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mccall-muffin · 1 year

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Love vs. Hate - Part 20 // Joe Liebgott x OC

Summary: Buck's back and Liv is really happy about that, but then their new assignment is dropped on them. Still in an almost good mood they walk into the Bois Jacques Forest, without knowing that these woods will be their personal freezing hells.

Warnings: Language, War generals, Fluff, Angst

A/N: Here we go... And we're diving right into Bastogne... Hope you are ready for it!

Here is my Masterlist

Tag List: @brassknucklespeirs, @liebgotts-lovergirl

December 12, 1944 - Mourmelon, France

"Well, look who found his way back here," I grin and look at the blonde man in front of me, who now turns to me. I'm surprised at how drained he looks. "I was beginning to think you were going to abandon me with the second platoon?" Buck forces himself to smile before walking toward me. "Liv! It's good to see you," he says, then hugs me. "It's good to see you. How's your butt?" "So far, so good," Buck laughs. "It's still a little sore." "I can imagine."

I put my arm around Buck and lead him along with me. "The others will be glad to see you, Buck. Don's been on my case for what feels like forever, wondering when you'll get back."

We take a few more steps. "Hey, Don! Look who I found," I call out as I spot my best friend. "Buck!" he calls out immediately, coming toward us with a beaming grin. The two of them greet each other, and I stand by smiling. Buck tells us a little about his hospital stay, and we laugh together.

"Sergeant Stark!" We hear a voice, and I roll my eyes. "Jesus Christ," I grumble, exchanging a quick glance with Don as Dike approaches us. "Sir?"

He steps toward us, and I notice Buck eyeing him. "Sir, this here is Lieutenant Compton. He's taking over the second platoon again," I explain to Dike, who is watching Buck. "Sir," he greets Dike. Dike nods briefly at Buck and then looks back at me. "I want you to gather all the men in the central area. It's about the next few days." I frown. "I'll inform First Sergeant Lipton of that, sir," I say firmly, and Dike looks at me briefly before he walks away.

"Okay, what was that?" asks Buck, looking at us questioningly. "Our CO. He's got the hots for Liv," Don says directly, and I punch him in the shoulder. "That's not true." "It is true, and you know it, sweetheart. Winters isn't too pleased about it either," Don continues. "Dike just forgets sometimes that I'm not the First Sergeant and gives me tasks that wouldn't be mine but Lips. That's all." Buck looks at me with a raised eyebrow. "Just forget it," I shake my head. "I've got to find Lip. I'll see you later. Good to have you back, Buck." I wave to the two of them and head off, searching for Lip.

December 19, 1944 - Mourmelon, France

Together with Joe, I sit in the back of the room, where they run a movie. Our legs are pressed together, and now and then, Joe puts his hand on his leg and accidentally touches mine. "You don't know how much I'm looking forward to Paris," I whisper to him. "Finally, no prying eyes. No rules, just the two of us together." Joe looks at me with a smile. "And I'll finally be able to take you out properly."

I look over at him and smile when suddenly someone pulls on my sleeve. "Liv! Come on!" hisses Don, looking at me urgently. " What's going on?" "Come on!" he says, pulling on my sleeve again.

I look briefly at Joe, who shrugs.

Don pulls me forward with him toward Skip and Perco. "Skip! Where you been?" he asks excitedly, and Skip looks at him briefly. "Well, I was at home in Tonawanda - then Hitler started this, so now I'm here," he says casually. "What's going on, Don? Is it about craps? How'd you make out in craps?" I then ask, knowing he was gambling with other soldiers. "Here's the $60 I borrowed. And the 100 bucks from you, Liv," Don then says, pushing the money into each of my hands and Skips.

"Wait, what?" I ask in surprise. "You're paying us back? Surprising," Skip asks, as surprised as I am. "And a tip for both of you!" "Jesus! Did you rob a bank or something?" I ask, and he grins at me. "Nope, I'm just really good at craps." "I told you he's cheating!" I immediately tell Skip. "Only $3600 left," Don then says. "What'll you do with that?" asks Skip, and Don gives him a jaunty look. "Blow most of it in Paris." "You might as well just save it, Don," I grin, and he shakes his head.

Suddenly, two soldiers come in and break into the movie. Of course, the soldiers don't like this at all and complain. "Quiet!" he shouts one soldier. "Come on," Joe Toye complains up front. "Quiet! I said, quiet! The 1st and the 6th SS Panzer Divisions broke through in Ardennes. They overran the 28th Infantry and the 4th. Officers report to respective HQs. All passes are canceled. Enlisted men, report to barracks and your platoon leaders."

I close my eyes in annoyance and put my head back. "Eh, fuck," I grumble as Don looks at me, annoyed. "Don't look at me like that!" I say, slapping his leg. "I am not to blame." "I know, but still!" "Don't you think I'd rather go to Paris? Finally, Joe and I would have had a chance to spend some time together, but no..."

"Liv?" someone interrupts us then, and I look up. It's Dick. "Sir?" I ask in surprise. "You're with us." I nod. "Yes, Captain," I say and then follow him.

A little later, we are already sitting in the trucks that take us to Belgium. Sandwiched between Joe and the bench on which Buck is seated, I sit there shivering. "Holy shit, it's cold," I curse and pull my jacket tighter. "I just wanna know where they're sending us. What the hell are we supposed to do with no ammo? Liv? You know something?" Skip asks, and I exchange a glance with Buck before shaking my head. "Nope... Just that it's fucking cold." "You don't say," he says, and I give him an annoyed look. "Hey, kid, what's your name again?" "Suerth. Suerth Jr," he replies, and I give him a quick look.

"You got any ammo, Junior?" "Just what I'm carrying." "What about socks, Junior?" Skip asks, and I roll my eyes. "Hey guys, just leave him alone, okay?" I then say and look briefly at Joe. "You need four, minimum. Feet, hands, neck, balls..." "Extra socks warms them all!" We join in Skip's sentence. "Okay, we all remember that one, but did we remember the socks? Except for you, sweetheart. You got your boobies to warm your hands, don't you?" "Ah, shut up, Skip! My boobies are none of your concern."

"He's got a point, though. Maybe I can warm my hands..." Joe then whispers, and I immediately interrupt him. "Don't finish that sentence, Joe!" "Give my goddamn boots for a cigarette," I hear Don mutter, sitting next to Joe. "Here..." I hold my pack to him, which still has a few cigarettes. "Wait. Where did you hide those? Son of a bitch, Liv. Mean move." I raise my eyebrows and look at my best friend.

"We're all out of ammo and socks," Penk says. "I bet Junior's got plenty of both." All eyes shift to Suerth, and somehow I feel sorry for him. "I don't," he says hesitantly. "How about a hat? You got a hat?" "Hey, you got extra ammo?" "What about a coat? Got a coat?" they are all talking to him now. "Hey, guys! Shut it!" I try to calm them down, but they skillfully ignore me. "Shut up with the coat. No one's got one," Don now interferes and looks at Skip. "How about some smokes then?" he continues to ask. "Yeah, I got some smokes," he replies, and of course, everyone jumps on him again. "Now, do you know why I didn't say it?" I ask Don, and he nods. "I need to pee," Joe then says and looks at Don, who looks incredulous.

When we finally stop, we all get out. The boys, at least a large part, must piss immediately while I look around and then stand at one of the kindled fires. "They don't expect us to stay out here, do they?" then asks George, who stands next to me, shivering.

"Looks like it."

"Sergeant Stark?" Me and George look up, and Dike walks toward us. "Sir?" "Captain Winters wanted me to inform you that we are taking you out of the 2nd Platoon, and you are now assisting Lieutenant Peacock. Effective immediately." "What? I'm sorry, sir, but why?" Dike looks at me for a moment. "Captain Winters feels that Lieutenant Compton has enough experience and knows the men well enough, and Lieutenant Peacock could use assistance in both of these matters." With these words, he turns and disappears.

George and I look after him, perplexed. "Well then... Welcome to First Platoon," George says, nudging me lightly.

"Jesus Christ!" we then hear someone swear. "Bill! Don! Liv! Look at this," Babe shouts, and George and I turn around. Of course, we immediately realize why Babe is so excited.

A huge group of soldiers is coming toward us. Most of them are severely beaten up, and some are also badly wounded. When I look into the eyes of one, they are empty and dull, which immediately sends a shiver down my spine. "Holy fuck," I breathe, exchanging a shocked look with George. "What the hell?" the latter asks as well. Up ahead, I see Bill and Don walking up to the soldiers and addressing them.

"Guys?" I then ask, and Don, George, Bill, and Babe look at me. I point to my neck and then back to the soldiers. "If you need ammo, this is the best time to get it now." The guys quickly understand, and the others quickly realize what we are up to and do the same.

After taking what we could from the beaten soldiers, we make our way into the woods. Suddenly, Joe is walking beside me. "Hey," he says, and I look at him briefly from the side. "Hey," I say back. "Are you warm enough?" he asks, and I raise an eyebrow. "Is that a serious question?" Joe shrugs. "In a way, yes. I want my platoon leader to be okay, after all." I stop short, and he looks at me questioningly.

"What?" I take a deep breath and then continue walking slowly. "There's something I need to tell you. Dike... He reassigned me. I'm Peacock's assistant now." "What?" asks Joe immediately. "Why is that?" "I guess Winters felt I was more useful to Peacock than Buck." "That's bullshit!" I press my lips together. "I know... But I can't change it."

"I swear Skip and George are to take care of you!" grumbles Joe to himself, and I have to grin. "I've told you so many times you don't need to take care of me, okay?"

Joe says no more, and we walk silently side by side. When we finally arrive in the woods a little later, I see Peacock coming toward us. "Liv," he calls, looking at me. "Tell the men to dig in for the night. The first platoon will take the line back there," he says, pointing to a spot. I nod. "Will do, sir."

I turn to Joe, and he looks at me as well. "I guess I'll see you later," I say quietly, and he takes my hand in his. "You have cold hands," he says, and a crooked smile appears on his face. "Is that so surprising?" "I guess not," he grins, then kisses my hand. "Take care of yourself, Liv." "And you take care of yourself."

"Hey, Liv! Come on, let's dig in up ahead!" George calls out to me, and I nod. "I'll be right there." I look at Joe again before smiling at him and then following George.

December 22, 1944 - Bastogne, Belgium

"God fucking damn it!" I grumble, rubbing my arms. "Wow, are you kissing your mother with that mouth?" asks George, who is slipping into the foxhole. "I don't really care. They can't be fucking serious, can they?" George shrugs and then holds out a hot cup of coffee to me. I accept it gratefully and try to warm my hands.

"Hey, you know this isn't free," he says, holding his hand. I roll my eyes, take out my smokes and give him two. "You mooch!" "What? It's not my fault that the higher-ups can get this stuff faster than we can. And since you get paid, like an officer, you have to pay," he laughs, and I shake my head.

He lights the smoke, and I do the same. "So, how are things with Joe and you?" George asks, and I look at him, surprised. "What?" "Well, with both of you. I haven't noticed anything big in a long time, just that you guys aren't fighting anymore," he grins, and I shake my head. "Not that it's any of your business, but it's going.... pretty good."

"Hey, Liv!" Then Vest suddenly calls out, walking towards us. "Allen? How can I help you?" "Here, this was just dropped off," he says, handing me a letter that looks pretty beat up. "Thanks," I say, and Vest disappears again.

"What's this?" asks George immediately, and I examine the letter. "From the looks of it, it's from my brother," I say, and George raises an eyebrow. "The Marine or the Ranger?" I smirk and look at George. "The Marine, but it doesn't really matter."

I smile at George again before opening the letter and starting to read it. With each word, however, the laughter is wiped off my face a little more.

My dearest Olivia,

For three days, I have been staring at this paper, wondering whether or not to write it.

It is tough to tell you, but it is about Cindy.

She fought so bravely, Liv. She proved herself an honest Marine. You wouldn't believe how proud I was. They even promoted her to sergeant.

A few days ago, I received word from her Colonel that some soldiers were taken as POWs during a night attack on her company. Among them was Cindy. We don't know if she is alive, but knowing the Japs by now, I think I would rather wish she was dead.

The idea of the horror of what they do to men usually and then what they do to her as a woman... I'd rather not overthink that.

I am so incredibly sorry to bring you this news. You need to know. She is, after all, our sister.

I hope you are doing well.

Your brother, Damon

"Liv?" I hear George ask as I read the letter again and then lower it. "Liv?" George asks again, and finally, I look at him. "What's wrong?" he asks, sliding over to me immediately. I can't say anything, however. The words my brother has written to me are fighting more and more into my consciousness. "Liv?" asks George again, and I realize that I'm not just staring blankly at him, but I've started crying.

Then I avert my gaze from him and hold out the letter to him. George reads through it and then looks at me sadly. "Liv... I'm... I'm so sorry," he whispers, and I look at him for a moment before wiping my tears with my sleeve, taking the letter from his hand again, and stowing it in my jacket. "It's done. Just forget it." "But Liv..." "I said it's done, George. Please!"

I lean back in the foxhole and close my eyes for a moment. Of course, my thoughts keep wandering to my sister. They've been showing us movies of how the war is raging in the Pacific, and it's not pretty. But I can't let myself get distracted now. I have a responsibility and a task.

Suddenly I feel someone next to me, and I open my eyes. Skip and Penkala have sat down to my left and right and are leaning against me. I exchange a quick glance with Skip, who nods at me with his lips pressed together and then puts his hand on my arm.

I didn't notice George climb out of our foxhole and must have told the two of them. But my two friends know better than to call me on it now when I've made it clear I don't want to talk.

I smile at Skip and then rest my head on his shoulder before taking Penk's hand and squeezing it to show them that I understand their gesture and am grateful. I also give George a quick wink to say thank you. I snuggle a little closer to Skip and close my eyes again.

#Band of Brothers #Joe Liebgott x OC #Band of Brothers fanfic #Joe Liebgott fanfic #part 20 #Here we go #Bastogne #Don Malarkey #George Luz #Skip Muck #Joe Liebgott

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mangosimoothie · 2 years

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The Bachelorette: Episode 5 - Alanzo

Welcome back to your favorite reality dating show - Sims 4 Bachelorette! In episode 5, Alanzo shares his luxurious, high roller lifestyle with Aja on his extravagant yacht, but something out on the sea is just a liiittle fishy. Let's see how it went

La Sirena is Alanzo's pride and joy - a triple decker party yacht complete with a glass bottom infinity pool, a sauna, of course three fully stocked bars, Swarovski studded interiors, and a private, exclusive underwater casino lounge.

In an interview sweet, sweet Cooper complained, "How are we supposed to compete with that..." It's a competition, Coop, figure it out!

Aja and Alanzo relax on the top deck of La Sirena in one of the four Luxema hot tubs (they run about $27k each, but the jet upgrades and essential oil infused water added on another $5k)

In the private casino Alanzo wipes the Feng, Goth, and Landgraab families clean. He won a total of $6 million which will all be donated to Aja's foundation Black Beauty Babies, an organization for empowering young Black girls from underprivileged areas. He miiiight have been cheating but 1) it's his yacht, he can do whatever he wants and 2) it was for a good cause!

After the game, Alanzo excuses himself for a moment to a restricted back room to "discuss business matters" with some of his "associates." This was all we were able to capture until his security noticed our hidden cameras and had the whole camera crew forcibly removed from the ship and onto a life raft.

"La Sirena is one of the best party boats I've been on. Alanzo clearly lives a very glamorous lifestyle, but he knows my net worth is in the millions too, right? Still, we'd make one hell of a power couple."

Did you hear anything from Alanzo's business meeting?

"No, I got bored and went to the yacht spa for a brown sugar body scrub. Also, Jacques Villareal's 'girlfriend' asked me how I know 'Anastasio.' Is that one of the show's investors or something?"

Uhhh, we'll get back to you on that.

NEXT | PREVIOUS | BEGINNING

#ts4bachelorette #ep5 #sims4stories #sims 4 screenshots #simblr #ts4 story #bella goth

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mybloodyfamousprophets · 6 months

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i hope you ate on your 7 hour drive from the 6ix, islands far, truck stop the busses skip, pay twenty dollar ticket, get away for a weekend,

walk on through historic city, jacques cartier looks so pretty, our own little slice, copy of Paris, ligne orange a montmorency, blue line trains not fancy, changer snowdon go east, climb a mountain, watch sunsetz clouds burn out like the darts hitting, you spent your life hidden, found out what you’d been missing, spotlight Mount Royal eye, clubs bouncing city lights, head back downtown avoid fights, hit the Saint Laurent tonight, drinks flowing, your good times, look across the bar with starstruck eyes, that boys outfit is cuter than mine, but tonight i won’t have the time,

came here first you were just a kid, city felt magic we got snowed in, eating cheapest street poutine, those were really simple days, no boys backstabbers frauds or fakes, just a teacher that you hate, punish you alone i call that hate, you never talked back, no stand up show up for yourself, misguided alone on a bad path you fell, no good friends to lift you out of that hell, but you’re not that kid and now you’re well, different, but you saw the city and you got addicted

a few years later we drive on back, too broke for Adirondack, mom takes you off the leash to roam, and you almost bought a ticket home, but explore on your own and take in the sights, a city so close but different from mine, change your language all the time, guys smoking weed and cops don’t fine, didnt have a boy i could call mine, just 14 but you were longing, feel like you weren’t belonging, some new clothes renewed your hope but you still begged, throw me a rope, you were too serious, i’m not serious enough, you were jaded, now I’m faded off the pot, you were sippin, vodka, civics class was hot, im no different, just changed it up a notch,

icy winter, but i’m a little older now, thanks for frosh week, went with new friends, it was pretty sweet, stared at Van Gogh, moving picture on the wall, high feel the stars that circle the hall, not here with you, but i let myself enjoy it all, long line smoked meat, famous deli, and then we leave on down the street, i know my way in this city, Apple Maps try and lie to me, bus downtown busy streets, then we stayed in the room that night, drinking Whitney till the sun rise, one more shot on the count of ten, passing out in the bathroom bin, drunken mess dragged into bed, can’t remember what you said, drunk and i was feeling red, wishing i was holding… no, i can’t say his name.

racers weekend, rene levesque looks red hot, jean drapeau all blocked off, rainy days forecast still stayed hot, see these streets i walk a lot, but im here on my own shot, booked this trip to see him, city he was gonna be in, but i asked him when he’s free and he never sent that text to me, stayed with a friend we went to check out ACC, have a good drink but i prefer to smoke, so did he, i take another toke, what a joke, stayed with her but my boys at home, still, never came with me, i guess it’s good he couldn’t ruin my favourite city, running away REM faster than highway, make my great escape, or maybe one day, i walked by that jacques cartier, same spot i saw as a kid that day, teacher heard ipod in pocket headphones played, tales of scary ghosts and gays, spot where memories were made, i talk to none of them anymore, times passed years before

weekend trip you, came with your best friend, roommates kicked out by hotel [can’t name due to ongoing legal battle], wouldn’t leave them out on the streets, moved new hotel, now my friend is feeling groovy so we go to gay bars, smoothie, fruit salad in the room, beyonce or abba go and pick a tune, or some awful showtune we don’t feel glee, i only know Hamilton mcmaster university, or queen elizabeth, granted, not the monarch, burning filtered lights and my hands are up, burn my lungs and cross my heart, on the balcony and I’m singing, baby, did you even really love me?

one days time is, never enough, to catch this city from the window on a bus, metro underground rolling around, taking over every cool spot in town, meet a new guy old one got mean, can’t tell if he’s just, playing with me, headphones brown hair, see him some, here n there, want more, give me some fun!

one days time is, never enough, stayed in anjou, far from the fun, cross province drank the same time as me, we both threw up so dizzy, fireball my throat is burning, keele’d over on college street, he’s on the floor, breakup Whitney, and we called a cab at like, 10 past 3, friends lift him into bed, i tumbled into the back, seat, flashing lights passing by me, ride or die by my side, known since my home town that’s a long time, one won’t ask a girl cause he’s too shy, not my guy, i tried to hang out but he wouldn’t slide, don’t like sliding no pinball, no arcade, but tokens on me, already paid, if he wanted to entertain he would’ve answered differently, unless i took that wrongly, RAADS test score one thirty, sometimes need help socially, love to talk i’m maturing, smokes with strangers in places i do things i regret, manifest his text but i couldn’t read his name

still spent his time playing games, respond “i like you maybe”, no initiate or make time for me, maybe he just isn’t for me, or he’s too shy or I’m too boring, chasing men that don’t adore me, or even boys that just talk to me, tell me come through you know im moving, unless there’s a death or a dinner I can’t miss, rare family moments that sometimes exist, or friends from far places that make the adventure, and you can’t even send a text message, or just come around, this big campus town, stand on a rooftop and stare at the ground, the pond and the ducks a rare city scene, can’t look in your eyes ill get lost again

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michelles-garden-of-evil · 3 years

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Episode 36 Review: The Séance

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }

{ Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

Welcome back to my Garden of Evil and thank you for patiently waiting for me to return to reviewing Strange Paradise. It’s been a wild and chaotic past few weeks and I’ve just gotten around to returning to the course of events on Maljardin. And Great Serpent, this time we have one hell of a wild episode!

Because I already miss the bad puns in the earlier episodes.

Of all the episodes of this show, this one is my #1 favorite. It embodies everything I love about Maljardin-era SP: it stars Colin Fox as both Jean Paul and Jacques, features some delightful Jacques scenes, and is genuinely suspenseful and scary. There are also unintentional laughs as usual, but somehow none of them detract from the frightening moments. If I had to introduce SP to someone who had never seen it before (say, my mom, who only knows a little about it), I would use this episode, not the pilot which (IMO) is less scary and far more ridiculous. The magic of Ian Martin’s SP is on full display here. Although he doesn’t leave the show immediately after this episode, it feels like a last hurrah, and a spectacular one at that. You know you want to read about this episode, so what are you waiting for?

We open with Vangie napping on the couch shortly after the events of the previous episode. Over her, Jean Paul and Alison are arguing about whether to go through with the séance to contact Erica. Alison begs him not to because of the risk of death, but Jean Paul insists on pushing through with it anyway because, as Raxl recaps, “The Conjure Woman didn’t see her death, only [Jacques’].” Jean Paul interprets this as meaning that he himself might die, but it’s not clear if he truly believes this or if he’s trying to cover up his frequent possession by the handsome devil.

Vangie recovers and announces that she plans on going through with it, no matter what happens. Still angry from last episode, Matt protests and Jean Paul gives him this nasty smirk that reeks of passive aggression:

Either that, or Colin is trying hard not to laugh. I can’t tell.

“This is not your concern, Reverend,” Jean Paul spits, and Vangie agrees with him. Although she knows that she will one day die on the Island of Evil, she feels that the séance is her duty as the Conjure Woman.

Matt once again reveals his status as the Fool (or, rather, le Mat) when he remarks that Jean Paul and Jacques are indistinguishable “except by [their] manner of dress.” Evidently, he hasn’t considered the possibility that THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES can possess Jean Paul and thus wear the exact same clothes as him. In fact, Padre, he’s worn that same extremely flattering blue suit before when talking to you, and you don’t even know it.

Jean Paul orders Vangie to begin the séance and we get a lovely overhead shot of the glass-top table. I’ve already posted high-quality photos of the table, but I love it so much that the laws of obsessive fandom require me to post it again:

Oh, how I love that table and those chairs. Actually, I love the whole Maljardin set.

Jean Paul volunteers to help Vangie, Raxl, and Quito set up, which seems to surprise them because otherwise he spends no time cleaning up after himself and all his time brooding, throwing glasses at priceless artifacts, and--of course--getting possessed. Elizabeth and Holly see them setting up, and the former heads down the stairs to watch.

Elizabeth is wearing this fabulous ensemble with a checkered dress and a red scarf pinned with a brooch in the shape of a dahlia. It most likely came from her actress Paisley Maxwell’s own wardrobe, as she mostly wore her own clothes on the show and even provided some costumes for the other actresses. (LINK CONTAINS SPOILERS THROUGH THE END OF MALJARDIN)

A shot with a better view of her brooch.

Vangie tells Jean Paul that the room needs to be dark, and that the only light in the room during the ceremony should be candlelight. Cue Jean Paul glancing up to the chandelier precariously suspended directly over the glass-top table:

If this isn’t painfully obvious foreshadowing, then I don't know what is.

The chandelier even sways ever so slightly as he stares at it!

Holly asks if she, her mother, Dan, and Tim can attend, and Vangie tells them no! According to her, they are all “disruptive influences” who will derail the séance, which will likely be too frightening for her anyway. Jean Paul tells Elizabeth to go, too, which she takes as a personal attack because Jacques has tricked her into believing that he’s in love with her.

LMAO

They are almost ready to begin the ceremony, but first, we need more blatant foreshadowing! We need Jean Paul to glance up at the swaying chandelier again, apparently without thinking of the slight chance that it might fall and cause an accident:

Seriously, Jean Paul? You have an IQ of 187. You should know better.

This is some heavy-handed foreshadowing, even for a show that constantly reminds us that Jacques Eloi des Mondes is THE DEVIL and cuts to close-ups of him every other time THE DEVIL is mentioned. I think you can guess what will happen about halfway through this episode. I normally try to avoid spoilers and to warn about any that I include or link to, but let’s face it. You know that chandelier is going to come crashing down at some point in the episode, because of all the emphasis that the script and the cinematography have already put on it. It’s a foregone conclusion. And I’m sorry, but Jean Paul with his alleged super-genius IQ has no excuse. Move the table! Have Quito tighten the chain! Replace the chandelier with a single candle or small candelabrum on the table! Do something to lower the chances of the accident that we all know is coming!

Vangie begins the séance to contact Erica.

After commercial break (hence the lack of the Drive-In Classics logo), the séance begins. We have Jean Paul, Vangie, Raxl, and Quito, plus Alison and Matt and an empty chair for Erica’s spirit. It’s a marvelous scene with just the right amount of eerie atmosphere, which Vangie’s hypnotic voice only enhances. They bridge the divide between the worlds of the living and the dead and all seems like it will succeed, but then

The third one is my favorite.

Jean Paul contorts his face again as he tries to resist Jacques’ possession of him, but ultimately his efforts are in vain:

Jacques’ beringed hand attacking Jean Paul. This also means that the chain created when the séance participants joined hands has been broken.

Matt asks Jean Paul what’s wrong and Jacques answers. “Everything is under control now,” he whispers with evil relish.

“No! Not now! NOT NOW!” Vangie screams, and then comes the inevitable:

Well, there goes one of Jean Paul’s astrological sign tables. Good thing he has another in storage.

I’m not going to lie: the first time I watched this scene, I shouted “No!” when the chandelier fell, even though I could see it coming. Somehow, despite the foregone conclusion and Jean Paul’s ridiculous headache faces, the scene creates enough suspense and horror to be effective. Plus, if you’re like me, you care about Vangie and don’t want to see anyone hurt her, even if that someone is 6′4″ with amazing cheekbones, a devilishly sexy smile, and the most beautiful hands on any man living or dead.

The power also goes out at the same time, and the handsome devil denies all responsibility for it despite his history of screwing with the electricity:

Classic Jacques sarcasm.

Conveniently, the lights come back on a moment later. They come just in time for Alison and Matt to tend to Vangie, whom the chandelier has knocked unconscious:

You can tell her injury is serious even before her close-up, because the Reverend is in shirtsleeves.

A close-up, showing the blood on Vangie’s forehead.

Jacques tells Holly that there was nothing seriously wrong with the electricity, and Dan flips out on him, insisting that “one day you’re going to blow us all up.” (Does he suspect that Jean Paul is somehow playing with the lights?) Jacques insists that even he can’t afford to buy a nuclear weapon. The fact that he knows what a nuclear weapon is serves as yet more evidence that he’s really the Devil and not a ghost from the 17th century (although, if he were a ghost, perhaps he would have overheard Jean Paul talking about nuclear weapons before).

I think that this is one of maybe two times that I ever envied Holly.

Vangie stands up, but doesn’t say a word to any of the characters, just stares blankly ahead of her. She doesn’t even react when Alison slaps her. Jacques cruelly snaps his fingers in front of her, which Alison demands he not do because it might cause her to be “destroyed, locked into a world of darkness, less living than dead.” She adds that “[she] can’t help but thinking that what happened to her is so like [Quito],” and turns to face the zombie who is watching the now cataleptic Conjure Woman, horrified:

It makes you wonder what sort of traumatic memories from Quito’s human life the sight of Jacques turning Vangie into a zombie evoked. Also, we never learn who turned Quito into a zombie in the show canon, but this scene shows that Jacques knows how and is therefore a possible candidate.

This is yet another point where the plot of the aired episodes differs from the original story as indicated in the Lost Episode summaries. In the original Episode 36, Vangie would have revealed Jacques’ possession of Jean Paul to all the participants at the séance, thus confirming for Raxl that Jean Paul is two different men. I suspect that Matt would refuse to believe it because of his lack of belief in devils and Dan because it sounds irrational and like a cover-up for Jean Paul’s alleged crimes, but Raxl, Vangie, and possibly Alison would have the evidence they needed.

Anyway, Jacques and most of the others leave Quito to clean up the mess while they have some drinks in the dining room. Mostly, it’s Jacques trying to pressure everyone into drinking while trying to gaslight them into believing that there was a storm outside even though there wasn’t. They’re not buying it, least of all Dan, who now has yet another reason to be suspicious of him.

I should also add that Part 3 of the YouTube version of this episode (which contains this scene) is out of sync, meaning that most of the subtitles are combined with the wrong shots and the wrong characters. Sadly, we don’t get anything on the level of “NO NO NO YES YES YES,” but the out-of-sync audio does make Dan’s accusation almost look like Jacques is confessing to making the chandelier fall:

YES YES YES

He offers brandy to both Matt and Holly, but Matt tells him not to give it to either of them, so Jacques brings the glasses he just filled over to Elizabeth instead. He starts talking about how no one was hurt, meaning that she has to remind him that Vangie was injured. Still, “she wasn’t really seriously injured,” so I guess for him it doesn’t count. He sends her away and starts to drink, which I guess lets Jean Paul recover his body because he de-possesses him, finally letting Jean Paul see the mess he left behind.

I already posted a lot of headache faces in this entry, so here I’m just going to include my favorite from this scene.

For a moment, Jean Paul looks like he’s going to cry, but his sadness turns to shock when Quito shows him the writing box. The wooden box which previously only held sand, now bears a message written in grains of rice in the shape of the symbol of the Great Serpent. Quito appears terrified by the message, but sadly he can’t translate it for Jean Paul. Raxl, too, freaks out when she sees it and says it’s “from the Conjure Man, but he needs the Conjure Woman to translate it and she’s still in a trance!”

Apparently, the Conjure Man communicates in grains of rice.

Although she can’t translate the whole message, she can tell Jean Paul, “It tells of more accidents. Spirits are very angry...with you!”

This final scene, like the scene with the crashing chandelier, is genuinely chilling, resulting in one of the scariest episodes of the Maljardin arc. This is one of SP’s finest episodes and certainly one of Ian Martin’s finest from his nine-week period as headwriter. I’m not certain what led the producers to decide to have Vangie enter a trance instead of revealing Jacques’ possession to the other characters, but most likely it was to increase the suspense and the terror. Also, I’m starting to wonder if perhaps Quito isn’t actually undead, but instead is an immortal like Raxl (and Vangie?), but stuck in a magically-induced trance. Perhaps when he recoiled in fear over Vangie’s transformation, it was because Jacques (or perhaps the Conjure Man) did the same exact thing to him three centuries ago.

Coming up next: Jacques continues to meddle in affairs on Maljardin while Raxl struggles to interpret the writing box. (But before then--hopefully--the next part of my review of Shadow Over Seventh Heaven.)

{<- Previous: Episode 35 || Next: Episode 37 ->}

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yakumtsaki · 2 years

Photo

Welcome to Part 1 of Union Spare Finale Extravaganza! It’s the morning after and Daniel is picking his pesticide-riddled oranges, blissfully unaware of the fact his brother has cucked him for the second time. Real talk, is Gunther the worst sim-sibling of all time?? Like he’s without a doubt the worst one I’ve ever had in my game, but I’m starting to think he literally might be the worst one IN GENERAL.

-Oh what beautiful oranges, perfect for my ‘I love you, Melody’ cake!

Ya you might wanna hold off on putting your apron on, Dan.

Sup, Goro?

-I sense a shitshow in the near future.

You know what, I sense it as well.

-Time to peace out.

GORO NO. GOD, CAN DANIEL CATCH A BREAK

Welcome home, Mel, lol @ your outfit, now get out.

DECISION TIME. Seriously I have had it with you three bitches, whoever Gunther autonomously interacts with first is who he’s getting with and he breaks up with the other one FOREVER.

-Can you unglitch my arm first?

No, Melody looks ridic so it evens out.

Any day now, Gunther! Just pick between Glitchy and Jacques Cousteau and go chat with one of them or whatever, I’m so sick of your shit.

-You know, I think instead of chatting it’s better to be as devastating to my wife as possible!

......BRO. Legit I wash my hands off this mess, Gunther and Melody blew up their marriages all on their own free will, I can’t believe he went for the romantic dance bs RIGHT IN FRONT OF BRIT. COLD BLOODED.

-OH MY HEART. MY HEART. I CAN’T EVEN CLUTCH IT BECAUSE MY HAND IS GLITCHED. DAMN BOTH OF YOU

-HOW DARE YOU CHEAT ON ME WITH MY FORMER BEST FRIEND I STOLE YOU FROM?? HAVE YOU NO SHAME???

Melody: *loving life*

-WE’RE DONE, YOU STUPID SLUTBAG, YOU HEAR ME?! YOU’LL NEVER SEE ME OR REGINALD AGAIN!!!! -OMG :O WHO’S REGINALD :O

Brit’s want panel immediately post-break up..

..vs Gunther’s. Boy this marriage is DUNZO, I can’t believe how badly it crapped out.

-What’s the cab doing here, I saw yellow and almost went in!

Well sorry to inconvenience you, Gunther, it’s picking up your son and former wife.

-Why??

Because you’re getting divorced???

-Oh right! So I really kissed Mel in front of Brit, that wasn’t the acid?

Gunther ISTG, just fuck off to work.

It’s time to deliver the final blow so Gunther invites the Tinker-Union household over and I thought I’d have to teleport Daniel but he accepted??

-It’s been 20 years, how can I turn down my own brother when he wants to bury the hatchet?

Oh poor Daniel.. POOR DANIEL.

-Seriously!? AGAIN?!?

Bro I loled irl when he turned around and looked at me like this, he’s not even mad, literally just exasperated.

-GO TO HELL MELODY BUT I HOPE WE CAN HAVE A HEALTHY CO-PARENTING RELATIONSHIP

Ya you didn’t even have that when actually married, I can tell by Melody’s ecstatic face she’s never seeing those kids again.

-Oh God, Daniel is so hot when he’s getting slapped by Gunther! I’m starting to remember why I married him..

Mel there are no words to describe how hard you and Gunther deserve each other.

-STABBING ME WOULD HAVE BEEN A LESS BARBARIC WAY TO END THIS MARRIAGE COMPARED TO CHEATING WITH FUCKING GUNTHER, HOW COULD YOU DO THIS ME?!?

-I have no good answer but let me offer you this appalled and remorseful expression!

Melody immediately moved out but Brit missed the memo and came over to steal her newspaper.

-That will teach that homewrecking slut!! -WAAAH she doesn’t live here anymore, Brit!

Ya also you’re not holding anything?

-This was a SUCCESSFUL newspaper theft!

JuJu is back from school and they got perfect grades.

-Best day ever!! I gotta run and show Dad!!!

-WAAAAAH JULIAN, MOM LEFT US -I KNEW IT WOULD HAPPEN. I KNEW IT. NOTHING GOOD COMES OUT OF RELATIONSHIPS, I’M BREAKING UP WITH MARSHA BRUENIG TOMORROW

Melody moves in with Gunther and what can I say guys, like it or not, they love each other. He never did this ‘follow around the house for non-stop romantic interactions’ bs with Brit even tho he also had 3 bolts with her-

-and it’s ALL HE FREAKING DOES NOW. He won’t even let Melody go to the bathroom in peace.

Idk dude, if you’re a long-time reader you remember I thought these two were perfect for each other since they were teens, but when the wife-swap disaster happened and Gunther rolled the insane engagement want I was like ‘ok obviously Gun + Brit are endgame!’ and then their marriage was a complete flop even before Mel got involved.

I’ve said it before, I really feel like Gunther was only into Brit as some form of bratty early 20′s rebellion against ending up with his high school sweetheart because the speed with which this shit deteriorated was unreal, like the second he got back with Mel he blew up his marriage, even Cyneswith knows better than to do this shit, all the times she’s gotten caught it was the other guy’s fault!

So is there a takeaway here?

Love prevails?? Ya, let’s go with that, but lmao.

-Yaaay, everyone’s happy -___-

Sorry Brit, you should have read the fine print on that prenup!

Will Brittany become an Icon? Will Gunther and Melody last? Will Daniel find love again? Will JuJu grow up to be the best looking spawns this family has produced? (I can already answer the last one, yes!) Join us in part 2 to find out!

#gen 3 #spare update #ts2

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safarigirlsp · 2 years

Text

Dashing through the Snow

Hogwarts Jacques Le Gris x OC

Word Count: 5.3k

Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Fluff. Romance. Humor.

AO3 Link

Christmas Song Prompt: Sleigh Ride

Author’s Note: My lovely friend Zannah @babbushka has graciously allowed me to take two of her characters for a wintery ride because I’m obsessed! Please enjoy this Christmas special featuring Hogwarts Professor Jacques Le Gris and Pandora set in the Spellbound universe!

Please read the spectacular fic Spellbound here!

Other Holidays at Hogwarts!

Valentine's Day - I Put A Spell On You

Thanksgiving - A Duel to Remember

Halloween - Where there’s Smoke, there’s Fire

Christmas - Forbidden

Pleasant tickling and scratching along the soft skin of Pandora’s inner thigh roused her from sleep all too early one Saturday morning in mid-December. Her eyelids were fluttering open as she slowly and begrudgingly awakened when the sensation of a hot tongue eagerly licking through her center and soft lips kissing her passionately brought her fully into consciousness.

With a sharp surprised inhale, her eyes shot open and her thighs clamped tight around the head of wild ebony hair that was shoved between her thighs. Jacques was ardently giving her the best Good Morning he possibly could. His amber eyes met hers, crinkling around the edges with his satisfaction when her back arched off his mattress in response to another swipe of his tongue.

“I can’t tell if this means you’re trying to get on my nice or naughty list this year,” Pandora moaned with a laugh, twisting her fingers into his hair and bucking against his face as he brought her closer with every adoration he traced into her with his tongue.

“You know which category suits me best, cherie.” Jacques pulled back just enough to respond in his rich timbre before sucking her clit between his lips.

Moments later, Pandora was gushing on his tongue, her thighs trembling around the sides of his face as shudders racked her entire body from the pleasure Jacques so masterfully gave her. Jacques resumed kissing her thigh while her tremors subsided, wiping his lips on her skin, before kissing his way up the center of her body as he crawled over her.

Instead of plunging inside her, as was his new favorite morning routine since their trysts had grown into something more consistent and more affectionate, he planted his elbows on either side of her head, careful not to catch any of her long auburn hair beneath them, and smiled lovingly down at her.

Pandora ran her hands across his broad shoulders, returning his lovesick smile, although she would never use that descriptor herself. High above, Jacques had bewitched the ceiling of his bedroom, similar to the great hall, to look like a peaceful snowfall. Fluffy snowflakes drifted lazily down from a cloudy vaulted ceiling, vanishing when they reached the tops of the doorways. An enormous and likewise enchanted Christmas tree sat in one corner of his room, reaching high toward the ceiling. Dancing lights like hundreds of fireflies fluttered among its branches, making the tree sparkle and shimmer with twinkling light.

Outside, the world shone with the light of a crisp golden dawn. Frosted patterns coated the tall arched windows near Jacques’s bed, making the light shine even crisper. A heavy and fresh blanket of snow coated the landscape beyond, a solid foot of new powder having fallen during this night. It was the first real snow of the year. A beautiful morning, indeed.

“This is all very nice, handsome, but why in the hell did you wake me up this early?” Pandora asked with a laugh, tugging him down for a kiss. “It’s the weekend. This is unconscionable.”

“Did you not enjoy my good morning?” Jacques teased, kissing her again.

“Very much,” she admitted, nodding her approval. “Now, let’s go back to sleep.”

“I can’t. I’m… Well, I’m technically working today,” Jacques confessed, pouting slightly for effect and in an attempt to curry Pandora’s favor. “I agreed to help Mitaka with one of his new beasts.”

“You volunteered yourself for extra work on a weekend that we could spend together? Maybe even without leaving your bed for the majority of it?” Pandora asked incredulously with a raised eyebrow, not hiding her displeasure. “And on the first big snowfall of the year, no less? What could you possibly have been thinking?”

“We’ll still be spending it together,” Jacques asserted confidently, his grin beaming wide. “You’re coming with me.”

“Like hell I am!” Pandora laughed at his proposition. She tried to push him off of her as punishment, but Jacques had her firmly caged beneath him and there was no budging his enormous body unless he allowed it.

Narrowing her eyes at him in a playful glare, she dug her sharpened fingernails into his sides, goosing him and making him flinch away enough for her to quickly roll him over onto his back and swing herself up to straddle his hips. Gripping Jacques’s thick wrists in her small hands, Pandora pushed his hands above his head, pinning them there because he allowed her too. After all, he enjoyed the way it brought her ample tits so close to his face as she leaned close to him, while he only grinned at her wider.

“I’m going to stay in bed and enjoy my morning,” Pandora said as she shook some hair out of her face. “Maybe I’ll lounge by the fire. Maybe I’ll take a hot bath. Maybe I’ll see to myself again since my handsome man is leaving me all alone.”

“You’ll have fun, cherie. You have my word,” Jacques implored sincerely before bucking his hips and knocking Pandora forward against his chest, trapping her in his bear-like embrace. “Your pleasure is always my utmost priority.”

*******************************************************************************************

Stepping outside the castle into the bright morning sunlight, glistening like diamonds on the fresh snowfall, Jacques snatched Pandora’s hand, pulling her excitedly alongside him across the grounds. Looking down at her, he grinned like an idiot, as excited to be out in the first deep snow of the year as any young student at Hogwarts. Jacques wore a rich charcoal tunic and a heavy sable-lined cape that billowed behind him as he walked, swirling the snow in his wake. Pandora’s fitted scarlet overcoat was buttoned tight, it’s lynx-trimmed collar and capelet rustled by the gentle breeze that brought a rosy tint to the fair skin of her cheeks.

The snowy landscape was pristine, stretching away across the grounds. Jacques and Pandora were the first to venture out in the early morning hours, earning the immaculate view, marred only by their footprints.

Laughing and talking animatedly in his excitement, breath fogging from his lips with every word, Jacques led Pandora to the lower part of the grounds, near the treeline of the forest. One of the many areas of the grounds that was off limits to students was a stable of sorts nestled just enough inside the Forbidden Forest to be hidden by the trees. Housed inside the enclosed stables were some of the more exotic creatures who were wards of the school, cared for by the Care of Magical Creatures professor and the Groundskeeper. Both of the men who had asked Jacques for help with a particularly troublesome animal, hoping that Jacques was even more stubborn and disorderly than the beast itself.

“Wait here,” Jacques instructed Pandora so excitedly that she half expected him to ask her to cover her eyes in anticipation of receiving a grand gift.

Jacques hurried inside the stable, closing the wooden double doors behind him. A cacophony of growls and grunts, whinnies and whines, sounded from inside, greeting Jacques upon his entry. When he re-emerged, he was smiling broadly and leading the most magnificent animal Pandora had ever seen.

A gigantic dapple-gray horse pranced beside him, chewing the bit in its mouth, neck arched and high-stepping proudly like a war horse on a battlefield. The size of a large draft horse, the beast’s withers rose to the level of Jacques’s chin, its chest twice as broad as Jacques’s shoulders. Its dappled carbon coat gleamed with a silver sheen in the sunlight with starbursts of white forming an elegant constellation that matched the white feathered hair on its fetlocks. But this was no ordinary horse. Folded against the line of its back was a pair of feathered wings, colored like a stormy sky, and longer than the horse’s body by another half-length. Once free of the confines of the stable, the horse stretched its wings out to the side like a person stretching their arms. The first joint of a wing knocked Jacques’s shoulder roughly, sending him stumbling forward before he regained his balance.

“Everyone else was having a hard time breaking this big guy, so I volunteered my services,” Jacques said proudly, patting the pegasus’s neck. “We’re getting along just fine now, though.”

“One large unruly beast to tame another, huh?” Pandora teased, extending her hand palm up to the horse as she approached, letting him sniff her skin before placing her hand on the flat of his nose and stroking up to his forehead. The horse lowered his head into her touch, making fast friends.

“You certainly have a talent for dealing with wild animals yourself,” Jacques commented, admiring her easy confidence with the pegasus.

“I’ve had quite a lot of practice as of late,” she replied, smirking at Jacques as she patted the horse’s cheek.

“You’re about to get a lot more.” Jacques winked at her before turning and leading the horse toward the back of the stable, calling over his shoulder, “Follow me, belle dame.”

Jogging a few steps to catch up with Jacques and the horse that pranced beside him, Pandora saw what could only be Jacques’s great surprise. A two-person sleigh awaited them in the snow behind the stable.

“Tell me you’re joking,” she laughed, bumping Jacques with her shoulder when he brought the horse to a stop at the front of the sleigh.

“I would never,” Jacques teased, flashing her a dashing grin.

Grabbing the collar of the sleigh’s harness, Jacques held it up in front of him, whistling for the horse to lower his head. The horse pricked its ears forward at Jacques, evaluating whether or not he should obey the boisterous human. Jacques whistled again, sharper and more insistent this time. With a snort of fogged breath, the pegasus resigned himself to comply, lowering his head and allowing Jacques to place the collar over his head and slide it down his neck to rest on the animal’s shoulders. The horse fluttered his wings, standing at attention while Jacques fastened the rest of the harness over his carbon-tinged body.

Finished with the horse, Jacques brushed the foot of fresh snow off the seat of the sleigh. He pulled a wool blanket off the seat that he had planted for this occasion, shaking it free of snow as well. He next retrieved an enchanted, perpetually hot thermos full of mulled wine from the floor, showing it to Pandora before placing it on the seat.

“Your chariot awaits, madame,” Jacques said when he was done prepping the sleigh, bowing gallantly with a flourish of his cape. When he straightened, he puffed his chest, very pleased with himself, and extended a hand to Pandora.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” she asked with a laugh, looking from Jacques to the pegasus who impatiently stomped the ground and back.

“What is this, cherie?” Jacques asked raising his eyebrows, feigning surprise and smirking rakishly. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

That was all it took, as Jacques knew it would be. Glaring playfully at him, Pandora took his proffered hand and stepped into the sleigh, settling down on the icy bench seat. Jacques followed her into the sleigh, sliding next to her on the seat until his shoulder brushed against her.

Taking the reins in his hands, Jacques looked over at Pandora, meeting her icy blue eyes when he clicked for the horse to start out, smacking the reins lightly down on his rump. Lunging forward against the harness, the pegasus charged ahead, jumping immediately into a prancing trot, throwing Pandora back against the seat from the torque. Jacques’s hold on the reins helped him balance and keep his posture while the animal ran ahead, pulling the sleigh behind as easily as though it were weightless. Snow kicked up from the horse’s hooves, a light flurry as horse and sleigh cut through the powder.

As the horse trotted across the open grounds of Hogwarts, clear of the forest and trees, Jacques grinned wickedly at Pandora. The horse jetted over the snowy hills and fields, pulling the sleigh behind him over the estate near the castle. By this time in the morning, a good number of students were outside enjoying their own snow day as well as a few faculty members. All heads turned to look at the spectacle of the great winged horse, trotting as fast as a racehorse could run, pulling a red sleigh behind, with the feisty redheaded woman and hulking raven-haired man sitting close together, laughing and smiling at each other.

Pandora’s beautiful smiling laughter made Jacques beam with pride, his chest puffed and a wide smile wrinkling his cheeks. Leaning in toward the woman who had stolen his heart, Jacques brushed the tip of her nose with his before capturing her lips in a kiss heated enough to make them both forget the wind whipping around them in the racing sleigh. Reaching her hand to his cheek, Pandora pulled Jacques closer, deepening their kiss while his own hands kept a tight grip on the reins.

“I hate to admit you were right, handsome,” she whispered against his lips when she pulled away, biting her lower lip between her teeth and caressing Jacques’s cheek. “But this is lovely.”

“Ready for the real fun, cherie?” Without waiting for Pandora to answer his question, Jacques snapped the reins on the horse’s hindquarters again more firmly. Bucking in the harness at the sting of the reins, the pegasus broke into a gallop and spread his dark wings wide, flapping them powerfully once and then twice as he ran. On the third flap of his wings, the pegasus’s hooves left the ground as the beast rose to take flight, pulling the sleigh into the air behind him, bobbing errantly when its rails lifted out of the snow.

“Christ, Jacques!” Pandora shouted excitedly, more from elation than shock, as she seized Jacques’s arm in her tightest grip, locking her arm around his and holding him close.

The pegasus veered toward the castle, flying only a few feet above the ground as he grew accustomed to the weight of the sleigh against his harness. Tugging hard on the reins, Jacques tried to steer the horse back out into the open field to no avail. Jacques and Pandora collectively grimaced, gritting their teeth when the horse seemed as though he would crash straight into the wall of the castle, aiming straight for a stretch of stone wall next to one of the castle’s arched entryways. A lanky ginger-haired man stood in the entryway, leaning against the wall trying to enjoy a steaming mug on this fine winter morning.

Unfortunately for Hux, the pegasus had other plans. Hux’s eyes blew wide at the sight of the grey winged horse and airborne sleigh charging straight at him. Forgetting his tea, Hux dove to the side, facedown into the snow, splashing his sweater with his morning beverage. At the last possible second, the horse turned sharply away, avoiding a collision with the wall and with Hux, and soared high into the air, skirting the wall of the tallest castle tower. Through windows, the shocked eyes of other castle inhabitants could be seen staring out at the flying sleigh and the two notorious professors.

Jacques would no doubt be hearing about the morning’s events later. Not that he cared much; he was used to getting chewed out by the powers that be. He laughed heartily at the thought, sharing a grin with Pandora who felt the same.

Pulling away from the castle, the pegasus flew high over the quidditch field, weaving between the stands, and then out along the icy bank of the Black Lake. Pulling back on one rein, Jacques turned the horse away from the more mountainous and rocky slopes near the lake, guiding him back toward the forest that surrounded the castle grounds. The pegasus dipped lower toward the ground, flying only a few yards above the snowy landscape.

“Easy boy,” Jacques bellowed to the pegasus above the din of rushing air, pulling back on the reins to try and slow the racing horse before he barreled into the trees. “Whoa!”

Slowing only slightly, the pegasus returned to the ground, landing with a snort, galloping toward the forest treeline. Cursing loudly, Jacques shot his arm out in front of Pandora’s chest, pinning her against the seat and keeping her from being thrown forward with the rough impact. The horse didn’t slow before crashing into the trees, darting agilely between their trunks, wholly unconcerned about running through the branches that hung heavy with snow.

Tree after tree dumped their branches’ loads of snow down upon Jacques and Pandora as the sleigh careened through the forest before Jacques could slow the horse. Using all of his incredible strength he yanked back on the reins hard enough to break the jaw of a regular horse, finally getting the attention of the excited pegasus sufficiently to bring him back down to a trot.

Jacques shook a layer of snow from his own mane, grinning sheepishly at Pandora before brushing some snow away from her hair and shoulders as she glared back at him. Pandora scooped a large handful of snow off the bench seat of the sleigh and balled it in her hands. Lunging at Jacques, she yanked the front of his shirt open before he could block her and shoved the icy snowball inside down along his chest.

“Dammit woman!” Jacques exclaimed with a laugh, flinching from the snow melting on his skin. Without relenting, Pandora playfully shoved another handful right into his face. “Alright, if it’s a war you want!”

Reining the horse to a stop just inside the trees, Jacques bunched a snowball himself from the snow that had fallen in the sleigh, gathering an unfairly large amount in his massive hands. Pandora bailed out of the opposite side of the sleigh, ducking low behind it as she laughed.

“The first shot across the bow was yours, cherie,” Jacques said, shaking his head as he stood in the sleigh, using his advantage to aim well.

“I never start a fight I can’t finish,” she replied, still laughing. Shooting up to her feet from where she knelt by the sleigh, she whipped her wand out from her robes as Jacques threw his snowball.

Jacques’s snowball hit her square in the chest, exploding across her body and neck, the cold powder spraying her face. But not before she waved her wand in a graceful swish. Jacques could hardly enjoy his well-aimed strike before the snow from every busy tree around the sleigh came crashing down upon him from Pandora’s spell that shook the snow from each and every branch. Jacques’s growling curses were muffled by the avalanche of snow that coated him in a white blanket.

Shaking his head and shoulders like a wet dog, he sent a flurry of snow flying from his body before lunging out of the sleigh, giving chase after Pandora with a snarl as she bounded away through the snow.

Pandora ran back to the edge of the trees toward the open castle grounds, knowing that Jacques would retaliate in kind and send a forest of snow down upon her. Swirling her wand in the air as she ran, she raised a whirlwind of snow in her wake that sought Jacques and encircled him in even more blizzarding snow.

Just as she burst through the trees into the field, Jacques was on her, wrapping her in a powerful bearhug from behind and tackling her playfully to the ground. He made sure his arm hit the ground first below her, taking the brunt of the impact so he didn’t risk hurting her, but also ensuring that she was solidly caged beneath his enormous body. Jacques was completely caked in snow, his charcoal clothes and dark cape entirely white, only his reddened face, back hair, and vibrant eyes showed true.

“Help! I’m being mauled by a yeti!” Pandora shouted teasingly, trying futilely to shove him off of her as they wrestled in the snow.

Growling for effect at her words, Jacques lowered himself over her, easily pinning her down and attacking her face and lips with kisses. The feel of her shapely curves beneath him was irresistible, rendering him incapable of keeping his ministrations merely playful. Settling more of his weight on her, Jacques kissed her properly and deeply. Both of them were ambivalent to the snow that covered Jacques and surrounded Pandora, the heat of their shared passion enough to melt the ice around them.

Suddenly, a sizzling crack cut through the air and a spark burst on Jacques’s shoulder. Jacques winced, his body tensing as he and Pandora both jerked their heads to look toward the source of the attack just as another bolt struck Jacques in the side.

Simultaneously, Jacques and Pandora both shot their hands out toward the group of three teenage boys who were already sending more curses at the yeti who was attacking one of their favorite professors. Jacques and Pandora were each masters at wandless magic, a necessary skill in any combat situation. The spells the students sent their way stopped in mid-air, crackling and flashing, before fizzling out completely.

“P-Professor Le Gris?” one of the students stammered in shock, dropping his wand down to his side. “We just heard Professor Malefore scream and we… we read about yetis earlier this month. We didn’t know it was you, Professor Le Gris.”

“Who the hell else would it be?” Jacques grumbled, frustrated at the boys’ poor timing. Pushing up from the ground, he pulled Pandora up to her feet with him. He brushed the snow from her body before bothering to tend to himself.

Jacques bent over, brushing his hands through his hair to shake the snow away. Hunched over, shaking snow from his body, he looked even more like an abominable snow beast. Such was the sight that met the eyes of the fourth boy who finally caught up with his older friends on their rescue mission. Without pausing to think, the blonde first-year raised his wand, leveling the first botched spell that came into his mind.

With a purple flash of light, Jacques’s clothing vanished, evaporated into the ether, leaving him standing stark naked in nothing but his leather boots and shocked expression. A collective intake of breath sounded from the students at the sight of Jacques in his still partially aroused state, as the oldest boy smacked the wand out of the first-year’s hands. Jacques grabbed Pandora, yanking her body in front of him as a shield from the eyes of the students; although they had gotten plenty an eyeful enough already for Jacques to be gossiped about among the student body for the remainder of the school year, if not for years to come.

Pandora couldn’t help laughing at Jacques’s predicament as he scowled over her head at the students, memorizing their faces to decide later if he would deduct points for ruining his morning or award them points for their good intent of trying to help Pandora against a beast as large as himself. Terrified by Jacques’s glare, the boys scattered, running back to the castle in fear of the fearsome man retaliating against them. As soon as they turned tail and Jacques sighed out his frustration, the cold set into him, every rigid muscle in his body shivering.

Holding out her hand, Pandora summoned the wool blanket from the carriage to her grip. She quickly wrapped it around Jacques, smirking at the blushing scowl that had overtaken his features.

“Kylo is going to love this one,” Jacques pouted, walking back to the sleigh while Pandora rubbed his back in a small attempt to warm him.

“Look on the bright side,” she told him with a smile. “Now I get to warm you up.” She thought for a moment, her smile widening before telling Jacques, “Although, since we can’t apparate on school grounds, you’re going to be quite the sight walking back through the castle like this.”

*******************************************************************************************

Back in Jacques’s chambers, Pandora ran a steaming bath in an immense claw-foot bathtub while he stood shivering in the bathroom, clutching the blanket around his body. She left the bathroom when he lowered himself into the water, grumbling about, “Goddamn kids ruining a perfectly nice date.”

With a few flicks of her wand, Pandora had a fire roaring in the hearth, every candle in Jacques’s quarters flickering, and the dancing lights of the Christmas tree glowing warmly. She stripped herself of her clothing, walking nude back to the bathroom to join Jacques in the bath. Trailing her nails across Jacques’s shoulders and down one of his arms, she threw a leg over the side of the tub and lowered herself down into the water to straddle Jacques’s lap. The tub was luxuriously large, easily accommodating them both with the bubbly water rising to the level of Jacques’s armpits and Pandora’s breasts.

“I think I have frostbite on my dick,” Jacques poked fun at himself, letting his lips settle in a pout.

“Don’t sulk. Given your personality, I’d have thought that you’d be used to showing your ass by now,” she teased in return, rubbing her hands up the dense plane of his chest. “Besides, this isn’t the worst magical mishap this year. I’d rather your clothes get evaporated than your eyebrows get singed off, like happened to Hux last month.”

“I can’t imagine the fucking gossip and rumors this is going to incite,” Jacques groaned, hiding his face in her neck and wrapping his arms around her body, a flush creeping onto his chest.

“I’m sure it will just add to your illustrious reputation,” she assured him, sitting back on his thighs to smirk at him. “If it’s that big in the cold…”

Jacques laughed despite himself. Besides, it was wholly impossible for him to do anything but grin when he had Pandora seated in his lap. Especially now, with her magnificent breasts lifted by the water, smeared with foaming bubbles, and bobbing with the ripples in the bathwater.

“You’re a goddess, cherie,” Jacques said appreciatively, running his hands over the supple hourglass curves of her figure. Leaning forward, he kissed her cheek sweetly, nuzzling his prominent nose softly against her skin, before moving his lips to the place below her ear. Inhaling Pandora’s intoxicating bouquet, Jacques began to lose himself in her. “Let me worship you.”

“I guess the frostbite isn’t that bad, then?” she teased, running a hand through Jacques’s thick hair while he kissed at the skin of her neck.

“I’m sorry our date got cut short today,” he mumbled against her skin. “I wanted it to be special for you.”

“Don’t be sorry. You make everything special, Jacques,” she assured him with a smile. “Besides, I insist on you taking me on many more flying sleigh rides this winter.”

“As many times as you wish.” Jacques couldn’t help but grin as his hand trailed up her thigh. “I need to learn that spell myself, so I can zap your clothes off whenever I want.”

Turning into Jacques, she met his lips while he skimmed his fingers through her folds. Jacques kissed her hungrily, his lingering frustration coming out in his eager tongue licking into her mouth, and his thick fingers pushing inside of her, curling and pumping.

Reaching for his cock, she felt him hard and throbbing under her touch. It was all the invitation she needed. Pandora raised herself up enough to guide him inside her as she lowered herself down onto his cock. Throwing her head back, she moaned Jacques’s name as he spread her open. It was as though she would never get used to that first thrust of his magnificent cock.

Jacques’s hands smoothed down her sides, from her full breasts to her nipped waist to her pert round ass, caressing her gently before his grip would become bruising once she started fucking herself on his cock. He brought his mouth to her breast where it bobbed above the water, swirling his tongue around her nipple and teasing her with his lips.

“I love your tight little pussy,” Jacques groaned, thrusting his hips up beneath her. “You’re fucking perfect.”

When she started to grind her hips, his large hands encouraged her, pulling and pushing her in his lap. She lifted her hands to tangle into his dense wet hair, tugging his head down to her neck. The feeling of Jacques’s plush lips on her skin made her rock faster, sending water sloshing around them and spilling over the sides of the tub. Jacques bucked his hips beneath her, biting into the flesh of her neck and digging his fingers into her hips. He always reached the deepest places inside of her, rubbing her deliciously with every long thick inch of his perfect cock.

Pleasured moans fell from Pandora’s lips in time with her rhythm, blending with Jacques’s rich growls, as she ground and bounced on his cock. Wanting more than anything to make her feel good, Jacques brought a hand to the front of her pussy, rubbing her clit with his calloused thumb while she fucked herself on his cock and felt her pussy begin to flutter and tighten around him in response.

“I love feeling you squeeze my cock like that,” Jacques gritted through clenched teeth, bucking his hips up into her. “Your pussy’s tighter than a Devil’s Snare.”

Pandora’s orgasm rocked her body, making her quiver and shudder in Jacques’s lap. He smiled hungrily, using his hands on her hips to keep her grinding on him until her pulses stilled. Wrapping his arms around her, Jacques thrust his final few times to push himself over the edge after her.

Every muscle in his body tensed and flexed when he came with a growl. Thighs straining and arms tightening around Pandora, he buried his face in her neck as he pumped her full of his thick hot cum. Her hands returned to his hair, her fingers running soothingly through his waves as his taught muscles slowly relaxed.

“That was incredible, cherie.” Jacques smeared his words against the side of her neck where he nuzzled into her, holding her tight, wanting to stay inside of her for as long as possible.

After several minutes, he kissed her neck a few final times and raised his head to look at her with a satisfied grin, admiring her exquisite beauty and the way the firelight from his room made her auburn hair glow like embers. Somehow, just looking into her bright blue eyes made everything feel right in his world.

“Let me take you away for the winter break,” Jacques spoke softly, almost a plea. “We could spend it at my estate in France. We could find an adventure for ourselves. We could go anywhere you wish, cherie. The destination hardly matters, just tell me that you’ll come away with me.”

“I’d love nothing more, handsome,” Pandora told him, watching the way he beamed back at her. She smiled warmly down at him in return, but her smile quickly turned mischievous as she mused, “Shouldn’t we join everyone in the Great Hall for dinner tonight? I’m sure the other professors will want to hear all about the Yeti who’s stalking the castle grounds.”

Jacques only groaned painfully in response, dropping his head to her shoulder and burying his face in the crook of her neck as if he could hide there from the world.

*******************************************************************************************

Tagging

#my stuff!#my writing #winter #jacques le gris x you #jacques le gris x reader #knight #the last duel #best #fic

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queenie-lexieee · 3 years

Text

[[ CC Character Profile ]]

Fandom: Pirates Of The Caribbean

Name:

Jack Sparrow

Nickname:

•Captain Jack

•Captain Sparrow

•Mr. Sparrow

•Jackie

•Jacky boy

•Jacques

•Señor Sparrow

•Witty Jack

•Smith

•Smithy

•Justice Smith

•Jack the Sparrow

Age:

40-53

Birthday:

April 19th-Aries

Sexuality:

Bisexual (My headcanon)

Gender:

Male

Species:

Human

Occupation:

•Captain Of The Black Pearl

•Pirate Lord of the Caribbean

Family:

Father: Edward Teague

Mother: Unknown

Grandmama: Unknown

Uncle Jack (Who he is named after)

Cousin: Valerie

Uncle: Captain "Ace" Brannigan

Aunt: "Quick Draw" McFleming

Patriarch (relative)

Cousin: Mabeltrude

Partners:

Various unnamed ex-lovers and former crushes

Scarlett (Ex-lover)

Giselle (Ex-lover)

Angelica (Ex-lover)

Elizabeth Swann

(Open to anyone)

Personality:

A notorious and infamous pirate, pillager, brigand, and highwayman; that was how Captain Jack Sparrow would be described by himself. Sailing a fine line between piratical genius and mercurial madness, Jack had an enemy in every port.[35] Even at young age, he was the biggest troublemaker on the Seven Seas. Jack Sparrow was noted for his unusual demeanor, characterized by a slightly drunken stagger and wild, flailing arm and hand gestures that made him appear unfocused and possibly ataxic. This was possibly due in part to the hot climate of the Caribbean, and the large amount of time spent on deck of various ships–though it should be noted he seemed fairly sure-footed onboard a ship. However, it is more likely that his demeanour was due to a common affliction of most sailors of that era–a combination of lots of rum, very few fruits and vegetables, and a tendency to accidentally hit one's head quite often on low-hanging bulkheads below the decks of a ship. It was rumored that Jack suffered heat stroke while marooned on a desert island after Hector Barbossa's mutiny aboard the Black Pearl.

Jack could be extremely serious on occasion, such as after shooting Barbossa on Isla de Muerta, or when he saw the Kraken's corpse lying on the beach. He was shown to be quite serious when he witnessed Davy Jones stabbing Will Turner in the heart. Jack even expressed grief for Barbossa's second death, despite their troubled history. Jack's seemingly-perpetual drunkenness may have been the cause of his slurred speech.

Average in height and build, Jack Sparrow relied more on intelligence, agility, and quick wit to protect himself, rather than physical strength. He was seen as both the "worst" and "best" pirate, though he never went into a fight if he didn't have to, and always took a shortcut out of tough situations. Jack frequently outmaneuvered enemies with his words but when forced to fight he was still a formidable opponent. As long as his own precious hide was at risk, a man could ask for no better comrade in battle. As a notorious pirate, Jack Sparrow was a decent, if self-serving, man who adhered to the Pirate's Code. He believed pirates could still be "good men," which was his evaluation of Bootstrap Bill Turner. Unusually altruistic for a pirate, Jack would risk himself to save others, most notably Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann, Angelica, and Henry Turner; he regularly showed a desire to avoid killing those who did not specifically wish him harm, preferring to avoid soldiers who were simply after him because he was a pirate rather than because they had some specific vendetta against him as Captain Jack Sparrow. Even after a time where he feared death and was hell-bent on achieving immortality, Jack would not do so if it came at the cost of others. This was evidenced when he was faced with the choice of stabbing Davy Jones' heart himself or letting Will Turner stab it, using Will's hand to stab the heart so that his dying friend would take on the role of captain of the Dutchman and be saved from his imminent death.

This reluctance to sacrifice another was also shown when he admitted having less interest in using the Fountain of Youth after learning it required the sacrifice of another individual, the waters of the Fountain and the tear of a mermaid, when drunk from two silver chalices, transferring life from one and giving all the years they had lived or would live to another. With this in mind, Jack only used the Fountain to save Angelica after she was poisoned by Barbossa's sword, simultaneously tricking the already-villainous Blackbeard into giving his life for the sake of his daughter. Jack also helped Henry Turner win over Carina Smyth by giving him her book so he could return it. It was partly this benevolence that led the crew to the mutiny aboard the Black Pearl, according to Barbossa, with Jack preferring to convince prospective 'victims' to give his crew what they sought where Barbossa found it easier to kill the crews and take what they wanted. It is unclear whether this was true or just mocking from Barbossa after he claimed the Pearl.

Every captain needed a reliable first mate, and Joshamee Gibbs was Jack Sparrow's first choice. They made a great team, but they did have a habit of getting each other into trouble. Gibbs was an old friend of Jack's, having supposedly known him since his childhood. It was Jack who persuaded Gibbs, a sailor of the Royal Navy, to turn pirate.

As often as Jack Sparrow saved Elizabeth and Will, however, he also tricked them to serve his own purposes and even offered up Will to Davy Jones in exchange for himself; when asked if he could condemn an innocent and friend to serve Jones forever while Jack himself roamed free, Jack merrily replied, "Yep. I'm good with it," after a brief moment of hesitation (although considering his immediate efforts to find the Dead Man's Chest after making this arrangement, he may have simply agreed to this 'deal' to buy time for him to find Jones's weakness). In a moment of cowardice, he deserted his ship and crew to save himself from the Kraken. However, after checking his compass, he chose to return and save his shipmates.

Further evidence of his morality was when he refused to transport slaves for the East India Trading Company, and when his extensive criminal record was read during his attempted executions at Port Royal and Fort Alvo Grande, it included no reference to crimes such as rape or murder. Jack later showed sadness at the sacrifice of Hector Barbossa, showing that in spite of their previous enmity and rivalry, he still respected Barbossa after he died to protect his daughter. Jack also claimed to be a man of his word, and often expressed surprise that people would doubt his honesty.

Even though he received no formal education, Jack was far away from being just a typical illiterate pirate. More or less raised by himself, and always wanting to learn about the world, Jack developed a taste for reading poetry, history, and biographies of notable persons from the past. One of his favorite writers was William Shakespeare.

One of the well-known things about Captain Jack Sparrow was his myth. Many tales have been told of him, most of which have been embellished by Jack himself. Such tales have made Jack an infamous pirate of the Caribbean, having been known for having created, or at least contributed to, his own reputation. For example, when Gibbs tells Will Turner that he escaped a desert island by strapping two sea turtles together, Jack embellished the story by claiming that the rope was made from his own back hair. Will later threw this back at him when he asked how Will escaped from the Flying Dutchman. When Will responded with the same story, Jack remarked, "Not so easy, is it?" Additionally, while searching for him, Will's guide told him that Jack escaped his execution in Port Royal by grabbing two parrots and flying away.

Likes:

•Rum

•The Black Pearl

•Women and Men

•The Sea

•Freedom

•Sleeping

•Riches

•Peanuts

Dislikes:

•Losing the Black Pearl

•Slavery

•Betrayal

•Rivals

•Disrespect

•Authority

•Jack the Monkey

•Losing rum

•Mutinies

Powers/Skills:

Intelligence: Jack is the most intelligent character of his series and his plans are a prove of his genial intelligence.

Master of Plans: Jack tricking his enemies and making of himself a double agent and making his enemies into thinking who he betrayed his friends and ally with them only for revealing to them when is the right moment who he having tricked them for taking time and on that moment he revealing his heroic intentions, save his friends and defeat his enemies, so Jack is a great maker of big plans especially if he must do the double acting for defeat his enemies.

Master Escapee: Capable of escaping situations normally unavoidable by just improvising.

Master of Improvision: Jack often improvises during and outside of battle, allowing him to perform unpredictable actions. He is also capable of using the environment and anything around him to his advantage and/or as a weapon.

Master Swordsman: Jack was taught swordsmanship by an Italian fencing master after doing him a favor. He can keep up with multiple pirates at the same time and outmatched Davy Jones and Barbossa in a duel, as well as William Turner Junior.

Master Marksman: Jack can easily hit mobile targets, such as a falling barrel of gunpowder. He was also capable of shooting the Dead Man's Chest out of Davy Jones' hand during a maelstrom while swinging on a rope.

Backstory:

Jack Sparrow was a legendary pirate of the Seven Seas, and the irreverent trickster of the Caribbean. A captain of equally dubious morality and sobriety, a master of self-promotion and self-interest, Jack fought a constant and losing battle with his own best tendencies. Jack's first love was the sea, his second, his beloved ship the Black Pearl.

The son of Captain Edward Teague, Jack Sparrow was born on a pirate ship in a typhoon. Before he was known as "Captain Jack Sparrow", he was simply known as Jack, a teenage stowaway who, even then, had a desire for adventure. Jack first sailed on the Barnacle with a young ragtag crew on a quest to locate and procure the legendary Sword of Cortés. As a young pirate he earned the name Jack Sparrow when he trapped the notorious Spanish pirate hunter Capitán Salazar in the Devil's Triangle. Years after his teenage adventures, an encounter with the infamous rogue pirates forced him to abandon the pirate life and take employment in the East India Trading Company. After five years of faithful service, during which he sailed across all the Seven Seas, he was given command of the Wicked Wench, a ship owned by Cutler Beckett, the EITC Director for West Africa. As Beckett's employee, Jack searched for the mystical island of Kerma and its legendary treasure, until he decided to betray Beckett and keep the island and its inhabitants safe from Beckett and his slave traders. When Beckett contracted him to transport a cargo of slaves to the Bahamas, Jack chose to liberate them and steal the Wench from Beckett. However, Beckett's men managed to find him and branded him as a pirate, while the Wench was set aflame and sunk. After striking a bargain with Davy Jones, the ghostly captain of the Flying Dutchman, to resurrect his beloved vessel, Jack had the Wench renamed the Black Pearl and began the pirate life anew. At some point, Jack Sparrow became one of the nine Pirate Lords, his domain being the Caribbean Sea.

Throughout his years as an infamous pirate of the Caribbean, Jack Sparrow embarked on many adventures, several of which involved gaining items of unique value. Jack was captain of the Black Pearl for two years, during which time he searched for the Shadow Gold. But when he was after the treasure of Isla de Muerta, Jack lost the Pearl in a mutiny led by his first mate, Captain Hector Barbossa. Ten years later, with the help of Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, Jack retrieved the Black Pearl after having fought and killed the cursed Barbossa, thereby becoming its captain once again. Jack was soon after the Dead Man's Chest, to settle his debt with the fearsome Davy Jones, which ended with him being taken to Davy Jones' Locker by the Kraken. After escaping the Locker with the help of his crew, led by the resurrected Hector Barbossa, Jack had joined with the Brethren Court in the battle against Lord Cutler Beckett, who had control over Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman. Jack would later sail on stranger tides during the quest for the Fountain of Youth, contending with the notorious Blackbeard and his daughter, Angelica, who forced him aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge. After the malicious Captain Salazar's ghost crew escaped from the Devil's Triangle bent on killing every pirate, Jack sought to reverse his recent spate of ill fortune by finding the Trident of Poseidon. Jack would be helped on his journey by Henry Turner who sought to free his father and they would be aided by Carina Smyth.

Over the course of time, Captain Jack Sparrow became a center of intrigue as myths and legends have been told of his exploits. Most of these tales, however, were exaggerations, or even fabrications, embellished by Jack himself to bolster his reputation. Despite his dishonesty and many deceptions, Jack Sparrow did embark on a number of grand and thrilling adventures, some involving the supernatural, pirate lore, magic, and journeys in discovering hidden treasures. Indeed, Jack's ultimate ambition was to have the freedom to sail the seas as a legendary pirate for eternity.

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kangaroo-sniper-imagine · 3 years

Text

Merc makin’ snowmen

-I'm not making a frozen reference-

Medic

Actually likes cold weather! Germany was usually very brisk in his youth and he is more than willing to help make a snowman. He makes a few normal ones with you then starts making anatomically correct ones. Spice it up by getting some food dyed water and make them bloody. You both end up making a horrific snow crime scene that freaks out everyone.

Soldier

SNOWMAN ARMY!!!! Between the two of you, you make a whole armada complete with helmets (from Jane’s own and a few stolen hard hats and buckets… and Scout’s hats and Sniper’s hat and Demo’s hat.. Hide your hats everybody). You play fake battles and spend all day yelling fake commands at your snow soldiers and hiding from the rest of the team trying to get you for stealing their shit

Demo

First off, he’s honored as shit that you wanna make snowmen with him; he thinks it's so freaking cute! Second, he wants to prank people. He will convince you to build a snowman around his body so he can suddenly jump out and surprise the rest of the team. Especially Sniper, who was very confused by a random snowman right outside his camper (Tavish almost got shot, long story short)

Sniper

Hates. The. Cold. HATES IT! Mick is Australian! He’s from hell on earth! And snow, to him, is hell. Oh, he’ll help you make a snowman, and he’ll put in effort to make sure you’re having a grand old time, but on the inside he's crying about the cold and how wet his gloves are. Wants hot coco and hugs in exchange for outdoor time. Gets sniffly and you feel bad so you smother him him affection

Pyro

melts the snowmen. Thinks they’re decorating them, is actually killing them. Make the best of the situation by melting down Soldier’s snow armada as a game. You might accidentally set a hidden Demo on fire but it’s worth it

Spy

Jacque loves you! As absolutely zero weather appropriate clothing that he deems are for snowman building. Offers to stay inside and listen to romantic records instead, but don’t be fooled. The Frenchman can be convinced. Just say you’re going to make snowmen with any other teammate (to really get under his skin, say Engie or Sniper) if he isn’t game and Jacque will. Gets dressed in his $3,000 winter coat in record time and is suddenly a snowman making expert (he’s whipped)

Engineer

Hates. The. Cold. HES TEXAN IT DON'T SNOW THERE (i would know ;-; ). He’s willing to come out and play, don't worry; but he’s covered head to toe in winter gear and snow goggles and so many scarfs you can barely see his face. Takes snowman drilling to the next level and tries to make a livable snow castle (please stop him from doing that, the last thing Dell needs is ANOTHER project) the hot cocoa he makes after is bomb tho

Scout

fuck yeah! Snow day fun! You two don’t just make snowmen, you make snow angels, have a snowball fight, try to make an igloo, you do it all. Jeremy puts his artistic skill to use and you all make snowman look alike of your team (also of one of the Eiffel Tower and Spy… you know what I’m talking about) (Spy pays Pyro to burn that one)

Heavy

Snow is not a big thing to Mikhail, I mean he’s Russian. It’s not a fun day for him; responsible Misha probably volunteered to shovel out the varnish drive ways and sidewalks around the base. You’ll have to utilize your puppy eyes and elude you plan on doing something truly stupid and potentially self harming (like a snowball fight with Engie and Sniper) for him to cave and agree to come an play with you. Get into a competition with Soldier over making better snow soldiers.

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foreverindreamlandd · 2 years

Note

Hi my lovely Col 💗 for the 2021's best of (ask game) #22 and 35 please

'Best of 2021' Asks!

35 - Things you learned about your own writing (doing this first because 22 will be long lol)

Literally for 2021 I learned that I could fucking write AT ALL. I have so many writer friends who would ask if I would ever write my own stuff and I would just scoff, telling them there was no way that I could ever possess the skill to do so. I always told myself that I was better at reading stories than writing them. And then I tried writing one for the first time in June of this year.....200k words later and here we are lmao. It all feels like some crazy fever dream or something.

22 - lines of dialogue

The last bit from part 7 of The Sergeant's Heart is such a delight for me. I love writing fun, sassy dialogue as much as I love writing the heartfelt moments. Anything with the Commandos is so freaking fun for me I love those boys so much :,)

“So, I spoke with Peggy today. About….things.”

[Bucky] nodded. “Stevie taking down Hydra things?”

“Steve and you, right?”

“Well, that depends,” he took another sip of the amber liquid, “On who our medic is.”

You tilted your head down and stared at him with an are you serious expression.

“As if I’d let you wander off on your own to get into more trouble with those guys.”

He grinned. “I guess that answers my question then.” He stared down at his glass and when his gaze returned to you, his expression was serious. “Are you scared at all?”

“Honestly? Yeah. I mean, I’ve seen some serious shit this past year, but with what happened at Azzano and what you’ve told me about your time held captive, this sounds like a whole other ball game-”

“Man I would kill to take you to a Yankees game right now-”

“Bucky.” The two of you laughed and you continued. “Anyways, yes I’m scared as hell, but I trust you and I trust Steve. And if Hydra is as dangerous as you say they are,” his eye twitched and you squeezed his arm, “We gotta do something to stop them, and I gotta make sure my best Sergeant stays safe.”

“Fair enough. Also gives me an excuse to spend all my free time flirting with the hot nurse-”

“Medic-”

“I know you’re a medic, sweetheart. Just let me daydream alright?” He chuckled before hooking his arm over your neck and kissing your temple as he led you to the table your friends were at.

While approaching, you realized that the other men they were with were the guys rescued from the Hydra base, James Falsworth and Jacques Dernier. They smiled and raised their glasses at you as you and Bucky grabbed seats at the table.

“Hello again, madame,” the charming British man said with a wink. Bucky wrapped his arm around you and glared at him as you giggled.

“Hey Falsworth. How’s your wrist?”

“Much better, thanks to you.” He raised his glass in your direction. Morita offered an already lit cigarette to Bucky, who took it gratefully.

“Anytime. Literally, seeing that it looks like I’ll be the one patching you guys up from now on.”

“I hope it’s okay that I don’t have any other kids to name after you for all the times you’re going to continue saving my ass, Y/n,” Dum Dum chimed in.

You rolled your eyes. “I’m sure we’ll figure out a different arrangement. Extend it to grand kids or something.”

He grinned, nodding in acceptance before chugging his beer.

“Si le monde perdait toutes les étoiles dans le ciel, j'utiliserais ta beauté comme mon phare,” Jacques said softly, staring at you. Gabe, the only other person who knew how to speak French, choked on his drink.

Everyone stared at them. “What?” you asked.

Gabe coughed a few times, staring at you wide-eyed. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Spit it out, Jones,” Bucky challenged, eyes narrowing.

Gabe turned to Jacques, then back to you.

“He said ‘If the world lost all the stars in the sky, I would use your beauty as my beacon.’”

The table was silent. A blush crept up your face and you cleared your throat awkwardly. Steve snorted.

Bucky pulled the smoke out of his mouth, staring at the frenchman. “Dude…”

You turned to him, a mischievous smile creeping up your face. “You should be taking notes, love. That was a pretty good line.”

Bucky eyes darted to you, mouth open in horror.

The howling laughter from the table drowned out any other noise from within the building.

#inbox #asks #em #sergeant's heart #tsh

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your-dar-ling · 3 years

Text

The Ace Ops and Ironwood

A series, by me!

I think RWBY has as a keen awareness of how much of a hot ass mess Ironwood's character is to understand. To compensate, I think the Ace Ops basically serve as a team of characters onto whom you can project individual aspects of his psyche in order to understand him better.

For example,

Elm, the 2nd most skilled and pillar of the Ace Ops, represents Ironwood's compassion.

She has been described as her voice actor as "big buff lady with a heart of gold." I'm gonna be honest here, Elm has always been my favorite. I find her character the most compelling of them all. As Ironwood's emotions, she has always been overzealously kind. At the earliest convenience, she's shaking Ruby like a ragdoll in excitement over the prospects of new teammates. She encourages their enthusiasm and wants the kids to be the best they can be. At one point, she literally carries Team RWBY on her shoulders, if I recall correctly.

But she would never tell you this. This is Atlas we're talking about here. Whenever asked if she considers her teammates friends, she'll go "This isn't the playground kids." ?!? Um, ma'am, you are like the world's most supportive gym teacher what do you mean this isn't the playground? I- okay?? Whatever. So she's in denial, got it. I still love her.

And then...the fight happens. Look I love Elm but this girl is neck deep in cognitive dissonance. She likes to believe that she is Ironwood's perfect soldier, that she doesn't have feelings and all that matters is the job (perhaps something akin to her partner) but she is nawt that. She's constantly steeling herself against what are clearly very strong feelings towards the matter.

And she can't stand having it pointed out to her either. "They're just following orders." Why are you mad, Elm? You said that yourself all of 20 minutes ago. It's because at this point it's not as much about orders as the fact that, well, she trusted these kids. She threw her all into helping them realize the best possible versions of themselves. And they betrayed her. And her resulting anger clouds her judgement.

Ironwood is clearly operating on emotions at this point too. If he would've just stopped and thought for 3 seconds about any and all of his plans the obvious solution would be to compromise with Team RRAYNBBOW. I'm not about to go into the minutiae of all of his plans, other people with more time on their hands and a better understanding of military tactics have done that already. A big part of what's really keeping them from working together is that Ironwood is simply hurt.

Jacque Schnee (ugh, I know) says in Volume 4 that James has "Never trusted anybody but himself," and James response is "And for good reason." He didn't trust Lionheart, he never even trusted Ozpin, but he took a risk on these kids. They've been through hell and back. They're innocent. How could they possibly betray him after he's given them food, housing, state of the art technology, and their Huntsman Licenses? But lo and behold.

But he will never tell you that. He will just say he's doing what has to be done, and he can't let his silly feelings about...all of Mantle freezing to death or being exploded...get in the way of the bigger picture: Defeating Salem. He's not emotional at all. He'll shoot you if you say otherwise!! Because, y'know, you're a liability to him now if you won't fall in line, not because you're cutting to the core of his fractured psyche or anything...

But what happens when emotions no longer matter?

Ironwood's heart pulls him in every direction, and the more his emotions fail him, the more emotional he becomes.

Next character: Vine

(Actually, the next character is Clover: Redux. This is really the 2nd post in this series of mine. The reason it appears to be the only one is because I accidentally edited a REBLOG of Clover's post in my queue so I have to redo his now...I know. I know.)

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby8 #rwby v8 #rwby v8 spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby8 spoilers #rwby volume 8 spoilers #rwby analysis #rwby elm #elm ederne #rwby ironwood #james ironwood #Elm hasn't gotten much to do in Volume 8 and that hurts me to my core #Somebody just needs to get her to stop drinking Ironwood's koolaid

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RWBY Volume 7 Review

Two weeks out from Volume 8 and I finally cared enough to write this. Go team I guess.

Part of it came down to my feelings on Volume 7. It’s a complicated season that’s made me realize a lot of my overall feelings on RWBY as a series, particularly a lot of the less flattering feelings. Volume 7 is just... frustrating in general, as for all the good that it does have, and it does have a lot of great elements to it, it’s let down by a frustrating script and writing choices that feel distinctly amateurish, especially as the series moves on and gets better and better looking each year. There’s elements and kernals here of great character writing, season-wide arcs that land in a really good way and get me emotionally invested in the characters. But on the other... Ren only has two hundred words the entire season and you can tell!

Volume 7 is a season of dizzying highs, some of the best moments of the entire franchise... and some of the series lows. It’s a season where there’s no production reason for its shortcomings... it just comes down to an awkward script that focuses on the wrong elements far too often. Let’s talk about that. In a very long and drawn out manner.

Thanks to @jamesbranwen, @h-e-m-o-goblin and @retro-riffraff for help with GIFs and consultation on this review.

1) The Good Stuff!

A) Atlas is very pretty!

I cannot stress enough how on a set level, Volume 7 is leaps and bounds above the other seasons in sheer environmental detail and setting dressing. Mantle has a great atmosphere with its New York influences, the smog covered backgrounds and oppressive streets and alleys. Ironwood’s office which is deliberately designed to evoke astronomy themes to represent James’ love for the stars. The cold oppressive atmosphere of the Schnee Manor and how Jacques has begun warping it to glorify him with only lip service paid to Nicholas in public. Penguins!

There’s a lot of great set design work that went into this season and the crew deserve props for it. Genuinely.

B) Ironwood’s arc is the best character arc in the entire franchise

Yeah just wearing my heart on my sleeve there, I fucking love Ironwood and his character arc here in Volume 7 is the best written arc of the show. I simp for the tin man who just wants to do the right thing. This one season of content is better than a lot of the series-wide material being honest. I went back to James’s big volumes in the last month to rewatch the show and it’s interesting to see the early seeds in retrospect for where his arc goes. His need to protect everyone he can and the brutish measures he considers necessary for such an act, his conflicting loyalties towards Ozpin that manifest in both frustration at Oz’s seeming apathy to the growing conflict, but also desperate desire for validation from Ozpin that what’s he doing is the right call. After the Mistral seasons set up James as going off the deep end following Volume 3, having him open the season with an earnest smile, an immediate apology for the team’s arrest and trusting them with his plans for Amity and Salem is a jarring but pleasant surprise. He’s not been slacking off, he’s been trying to keep the world together in the way he thinks is best. He lets his guard down around the heroes and we see the good man underneath, which makes the moments where he raises his walls hurt all the more. While Em and Merc are still probably my favorite characters period, James is absolutely my favorite character in Volume 7 and Top 5 favorite characters series-wide. I’m very eager to see where he goes from here. He also rocks the beard and fixed his T-Rex arms so James came out of the washing machine that is Volume 7′s costume design. He truly is the Best Boi, and I cannot give Jason Rose enough credit for his performance this year. He hit every note of Ironwood’s character perfectly and I wish the fandom would give him more credit for giving James as much life as he does.

Oh, and as the obligatory comment on mlm rep that I am known for getting obsessively weird anon hate over: IronQrow hug nearly had me crying on a convention floor from how goddamn soft it was. Remember conventions? Ah good times.

This just... hits me... ya know? Seeing him lower his guard so much to come in for a hug just shows how isolated he’s let himself become to let himself have this moment of contact... Godamnit James. Also this is the second time after Martial Arcs that two guys hug and I really liked their ship for the following hiatus.

C) Soft Qrow hours are nice

Qrow’s a good guy, he went through a lot of bad stuff in Volume 6 but now he’s on the other side and purged his voice of the demon within. I think Volume 7 was a very good year for Qrow overall. It was great to see him interacting with more characters his age and lowering his own guard. His moments of letting the facade drop around James and Clover especially are great expansion for his character. Jason Liebritch hit the ground running as Qrow and gave him a far more dynamic range than I think Vic could. While I wish Qrow going off alcohol had been given more of a focus as it’s kind of done off-handedly that he’s gone cold turkey and otherwise doesn’t get brought up barring his revulsion at the wine in the Schnee Manor, he overall had a great year. And trust me I’ll get to the fights later, I have a lot more I can say about the bird boi there.

D) I liked the Ace Ops!

I was ambivilent towards the Ace Ops on first watching. They’re kinda underdeveloped in the context of the season at large and most people immediately pegged them as a miniboss squad/fodder for Salem to kill. But in rewatch they do still get to shine, if not as brightly. They’re very enjoyable. Clover especially is just really fun in retrospect, I love cocky fighters in general, and he was infectiously enjoyable (I’ve already covered the FG stuff in the past, not doing it again). Marrow came a close second because... well it’s Marrow, he is The Best Boi. Harriet got points for being a punchgirl which is always cool, I liked how her Semblance was shown and being cocky while being able to back it up is always a win. Elm and Vine are tied for dead last, I like the body diversity Elm introduces with her muscles and Vine... existed... but overall I think with the time they had, they did get to establish themselves well. I wish I could say that about their relationship with Team RWBYORNJ but this is the Nice Section so we’ll leave it there for now.

This is one of the best shots of the entire season. I adore it. God I like the Teryx design.

E) God the villains rocked this year!

I am a villain whore. I own that. I will embrace that monkier. But when they’re as cool as this, I feel validated in this Chilli’s tonight. Watts and Tyrian really make the season shine and don’t have a dud scene all season. They have great chemistry together, shining bright in even the weakest or most mediocre episodes. Watts went from “Oh yeah you exist” tier to “Oh yeah you rule” tier. His vendetta against Ironwood feels so real and pre-established, even though this season is the first time it’s ever come up. Watts just ozzes style in everything he does. The animators bring him to life and make every step, every flick of his twist and even just how he moves his eyes all bleed contempt. He’s such a rat and I love him! Chris Sabat finally gets to stretch his wings after a few years playing Watts as just Evil Scientist Guy, and he makes the most of it.

And Tyrian remains an absolute treat. He didn’t get much in V6 but here he takes center stage with Watts and also gets so much impact because of it. All the little twitches, and tilting of his heads, and dramatic gestures, he’s still just so goddamn cool to watch and we even get a little backstory of him. I know he’s irredeemable. But I just want to watch Tyrian kill people and scream. Like hot damn his line “THE GRIMM SHOULD HAVE DESTROYED OUR ENEMIES, NOT MADE THEM FRIENDS!” is so fucking raw. He’s having fun destablizing a nation with his boyfriend!

“You want more chaos than a Grimm invasion?” “If anyone on Remannt can do it, wouldn’t it be you?” There is no heterosexual explanation for how these two look at each other and yes this is me outing myself as a Nuts and Volts fan.

Watts and Tyrian really do become the absolute highlights of the season alongside James. They have a great dynamic and even during their more slower moments there’s so much care and thought put into their every mannerism. Animators, seriously, great job, I love what you did. And their fights... we’ll get there. But they’re so goddamn good.

Look they even run the same! They’re soulmates!

Honorary mention to Salem by the way. She’s only in two scenes but her presence is felt throughout Ironwood’s arc and his growing fear of her and she damn well delivers when she shows up. That shot of her arriving in person is a killer shot to end on as well.

Oh and I guess Cinder and Neo exist don’t they? Eh, we’ll come back to them.

F) Oscar got a character arc!

Finally! He did it! He got an arc that began, continued and ended all onscreen! It only took four tries!

But yeah Oscar had a really good set of scenes in Volume 7. I like him being the first to confront Ruby on the Ironwood lie, bringing up the hypocrisy after their condemning of Ozpin just last season. I like him having a more forward role (outside of not getting to be part of the celebration in episode 4 what the hell guys), and that he’s the big link between RWBY and Ironwood was a great call. Having Ozpin shelved for one more season so Oscar can take center-stage was an inspired choice. I love his dynamic with Ironwood, and how James closing himself off emotionally gets reflected in how he begins slipping in how he refers to Oscar, starting off as treating him and Oz as separate, ending with him gunning Oscar down as he doesn’t care anymore to differentiate the two.

My big issues with Oscar’s arc are that I’m first of all annoyed at the lack of followup on the Oscar stuff from V6, I’m still waiting for Qrow to apologize for punching Oscar guys! I also really wish Neo’s first attack wasn’t offscreen. CRWBY’s cliffhanger fetish meant I got to break out the Offscreen Pine jokes again. And of course, the Neo hallway punch was a bit bullshit.

G) (Most of) The fights are amazing

There’s no punchline. These fights are great, two of them are in my Top 10 Series Wide fights list and at least the duds aren’t Volume 5 bad.

If you’d told me before Volume 7 that Watts would get an extended firefight with James, I’d have felt that a bit cheap as Watts to me doesn’t feel like a fighter, more a planner who hides behind armies of mechanical soldiers. But damn if they didn’t sell me on Watts “You’ve yeed your last haw” Watts whipping out a Glock just to spite James.

This is another one of my favorite shots in the entire series.

Ironwood vs Watts is potentially my favorite fight in the entire series, and if it’s not, it’s easy Top 3 alongside Yang vs Mercury and Pyrrha vs CRDL/Mercury. It makes great use of Amity in the abandoned gravity biome meant for SSSN vs JNPR, with Ironwood and Watts deftly moving around in a manner that very easily could have been difficult to track with the constantly shifting gravity, but the crew do their best to keep it coherent as to who’s where. The credits showed their dedication also stretched into visual continuity, as James and Arthur’s route throughout the Arena was carefully considered so they’d loop around organically.

This is what I mean when I say the crew went above and beyond to keep things clean.

Ironwood vs Watts could have easily failed to impress, given its lack of choreography on the level the series usually does, but the team’s efforts went instead into showing a situation that lets Watts get a dragged out battle: James wins whenever he closes the distance here, so Arthur’s constantly on the run and being forced to tamper with the arena. Great camerawork, a GOD TIER song from Caleb Hyles that I’m still listening to today, and two characters with a fantastic history coming to blows makes for easily the best fight of the season and a series-wide highlight. Watching it develop from storyboards, to mocap, to animations and the full version is a delight to see. This is what CRWBY can do when everything comes togehter. The orchestra’s all tuned. It’s a goddamn symphony.

THIS is my favorite shot of the season.

Tyrian also gets to shine with his two battles this year. His alley fight with Qrow, Robyn and Clover is short but sweet, the corvid and the scorpion especially trading brutal blows in the cramped space. Qrow goes full Devil May Cry with his style-switching here, Harbinger being swapped between sword, tonfa and gun forms freely alongside Qrow applying The Power of Punching. His 1v1v1 with Clover and Qrow though is the true highlight of the season in terms of choreography. It’s lighting-fast, and has some impeccable shot work. Qrow gets to use his scythe with deliberate nods to the Red Trailer, Clover gets to shut up everyone who doubted his weapon, and Tyrian is just along for the ride and he makes the most of it. It’s frentic, it’s heart-pounding, it’s everything a fight should be.

Honorary mentions as well go to Ace Ops vs the Geist, which is just really fun and has a great backing music choice, the opening battle with Sabre having Ruby’s obligatory ten seconds of fighting that come at the start of every new era of the series, and the Ace Ops vs RWBY fight which has some good choreo in places.

H) Winter and Penny have good chemistry

I don’t have a ton to add here, I just like their dynamic and how they advance each other’s arcs. It’s nice writing. I also like Winter apologizing to Penny when she’s angry at Jacques and takes it out on Penny by accident with the “You wouldn’t understand” line.

Penny as a Maiden is a nice idea, I think her new design is cute. Penny says trans rights.

Those are a lot of my favorite things about Volume 7. It’s a killer season when it’s firing on all cylinders but unfortunately... it often misfires in frustrating ways, many of which are unfortunately due to core emblematic problems with the series that won’t go away.

2) The Bad Stuff

A) The costumes

It’s been a over year. It’s low hanging fruit. I don’t care. Most of them are still not good and they’re ludicrously over-designed.

Blake’s in a fetish suit and I wonder how she even goes to the bathroom. Weiss just looks like an abino Sabre alt, Yang is what a Halloween costume site would describe as “Sexy UPS Driver,” (why does she have a thigh window) Ruby... looks fine, it’s one of her better costumes. Jaune’s hair is silly, Ren’s model has lost some muscle definition and he looks like an e-boy, Nora’s costume really doesn’t fit the Atlas visual design and looks like a rejected Kingdom Hearts costume. Cinder’s is too black and I actually can’t track her in darker scenes because of it (which is kinda bad during... a fight scene... where I need to know where she is...), Neo looks like a Ren Fair cosplayer doing a bit for her OnlyFans, Winter’s is anatomically weird with super skinny arms and legs, and Blake’s hair is a fucking hate crime.

Qrow’s is one I liked at first but in retrospect it does feel like a downgrade. To quote @h-e-m-o-goblin from a Discord chat:

in a show like rwby, where color is such a vital defining aspect of every character, a cohesive colorscheme goes a long way. qrow's original outfit works great in this regard. neutral tones. greys, whites, and blacks, with red accents that pop against the otherwise sparse color. it's good! it's distinctive! it doesn't feel cluttered and it doesn't look like a clown vomited on him! the subdued colors really lend themselves to the grey, cynical energy qrow seems to carry with him. a literal lack of color in his life. the outfit itself feels like something he would wear; a combination of "clearly trying to look cool" and "a little disheveled and laid back." the design breathes, it isn't cluttered. let's contrast this with his vol 7 outfit. a lot of outfits in vol 7 suffer from this problem, but first and foremost it doesn't look like something he would wear. where his old outfit had a casual feel to it, his new look feels like someone dressed him up for a family christmas dinner. it's too... tidy. now of course you could argue this is him "cleaning up his life," but i dont feel like you have to sacrifice his own personal style in order to convey that. if that's really what they were going for, they easily could have just, oh i dont know, given him a cape that isn't tattered???

remember how i said qrow's original outfit really made his colors pop? how less is more when it comes to having a character with a specific color theme? vol 7 butchered that. we suddenly have articles of clothes that are tinted with greenish blue tones, browns, and with gold trim? on TOP of the old colors he already had in his design. it's muddy. it's ugly. the burgundy vest is fine, if they wanted to work more color into his outfit they should have done it that way throughout, shades of grey and different tones of RED. his COLOR. it just feels like they tacked so much on there without a second thought and i really think he deserves better. its just. such a mess.

The ones I did like were Watts’ new coat (I like the puffy hood), Penny’s is fine, the Ace Ops look great, Ironwood’s new outfit is stellar (those last six are great examples of how to do a lot with just primary colors of white and red), Neon’s Jolyne cosplay is cute and Flynt is slick. Otherwise, Volume 7 feels like it’s taken a lot of the wrong lessons from the costume design of the earlier seasons. Less is often more but now it feels like they have a pathological aversion to empty space on the costumes, leading them to feel like... costume vomit for lack of a better word. I didn’t love the Mistral outfits, but their modifications at least were carried by how many of them called back to the Fall of Beacon and emphasized the themes of loss in Volume 4. The new Atlas outfits... don’t have that shared theme. It feels like a hodgepodge of different design influences without trying to find a way to unify them. It’s like putting Baki the Grappler beside My Little Pony, they just fail to mesh.

Also for fuck’s sake already CRWBY just give the girls muscles already.

2) JNR suck and Ren’s arc is glorified character assassination

I don’t love JNR. They’re fine, but the show has arguably not needed them for a while and while I’ve liked them all at different points, it’s never been adoration outside of Ren in Volume 4. I was cool with the idea of them staying in Argus to help cover Mistral after its Huntsmen were wiped out, and Volume 7 has... made me wish they did that.

Jaune is just comic relief, and it kinda blows for later reasons but the big one is that he’s just not very funny. His big role in Volume 7 is basically to crosswalk some kids so we can have a joke scene during the Mantle Battle where Jaune uses his tactical genius to teach people to walk in single file. I feel like at this point Miles is just actively trying to kill Jaune’s fandom out of spite for how badly Jaundice was received. He’s never allowed to be cool or try and redeem himself. His hatedom aren’t going to stop hating Jaune because he gets more comedy guys. They’re going to stop when you write Jaune well. It’s a bummer he got some genuinely great upgrades for his sword and shield and never gets to use them outside of the opening.

Nora exists. She got a surprising amount of focus this season in that she got focus of any kind. I liked her confronting Ironwood over his choking of Mantle because we know she was once the kind of person Ironwood would have been stifling. I like her being the one to realize the loophole in Jinn’s “You can’t” line. I don’t like much else about Nora this year, or at least the Nora the writing team are pushing. She’s not funny like Jaune but Nora just absorbs so much screentime in the first half with her constant shrieking. Sam Ireland has good range but making Nora into Discount Harley Quinn is pushing her out of it. She sounds shrill, making Nora sound like she has no heart outside of the election rally. A shrill voice is one thing. A shrill voice that never lands a single joke? Yeah that character is tainted by association.

And Ren... oh God Ren what happened to you.

The Volume 7 commentary confirmed a suspicion of mine that Ren’s arc was heavily cut down from what was planned. Even watching V7 I could tell his arc was bare-bones at best, and it’s downright character assassination in places. Why is he suddenly so cold to Nora? Why is he now so obsessed with training? Why does he side with Ironwood for all of... one line which is this last between episodes 7 and 11. Ren only has two hundred words of dialoge in Volume 7 and they feel so weird in places. Ren goes from seemingly disliking Nora, to kissing her, to never referencing the kiss, to partaking in the Worst Scene Of The Season, all with no consistency. It’s not even threadbare. Ren’s arc just has no connecting tissue for so much of it! It’s insane how badly Ren was hurt by this, and I shudder to wonder how bad his Volume 8 arc will be because you know that was one of the first plotlines they cut down on when they inevitably overreached again.

I don’t know how they made Renora kissing feel unearned? But by God they found a way with how much of a trainwreck Ren’s writing is in regards to tainting this.

If Ironwood is an example of RWBY doing character writing well, Ren is the mirror image of how badly they can do. JNR really suffered from Volume 7 (also fun fact, Ren has about 200 words of dialogue? Ironwood has 4400). Maybe not to the level of irredeemable dislike? But very close to being on the same tier as Cinder of “Just go away already.” I’m not looking forward to their content in Volume 8.

3) RWBY themselves are poorly handled in Volume 7

It’s unfortunate that the actual title characters of the series are also some of this season’s weaker links. RWBY feel... superfluous to this season in a way they’ve never felt before. It’s baffling how much of the season doesn’t change if you just don’t include them, and apparently Volume 7′s first draft? Was even worse.

The commentary says that many of the RWBY moments were added later in production. Stuff like Ruby and Renora at the rally, Blake and Yang’s talk with Robyn and Ruby and Qrow’s chat were all either added in near the end of the writing or were “low priority” enough that they could have been cut which is... veyr alarming that’s stuff even the main protags have to worry about!

Ruby feels half-baked. I was looking forward to her in V7 after how V6 gave her a more dynamic personality and the focus she got in Brunswick, and having Penny’s return had me interested in seeing Ruby grapple with her emotions about it. She watched Penny die, how would it influence her to see Penny back and OK? Good question, we never get to see it. Ruby’s just OK with Penny’s return, the one time they touch on it Penny immediately glosses over it. Ruby just goes back to her old happy go lucky persona where any and all negative emotions are immediately forced down instead of confronting them and growing from them. I’m getting a little tired of Ruby bottling her grief and being teased about finally getting her snapping like a Twix Bar. We finally got her crying and it lasted all of ten seconds. And it doesn’t help that Ruby’s still getting shafted for fights. Her scythe choreography has no excuse being as flacid as it is now after Qrow vs Clover showed they can do scythe fighting! Why is Ruby being upstaged by (let’s be real) a supporting character! Why is she being limited to ten seconds of good combat then nothing for the rest of the season outside of flimsily swinging it or shooting. It’s disappointing, especially after how good V6 Ruby was.

I swear, Gravity’s not just my favorite episode of the season just because Ruby finally cries in it.

Weiss was kinda just done dirty though. At least Ruby has a good outfit. Weiss confronting her father has been a long standing plot thread for the series, it’s been Weiss’s Big Thing since the White Trailer. And when Jacques finally appears, he’s very... bland. He’s just evil corporate dude who exists less as an obstacle for Weiss and more just a roadblock for the plot through the election. Weiss finally gets a chance to take her father down and work to redeem her family name... but instead of earning said victory and it being treated with the same gravitas and emotional weight as Blake defeating Adam... Weiss has her victory handed to her. And it’s played for comedy by her abusrdly attractive mother.

Listen, I like I Willow Schnee. I think she’s a fascinating character and I like the idea of a person who is aware of the harm they’ve done by accident but is too broken to fix the issues she accidentally left. I love her calling Weiss out on her treatment of Whitley. But she is absolutely a Deus Ex Machina that exists to get Jacques out of the plot as fast as possible. You mean to tell me Hackerman Watts never once made sure Jacques had hidden cameras? Or that none of the staff found Willow’s cameras and reported them under the assumption they were White Fang spies? It’s so... convenient. It’s handing Weiss her victory on an unearned platter. Which sucks. I was really looking forward to Weiss beating Jacques. Instead she just gets given the plot device while JNR engage in the Worst Scene of The Season in that Whitley food stunt.

Me whenever I’m asked to rewatch Cordially Invited

Blake and Yang have much the same problems, in they never separate. I know they’re going to be together. I know CRWBY are making it canon (get it over with already). I still would like Yang and Blake to have individual character scenes. I’d like Blake and Marrow to talk about being a Faunus Huntsman in Atlas (another thing that got cut thanks to Robyn Hill). I want Yang and Ironwood to discuss their PTSD and have Yang thank Ironwood for his trust in her that he commissioned the arm despite Yang attacking Mercury. I want Blake to be well animated in fight scenes so she’s doing more than just jobbing so Yang looks better. I want Yang to stop hogging all the good Team RWBY choeography. I want them to interact with other characters and continue to grow instead of feeling like two halves of one character. And no, making a meta joke of how Blake and Yang don’t talk to other people doesn’t make it OK. It just means you’re self aware about your own faults.

(Also give Yang better merch or quit the favoritism. If you’re gonna milk her, put effort into it beyond crapply overpriced flannel. RT’s merch store is actively making me hate Yang.)

Team RWBY’s biggest contribution to the season is the Ironwood Lie which is... a can of worms. They certainly had a point in withholding some of the bigger truths from James but I feel by Pomp and Cirumstance he’d proven himself truthwrothy enough to warrant being told the truth about Salem. But then when he’s finally told the truth, it’s offscreen’d and the consequence isn’t “Why didn’t you tell me earlier” but “Fucking Ozpin man.” Gravity has it bite them in the ass, but it’s more an accessory to Yang and Blake telling Robyn about the Amity tower. I wish more had been done with the team disagreeing on whether the lie was a good choice or not, maybe have Yang be hardline against it due to her own “No more lies and half truths” policy instead of... having Yang tell more lies and half truths (Commentary confirms she never told Ruby and Weiss about the Robyn stuff BTW). But that’s a wider problem where RWBY aren’t allowed to disagree beyond surface level “I don’t know if this is the right call” dialogue. There’s never a threat of one of them cracking and just spilling the beans to James, everyone just blindly trusts Ruby and Qrow tells the audience “No this is different from when Ozpin lied. Trust us.”

This is the most RWBY get for content in the season finale: Ruby just nuking Cinder with no difficulty after having trouble with the eyes three episodes ago. Kinda lame tbh.

Team RWBY are just disappointing in Volume 7. They’re not given good animation, their story roles are largely insignificant, the impact of their roles on the story is threadbare and... well most of their costumes suck don’t @ me even CRWBY have admitted Blake and Weiss’s haircuts looked bad. It’s a whole barrage of a letdown for the main girls. And it’s really sad that the best scenes of the season... are usually the ones where RWBY are nowhere in sight.

Why the hell didn’t Yang get to keep the sunglasses come on guys. One job.

4) Robyn, the election plot, and the Happy Huntresses

Oh God, Robyn Hill is... not great. I could and likely will write a full meta on her character and how they bungled it but I’ll just be blunt here: I don’t like her design, the colors don’t mesh well, he head’s too small, Christina Vee is sleeping through the role and her weapon’s lame. Introducing her in a scene where she threatens to attack our heroes, and her agents are actively sneaking up on them to do it, is not a great first impression for a hometown hero. And that the commentary thinks she’s meant to be the hero in that scene is... staggering.

RWBY’s greatest threat yet is a wine mom Karen and her Home Owners Association army.

The election plot is less a misfire and more the engine just exploding. There’s so little good content between when it’s introduced and concluded, with it usually being individual scenes that are more good in spite of their connection to the plot (such as Tyrian’s massacre). It drags in pacing, going on for nearly half the season between episodes 5 and 10, and it purely exists as a roadblock to keep RWBY spinning their wheels while Watts and Tyrian keep going with the main plot. I don’t know why CRWBY went for this plot. They could have easily had something else fill the gap that also allowed for a lot of the character beats (such as Marrow and Blake’s talk and Ren’s entire arc) to shine, or at least condensed it to the important elements instead of letting it become bloated. It ends in such an unsatisfying way where Willow just shows up and goes “We have four episode left, here’s the plot device to beat Jacques, get back ot the main plot.” If they wanted to do the election plot, the best route would have been to give Volume 7 more episodes or stretch out its events to two seasons, but neither is realistically possible while RWBY lives off the teat of AT&T.

Jacques and Robyn are just boring. Evil corporate man and a lame adaptation of Robyn Hood who only has fans because of thirst who also like downplaying Robyn making a racist remark at Marrow (to say nothing of that weird subsection of Robyn fans who make her a Fox Faunus who cut her tail off to join Atlas Academy which is... certainly a creative choice especially when Marrow and Neon are punching holes in that angsty BS backstory). They can’t carry this plot and the artifical attempts to make it seem more exciting with the two cliffhaners ending on Mantle under riot or Grimm attack are laughably cut short by the next episode in each case opening the morning after. On binge watch it becomes weirdly funny more than anything and that’s not a good reaction. The dual cliffhangers being cheaply resolved is a short but succint example of V7′s pacing issues, and they almost always loop around to the election plot being too bloated, slow and just boring.

Also the Happy Huntresses are just... lame. I like their Semblances but that’s it. Fiona’s OK because she gets some screentime but May’s just “the surly one” and Joanna doesn’t even get her Semblance or much dialogue (oh wow she really is just a female Sage Ayana isn’t she). Robyn should not have been leading the HH and running for Council. That’s really stupid. And kind of wrong. Having May or Fiona be running instead while Robyn leads the team in relief efforts would have been better and could have split the focus more effeciently instead of leaving May and especially Joanna feelng like roster padding. There’s also some delicious irony in the show trying to frame the HH as the resistance fighting for the people and representing individuality, only for them all to have the same boring outfit and weapons (I think even the exact same model just with different sizes) while the Ace Ops are meant to be the military drones who are “Just following orders,” only for them to be more racially diverse, more diverse body-type-wise, and have more unique weapons. It’s another one of those odd creative dissconnects between what the writers wanted and what the artists/animation teams chose to do.

The election plot is overall toxin for Volume 7, and Robyn in my opinion, has one of the worst introductory scenes of any character in the franchise (and CRWBY have tacitly admitted that V7 had a character they were surprised at how controversial they were, which has to be Robyn). In a year where they were already juggling so much content and characters, adding in this bloated subplot was something I don’t think anyone wanted, especially now that we know we lost so much content on the sacrificial altar for this. It’s a black mark on the season and I don’t really care for the return of the Happy Huntresses or Robyn in Volume 8. None of them are interesting enough to care for outside of meta reasons like “cute.”

Also fuck you Fiona, can’t believe you got a shirt before Ironwood.

5) Cinder and Neo sure exist

To be fair, this is one of Cinder’s best years, easily her best since Volume 3 but that’s more because Cinder in the Mistral era was crap. (And if I wanna be cruel, because Cinder wasn’t in two thirds of the season)Her fans were finally vindicated after years of telling anyone who dunked on Cinder that “nooooo she has a super covert backstory that’s gonna be amazing when it’s revealed! You’ll see!” And well they finally got it. All of one line during a fight about how Cinder “refuses to starve.”

It’s still something so I guess we have to take it. Seriously... how do we still not have Cinder’s backstory.

There’s just not a ton to say about Cinder and Neo in V7 barring I that don’t think they needed to be here. They feel very superfluous and just here to have a big boss fight in Cinder’s case alongside continuing her streak of ending the odd numbered seasons fighting a female side character... which for me became an exercise in tyring to find during Cinder during the damn fight.

And this is why when most people saw Cinder’s V6 outfit they went “It’s gonna be hard to see her in darker environments,” then were vindicated when it became legit difficult to see Cinder in this scene. God if they at least just made the inside of the cape red it’d be easier.

Neo is Neo, which means she makes funny faces and mocks Cinder (I like that), but she doesn’t get a super good fight which uh... we’ll get to. I’m interested to see her finally exploding at Cinder and going for a backstab, but really Neo in V7 was kinda hit hard by the double whammy of the Oscar Hallway Punch and how humiliating ORNJ vs Neo was for ORNJ. Cinder’s definitely had far worse years and after how aimless she was in Mistral this feels like a sep in the right direction, but at this point CRWBY just need to shut up and tell us her deal. It’s been seven years guys. Come on. At least make her interesting if she’s gonna say around. They’ve had worse years, but unfortunately Cinder and Neo’s role in the finale leads into...

6) Some of the fights weren’t good

I wanna be clear, I like most of Volume 7′s fights. It’s just a bummer the worst ones are back and back and make up a chunk of the finale. ORNJ vs Neo is just crap. It’s the worst fight since the Battle of Haven. There’s nothing else I can say, it’s poorly animated, paced, choreographed and written. JNR especially are made to look like complete jokes after they spent all season training, to the point where it looks like V2 Yang could solo V7 JNR after this. Oscar I expect this from because he’s not allowed to have fun stuff onscreen after accidentally stealing the Haven budget for his fight with Hazel, but JNR were just done dirty. There were ways to make the fight work in a way where Neo still won but JNR looked good. They went for the worst possible outcome that just leaves Neo looking like she got fan-wanked and JNR looking like they’re just not allowed to be cool due to Miles’ spite at the Jaune-Self Insert stuff (and that’s not even getting into JNR being forced to run from lame rent a cops who can’t even handle a single Grimm). Cinder vs Winter and Penny isn’t much better, with her dark outfit making it very hard to track the fight because she blends into the background too well. It’s not a great showing for Winter or Penny given their earlier feats but, hey, some random female character had to fight Cinder in this odd numbered volume, carrying on Glynda, Pyrrha and Raven’s tradition. It’s at least better than ORNJ vs Neo, but that’s really not saying anything. At least Cinder’s VA work isn’t too bad this time but this fight commits the cardinal sin of a finale fight: It’s just not super interesting because we know Cinder can’t kill both Winter and Penny and she’s not becoming a Maiden, while Winter’s been too blatantly set up so it has to be Penny.

RWBY vs the Ace Ops also gets a dishonorable mention due to the choreography on display here... and the lack of it for Weiss, Blake and Ruby. Ruby never once swings Crescent Rose the entire fight and is just reduced to getting the tar kicked out of her by Harriet. Weiss barely gets to use her sword and largely just sticks to her summoning and glyphs which makes for a very visually uninteresting fighting style at the best of times. Blake just swings around and gets caught by the bad guys so Yang is motivated to fight stronger. She never dual wields (again) and her best moves are just setting up Yang to do all the hard work while Yang gets to personally KO two of the Ace Ops. There’s a lot that can be said about whether or nor RWBY earn the win, but while the animation team try to sell the Ace Ops landing heavy hits, having only Blake’s Aura even flicker really undercuts the idea from the commentary that this wasn’t meant to be a stomp for RWBY and they had to work together and be in synch to win.

Which is why Yang solos two of the Ace Ops whle Blake plays support, Weiss beats Marrow alone and then kill steals Harriet from Ruby, all while the song playing is an extended diss track from RWBY to the Ace Ops about how badass they are now, and the commentary itself says the Ace Ops are hard carried by Clover’s Semblance (because you gotta love basically saying four POC were only competent because a white guy led them, and then have them lose because said white guy wasn’t around to carry them!). Great job guys, you really sold it.

And talking of Clover, I feel it worth mentioning Qrow vs Clover vs Tyrian. It’s animation wise near perfect, but unfortunately I do feel it would be remiss to not mention that I feel the writing really has to bend over backwards to justify this fight. A lot of it is stuff I would say in that hypothetical Robyn essay, but I feel Robyn, Qrow and Clover all have to become massive idiots for this specific sequence of events to occur, and for Clover especially every retroactive attempt to explain why he prioritized Qrow over Tyrian just sounds more and more desperate. Between the references to MCU Captain America (a person whose entire arc is about learning when it’s OK to defy bad orders) or the attempt in the commentary to say “Oh Clover thought it would be easier to take out Tyrian alone instead of Qrow,” none of them land and just further drive home how much the plot had to stretch and reach to get that moment of Tyrian killing Clover. I like the fight. But I hate the road the show took to get there.

Some of the misc fights are also weak like ORNJ vs FNKI and elements of the Mantle Grimm battle, but those are the big offenders. Otherwise, again, the fights are largely good.

7) The soundtrack wasn’t... great

I mean the vocal songs only, don’t crucify me. Trust Love is just lamer Let’s Just Live/Triumph, Celebrate and Let’s Get Real are so boring I thought they were the same song until the OST dropped, Brand New Day is boringly peppy and Jeff’s vocals are dreadful. I completely forgot Touch the Sky until I was checking the tracklist to make sure I didn’t forget any songs. War has good singers but tries to sell the RWBY-Ace Ops bond as way deeper than it was. The lack of a villain song did really sting though, those are always the highlights.

There are good songs. I really like Fear, I feel it encapsulates the themes of the volume well and serves as a good condemnation of Ironwod’s mentality. Until The End is finally the Ruby song I’ve waited for since Red Like Roses 2 and I enjoy that she got a melancholic song, and Hero is easily, hands down, best track of the record and probably best RWBY track, full stop. Caleb killed it, I loved the second verse, opening opera was strong, guitar riffs were a plenty. Stellar work all around for that one.

The OST has great work from Jeff and Alex as usual, but the Jeff and Casey songs are really starting to lose their appeal. Going for a peppy feel this year didn’t help cover the cracks that are beginning to show with RWBY’s vocal songs (especially Jeff’s vocal range), and while a few standouts remain such as Fear and Hero, they are the slim minority in an otherwise very boring vocal tracklist that barely scrapes above Volume 5 for weakest set yet.

8) It wasn’t as funny as it thought it was

Comedy is subjective but man a lot of these jokes didn’t land. RWBY really needs to realize that does work in traditional 2D does not translate into 3D and just comes off as making official reaction GIFs for your Twitter account. Making characters SUDDENY SCREAM LOUDLY is not good banter. Please stop making Nora into Harley Quinn. Marrow was probably the most consistently funny character but that was it. Also I dunno why CRWBY thought Forrest was funny or what the deal was with that FRWBY crap.

“Honorary” mention to the JNR food scene in Cordially Invited which is genuinely one of the worst scenes in the entire show and I hope whoever animated it has their save files deleted for a game where they were about to beat the final boss. Nothing sums up JNR’s pointlessness in the series more perfectly than this.

C) Conclusion

See what I mean about Volume 7 being frustrating?

It’s weird that I overal think of Volume 7 as a mid-tier volume. There’s so much here I genuinely adore, with some of the best stuff to do with the show coming out of this season (barring lame, overpriced merch that feels like clothing gacha), but simultaneously the whole thing is let down by outside circumstances that unfortunately are ones the show can’t ever really recover from. Put bluntly, Volume 7 is the most technically proficient season of the show with the best lighting, backdrops, (some of the) character models, etc. CRWBY definitely didn’t slack off this year, but the problem isn't with them. It’s with the writing. A wider reaching problem is just that Miles and Kerry can’t really improve to the level that the series now requires. Eddy and Kiersei’s first season could have gone far worse, but it definitely was notable whenever they took over. Volume 7’s core problems are fourfold: The comedy is terrible and none of the jokes really land, the season focuses on the wrong plots and gives them too much effort, too many episodes are spent building up to new plots only for them to be weakly resolved (especially the Mantle Riot/Grimm attacks that are shoved off-screen), and the character bloat strikes hard here and leaves a lot of the cast feeling like dead weight. CRWBY don’t need more writers. They need more editors willing to tell the team what has to go instead of them hemming and hawing themselves on if they if they can include a plotline. The election never should have gotten past its first draft, there was too much already in this season before adding that.

When this is an unironic shot in your series... you’ve got character bloat issues.

At this point, I think JNR need to go. The show had no idea what to do with them throughout the season, leading to Jaune just being comic relief while Ren and Nora became characters I actively dislike. Renora was the easiest ship in the show to land, and they still managed to blow the engines and ram at least three icebergs just to prove that RWBY can’t romance to save its life. Team RWBY themselves are little better, with Ruby’s feelings about Penny’s return being shelved, Weiss’s victory against Jacques feeling un-earned and undercut by comedy, while Yang and Blake are benched for the volume and become a singular entity with how tied at the hip they are. Maria basically yeeted herself out of the show and I didn’t notice, Pietro is just a death flag, and while the Ace Ops had a good intro, it was undercooked by how they had to play the villain role to give RWBY something to do in the final hours. Cinder and Neo didn’t need to be here. Robyn had one of the worst introductions for a character I’ve ever seen, I never enjoyed her moments and it genuinely feels like she only has a fandom because RWBY’s community are in fact that desperate.

On the brighter side, Ironwood’s arc is fucking perfect and Jason Rose deserves all the love. Great fight, great song, great design, love the beard, it was a perfect downfall for Volume 7’s true protagonist. Qrow had a fun volume and I loved his dynamic with Clover (I don’t see the ship stuff but that’s more because I’m an IronQrow main so my blinders were on). Clover was also way cooler than I remembered. His fights stood out but the guy’s just really cool at the end of the day, with Chris doing great work as a VA. Oscar even managed to do stuff this year which was a shock and a half, but a welcome shock and a half. I didn’t mention it, but the Ozpin fear monologue is one of my favorite scenes in the entire show and it and the Ironwood/Oscar confrontation in the vault save the finale. And of course, Watts and Tyrian were the MVPs. I don’t have a bad word about either of them, they fucking nailed their roles and I can’t wait to see them again.

And that’s kind of what I mean when I say Volume 7 flummoxes me. It’s frustrating at times with how it handles seemingly easy tasks and drops the ball. Renora went from “everyone liked that” to wondering how badly Ren’s stuff got butchered for him to be the way he is. RWBY themselves could be almost entirely cut and so little would change, and the fact that the finale basically hinges its entire emotional stakes on Winter, Penny and Oscar is a staggering call. And it really feels like the season was compressed beyond necessity because they decided going in that Volume 7 had to end on Salem’s arrival. There’s two volumes worth of material here, and maybe it would have been best to have broken up these events. Volume 7 does too much in too little time, and RWBY especially suffered from it. But when it works… it’s good. Never close to the highs of Volumes 6 or 3, but there’s genuinely good material here. The fights are mostly getting better with far less missteps than previously, the acting (mostly) continues to improve and it’s obvious that RWBY is a very good looking show at this point. Ironwood’s arc is franchise-wide highs, I loved Clover, and Marrow remains the best boi. But it’s frustrating that despite all the tech advances Volume 7 has made, it still makes such threadbare, rookie writing mistakes in cast management, comedy and character arcs. I’m glad Miles and Kerry finally realized that they needed more writers, but it won’t mean anything if the show just continues to circle the drain on the core mistakes it’s been making since 2013. Volume 7 has good in it. But I can see where it could have been great.

Thanks for reading, stan IronQrow and please get Whitley a therapist.

And for the love of God already make an Ironwood vs Watts shirt!

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