recommendations, PLEASE share them, I'd love to read more from these fandoms.

VAT7K

-Varian's Tangled Trials by IFoundYouJustineTime and TheArtistsMuse A complete Vat7k story adapting the original creators' plot points into an amazing, 24 chapters (episodes) long fic that reads like an actual cartoon. If you're new to Vat7k or Tangled The Series, or even if you haven't seen the latter (like me), you WILL enjoy this. If you like a fun adventure with a bunch of nerds as a found family, this is for you.

-What Summer Meant to You -If I Really Hated you (and I really, really do) both by Battybatzgirl First one's a battle of the bands/modern AU, second is an AU where the boys are rival engineers, both focusing on the ship Varigo. The writing style is what made me stay and read these to the end. Incredibly funny and entertaining to read, the way Varian and Hugo are characterised is just. So good. If you like a well written, lighthearted, romantic comedy, this is for you. (Both include some skippable adult scenes, but the story is much more about the romance)

-Making End's Meet by Meltthepoint As the author's name suggest, this is a melting point (Donella x Ulla) story, set in a modern setting. Donella enrolls Hugo into this new school, who then befriends Varian. Ulla and Donella meet again. This is about how two women make up and start anew after their lives went into directions they didn't want. The story is much more character focused, a really fun read. Very insightful about the women's characters. An exception, as I still haven't finished reading it. Definitely not the type of fic I can binge read, but I'm really enjoying it.

At the end of everything by Squirrelflight A Night in the woods AU (haven't played the game, you don't have to, to read it), and unfinished as of yet, but man. Worth checking out! Unlike the stories above, this one's definitely darker and has a really tense aura. Love it. The writing is so good it makes me so thrilled about what will happen next! I also really like, once again, the characterisation.

LMK

-You can stay here by KALL A pre canon story about how Pigsy and Tang adopt MK, how MK gets to be in a safe environment and starts figuring himself out. Great writing style, entertaining plot, what more could I ask for? (maybe an update lol) As of yet, unfinished, and hasn't been updated since late 2022. The author actually posted ( https://www.tumblr.com/its-kall-the-clown/735524530668371968/are-you-going-to-be-updating-any-fics-on-your-ao3 ) about wanting to rewrite the story sometime. Which is great! In case you're reading this, take as long as you want!

-A garden across our collarbone by PittedPeaches Spicynoodle soulmate AU where what you write, or in MK's case, draw on your skin, appears on the soulmate's skin as well. Red Son's journey of (very slowly, this is a slowburn) falling in love with MK. A lot of inner monologues, the story plays out more like a retelling of what happened from Red Son's perspective. Kind of like a diary entry and I LOVE IT. I actually didn't understand the pairing before reading this, nor was I that invested in Red Son's character. This fic changed everything. (it also sends you good luck if you read it on the train! I acquired: friends!)

RIPTIDE

-BREAKING FREE! by earlgray_milktea A fish 'n chips Highschool Musical AU (another thing I haven't seen, you don't need to, to read this). The writing is so undoubtedly Disney, it is at times so over the top dramatic, you can't help but smile at half the interactions. The charm is big on this one. The characters are exagerated but somehow not (completely) out of character. Basically if Riptide was on Disney, this is exactly how they'd act. Also it's just really, really cute.

-Depths of Natarus by goldpines Chip Mermaid AU set in an Undersa/Oversea war, focusing on Fish n Chips as well as Jay Ferin (my girl!). Two reasons why you should read this right now. First: the descriptions are SO detailed and immersive! It made me also kinda have a crush on Gillion Tidestrider. How. Second: it made me care about Jay. And the way she's written here is just so so great. You can tell the author knows what they're doing, the feels just keep coming, I alost teared up multiple times. This story makes you feel a lot of emotions at once, an overall amazing reading experience.

And these were my favs since last April. Specifically the ones that made me go absolutely insane. In a good way. Again, if you have any good recommendations (preferably longer stories, but shorter ones are also fine), please feel free to share them.

Thank you for reading this, if you did :D

#fanfiction #fic rec #fic recommendation #vat7k #varian and the seven kingdoms #vat7k fanfic #lmk #lego monkie kid #lmk fanfiction #jrwi riptide #jrwi show #jrwi fanfiction #jrwi fic

21 notes · View notes

beyonddarkness · 1 year

Text

Thoughts on Haladriel/Saurondriel

(I might be converted)

Okay, can I be COMPLETELY honest?

I always understood the shipping of Halbrand/Sauron and Galadriel, but for the sake of analyzing, I never let myself believe that there was any element of attraction from either side. Because they have a "cosmic connection," you know?

But something changed today (even though that "cosmic connection" is still very much a thing). I came to the conclusion that, while my pain for Galadriel has now increased manifold, I am so relieved from everything Morfydd said in her recent interview, particularly that the ambiguity behind their relationship was Charlie's idea (how dare he) because now I know that Charlie is Sauron, irl. Let me explain. (Prepare for a long read—bonus content at the end):

Charlie never told a lie in press.

"Were we in a relationship of seduction or power? It's up to the viewer to decide" (Morfydd).

What Morfydd said didn't give anything away. It truly leaves everything up to interpretation even more than before, and yet any way you slice it, everything makes sense. It fits with everything that everyone has said in press (the 'cosmic connection', 'it's not romantic', etc.).

Think of it this way:

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

If everything was purely platonic, and Galadriel was not attracted to Halbrand in the least, then Sauron was tempting Galadriel with power. This makes sense, since we know that Galadriel left Valinor in large part because she desired to rule over a realm of her own. Power is very enticing to her.

That also means that Galadriel would never, ever, EVER think of anyone but Celeborn, which is nice. I mean, once Elves marry, that's it. No backsies. In this case, Sauron would be playing it safe, not fooling himself into thinking that Galadriel would fall for a MAN (of all things), after she has already been married.

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

On the other hand, BOY is Sauron able to seduce.

Now, when we think of seduction, some of us automatically think:

But Galadriel most likely would not be enticed by an extremely forward approach. She would slap that guy so silly.

So here's why Sauron is terrifying: Halbrand is so nice.

His approach would be: Become friends first, to make it difficult to resist joining him in the end. He made himself attractive in a way that, if successful, would make her attached to him for much longer than if he was strictly flirtatious (a few thousand years should do it). He never said anything forward until their friendship developed to a certain point (1x06).

And as long as I've been denying that either side was attracted to the other, the one thing I have never been able to get out of my head is the fact that in episode 7, Galadriel called to Halbrand before anyone else. Later, she mentioned Celeborn to Theo (for the first time in presumably centuries, after she assumed Halbrand had died). Then, when she saw Halbrand again, she called him her friend, and he for some reason had to say:

"Nor will you."

Then he made that STUPID SMIRK, and poor Galadriel looked SO TORN. We just barely learned that her husband was in the picture, so he was fresh on her mind. And then we had this thrown on us, to indicate that something about this friendship was not right.

(Oh, the discomfort and second-hand embarrassment I felt for Halbrand, before I knew that he was Sauron.)

Since Galadriel hasn't seen her husband in centuries (even though she loves him a lot—I mean A LOT), she was very vulnerable to seduction, because... she was alone. Halbrand saved her life, rivaled her intelligence, didn't beg for her attention on account of her beauty, connected with her on a level that probably hasn't happened in a while, became her really good friend, made her feel free fighting at his side, etc. If that doesn't spark someone's interest, I don't know what does. (His looks are a major bonus.)

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

Now, here is what's really unfortunate, and causes me pain beyond measure: Sauron wouldn't have fallen in love. But Galadriel would have, and he knew that.

No one (JD, Patrick, Charlie, and Morfydd) ever lied in any interview. Have you ever noticed that whenever they spoke of the lack of romance, they were always talking specifically about Sauron's perspective? :')

Here are some examples:

Charlie: "I mean, look. I don't see it as a... strictly—I don't know. I haven't run this past you guys [Patrick: 'Run it by!']—as a King and Queen thing. I love the reflection bit. But it's not like... I think ultimately, if she had said yes, he's very much the King, and she's like his sidekick, in terms of ruling." Patrick: "And it's not like a marriage—[Morfydd: 'How...]—proposal...—[...dare you.'] [...] Charlie: "You guys sent me something really early on. It's WH Auden, talking about good and evil in Tolkien, and the difference when it gets to evil. It's affection—I'm paraphrasing here—but affection goes out the window. And you see this relationship, and you see affection, but in the end, it's only for personal gain. [...] The whole season, you see them working together, and they have this sort of—we like to call it a 'cosmic connection'. Not romantic. [laughs] Although, I got in a lot of trouble for saying it wasn't romantic yesterday, because of the 'shipping'; the people shipping. [Interviewer: 'How dare you.'] [laughs] Yeah, exactly. And I think it's very clear on the raft that he's just using her for his own personal gain, rather than any sort of love and affection to her." (Empire Spoiler Special)

Charlie: "I think they have a 'cosmic connection', but I don't think it's necessarily, in his mind, a King and a Queen... like husband and wife kind of situation. I think it's more, 'I can use you to get what I want, and effect my designs faster.' Because ultimately, I think he would have ended up ruling by himself, whether she joined him or not. And when she says no on the raft, it angers him, but it's not the end of the world for him." (Deadline Inside the Ring)

So, if Sauron was trying to effectively seduce Galadriel into falling in love with him, it was always going to be one-sided. He would have never felt any real love towards her, but his goal would be to get Galadriel to feel something like that towards him. For personal gain.

And if Galadriel did feel something, how much more ashamed and violated would she feel in the end, knowing that he did it on purpose?

:'))))

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

Here is the ultimate question:

Did Sauron tempt Galadriel with power, or seduction (or both)?

Here's the thing -> Charlie

Morfydd said in her interview that "Halbrand's hold on Galadriel was less connoted in the storylines," meaning it was more straight forward, and not much was implied. But she did not say which direction the scripts leaned, meaning Charlie said one of two things:

"Let's make it seem less romantic."

"Let's make it seem more romantic."

Either way, he's actually so mean, I can't put it into words.

Here's why both possibilities work perfectly: Every time Charlie or anyone else has talked about the lack of romance in interviews, they're always speaking from Sauron's perspective; Galadriel's feelings are wide open for interpretation. Whether Sauron tempted her with power or seduction, he never loved her. He knows how to seduce, and he does it well, but it doesn't mean he feels it. That's why I'm terrified of him, and I'm also afraid of Charlie.

Ever since that interview with Morfydd, I've realized that Charlie has a lot more to do with the character than he's letting on. He knows enough about Sauron to propose an idea that fits into the lore. The fact that the scripts were "less connoted," and he managed to convince everyone to make the relationship more ambiguous is just... GAH. How dare he!

Is it power or seduction?? Both work so well, it could very well be both at the same time! (Charlie and his ambiguities. *sigh*)

But again, it's a matter of what Sauron is tempting Galadriel with; not what he feels, himself.

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

So, why am I relieved? Because Chapter 6. :)

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

Bonus: Translation of the Haunting Music

It is time.

With all of this in mind, I would like to take a shot in the dark. Remember that ultra creepy/seductive part of the music in The Broken Line? A couple of months ago, I was driven crazy by the fact that right in the middle of a musical phrase, the vocals transitioned from Black Speech to Quenya, when Sauron's doing this:

I wanted to know the translation, so I used Paul Strack's lexicon. I managed to pick out most of the words in the music, but since I'm not fluent in Elvish grammar, I don't dare try to translate it. I will just give you the translation for each word, and let you decide what it means for yourself. It'll be fun. :)

Here's the music:

Here are the words (red is confirmed, purple is what I made out, and the [?] is the last word that I cannot figure out, for the life of me. So if someone could enlighten me, I would greatly appreciate it):

ash gul ishi ghash [ash] gul insangarë antani márië i cilmë [?]

Here are the translations:

Black Speech:

ash: "one" gul: "phantom" ishi: "in" ghash: "fire"

Quenya:

insangarë: "temptation" anta-: "to give, present; to add to" ni: "me, I" márië: "well, happily; goodness, good estate, being well, happiness" i: "the" cilmë: "choice, choosing"

In episode 6, Adar said in Quenya, "What I seek. Give it to me." His sentence ended with "antani". So... if "antani" comes after the subject of a sentence... "insangarë antani"? O_O

Someone please help Galadriel. I can hardly stand it. Where's Celeborn?

122 notes · View notes

waheelawhisperer · 2 years

Note

On the topic of RWBY, and particularly Ironwood: it was my opinion that with Ozpin's secret still fresh in their minds, the police state Atlas fell into under Ironwood's control, and the secret commandos that reports only to him that arrested them, Team RWBY was fully justified in not trusting Ironwood even if he divulged excellent and honest information about a perfectly sound plan. However, I feel the failure in writing was that they never expressed that - Ruby just 'has a feeling'. Thoughts?

Yes, I do in fact have many thoughts on this one, and they've been a long time coming. I'd have gotten this post out sooner, but I had to rewatch Volumes 6 and 7 beforehand and take notes, and that took me forever. Buckle up, because this is going to be a long one.

To respond to the ask directly, I'll be honest: I don't think the writing failed to express that. The characters express their motivations behind the choice at multiple points throughout the Volume, and the narrative throws up red flags over and over again.

Let's start off by recapping the situation at the end of Volume 6:

Team RWBY's trust in authority figures has been severely shaken by the time they get to Atlas. In Volume 5, the following events occurred - Yang learned that Raven (someone who Tai has built up as a complicated but ultimately good person when talking about her) was a coward who was willing to hide behind her to avoid fighting back against Salem; Leonardo Lionheart sold the group out to Salem; Yang specifically mentioned "no more lies and half-truths" when she agreed to follow Ozpin. In Volume 6, the group learned that Ozpin was in fact continuing to tell them lies and half-truths (for justifiable reasons, from his perspective) and Qrow fell off the wagon and started actively hindering the group by forcing them to carry his dead weight. Then they had to deal with Cordovin being stupid and obstructive while Ozpin straight-up dipped and Qrow tried to give up. Every significant authority figure Team RWBY has encountered since the Fall of Beacon except for Maria Calavera and Saphron/Terra has let them down in some way at this point. Is it any wonder they're reluctant to trust Ironwood initially, even without seeing what's actually going on in Atlas?

Then the group actually arrives. Immediately, Weiss and Qrow, the two people most familiar with Atlas, note that something is wrong:

Ruby: Weiss, what is it?

Weiss: The Atlas air fleet... I knew all of our ships were called back, but...

Qrow: They're set up like they're expecting an attack...

(Volume 6, Episode 13).

Right away, before the group ever sets foot in Atlas, the show is sending us a warning: this is not right. This continues in Volume 7's first episode, which throws sign after sign that something is wrong in Atlas at us. Weiss mentions almost immediately that she's "never seen [Atlas's] forces deployed so aggressively before. If we land in a stolen ship, there's no way the security team will let us anywhere near Ironwood. They might even take [Weiss] back to [her] father." Weiss, the native Atlesian, the one who knows this Kingdom the best, tells Maria to put some distance between them and the fleet. Maria, who is also familiar with Atlas because that's where she got her cybernetic eyes, agrees without hesitation. Every character here that knows anything about Atlas except for possibly Blake has made it clear that something is wrong, that this situation makes them nervous... and then once the group descends to Mantle, the show starts absolutely bombarding us with evidence that the group was right to be wary.

As soon as we reach Mantle, Ironwood hits us with a propaganda broadcast with some serious 1984 vibes. Ruby and Yang are clearly worried by this and point out that Ironwood looks tired. Qrow questions what Ironwood's been doing. By this point, the group is visibly concerned about Ironwood's leadership of his Kingdom, and justifiably so. The fleet is deployed in unusual fashion, something is specifically up with Ironwood, and multiple characters familiar with how Atlas normally operates have raised concerns about their first impressions.

Then we touch down in Mantle and see android soldiers in the streets. The civilians aren't happy about this, as the below exchange demonstrates:

Civilian 1: Ugh, not these again.

Civilian 2: Why can't they just leave us be?

In this same scene, we also see Mantas deployed directly over Mantle (where they can't intercept threats before they reach the city, but can conveniently remind the people of Mantle how powerful Atlas is. Don't worry, General Ironwood will protect you... until you step out of line) and a pair of children throwing rocks at a surveillance drone. Our first impression is that the people are... less than enamored with their Kingdom's military. None of the people we see, none of them, act like the presence of Atlesian forces is in any way reassuring.

Weiss agrees. In her words, "this isn't right. None of this is right," (Volume 7, Episode 1). Again, Weiss is the person who grew up in this Kingdom. She lived in Atlas for 17 years. If any member of the group knows what the Kingdom is "supposed" to be like, it's her.

Yang proposes that they ditch the ship, and Qrow (who, again, has worked with Ironwood for years and is a generally well-traveled Huntsman who knows what Atlas was like prior to the Fall of Beacon), agrees. According to Qrow, they need to "get lost in Mantle and buy [themselves] some time" (Volume 7, Episode 1). He's worried about what's going on too, and is advocating for scouting out the situation before making any major decisions.

Weiss still has faith in Winter, right up until Winter decides to join Ironwood in the propaganda broadcast studio. The very first thing she says is this: "Failure to cooperate with Atlas military personnel is a punishable offense. If your sector is under lockdown…" (Volume 7, Episode 1).

That's it. That's the part of the broadcast that we get to hear. There's no attempt at reassurance. There's no attempt to spread unity or convince the people of Mantle that they'll be safe. There is only "comply or you will be punished", which is very part and parcel of Winter's leadership style overall, but that's probably the subject of another post in and of itself. The message Mantle is getting from Winter, and by extension Atlas, in this broadcast is simple: "do as you're told, or I will hurt you".

I'm not 100% sure what Winter means when she mentions sectors of the city being under lockdown, because that's never actually explored as far as I can recall, but just by reading the text and considering the context, we can tell that Atlas is exerting some form of direct, repressive military and/or governmental authority over specific parts of Mantle for whatever reason.

Next up comes this little exchange:

Qrow: No offense, Weiss. I'm not sure that's a good idea anymore.

Weiss: There's obviously something very wrong. If we can just talk to her, then we--

Qrow: Look, I'm not even sure we should be talking to Ironwood until we know exactly what's going on with Mantle.

At this point, Qrow is deeply concerned. He's the most experienced member of the group, the one who's traveled all across Remnant, and the one who knows Ironwood the best, and he says maybe they shouldn't even be talking to Ironwood. Weiss reiterates that something is very wrong in the Kingdom. Again, these are the two who have the best idea of what Atlas is supposed to be like under normal circumstances. I know I keep belaboring that point, but I literally saw a post on r/rwbycritics yesterday that insisted that the group had "no real reason" for mistrusting Ironwood and another one that argued that the Yellow Trailer was bad because Junior and the Malachite twins weren't as important to the plot as Adam, so I kind of have to beat the audience over the head with my points to make sure they get through to the lowest common critical denominator.

For the record, it's Qrow who's making the initial choice to not trust Ironwood, not Team RWBY, even though they're the ones who get all the blame for it. Qrow is the one who says they need to get lost in Mantle to buy time to figure out what's going on, and he's also the one to flat-out raise the possibility that maybe Ironwood shouldn't be trusted at all. The others are wary, but Weiss focuses on contacting Winter, and the rest of the group hasn't taken a particularly strong stance at this point.

As Maria leads the protagonists through the street, we get some interesting background details that are easy to miss on first watch (I certainly did). There are Atlesian Knights stationed throughout the streets, and we see the following headlines on a news board:

"Missing Journalist Found Slain"

"Election Imminent Mantle Hometown Hero vs Atlesian Tycoon"

"Embargo: The Right Call? Pressure and Criticism Continues to Mount on Council"

"Outer Wall Damaged Resources Stalled"

This tells us right here that the people are not happy with their government, that someone is killing members of the press, that there's an election coming up that will be important later, and that the city of Mantle is vulnerable and not getting the resources it needs to shore up its defenses. Honestly, I don't blame anyone for missing this, because it's very easy to overlook unless you're specifically paying attention to the details, but it provides important context regarding the situation in Mantle.

Jaune notices the increased military presence too:

Jaune: Is this many soldiers normal?

Weiss: No. At least, I didn't think so.

Again, the show (via Weiss) is making it as clear as possible that Something Is Wrong in Mantle.

Next up, Yang gets her picture taken by a surveillance drone, because getting up in your citizens' faces and taking their pictures without their consent is the sign of a free and open society, and we continue moving through the city, noting as we do that the propaganda reels are still broadcasting. The other members of the group start voicing their opinions at this point.

Maria: You have to remember, the Kingdom had just lost the Great War. The people of Mantle needed a sign of a brighter future, and that sign was Atlas. After all, a home in the clouds is as bright as it gets.

Nora: Unless you're the one having to look up at it.

Blake: This whole city, it just seems awful.

While Maria's talking about a city in the sky, the people on the ground see trucks moving through the streets, carrying dirty, disheveled, dispirited miners in their beds. Maria's words bring to mind the aesthetics of Mantle in comparison to the bright city in the sky: dirty, grungy, polluted, industrial, miserable. Mantle is very gray, very dark, very brown, unlike the clean, white, light blue, futuristic Atlas. Blake and Nora are unimpressed with the ideal, given that they're looking around them at the people it left behind.

After a brief altercation with a pair of drunks, who, once again, make the point that Mantle is not in a great spot right now, and also racist, we arrive at Pietro's pharmacy. The pharmacy, like everything else in Mantle, is not in great repair, as Yang points out. Pietro starts giving the protagonists the lowdown on Ironwood, establishing both that the Fall of Beacon changed Ironwood, made him paranoid, and that the Council is so scared it'll agree to anything he wants. Taken together, this is not a good sign: one paranoid man who has already been established as prone to solving problems with military force is in control of a Kingdom and the checks and balances that would normally restrain him are not functioning as intended.

An alarm interrupts the conversation, and we follow Team RWBY and company outside, where Oscar observes that "the city defenses aren't doing much", which Nora says "doesn't surprise [her]" (Volume 7, Episode 1). We see a group of Sabyrs attack a squad of Knights, taking them apart without any sign of difficulty, because Atlas's hardware is consistently garbage and its doctrine is consistently stupid. The same pack of Grimm gets dismantled by the heroes and then Penny, but our touching reunion is cut short when another alarm goes off elsewhere in the city and Penny flies off to deal with that.

Meanwhile, the group makes the mistake of relaxing and immediately gets jumped by the Ace-Ops, who were conspicuously absent when people were actually in danger, but are absolutely on top of things when arresting people who did something useful. Keep in mind that during this arrest, the Ace-Ops ambushed the protagonists without so much as a warning or a request to stand down. As a result, the protagonists have no clue what the hell is happening. Oscar asks "What's going on?!" (Volume 7, Episode 1), while Qrow points out that he's "a licensed Huntsman! Just helped save everyone?" (Volume 7, Episode 1). Pietro wonders what the Ace-Ops are "even doing down here in Mantle" (Volume 7, Episode 1), to which Clover responds that they "heard a report of an unauthorized ship making an unauthorized landing, followed by an unauthorized use of weapons by unlicensed Huntsmen" (Volume 7, Episode 1).

Let's go over what this sequence of events tells us about Atlas and its attitude towards Mantle, shall we? First, Grimm attacks in Mantle are so frequent that they happen twice within a few minutes of screentime, and the city's defenses are such a joke that a pack of Sabyrs can penetrate deep enough into the city to reach an area that took the group several in-universe minutes to walk to. The Atlesian Knights are so useless at their stated job that they get stomped by basic mook Grimm so weak that fucking Jaune kills two of them with minimal effort, but hey, at least they're good at reminding the citizens of Mantle who's really in charge. The Mantas and battleships deployed above Mantle do not take part in the engagement in any way and make no effort to prevent the Sabyrs from reaching the city to begin with. What they do accomplish, if they accomplish anything at all, is intimidating the populace.

According to Forest (the protestor in Volume 7, Episode 2), the Ace-Ops are "the elite-of-elite military Huntsmen and Ironwood's personal attack dogs" (Volume 7, Episode 2), and having an encounter with them means "Ironwood must really have a bone to pick with [the protagonists]" (Volume 7, Episode 2). Despite this, despite their status as elite Huntsmen, the Ace-Ops do not engage the invading Grimm at any point on screen during this sequence of events, but they are right there to capture the people who actually do the moment the threat is gone. Again, these Huntsmen are not keeping Mantle safe, and usually aren't even there to defend a city under regular threat from the Grimm. They are, however, able to locate and apprehend the protagonist group with little difficulty, which tells us a lot about where Ironwood's priorities are.

The "use of unauthorized weaponry" thing is also very telling to me, because this is a world where humanity lives under a constant existential threat and thus the ability to own a weapon and defend oneself from the Grimm seems like something people on Remnant should be fundamentally entitled to, but evidently not in Atlas. Nope, in this Kingdom, you need government permission to protect yourself from giant monsters that want to eat your face. Maybe it's because I live in Texas, where gun culture is pervasive, but this restriction definitely feels... off... to me. Remnant isn't the real world, where I fully support stricter gun control, because in the real world I'm not likely to be eaten by a Hulked out grizzly bear while walking from the bus stop to my office while the cops who are supposed to stop it from ripping my head off are too busy arresting the guy who shot it before it could kill me for not having a concealed carry permit. It makes sense for people to be armed in Remnant in a way that isn't necessary in the real world because the people of Remnant face real and pervasive threats that don't exist in reality, and Atlas arresting the protagonists for having weapons is a sign of executive overreach if that's truly the driving force behind their arrest, rather than the unauthorized airship landing in Mantle. Whether it is or not, it's still presented as part of the justification, which means the problems I mentioned still apply.

In fairness to Ironwood's supporters, the show goes to great lengths to present him as an ally, a good guy, despite all the red flags he's been throwing up since his very first appearance. A key accomplishment of the writing, necessary for the ultimate resolution of Volume 7, is making it seem like Ironwood is doing his best to do the right thing, that all the problems we've seen are temporary rather than systemic, that the initial bad impressions were the result of a miscommunication rather than a fundamental ideological opposition.

Let's go back for a bit, all the way to Volumes 2 and 3, where Ironwood demonstrates that his solution to everything is military force. We see him wrest control of the Vytal Festival's security away from Ozpin by going behind his back, but Ironwood's conviction regarding his own rectitude is set against Ozpin's negligence, his failure to anticipate the threat and respond appropriately. One does too much, the other does too little, and neither is 100% in the right.

In Volume 3, when Ironwood's equipment is compromised, we see him personally protect the students and civilians evacuating from the Amity Colosseum, attempt to retake his flagship, and then fight on the front lines in Vale. Yes, Cinder exploited his mistakes and attitudes and blind spots to cause the current crisis, the narrative says, but look at him! He's fighting bravely to protect the vulnerable! Qrow says he knows Ironwood would never deliberately do something like this! He's a good guy!

Once we get to Volume 4, we're already getting hints of where Ironwood's paranoia and authoritarian tendencies will lead him. Jacques calls him out on his embargo and points out that Ironwood is a friend with whom he has a close working relationship, thus tying Ironwood to the bad things the SDC does, but we're encouraged to ignore that because it's being directed at a heroic character by a villain who we already know abuses one of the four main protagonists. Like, at this point in the story, we're obviously going to pick Ironwood over Jacques, given that Jacques is the villain of Weiss's Volume 4 storyline and Klein and Ironwood are her main allies. It's very easy to overlook the implications of Ironwood's behavior when the thing in the forefront of our minds is "get Weiss away from her abuser".

In Volume 6, Cordovin gives us a glimpse of the arrogance that characterizes Atlesian society, but before we have the chance to cement the hypothesis that it's endemic to the Atlesian military, Maria defuses it by proposing that Cordovin holds her post because Atlas wants to get rid of her. This changes the story's presentation of Cordovin's attitude: instead of her views being pervasive, Cordovin's just a prick that even the other Atlesians can't stand, especially when contrasted with the warmer and more generous Ironwood. Ultimately, Cordovin proves to be courageous and heroic and not so bad after all in the Volume 6 finale, when she finishes off the Leviathan and goes against protocol to let the heroes travel to Atlas. It makes Atlas seem like a Kingdom that's a bit blunt and arrogant and hidebound, but ultimately well-meaning and leaves us inclined to give Atlas the benefit of the doubt once the story takes us there.

Let's head back to Volume 7 proper, because the story continues showing us the warning signs and then sweeping them under the rug by providing harmless alternative explanations for them before we even meet Ironwood. When Forest is in the police airship, he introduces the Happy Huntresses and their fight for better conditions in Mantle, their attempts to mitigate the damage done by the class divide and exacerbated by Ironwood's policies, but then the soldiers flying the aircraft point out that what he actually did was throw a brick at their ship. This changes our perspective of Forest from someone unjustly arrested for fighting back against a tyrannical government to a bonehead who is justifiably being punished for attempting to damage government property. It's no accident that the show does this, reframes the Atlas/Mantle conflict, right before we see Ironwood.

Once we actually arrive at Atlas Academy, the writing immediately humanizes Ironwood, and by extension Atlas as a whole: Winter insists that the cuffs be removed, Ironwood apologizes for their initial arrest, and Yang is really the only one who bothers trying to hold Atlas accountable for it, because Yang's tolerance for bullshit from sketchy authority figures is the lowest of the main group's at this point. Ironwood just kind of laughs off the group's theft of an airship (Winter is less inclined to do so, but she still frames her concern in terms of Weiss's physical safety more than anything else), he returns the Relic of Knowledge, and he brings them into his inner circle. Ironwood has demonstrably reached out to trust others with his secret knowledge (Winter, Penny, the Ace-Ops) and has even acknowledged that the group is justified in thinking he's not very trustworthy right now*. He tells them his plan, agrees with the group's assessment of the negative impacts of his actions, and then reveals new information that offers a justification for his policies and promises to defend all of Remnant. It's meant to convince the viewer that he's a well-meaning leader making difficult choices that create temporary hardship while he works toward a permanent solution and hide the way that Atlas fundamentally doesn't give a shit about Mantle or its struggles. Judging by the reaction of certain segments of the fanbase, it, uh... worked.

*As an aside, I always find it funny when people act like not trusting Ironwood is some kind of horrific sin, like Team RWBY should have accepted his authority unquestioningly, when even the man himself admits that he can see why they wouldn't, but whatever.

The narrative continues trying to convince us that ha ha, this was just a wacky misunderstanding, when the Ace-Ops get properly introduced and immediately rush to apologize. Suddenly, they're cute and funny and sincere rather than threatening, gushing over the protagonists and participating in the same type of slapstick comedy as the other heroic characters. The Ace-Ops become mentors over the next few episodes, rather than antagonists, alternately supporting and lightly hazing the protagonists while training them and working with them on routine Huntsman missions or the Amity project. The training montage shows the kids growing closer to the Ace-Ops, and it's clear by the end of the Volume that both groups genuinely care about one another, otherwise their ultimate opposition wouldn't have cut everyone involved so deeply.

The narrative continues building Ironwood up as likeable and well-meaning throughout the next few episodes. When Jaune calls Ironwood out on his treatment of Mantle in Pomp and Circumstance, Ironwood accepts it without argument and even agrees, even when Jaune's worried about the response - "No. No, you're right. Things in Mantle have been... hard to manage lately. I'm not blind to its issues. In fact, that's what I want to talk to you about" (Volume 7, Episode 4). He gives the group their licenses two years early, he acknowledges their concerns and encourages them to take missions to help Mantle, and he's set up in opposition to established villain Jacques Schnee. He even gives an awkward speech that makes him seem a little goofy, and Penny points out that as awkward as it is, it's still an improvement over previous attempts. At this point, the narrative is just screaming that we should be rooting for Ironwood.

Even so, there are a lot of details in the background that tell us that yeah, those red flags we were worried about in The Greatest Kingdom are still there. They didn't go away. Watts mentions that "while cybersecurity has been stepped up in Atlas, as usual, none of the code was updated in Mantle," (Volume 7, Episode 2), while Tyrian calls Mantle "a city with a thousand eyes" (Volume 7, Episode 2) and we see security cameras all around the city. The infrastructure functions well enough to let Atlas keep tabs on Mantle, but nobody's put any effort into protecting that same infrastructure from cyberattacks... even though Atlas was deemed worthy of that effort. Once again, the point of Atlas's so-called defenses is controlling Mantle, rather than protecting it.

On top of that, Atlesian law apparently gives the military the right to commandeer private property. Jacques complains about Ironwood taking over the mine the protagonists clear out in Ace Operatives. Ironwood responds that since the mine is "now the site of a classified military operation, it didn't even require a vote" (Volume 7, Episode 3), a fact that shocks Jacques. This is... a pretty significant application of government power, especially for someone like me, who's used to thinking of things in terms of American government and the powers therein. While the United States government can take private land for public purposes through the process of eminent domain, it must compensate the landowner fairly for the land claimed in this fashion. Jacques was not compensated, and, as far as I can tell, may not have even been formally notified by the government, nor do there appear to be any checks on the military's ability to seize property as long as that seizure can be justified under the "classified operation" umbrella, but the narrative doesn't really give us much time to dwell on that. Instead, it focuses on Jacques's confrontation with Weiss and Ironwood and Team RWBY standing up for her. Once again, the story near-instantly deflects our attention away from the ugly truths behind Atlas's pretty mask.

This is freaking dangerous, honestly. In Atlas, it seems that your property can be confiscated at any time, with no warning or compensation, as long as the military can provide the flimsiest of justifications. Sure, taking the mine had a legitimate purpose, but what's stopping someone with Ironwood's power and authority from just taking other property to harm or punish a rival or dissenter? The middle of Volume 7 makes a big deal about the military's lack of oversight, but I'll get into that later.

Even the missions the protagonists go on reveal cracks in the foundations. Marrow makes fun of the parents down in Mantle for wanting Huntsmen to escort the kids to school, claiming that there's "not actually any danger, but the parents fret, and that attracts Grimm" (Volume 7, Episode 4), but frankly, from what we saw in The Greatest Kingdom, those parents are right to be afraid. Grimm routinely penetrate deep into the city, both through the streets and through other paths, as Elm asks for volunteers to flush a "massive Sabyr" (Volume 7, Episode 4) out of the sewers. If I had a kid in pre-primary school, which I'm assuming is equivalent to preschool in the US based on the appearance of the children Jaune escorts, I'd sure as hell want to make sure they didn't get eaten on the way too!

The decision not to trust Ironwood is controversial even in-universe, and the group discusses it in the third and fourth episodes of the Volume:

Blake: I suddenly don't feel as bad about leaving Oscar behind.

Yang: Can we talk about that again?

Ruby: What about it?

Yang: We're really not gonna tell Ironwood about what happened to Oz? What we learned about Jinn? About Salem?

Ruby: We are. We will. But you saw how things looked when we flew into Atlas.

Blake: The General's heart seems to be in the right place, but that doesn't mean we should trust him yet.

Weiss: We need to play along for a while before we make any major decisions.

Yang: Okay. How did Oscar feel about that?

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

Ruby: Er, probably shouldn't keep running around with an ancient Relic on a keychain… you know?

Oscar: But--

Ruby: I know you'll keep it safe in Atlas.

Oscar: Ruby, hiding things from Ironwood, doesn't that feel like what Ozpin did to us?

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

Qrow: Big day for you, huh, kiddo?

Ruby: It's… definitely a lot to take in.

Qrow: Which part? The finally getting to Atlas part, getting your license part, or the not quite disclosing everything to Ironwood part? Or… all of the above?

Ruby: All of the above. I'm trying to do what I think is best, but I really can't tell if what's best is what's right, or if I'm no different from Oz.

Qrow: Ruby, Oz only trusted himself with the whole truth. You're trusting others, but you're making sure they prove themselves first. I think that's a pretty big difference.

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

It's clear from these conversations that nobody's really happy about lying to Ironwood. Yang's detractors love to call her a hypocrite for supporting the decision to lie to Ironwood, but she's the first one to raise concerns about it, despite all the valid reasons for the choice, and Ruby reassures her that they will tell Ironwood eventually. Funnily enough, Yang gets so much flak for following Ruby's lead here, but she also gets bagged on for not obeying Ironwood's authority unquestioningly later on in the Volume. I wonder what the difference is here. I really do.

Ruby emphasizes the fact that she doesn't know if this is the right choice, and multiple characters actively draw a parallel between her actions and Ozpin's. The key difference here, as Qrow points out, is that Ruby intends to grant Ironwood full disclosure later on, once she's sure he'll be able to handle the news, whereas Ozpin would've kept his secrets until the end of time, and did play his cards as close to the chest as he could until Ruby used one of Jinn's questions to learn what he was hiding. Ruby does ultimately come clean, trusting Ironwood at the same time as he chooses to trust Robyn and Atlas's Council, so she's not just maliciously deceiving Ironwood the way some people like to claim.

Even later, when Yang and Blake tell Robyn about the Amity project, the divide remains. Here's the conversation where Blake and Yang discuss telling Ironwood:

Yang: Do you… Do you think we should've told Ironwood about Salem, before he put so much on the line for Amity?

Blake: Sounds like you do.

Yang: I trust Ruby, but I think he deserves to know what he's stepping into. We all did.

Yang: You don't agree.

Blake: Look around. The embargo, the military presence, the restrictions on assembly. He's a bit prone to overreacting.

Yang: Yeah, hard to argue with that. Still, he didn't have a lot of good options.

Blake: I'm not sure there are many good options left for any of us anymore. Keeping secrets, taking lives? It makes you wonder how far we're gonna have to go to keep doing the right thing.

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

Yang, "the self-righteous hypocrite", remains consistent in her characterization: being upset about lies and lying, about hiding the truth and having it hidden, has been a thing for her since like Volume fucking 2, but people who pay no attention to anything act like this came out of nowhere. Yang's big conflict with Ozpin is about how she feels like she and her friends were manipulated into joining the battle against Salem without ever being told enough to make informed choices, so it's no wonder she's upset about leaving Ironwood in the dark: it's exactly what happened to her!

Blake, meanwhile, spells out exactly why not trusting Ironwood is eminently justifiable. I really don't know how much harder the narrative can hit the audience over the head with this theme, but evidently it needed to find a way to do it harder.

Something really interesting to me is the way the group splits between favoring Ruby's choice and protesting it. The ones who agree with not trusting Ironwood the most have all been in abusive situations: Blake was in a relationship with Adam, Weiss has an abusive father, Nora's mother literally abandoned her to the Grimm, and Qrow was treated like shit by the Branwen Tribe. By contrast, Yang and Ruby had a more normal home life (Taiyang's temporary struggles after Summer's disappearance notwithstanding) and the show hasn't provided any evidence of either of them having romantic relationships of any kind prior to the series, much less abusive ones, while Ren's parents clearly loved him and nothing about the limited details provided regarding Oscar's living situation implies that he was abused in any way. We see Ironwood grow increasingly abusive throughout his decline in Volume 8, and Winter, another person raised in an abusive household, responds to his behavior with the same ingrained reactions she would have used to protect Weiss from Jacques when he tries to shoot Marrow. She's also absolutely freaking terrified when Harriet rats her out. Taken together, I think this is a deliberate choice from the writers. I think the characters who have experienced abuse saw something about Ironwood that made them wary.

So by this point most of the audience is now firmly on Ironwood's side. He's managed to overcome the initial bad impression, despite those niggling little details, so now the narrative introduces sympathetic opposition in the form of Robyn Hill. We've heard of her before, but we don't get to actually meet her until Sparks, when she holds up the truck that Ruby, Penny, Qrow, and Clover are escorting on a supply run. The transcript of their conversation is below:

Ruby: Uh, Uncle Qrow.

Qrow: What's going on? Grimm?

Clover: No. Worse. You two with me. Penny, stay put and keep an eye on our six. We may need an element of surprise.

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

Interesting start to the conversation here. Clover considers Robyn worse than the Grimm and is worried that their encounter might come to blows. This suggests that Robyn is living up to her inspiration and protecting the downtrodden by violent means if necessary and that Clover views her as a more significant threat than your average Grimm or bandit, despite the fact that she's running for a Council seat specifically to better Mantle's lot.

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

Penny: Affirmative. I will plan for six possible outcomes.

Robyn: Alright ladies, time to show them our teeth.

Clover: Robyn! Well, if it isn't Mantle's home town hero. Is there a reason you're blocking an official military transport?

Robyn: Clover, I'm so glad you're here. Maybe you can help me understand why this truck that's supposed to be taking construction materials to fix Mantle's outer wall, is on its way to the middle of nowhere? Are you lost?

Clover: It's pretty easy to get turned around out here in the tundra, everything looks the same. Thanks for checking up on us though. We'll be on our way now.

Robyn: I was hoping you'd play it straight with me. What's Ironwood doing with Amity at the old SDC mine?

Clover: Oh, that. Just giving her an annual checkup.

Robyn: The next Vytal Festival isn't anytime soon. Only automated drones and a few select Atlas scientists are allowed out here. And Amity's getting invaluable resources we need in Mantle to protect against Grimm. Seems like more than just a check-up.

Clover: You've been scoping it out.

Robyn: We can't fix the wall without the supplies on these trucks. I think Mantle deserves to know what they're being used for. It doesn't have to be difficult. Just tell me.

Clover: I'm going to have to pass on that.

Robyn: How 'bout you, pipsqueak? Five o' clock shadow? Either of you want to tell me why Mantle's being put at risk for Ironwood's pet project?

Ruby: We're trying to help Mantle. We need--

Clover: That's enough Robyn. As a potential Councilwoman, you should probably focus on the election instead of harassing Huntsmen. Now, it's time to let us pass.

Robyn: I think you've misjudged the situation. One way or another, these supplies are going to get where they're supposed to go - Mantle.

Clover: Then I suggest you do that through the proper legal channels as a Councilwoman. If you get elected.

Robyn: Now where's the fun in that?

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

This conversation tells us a lot about Robyn's operational patterns, and they remain consistent throughout both Volumes 7 and 8. First, she initiates dialogue. She gives Clover a chance to just tell her the truth, hoping he'll meet her halfway. When he doesn't, she asks some more pointed questions, hoping to convince him to come clean once he realizes she knows more then he thinks. Clover stonewalls her again, and she starts applying a bit of pressure. By this point in the conversation, she isn't even trying to convince him to hand over the supplies. She's just asking what they're being used for. My reading of this scene is that if Clover had given her a genuine answer, if Clover had taken her hand and told her that yeah, there's a real strategic reason supplies are being diverted from Mantle, she would have accepted it, backed off, and focused on the election... but he doesn't, so now that it's clear that Clover is not going to address her concerns, she moves to force as a last resort. Robyn even reaches out to Ruby and Qrow, trying to get them to offer her an explanation, before deciding that she's going to take the supplies that Mantle desperately needs by force.

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

Penny: Robyn Hill. I would like to politely ask that you call off the Huntresses approaching the rear of the truck.

Robyn: Alright. Joanna, May!

Robyn: The Protector of Mantle, huh?

Penny: Let us through, please.

Clover: Robyn. Good luck at the election.

Qrow: That was a close one.

Clover: You're telling me.

Fiona: What now?

Robyn: I want to know why Amity Colosseum is suddenly so important. Whatever it takes.

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

Robyn backs down once Penny reveals herself, though I'm not sure if that's because she thinks the odds are against her or because of either the genuine moral conflict or simply the optics of forcing a confrontation with the official Protector of Mantle. Either way, she's still focusing on why Amity Colosseum is a priority, rather than getting the supplies for Mantle no matter what, which implies to me that Robyn is still willing to accept a valid explanation for the Amity project. She's still trying to solve things diplomatically. She's trying to help Mantle and incurring real personal risk in doing so. Contrast her with Jacques, who's only concerned with his personal wealth and is spewing cringeworthy platitudes about how his family "has been weathering the same storm as many of you" (Volume 7, Episode 5), which goes over great with the miners slaving away for his company. We get some interesting headlines during his press conference, which I have transcribed below:

"Missing Journalist Found Slain In Her Midtown Apartment"

"Perimeter Wall Damaged Last Month - Resources and Funding Are Stalled"

"Surface Level Grimm Attacks Increasing - Mantle Protection Agency Advises Staying Indoors"

"Weather Special - How to Keep You and Your Family Safe From Hypothermia and Frostbite"

Ironwood's opponents are still being killed. Mantle's defenses are still crap, and no one in power has bothered changing that. Grimm attacks are increasing, to no one's surprise. The Solitas cold is still dangerous. We're pretty well-insulated with our viewpoint characters up in Atlas, but the show is quietly reminding us that it's not all sunshine and rainbows down in Mantle.

Jacques closes down his facilities and lays off workers, starting a riot, and the next episode opens up with those same rioters arrested and cuffed. Once again, the soldiers aren't doing much to stop the frequent Grimm attacks, but when it comes to turning force against Mantle's populace, there are plenty of troops available. Despite all this, Robyn is still trying to solve things diplomatically. She's not condoning the rioting, even though Mantle is "being denied aid for the hardships [it's] already had to go through" (Volume 7, Episode 6), and asks that her supporters "show [their anger] not in the streets but at the polls today" (Volume 6, Episode 7). Sure, part of this is probably because she thinks she's going to win the Council seat, but she is trying very hard to keep lines of communication open and encourage peaceful solutions as long as doing so is tenable.

After the riot, Nora mentions that Mantle is, y'know, still a problem. Ironwood kind of acknowledges this, but he doesn't actually take steps to solve that problem, which is becoming a common theme with him at this point: someone points out that his policies are hurting Mantle, he agrees and expresses regret for the necessity, he promises that the strain is only temporary, and then he never actually does anything about it. He puts the burden on Robyn to be open to working together when he says "it will only work if she's open too" (Volume 7, Episode 6). Fortunately for Ironwood, the audience is still on his side at this point. We've seen that he's trying, we've seen that Robyn is willing to reach out when she tries to get Clover to give her something, anything, out on the tundra, so we have hope that things will get better, even though we know as viewers that things need to go to shit to progress the narrative... which they do, at the rally, where we see that there are surveillance drones present and not even bothering to not be invasive. Damn things would probably try to follow you into the bathroom if they got the chance. Atlas is always watching you, folks, but it's not to keep you safe...

Post-massacre, Ironwood starts really clamping down. We start the episode off with a measure that should freak the absolute hell out of American viewers specifically, transcribed below:

Ironwood: Citizens of Mantle - Following the most recent Grimm attack, a temporary prohibition of assembly is in place.

Ironwood: There are to be no public gatherings of any kind. Please conduct your business and return to your homes before curfew.

Ironwood: This is for your own safety.

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

Ironwood has denied the people of Mantle the right to assemble. Here's why I said it should send up massive red flags for American viewers: assembly is a right explicitly granted in the Bill of Rights, the first ten formal amendments to the United States Constitution. It's part of the First Amendment, as a matter of fact. Here is the text of the amendment for anyone not familiar with it: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

"Congress shall make no law... abridging... the right of the people peaceably to assemble". That's the important part here. While Atlas is not real-world America (it's based partly on America, but is not a 1-to-1 representation), RWBY is made by an American company for a primarily American audience, and I sincerely doubt the writers are unaware of the implications of showing a government infringing upon rights that damn near every American old enough to have taken a government/history class is well aware of. This was a deliberate choice, it has to be, and it shows very clearly that Ironwood is less concerned with protecting Mantle and more concerned with controlling it. Oh, he couches it in terms of protection, but the populace of Mantle doesn't seem to agree with him. The citizens hide and flee from the soldiers, rather than looking toward them for safety and reassurance. Children on the street hide from surveillance drones. And Robyn Hill has finally resorted to violence.

Robyn has no options left. She tried to do things the right way. She tried to do things legally. She tried to work with the people in power. And none of that got her a damn thing. Jacques Schnee is sitting on the Council, and she knows he won't help Mantle. Ironwood won't help Mantle. Councilors Sleet and Camilla won't help Mantle. Three of the four Councilors have neglected Mantle for months at minimum, more likely years. The other one is Jacques Schnee. Robyn is the only one who will do a damn thing for Mantle at this point, and if that means taking on the might of Atlas, so be it.

This leads into the most significant line of dialogue in this entire mid-Volume election storyline: "I want Robyn Hill in custody" (Volume 7, Episode 7). I'll get to the implications of that in a moment, but first I'd like to discuss the way the narrative brings up martial law. I've seen people go after Winter for saying this, and I can sort of get why, but I think blaming her for it ignores the context of the scene. First, Ironwood is literally the highest military authority in the Kingdom and a control freak on top of that. The idea of declaring martial law is not something likely to ever be far from his mind. Winter's answering a direct question by bringing up an alternative that her boss is hardly likely to be ignorant of, and I don't think she's advocating it here. If she was, she would've encouraged it in private, not brought it up in front of the only group of people that has actually consistently gotten Ironwood to back down, that she knows will protest any measure of this nature. I think Winter's raising the possibility of martial law because she doesn't want it placed in effect, because she hopes the protagonists can get through to Ironwood again and moderate his more dangerous tendencies.

It works, kind of. Nora calls Ironwood out. It's a confrontation that's been building since the start of the Volume, and while I really think Nora's stance on Mantle should've gone to Blake, who got absolutely jack shit to do in a story arc where she should've been front and center next to Weiss, it's still the first big moment where the show says "okay, yeah, Ironwood's at serious risk of going from the well-meaning good guy we saw in early Volume 7 to an outright danger to the people he thinks he's protecting". Here's the transcript:

Nora: You're not actually considering that, are you?

Ironwood: What's more important? Establishing communications, unite the world? Or appeasing a few city blocks?

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

Ironwood reduces Mantle to "a few city blocks", rather than a city full of living, breathing people that is the main reason Atlas is even possible. The mask is starting to come off. It's getting harder and harder to deny that Atlas only really views Mantle as something to exploit.

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

Nora: Don't make it sound trivial when you know it isn't. You keep talking about how we just need a little more time, but you're not the one having to struggle.

Ironwood: We have all had to make sacrifices for the greater good. Mantle has had to bear a lot of the burden, yes, but--

Nora: They're bearing all of it! The longer this waiting game goes on, the harder each day gets for people down there and now you wanna send in more soldiers? You can't just force people to fall in line. If you do that, you'll just be trading all of these problems for the Grimm!

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

Thank you, Nora. Mantle is the one suffering. What sacrifices has Atlas made? Who in Atlas is living in fear of constant Grimm attacks? Who in Atlas is losing their jobs? Who in Atlas has been stripped of essential rights, denied at gunpoint? Sure, soldiers have died clearing out Grimm (at the hands of the Geist that hunkered down in the mine, if nothing else), but that pales in comparison to the way Mantle's civilians don't even have a fucking functional wall to keep the Grimm out. Ironwood sacrificed his damn reputation. He sacrificed public opinion. Meanwhile, people in Mantle don't know if they'll survive the trip to work, or if they'll even have a job when they get there.

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

Ruby: Please, General Ironwood. Squeezing Mantle this way… That kind of division plays right into Salem's hands.

Ruby: That's why Tyrian is here framing you.

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

Ruby's right. Salem's plan specifically hinges upon exploiting Ironwood's character flaws, particularly his stubborn insistence on doing everything himself, in the way he thinks best. Tyrian states that "if General Ironwood comes to his senses and calls upon aid from Vacuo, all may be lost for us" (Volume 6, Episode 9). Salem is deliberately targeting Ironwood, and he's falling right into her trap by fostering division and unrest instead of unity.

Anyway, the reason all this came up in the first place was because of Robyn. According to Ironwood, "Robyn has emboldened our suppliers in Mantle. They're refusing to sell us provisions until the city is adequately repaired. With Robyn redistributing the goods her team has stolen, the Amity Project is completely stalled" (Volume 7, Episode 7). This line is why the insistence that Robyn accomplished nothing by stealing the supplies has always baffled me. Ironwood literally says that Robyn's actions have given Mantle enough of a backbone to stand up to Ironwood and Atlas and enough teeth to make Atlas take its defiance seriously. The connection, to me, was always pretty clear: Robyn takes supplies, Mantle isn't completely and utterly dependent on Atlas and now has leverage to demand better treatment, Mantle demands better treatment. Robyn's vigilante justice got results. r/rwbycritics really likes to whine about how the supplies Atlas needs for the communication tower aren't the same as the supplies Mantle needs to repair the wall, but this absolutely galaxy-brained take ignores the way that the narrative repeatedly points out that the supplies for the Amity Project are being diverted from Mantle (Sparks, Worst Case Scenario) and that the communications tower requires construction materials that have a wide variety of industrial uses (steel, concrete, etc.) in addition to highly specialized parts and equipment. It's not really a stretch to assume that building materials for the structure of a tower could also be used to repair the damn wall, but I guess it's easier to crap on Robyn for defying Ironwood's policies, which the narrative has explicitly pointed out are harmful to Mantle, than think for two seconds.

Now we get to the elephant in the room: "I want Robyn Hill in custody." In custody. That's what he says. Not "under arrest". Not "stopped". Not "brought to trial". In custody. Ironwood wants Robyn under his control, he wants her removed as a threat, and he doesn't give a damn about the law or her rights to get it.

I don't blame anyone for not realizing the implications of his phrasing right away. I certainly didn't. I needed a tumblr post I saw a while back to point it out, just the same way I'm going to now. The key to understanding why Ironwood's words are so insidious comes in the next episode, when Jacques Schnee casually invites her to his victory bash. Robyn shows up alone, with no backup, and none of the Council members except for Ironwood have a problem with it. Ironwood makes no attempt to arrest her, even though she's alone and he has both his personal goon squad and the apprentice goon squad all within 100 feet of him. Robyn, a trained Huntress, walks into a room with three Councilors, none of whom have any training or possibly even Aura, and none of the three bat an eye. They don't see her as a threat.

How is this possible when Ironwood was trying to apprehend her last episode, you may ask? Simple: he never got a warrant. He never tried to formally arrest her. He sent a team of Navy SEALs if Navy SEALs were also cops to black bag her off the street. This was a black operation, so highly classified that Atlas's highest civilian authorities didn't even know about it. Ironwood tried to kidnap his opposition in the middle of the night. There was no warrant. There was no trial. He never formally charged her with a crime. He didn't inform civilian authorities that he was issuing orders to arrest Robyn. He just sent his squad to grab her with no oversight, no accountability, and no concern for due process or the rights of the accused. Between this and the confiscation of the SDC mine for the Amity project, it's obvious that the Atlesian military regularly engages in classified operations without bothering to brief civilian authorities, which is a major red flag because civilian control of the military is meant to reduce the risk of a military coup. It's why the President of the United States is also the official commander-in-chief of the US Armed Forces. There are no such checks and balances on Ironwood.

Robyn gives no fucks about any of that. Oh, she's smart enough to put the pieces together when Ironwood's team tries to nab her and she gets invited to a party not a day later by another Councilor, but she also has testicles the size of her head and knows it's the last chance she has to help Mantle without taking on the entire Atlesian military, so she goes anyway. In addition to having massive genitals, Robyn's also smart and knows how to play politics. Notice how in both Cordially Invited and As Above, So Below, she uses the name "Atlas" instead of "Mantle". That's a deliberate choice. She knows she's the only one in that room who gives a damn about Mantle, so she frames it in terms of the part of the Kingdom the people she's appealing to will care about. It works, sort of. Once the whole scene in the mansion is over, Mantle and Atlas are presenting a united front for once and we get the last bit of hope before the climax of the Volume, but even then, the devil is in the details.

While this whole election plotline is going on, the narrative is still slipping us hints that Atlas is not to be trusted. Pietro points out that "hacking into Mantle's system would be easy. Fortunately, the rest of Atlas is running on an upgraded network" (Volume 7, Episode 7). Once again, Atlas gets the upgrades, Mantle makes do with the scraps. The heating system, which is all that keeps the people of Mantle alive in the Solitas cold, is stuck running on this outdated infrastructure, and nobody has bothered to upgrade it. Remember as well that Tyrian and Watts are successfully framing Ironwood for the murder of his political opposition. For that to work, the people of Mantle have to be so disillusioned with Atlas's rule that Ironwood using force to eliminate his political opponents is believable to people he's supposedly protecting.

Up in Atlas, Ironwood's trying to come up with a response while his robots break up groups of people trying to survive in deadly weather conditions instead of engaging the Grimm drawn by the negativity. Robyn suggests using the air fleet the way it was supposed to be fucking used in the first place, but Ironwood shuts that down when he points out that "if [he] move[s] the fleet, then Atlas is vulnerable. I… I tried to keep the kingdom safe. And now we're losing everything" (Volume 7, Episode 9). Mantle is under attack now. Mantle is vulnerable now. The troops on the ground need support now. Ironwood still refuses to deploy the fleet. His priority is still Atlas. It was always Atlas. It will always be Atlas. Mantle will never be more than an afterthought as long as Ironwood is the sole person in charge. It only ever becomes anything else during the brief moments where he reaches out and starts working alongside people who actually care about Mantle.

The battle itself, as we eventually come to expect from Atlas, is a nightmare. A massive herd of Megoliaths waltzes right into the city and the only thing stopping them are a few soldiers on the battlements and some droids standing in the hole in the wall that still hasn't been repaired. The battleships never engage anything. The battleships aren't even visible during the scenes set in Mantle... but you can sure as hell see them when we cut back to Atlas Academy. We see them right out Ironwood's window. They're still protecting what Ironwood thinks is really important, while the people in Mantle don't even have adequate shelters:

Blake: Head to the nearest shelter!

Yang: Those shelters are gonna fill up soon.

Elm: They're all we've got. We just have to hold off the Grimm.

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

Protecting Mantle is a losing battle until Ironwood finally commits to evacuating everyone, and even that doesn't last long. The moment Cinder spooks him, he's ready to abandon Mantle to its fate.

To sum things up, Ironwood only ever helps Mantle when he can do so without working for it, when someone pressures him into it, and he stops doing so as soon as he can. He routinely denies his citizens essential rights, defaults to force as a solution to problems, insists on controlling everything around him, and actively believes that sacrificing his own humanity (and sacrifice in general) is the only way to beat Salem. Taking everything I've talked about into account, it's not surprising that Team RWBY doesn't trust him, nor is it surprising that some members of the audience got lured in by the reassurances the narrative offered to soothe away the fears the state of his Kingdom evokes.

This would've been even longer and maybe even had some pretty pictures, but fucking tumblr posted it before I was ready, so that's just one more reason this platform can eat shit.

#rwby #analysis #james ironwood #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #robyn hill #oscar pine

486 notes · View notes

englishstrawbie · 6 months

Text

I've been thinking about Station 19 since the news broke yesterday that the show has been cancelled and season 7 will be its last. I said the other day that I feel disconnected from the ship and the fandom, so I haven't been overwhelmed with sadness. I wonder if that will come once the show comes back and I remember how much I love these characters, like I did in season 6?

But I am bummed and I am disappointed that the show has been cancelled because it's a show that means a lot to me. Marina came along just at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. During that first lockdown, we got to watch them fall in love; and all throughout the ups and downs of the pandemic, they were there. It's a show and a ship that made me fall in love with writing fanfic again, that has brought some wonderful people into my life, that has brought us hours of fun and conversation and creativity. I'm grateful to the show for all that.

Maya and Carina are also one of the few wlw couples on television and it sucks that we're losing yet another one. I know the news is still breaking, but I hope when all those initial feelings pass and the show returns in March, we can come together as a fandom to celebrate the characters and the actors, to celebrate the show, and enjoy these last 10 episodes. Let it go out with an almighty bang!

I do wish it was more than 10 episodes. There are a lot of stories that we will miss out on because of the short season - but I'm grateful that the decision has been made in time for the writers to incorporate the end of the show into how they write the story arcs this season. We have a good chance of Maya and Carina having a happy ending, and that is going to mean a lot.

Finally (because I'm a little hungover and in no mood for fuckwittery), if you're the kind of person who intentionally tags your posts either here or on twitter to gloat about the show being cancelled, knowing that people are sad and knowing that the characters, the stories and the representation mean a lot to people... kindly fuck off.

#station 19 #my rambles

25 notes · View notes

aestariiwilderness · 3 months

Text

Infil & Exfil :D BAD BATCH SEASON 3 EPISODES 6-7 *SPOILERS*

(Oh, that's how you do the keep reading thing.)

"Operative" just. WALKING IN THE DOOR. Hiding behind a table. WALKING BACK OUT. All the super elite clone troopers. RIGHT THERE. Do they notice? Nope. Sitting there. Stuffing their faces. THE DOOR OPENED. THE DOOR OPENED MULTIPLE TIMES. THE DOOR MADE THE STAR WARS WHOOSH WHOOSH NOISE. THE WHOOSH WHOOSH NOISE THAT IMMEDIATELY ALERTS EVERYONE IN THE ROOM THAT SOMEONE. JUST CAME IN THE ROOM. GUYS. GUYS. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME IN FRONT OF THE NATBORNS.

Rex: oh let me bring my cool slightly insane bad batch besties to my super secret base with my clone rebellion! Nothing can go wrong Annnnnnd the end of the day count: One (1) Super Secret Base: Totaled Two (2) Clone Rebellion Ships: Smoking Wrecks One (1) Prisoner: Dead Clone Rebellion: Reduced Crosshair: Somehow Not Being Drawn and Quartered by Howzer After They Brought Him To Their Base and the Empire Promptly Descended Echo: Still Everyone's Taxi Service

This is (finally!) the Clone Who Cannot Die. And, simultaneously, the Clone Who Cannot Stop Falling Off Of Things. My lord, I don't care who he is, somebody get him a bandaid for the love of Pete. What's his count? Takes on entire Clone Rebellion: Still Alive, did better than they did, definitely has the brain cell Clone Trooper (he had a name, I just don't remember it) with a flamethrower: Still Alive One (1) building collapse: Still Alive Unspecified injuries to legs: Still Alive Unspecified injury(ies) to shoulder: Still Alive Shot at by Crosshair: Still Alive Nearly Exploded by Crosshair (ha, way to compensate for your shaky hands Cross -- can't shoot it with pinpoint precision? Ah well, time to EXPLODE IT): STILL ALIVE Fell down tower (? I was losing track): STILL ALIVE Abandoned by squad who pointedly did not offer any bandaids: STILL ALIVE Creepy chase through jungle: Still Alive, rocking new and fun injuries, looking damn fine on Star Wars Heat Vision™, terrifying absolutely everyone, has his own theme music Shot at AGAIN by Crosshair: Still alive (really, Crosshair, wow...you're like. A reg now) Brawls with Crosshair: Still alive, absolutely won that one hands down, no contest, unfortunately did not hold down long enough my man (has nobody ever drowned in Star Wars before? Really?) Fun Rapids Journey with Crosshair: Fine and dandy. Fresh as a daisy Gets Stunned In Water: Oh Thank God Please Let Him Nap -- oH OF COURSE THERE'S A WATERFALL -- Five-Story Waterfall? Sharp Rocks at the Bottom? Most Likely: BRING IT ON Abandoned by Squad AGAIN: STILL ALIVE I don't care if he's evil, he's my new favorite. Behold: COMPETENCY

Is anyone else getting Emperor's New Groove vibes or

Speaking of:

P.S. If it is Winter Soldier Tech it becomes both a thousand times more concerning and a thousand times more hilarious. Writers be like: okay let me see how many MORE times I can yeet this particular clone off a high place to his presumed death in one episode P.P.S. Rex: "It doesn't matter what you've done. At the end of the day, you're still a clone." Way Less Competent Clone Assassin: *stares* Way Less Competent Clone Assassin, mentally: ....yeaaaaahhhh, that's....how genetics work

#the bad batch #star wars #bad batch season 3 #spoilers #tbb season 3 spoilers #BAD BATCH SEASON 3 SPOILERS #mywildernesspost

17 notes · View notes

lover-of-mine · 8 months

Note

i’m always interested in your analyses of the blue-green thing! colour is such a cool way of expressing themes or parallels and when you look at it laid out with all the couples, it’s so clear and non coincidental lol

“up until 6b they were really careful with this particular implication of romantic undertones with buddie and that's out the window now” is this in reference to how they carefully set up buddie’s themes and storylines over 5 seasons and then fucked it up in just a few 6b episodes? 😅

because honestly that’s part of the reason why i don’t have much hope for canon in season 7, i feel like they’ve suddenly backtracked on their relationship for some reason and are gonna go all no homo and/or just ruin them completely

post about the blue and green thing

Okay, I'm gonna go conspiracy theorist here, and I may be giving the showrunners too much credit, but here's the thing, we know the threat of cancellation made them change things around during 6b, there's a very clear tone shift, they changed episode names, called actor back for reshoots, so they changed the way the season was supposed to go so it would work as a nice packaged little happy ending if they got cancelled. Personally, I believe that there is some higher plan with Buck and Eddie going on here, I think they are a slowburn that is still burning, and personally, that needs to burn a little bit more until they can have a relationship that would work (getting Buck back in therapy and letting them talk would be ideal) and if you wanna jump ship go for it, I don't blame you, this shit is frustrating. But the thing is, they are very careful about how characters are constructed, and Buck and Eddie exist as mirrors of each other, and they also mirror canon romantic couple, bathena being the most blatant one. And they make a point to make sure that if you look at it closely, you can pick up on some romantic undertone, most major buddie scenes have that feeling that leaves you wondering. And it's not like the show doesn't know how to write friendships, because they do, so... choices. But going back to season 6, it might just be me, but I don't want them to get together for the sake of them getting together, there's a lot of build-up surrounding them for me to be satisfied with "and they kissed roll credits" (i love you *falls to gay superhell*, oh he had complicated feelings over the jeep) so I don't think they fucked it up, I think they didn't have the time to playout what they wanted to do with buddie in the space they had in season 6 and voted against rushing it since there was a chance the show was going to get picked up by someone else. Because it is still very easy to write off both Natalia and Marisol and keep whatever plan they might have and if they didn't get picked up just shoving them together would be unsatisfying. (In the end, it was unsatisfying anyway because the way they wrote the season makes a real effort into painting Buck, Eddie, and Chris as a family unity, so most things that don't end with them acknowledging this are unsatisfying, but it's an easy fix because the show didn't end, so)

Because, in the end, they are purposely writing Buck and Eddie as mirrors of each other, and it goes down to the first death on the job for both of them being someone falling to their death. You have the first love that ran away from them and came back without giving them real closure, you have the rocky relationship with their parents, you have the relationship they were pushed into by other people (Eddie and Ana and Buck and Ali if that's not clear), you have the way that Shannon is introduced and the next episode Buck gets a girlfriend, Shannon dies? Next episode, byebye Ali, Eddie starts dating Ana? Next episode, let's bring Taylor back into the mix, Buck is dating Natalia? What a wonderful time to have Eddie decide he's ready to put himself out there. You have the late confirmation they are the same age. You have the way they both escaped home, the way they found themselves in firefighting. You have the pretty blunt parallels between the shooting and the lightning and the well and the lightning, you have Eddie's will and the way Eddie decided to hide it (because they could have Eddie talk to Buck before changing and I've seen this playout between friends in other shows, but the choice to hide it gives a different feeling), you have multiple confirmations that Buck sees Christopher as his own, you have Eddie being hurt being Buck's berzerker button. One or two things are an accident, this many? They're on purpose, and I chose to believe there is some bigger, longer plan in action here. Sometimes I feel like there's a large percentage of the fandom who doesn't understand the stakes behind a network slowburn. Even shows like castle or the mentalist, where you KNOW they are gonna end up together, took like? 6 seasons? of build-up for something to happen? And like, I want them together, but with everything we have around them, I want them together in the right way, and yes, I think the show is delaying them because the stakes keep getting higher so it's harder to make it work, but I do have faith they can make something good work, just look at everything about them from 6x10 to 6x13.

Also, that particular statement was just about the blue and green thing because I actually looked at every scene where they are together, and they are never in those colors except for those two scenes, and the choice of shades of blue and green is very on purpose to be on accident, you know what I mean? And Buck and Taylor have multiple blue and green scenes, to pick the shades from the shooting is insane really.

Everything is on purpose, but a tv show is not like a book or a movie where everything is gonna be contained, you need to let the story evolve and adapt to the circumstances in which is being aired, and personally, I think 6x16-6x18 are just a detour, some construction on sunset lol, I think they had a choice to keep the season the way it was supposed to go and risk leaving the show feeling unfinished or shift things around and just leave Buck and Eddie feeling unfinished and they went with the second option, because it had less consequences.

Season 7 could absolutely go just kidding, no homo, but the thing is, you have two characters whose storylines are deeply tangled together, you can just sit them down, have them talk, say "you're my brother, dude" and goodbye, they're platonic best buddies. But I also don't think they would draw such a hard line because us crazy buddie shippers keep watching the show in the hopes of seeing them in the same frame together, and I feel like a significant part of people could give up the show altogether if they make such a blunt statement. And the showrunners know that, keeping us in the will they won't they thing helps their numbers and we are a significant enough portion of the viewers to make a difference. The hope of buddie brings audience to the show so I wouldn't expect a no homo thing. Or any hard line between them really.

But what do I know? I'm just a girl with a blog and a hyperfixation lol

#i have theories about season 7 #and the way bucktalia mirror eddiana and how bucks breakdown is coming #leading to a situation that would mirror the effect of the shooting #that would lead to a conversation #would that be another aborted love confession? would that be a plain old love confession? i don't know #i need more information than just i have a feeling to make that statement #shit this is long skaoskoaksoaks #911 meta #???#i really need a tag for asks #anon 😌#i could go on about this forever really sokasokaoskaosk #anyone want to hear my season 7 buddie spec that has no basis besides the voices in my head? sdoaksoaksokasokasoak #reading this back for typos i feel like i may sound a bit condescending and I'm sorry if it does that's not the intention #i just sometimes like to think about the show as a business #and it makes some choices make more sense that way but also makes everything more frustrating #because the goal ends up being numbers and we pay the price #quite literally sokasokaoskaosk

26 notes · View notes

naturesapphic · 3 days

Note

jw x r fluff req : sikowitz ships them and they’re always together in partner projects etc

The perfect play

Jade west x fem!reader

Warnings: cussing, fluff

A/n: this is from episode 7 season 3

“All right! Now let’s talk about the new play im directing!” Sikowitz says with a creepy smile on his face. “Do I get to star in it?” Jade asks and Andre immediately gets defensive. “Uh I think it’s mine turn to star in it.” Andre argues and then everyone starts to argue and get into a hissy fit while you just sat there playing with your hands. Jade sees this and gives you her keys to play with so you don’t pick your nails or skin. Sikowitz sees this and makes a mental note of it. He secretly ships you and Jade together and with his new play he’s making, he knows just how to spice things up.

“This time, you people will choose your own roles.” Sikowitz says as he grabs a little box and hands it to Andre and beck. They are playing as twins and Andre makes a funny comment about how the mom has some explaining to do which made everyone laugh. Sikowitz makes a annoying car sound and stops by jade and she picks “Walter swain. Loving husband of Nancy.” She said blankly. Then sikowitz makes more noises as he goes over to you and puts the box in front of your face. You put your hand inside the box and picked out a piece of paper that read “Nancy swain. Loving wife of Walter swain.” You read out loud.

You felt your cheeks heat up and you look over at Jade who still had a blank look on her face as she looked at you. You didn’t notice but when sikowitz walked away he had a big smile on his face as he was hoping that his plan will work. For the next past few days you and Jade have been hanging out so y’all could rehearse. You started to see a side of jade that you didn’t even think beck saw and you were grateful for it. Jade behind all of her tough and scary exterior was really just a hurt girl who just wants love and to be treated right. Jade and you were putting on y’all’s costumes before the play when sikowitz came over. “Are y’all ready? We will be starting in two minutes. Y’all got this!” He said quickly and yelled at cat to get him his coconut.

You walked out with Andre and beck onto the stage and started it the play. All eyes were on you and you definitely started to feel the nerves and pressure of it all now, but it went away when you heard the car door sound come on, signaling that Jade will be coming out. A few more minutes into the play and it was about over, Jade did the part where she pretends to fall asleep on your chest and she puts her full body weight onto you. “Honey? Wake up.” You say softly as jade shoots up looking around crazily “blastoff!” She exclaimed. “No. No you were saying I’m so…” you started and Jade cuts you off “oh right. You’re so good, gentle…how can you love a sleepy loser like me?!” She exclaimed and looked up dramatically. “You are no sleepy loser. You’re an astronaut.” You said lovingly as you hold onto her arm as you look at her with so much love in your eyes. “I love you.” Jade says as she looks deep into your eyes.

“I love you.” You replied and the scene was that you were supposed to hug but what you weren’t expecting was Jade to grab you by your waist and crash her lips onto yours. You kissed her back as you heard clapping and cheering in the background. The both of you pulled away and grabbed each others hands and bent forward. Out of the corner of your eye you see sikowitz clapping and cheering y’all on like a crazy person. The curtains were rolled, covering the stage and you looked at Jade once more. “Did you do that for the show or did you actually mean it…” you asked Jade, hoping that you will get the answer you are hoping for. “I meant it. Go on a date with me…please?” She silently begged at the end which made you smile because you know that THE Jade west never begs. “Of course we can. How about now since the play is over?” You said as you grabbed her hand and Jade followed you out of the school building to your car. You were gonna thank sikowitz later.

A/n: sorry anon that this took so long but I hope you enjoyed this! And I hope the rest of y’all enjoyed it too! Remember to stay hydrated and to rest! I love y’all :)

#jade west x fem!reader #jade west fluff #jade west masterlist #jade west fanfiction #jade west #jade west x reader #elizabeth gillies x fem!reader #elizabeth gillies x reader #elizabeth gilles #victorious x fem!reader #victorious x reader #victorious #nickolodeon #nickelodeon #Nickelodeon x reader

13 notes · View notes

fullscoreshenanigans · 4 months

Note

Imagine a AU where everything would have been the same except that, when the demon attack the children at the end, it's Jemima who fall while trying to run and Ray who jumps to protect her and Isabella is fatally wounded by protecting them (him).

Yeah it's "how mess even more with Ray's emotions about her"

I think it's great that she do that for Emma, but if she did that for Ray it would have been more intense.

But it would be a interesing callback to their discussion when he was 6 and that he realized that she would sacrify him for live longer, that she would ship him, that she sees her life as more important than him, her son (and realizing that had broke his little heart). And now, 7 years later, she decides that his life is more important than her life. She sacrify herself so he would live longer.

The reverse of the situation of the day of their deal.

Ray would be destroyed, even more than in canon. Because that's a thing that she want to apologize on her "deadbed", it's another that she did it atfer have saved his life, have have showed him that she changed and sees him as important for her.

(And if she had survived, he would have been the little ball of stress about her because she wouldn't want to rest and would want ot help to find Emma. "mum you have been stabbed" "it was 3 days ago Ray" "MUM")

I'm of two minds on this because there is the poetic beauty of adding more to their tumultuous relationship than what we got after all that was left unsaid about their interactions during their time together pre-escape, but I'm opposed to it on the grounds of ceding any focus from Emma in such a crucial moment with how centered her relationship with her mother was in the escape arc, in addition to the ending of generational female trauma after Isabella was so deadset in her belief that perpetuating it was the best future she could offer her beloved daughter.

It also feels poignant given how this is the first narrative train of thought we hear from Emma in the manga:

It's so important that even though the anime did away with internal monologues, they made sure to have Don emphatically express the sentiment in her place in episode 1.

She abused and wronged Ray in a unique way due to their biological relationship, but it shouldn't take precedence in a moment where she's meant to act as a true guardian to all her children after walking dozens of them off to slaughter.

(And if she had survived, he would have been the little ball of stress about her because she wouldn't want to rest and would want to help to find Emma. "mum you have been stabbed" "it was 3 days ago Ray" "MUM")

While I'm all about Ray lowkey fretting over his younger family members in ways he might have inherited from her:

(Chapter 8 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 116 | Chapter 181.4)

This scenario is a bit too sitcom-ish for me after all the suffering he went through under her care. I can't imagine him expressing anything beyond neutrality or flares of irritation toward her when they would interact for some time.

He would not act cruelly toward her because one of his earliest defining character moments shows that isn't how he operates after seeing dozens of his siblings shipped out over the years.

(Chapter 11; while harm is unavoidable in his escape plan with the children he would sacrifice so Emma and Norman could live, he is adamant about not adding an iota more of cruelty than he has to. There's been enough pain in his short life already.)

And he would not want to rob her of the opportunity to reconcile with her other children and walk further along the path of redemption because he wouldn't be there right now if his family hadn't given him the chance to do the same. Likewise, he wouldn't want to deny his siblings the opportunity to know their mother in a world that's kinder to all of them.

(Chapter 174)

But for himself, it's hard to let go of years of hypervigilance, constantly on edge to not show a hint of vulnerability lest it foil his plan, and knowing what he represented to her after he shattered the blissful delusion she'd fallen into at Grace Field for five years. That would stay with him to some degree forever and always color their relationship, even if they were both working toward reconciliation.

Up until the day of their reunion, he didn't hesitate to call her a monster after nearly two years of probably assuming she was dead because of the note he wrote as bait to get her in trouble with headquarters, a wry smile playing on his lips at the thought of her being considered a "good parent."

(Chapter 169)

She had a two-year headstart on actively working to better herself and help aid the children in dismantling the farm system. He had less than twenty-four hours to attempt to sort through his cavalcade of emotions after helping overthrow a corrupt governing body and rushing off to save his kidnapped friends and family from slaughter, and now they're dealing with Emma's disappearance. I don't think he'd be ready to work toward reconciling with her for some time, even though he could acknowledge being willing to risk her life after sacrificing lives for so long is a large shift in her perspective and he encouraged her to take care of her regrets in the human world so she could build a life she would be proud of.

12 notes · View notes

highway-stars · 12 days

Text

I FINISHED DEEP SPACE 9 HERE ARE MY THOTS ::

Absolutely fucking stunning series to the point where I'm like "why isn't this THE Star Trek ppl talk about in their daily lives" but like I get it. It def doesn't have the fun chaotic exploration vibes of the other series but IMO the characters and plots are so multilayered and interesting and so much can be said and explored about them.

But when it sucks it SUCKS. Which I guess is every Star Trek but like. God I hate the Mirror so fucking much. I haaaaaaate the Mirror. Also why did Miles O'Brien send his kid back in time after trying to acclimate her for like a week in that time travel episode that sucked so bad holy shit.

Captain Sisko favorite captain. Far and away the best captain. He's harsh and serious and makes really intense, tough decisions that MAKE SENSE for the position he's in. Picard can be a lawfully good goodie guy cause he CAN and the Enterprise is FUN. Sisko does not have that luxury and it makes him do things that are kinda shitty sometimes and also he's a GOOD DAD and I love him.

Kira worship all day every day 24/7 thank you for giving me a female character in the 90s that isn't just "OUGH STRONG LADY" and actually has weaknesses and depth and can laugh and fall in love while also being angry and ruthless and unforgiving. I love her. I worship her.

Odo was my fav for a while but I kinda hate what they did to his character towards the end. I shipped Kira Odo like I really did but once they were together there wasn't much there. Garak actually ended up being my FUUCKING meow meow sorry I love him like I get it he's precious I LOVE HIM. Pale Moonlight was one of the best PIECES OF MEDIA I've ever watched. Garashir forever.

Every plot with Quark actually made me like Ferengi SO MUCH. I fucking HATED the Ferengi during TNG, but DS9 made them really fun and just so ridiculous I ended up loving them.

Uhhh I have a lot more thots but this got long so idk send me a message so I can talk about My Man Garak

#star trek

8 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

khenggay

Kendar

kpradeepkumarreddy-blog

K Pradeep Kumar Reddy

gods-warrior-princess

The warrior Princess

osargis

ONE BOW; ONE BLOW

market-catchers

Market Catchers.com