#(and this difference i think also in part comes from ironwood's own background

[angstandhappiness]

@askteamgrey one thing to point out is that oz did not have a hand in Vacuo turning into a wasteland. the world of remnant on Vacuo specifically mentions the foreign exploitation being the cause of "ancient vacuo" (aka fuck of long ago) turning into a hellhole and not the war. and the great war video showed that mistral and atlas had already colonized vacuo and forcing them to comply with their rules long before the war

Interesting

Giving it some more thought, there's a lot of details that makes me consider why Ironwood would consider all of his evil actions to be justified:

Because he was basically copying what he interpreted OZPIN did over his many incarnations.

When you really take a hard look at the things Ozma did in the past, a lot of them can easily be seen as atrocities in their own right:

He decimated Vacuo with the Sword of Destruction and left it a starving wasteland where many are nationalists to varying degrees with heavy eugenicist/Social Darwinist tendencies out of implied trauma for what happened to them.

He's created and manipulated multiple cult-like groups around himself in his attempts to stop Salem and complete his mandate, also ruining many lives out of misguided good intentions.

He's created a new world order after the Great War that on the surface preaches unity, but suffers from numerous societal flaws as a result of him being so tunnel visioned to stopping Salem that he ignores the very real rot lurking beneath the surface.

He's lied repeatedly to his followers about the truth of his mandate and the reality that he doesn't know how to accomplish any of his goals, essentially sacrificing them on a fruitless eternal suicide mission.

And there's even more that's probably occurred over the course of centuries of attempting to achieve his goals.

So of course Ironwood, being unable to really self-reflect or really consider the complex nature of Ozpin's actions, would see all of the above as either something to emulate or to use to justify his own atrocities; because after all, it's for the greater good isn't it?

The key difference more than anything is that Ozma is someone desperately trying to fulfill a mission that is proving more and more to be highly suspect and likely the result of being manipulated by the God of Light, and Ozma for his many, many, many mistakes, does seem to be slowly coming around to the reality that he NEEDS to change his views and methods or else he will only keep getting worse. While Ironwood could never do this because he didn't want to turn away from his bad choices, only validate and justify them to avoid facing the atrocities he was committing.

...When I put it like that, it honestly makes Ironwood the Cinder to Ozma's Salem. Someone who is emulating a person based on a facade of what they THINK the emulated is doing, and not looking any further than that.

"I have made more mistakes then any man, woman, or child on this planet" - Ozpin

"Winter, do not blame me! I have sacrificed everything!....I have only done what's best for Remnant and no one is grateful!" - Ironwood

Ironwood may have indeed emulated Oz either consciously or subconsciously but at least Ozpin can see what he's done and regret it.

Even at the end, I don't think Ironwood did.

[hamliet]

RWBY and the Philosopher’s Stone

So, I finally watched RWBY after a friend name-dropped several characters and I was like wait... those names are alchemical. I was still pleasantly surprised to find out just how deeply rooted in alchemy the story is, from its characters to its plot structure. 

Background: alchemical structure is a type of story structure that focuses on inner transformation via outward obstacles. You can find it in literary traditions across the world, from Moxiang Tongxiu’s novels to A Song of Ice and Fire to Harry Potter to The Witcher to Trollhunters. Carl Jung incorporated it into his psychology. Daoism plays heavily into Chinese alchemy. The Wizard of Oz, one of RWBY’s main inspirations, is a blatant alchemy allegory. It’s everywhere, so it’s not surprising RWBY is drawing heavily on alchemy, but it is neat to see how blatant the references are. 

Thematically, the goal of alchemy is a metaphorical philosopher’s stone. The philosopher’s stone, in legend, is said to produce an elixir of eternal life, and to be able to transform “baser” metals into gold. 

In stories, when positive, as it usually is, this usually results in a character either overcoming death (see, Harry Potter) and/or transforming the world and others around him (Harry Potter saving his friends, etc.) But the journey from how they get from prima materia (raw material) to the philosopher’s stone? Now that’s the story. 

(When reversed, a metaphorical stone results in something that can destroy everything; see: the One Ring, also Salem, because Salem’s whole thing is that she cheapened the process of life and death, while alchemy states that death is a necessary part of achieving life.)

So, mostly I’m gonna talk about the symbolism I’ve seen so far and make some predictions for what’s likely to happen next in the story, and for the characters.

Each of the four main characters has a name that corresponds to one of the four phases of the Magnum Opus. “Blake Belladonna” refers to the nigredo, or black stage; “Weiss Schnee” to the albedo, or white stage; “Yang Xiao Long” to the citrinitas or yellow phase, and “Ruby Rose” to the final stage, rubedo, or red (Ruby’s name is quite literally taken from that stage). Naming them for these stages shows a dual purpose: while Ruby is the central character, she needs her team around her, and Team RWBY will save the world together. Team JNR is also a part of the stages, but I’ll get to what they represent later on. 

Jung associated each of the major stages with a major archetype. The major stages can be further broken up into a total of seven or twelve or even fourteen stages. Most commonly you’ll see George Ripley’s Twelve Gates referenced, and I believe that’s what RWBY is referencing as well since its allusions are pretty perfect. The "gates” or stages also sometimes overlap, especially when different characters might be at different stages. 

Nigredo: Seasons 1-3 

Alchemy begins by gathering the prima materia, or raw material. The characters assembling in season 1 is more of the gathering than the actual transformative process. But once we hit season 2, we dive straight into the process. 

Calcination occurs during the climax of season 2, during the fight on the train. Season 3 contains dissolution, or the washing of impurities through the exposure of certain secrets (like the fall maiden) as well as the literal dissolution of Beacon Academy, and separation (the end of the season, when Team RWBY is scattered). 

Narratively, Jung associated nigredo with the shadow, with someone’s dark night of the soul, their low point. In historical artistic depictions, often part of nigredo is dismemberment... which happens to Yang when she saves Blake from Adam. See, Splendor Solis: 

The goal of the shadow is that it should be integrated with, accepted, rather than denied. Facing the shadow is a necessary part of growth and ultimate transformation... and the point is, through facing the shadow, hope and light come.  

Peacock’s Tail: Seasons 4-5

Okay, I lied, there are sometimes five phases in alchemy. At the very end of nigredo, just before albedo, there is sometimes a flash of light, of rainbows and colors, that give hope. It’s not quite a phase, more of a moment, but it’s referred to as the peacock’s tail. While this is less plot-related, it does make sense that this is the point in the story where Team RJNR is formed. Why? Because look at their colors:

Ruby: red, black

Jaune: yellow, blue

Ren: green, purple

Nora: white, pink, orange

Between them we’ve pretty much got the full rainbow. 

We also have, in Blake’s arc, the introduction of Ilia Amitola, whose last name is the Souix word for “rainbow.” 

Albedo: Seasons 5-7

Albedo is associated with the anima or animus, or the part of ourselves that we are lacking (it’s generally gendered as the male within a female and the female within a male, but please understand he’s not talking literally and more in terms of traditional qualities ascribed as feminine or masculine that we may repress), which more than fits the fact that this stage begins while team RJNR is literally wandering around a continent called Anima. 

Conjunction is a term in which all the separated parts that can be salvaged from the Nigredo come together. Obviously the main incident for this is the fight at the end of volume 5, but I’d argue it overlaps a bit with volume 4 and even with separation.

The characters are only able to come together again once they’ve accepted aspects of their shadows. Yang deals with hers in Raven and Blake with the White Fang. Nora and Ren’s fight at their home village represents them dealing with their shadow as well, and also relates to conjunction because conjunction is the stage where the first chemical wedding comes into play. A chemical wedding is the joining of alchemical partners, and while I’ll probably discuss ships in another post (there’s a lot of set up alchemy-wise), I’ll just reference the obvious one here: 

The fountain image and a person shooting arrows is some pretty uncannily similar imagery to the fight at Nora and Ren’s home village. 

Next up in albedo is putrefication (focus on death and rotting). We see this with the encounter with the Apathy, who look like skeletons, cause death, etc. We’re also introduced to Maria Calaveras, aka the Grimm Reaper. (Her last name also means “skull” aka the white results of putrefication). 

Congelation requires a lot of water, and we see this in the focus on Atlas, wherein snow (water) is everywhere. The point of congelation is to separate the thin from the thick, the latter of which will of course become the Philosopher’s Stone. We see this through Team RWBY’s break with the Ace-Ops (aka the Aesops), whose simplistic morality and rule-following are not going to bring about character growth or eternal life. 

Citrinitas: Volume 7-?

Citrinitas focuses on the light, or fire. That immediately after congelation, a giant whale brimming with yellow appears in the white-colored Atlas is not a coincidence. Citrinitas is associated with the sage or the wise old man/woman, so Maria and Pietro fill this role. 

The first stage of citrinitas is cibation, which involves feeding with fresh material. I’d actually say that it seems quite possible cibation overlaps with congelation, in that there is a focus on food and on training with the Ace-Ops early in Volume 7. The next phases are sublimation and fermentation. I can see potential for sublimation in that it essentially is when solid becomes air (think of the setting of Atlas), but it’s too soon to say what this means for the plot. 

Fermentation, though... well, things will get worse before they get better. :’) 

Rubedo: 

Finally, Rubedo is associated with the fully individualized self. We can assume each of the main seven will come into their own, confident of whom they are. Oscar should, as well, and probably will have fully control over his body by the end (ie Oz will likely... find rest or whatever).

The stages of rubedo are exaltation (the creation of the stone after two contraries meet), multiplication (the stones’ properties increase), and projection (the stone’s abilities are projected over the entire world, aka presumably RWBY will save the world). 

The most common way to display multiplication is through, well, a lot of couplings. It’s why the main characters ending single seems extremely unlikely to me. Even if it seems a fairy tale ending, well.... *gestures to everything about RWBY being inspired by fairy tales* Fairy tales were also often alchemy based. But ships will get their own meta, because I actually don’t really ship much besides Renora and am for once not super invested in anything, but I can see the set-up for four or five ships.

I also want to highlight the other symbolic names that stood out to me: 

Ironwood. While I know Ironwood references the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (tin being one of seven metals associated with alchemy), his name also references a second metal: Iron. Tin and Iron are the two of the three basest metals in alchemy (the other is lead). Iron in particular is ruled by Mars, the god of war, meaning it is associated with violence. It’s not a coincidence that pretty much from the second Ironwood is introduced, the concept of war comes up, and his entire character has gone on to be the embodiment of the military and violence. 

Tai Xiao Long. His name literally means “sun,” and Ruby’s mother is defined by her silver eyes (silver being a color traditionally associated with the moon). Ruby is thus considered the child of the Solar King and Lunar Queen, two mythical alchemical figures who together create the “Philosophical Child,” or the personified philosopher’s stone.

Pietro Polendina: his name literally means “stone,” and Penny is his philosopher’s stone. Penny is arguably a reference to copper, another of the seven metals, as copper references compassion and love, which seems like Penny to me. 

Qrow and Raven Branwen: crows and ravens are symbolic of nigredo, or the black phase; death, decay, etc. However, within the story I think Qrow and Raven fulfill this role as the Jungian shadows of hunters as a whole and of Yang. 

Sun Wukong: obviously a reference to the sun. 

Emerald Sustrai: Emerald is a reference to the Emerald Tablet, which in alchemical lore is a tablet containing the secrets of alchemy, as written down by Hermes (in legend). Hermes is, of course, Mercury. Everything about alchemy stems from the Emerald Tablet, so Emerald should be important. In addition, green is the color of the prima materia, so it references Emerald’s arc in being shaped and molded by Cinder. 

Mercury Black: Mercury as the mythological god is the legendary founder of alchemy, so like, he’s important. Mercury is also the third most important metal in alchemy, after gold and silver. It is necessary to achieving the philosopher’s stone so, like Emerald, Mercury is probably important. Mercury is of particular note because mercurial characters are common in alchemical literature: they make stuff happen. Think of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, for example. Mercury transcends death symbolically (you can see the roots of this in Mercury’s backstory with his assassin father): it is difficult to pin down and can quickly shift from liquid to solid. Thus, in alchemy, mercury can shift between life and death. 

Mercury is also a noted servant of the white queen. I initially thought this a surface reference to Salem’s appearance, and it might be, but Salem is more associated with a black queen in the recurring chess motif, and I don’t see Mercury staying on her side (mercury isn’t fixed, after all; that’s its central tenet), so I kind of wonder if the “white queen” will be later revealed. Or maybe it just is a surface mention.

[naejigo]

What direction do you see Weiss's relationship with the rest of her family going?

Ouu. This is one topic that I've been looking into the last two days, I don't have quite a resolute opinion yet but it's quite formed so here goes;

As we can all see in v7-v8, Weiss had to go back to the manor, she knew that very well the moment they reached Atlas, "if something bad happens that's where I'm taking them" I feel like she's been preparing herself for a moment where they will need a shelter and that's where she'll take them. And it happened. Knowing full well she will have to confront the rest of her family. That too must have been in her mind the whole time.

Everyone criticizes her about the incident with Whitley where she pointed the rapier at him. Yes, there are so many flaws with that action BUT I think it was a reasonable one in her point of view. If you're gonna judge a character, do it from their point of view. Remember that the Schnees are abuse survivors and each of them has a different way of coping to protect themselves. To Weiss, when she did what she did, when she told Whitley to go to his room, it was a reasonable action. Whitley's behavior at the beginning of their arrival was the same old asshole facade he's had up for years in the face of their father to appease him. Weiss had to deal with the asshole version of her brother for so many years, in her eyes, Whitley is being a difficult adolescent boy in need of some discipline. And what did she do? Threatened and forced him. I bet it's something that Jacques does to shut his children down from standing up for themselves and their words against him. She regressed back to the person that used to live in that manner so many years ago. Because she couldn't see any other way to deal with her brother who's relationship is estranged from her.

But Weiss too is a grown woman. She spent years with R_BY. She rebels against Jacques the way not even Winter would do, by forcing her way through, thus being the most notorious child in his eyes. Winter escaped one monster to another. (Ironwood is not as bad as Jacques tbh but I'm too lazy to comment on that) while Weiss escaped and became free. Weiss has another family which she chose. I think v5 confirmed it when she hugged Yang and Home played in the background. Her team has always been her home. And with that new strength, Weiss freed herself from the clutches of her father, and what lingering effects of his that's left on her. She learned to be herself, unlike her family, unlike Winter, Weiss chose to be happy, to be home, she never chose to be away from Jacques control, she chose to own her life. And that changed her personality, from Weiss the SDC Heiress to Weiss Schnee, the huntress. From an uptight, rules abiding person, to this funny, loving, kind, and matured woman who has her priority set straight and that is her team. Her chosen family.

Those changes she faced with her team reflects in the way she interacts with Whitley later on, with her mom, and with Winter entirely. "I know that's why it means so much to me" Weiss finally realize the kind of person Whitley really is. That's why she hugged him. I'd like to think it wasn't just to thank him, it was to tell him how grateful and proud she is that Whitley made this decision on his own, on his own accord, a kindness he never got to show. With that hug alone, their relationship was mended bit by bit.

Whitley and Winter had the same taken aback reaction when Weiss hugged them. They're awkward with physical affection but they were also not used to this Weiss. This Weiss who come back to Atlas and suddenly she's not the Weiss you knew. This Weiss has a lighter aura around her, this Weiss teases you as if they were never estranged, this Weiss didn't apologize to Winter in that training room but instead kept on teasing her, this Weiss playfully treated Whitley in the study room and it was nearly too easy for him to do the same, this Weiss was snarky to Willow "some of us are trying to do something about it" despite being uncomfortable with her, moreover when she picked up the bottle, this Weiss affirmed to her, saying she's not here to stay. Weiss is essentially the key to their family relationship because of who she is now.

While they think she is gone, I don't think it'll affect their progress. They would still try. The short time Weiss was back with them gave them courage. Don't you think Weiss showed them a new world? A world where they can be like a normal family. Weiss is a crucial part of their family, and exactly because of that, they will not stop progressing. If Weiss tried for them, why shouldn't they?

I believe when Weiss comes home to them, she might be meeting a different version of her family too.

[aspoonofsugar]

RWBY Chain Of Faves

Who are your top 10 favorite RWBY characters and why?

Hello anon!

Thank you very much for this ask! I love talking about faves!

1) The murder kids aka Emerald and Mercury

I have talked about them here and here and I’ve shared some minor thoughts here and here.

I think their story has yet to enter its climax, so the metas on them are not as finalized as those on other characters. Still, the set-up is all there and I love it. As I say in the metas linked, they are a unit (body and soul, weapon and semblance). They are also two of the characters who mostly explore the cycle of abuse (together with Cinder, who is both victim and perpetrator).

I like how they are given the chance to screw up very very badly (and are given consequences for their actions), but are also always framed as two kids who try to be toughter than they are.

What is more, I love their relationship and their dynamic with Cinder. I think both bonds are very complex and are shown rather than told. This is why Emerald and Mercury’s body language is very effective imo. Their closeness is mostly conveyed through them glancing at each other or how they move around each other. This makes sense because they are in a place where they can’t speak freely.

In particular, I like that their relationship is deep, but not idealized. They care about each other, but are too scared to save each other. This is why Emerald needs the help of an adult (Hazel) to leave her abusive environment. This is also why she is recovering in a healthier environment that also lets her understand the consequences of her actions better. At the same time, Mercury who is instead stuck with another abusive mentor can’t currently escape.

When it comes to each one of them individually...

Emerald’s design and semblance are among my personal favourites. Her semblance especially is at the very top of my list. It has so much potential thematically and flexibility in terms of use (invisibility, transformation, specific illusions fitting a character’s flaw). I hope they use it more and in diverse ways in the future to show Emerald’s growth. For example, how cool would it be if she used it to help another character overcome a panic attack? Or if she helped Ruby enter the mental state to use her eyes with it?

I also really like she has a specific fighting style that fits her thief motif and is very different from others. It is less scenographic, but  very pragmatic and I love it.

I also liked the focus she received this season and I think it needs to be finalized. I am curious on how it will happen.

Mercury’s background is the one which breaks my heart the most. The little we know is horrible :( I also think it is a story that heavily relies on symbolism to convey the idea of abuse...

Marcus took Mercury’s legs, so he can’t psychologically escape the cycle of abuse... Marcus told Mercury he needs no crutches and Mercury is refusing to aknowledge his hurt and to heal... Marcus’s violence messed up Mercury so much he is not sure what he wants and his semblance is missing to underline it.

I wonder if we will discover more about his background or if what we have so far is all. I can see it go both ways to be honest. Also, Tyrian’s interactions with Mercury are interesting and meaningful, but also terrifying. I both want more and I am scared of having more :’’)

I am also looking forward to see how his allusion will be used. As for now, he has the potential to have at least three different motifs going on. The one of Mercury the God, the one of Mercury the metal and the one of Mercury the planet. Curious to see what is done with them!

Finally, I’m the One is one of my favourite songs because it is full of foreshadowing and perfectly conveys what their characters are about. I would love to properly analyze it one day, even if I have used it in multiple metas already :), so I am not sure I have new things to say.

The same can be said about their fight against Coco and Yatsuhashi and their fight with Cinder against Amber. In a sense, those two fights are complementary, since the first one foreshadows their major assets that are properly shown and charged symbolically in the second.

In short, their fight with Coco and Yatsuhashi is how they want to appear:

I'm the one that your mama said 'Don't mess with them or you'll end up dead That type they don't follow any rules'

Their fight against Amber is who they are deep down:

I'm the one That was born in a nightmare a murderer's son

I'm the one Who rose out of filth and was loved by no-one

3) Penny

She is the protagonist of the Atlas Volumes and has my favourite arc so far.

Her arc is contradictive, sad and powerful. In a sense, her whole character is written to hurt :’’’) She is given a happy and enthusiastic personality to hide how tragic her story is.

Penny is an example of how to write a specific kind of tragedy, where the main conflict does not lie in the character’s flaw, but in the environment she is in. Penny wants to be a “real” girl, but others won’t let her. This conflict escalates until she tragically manages to affirm her personhood in death.

At the same time, she is given self-issues that can be seen as a flaw and tie to her environment. She is self-sacrificial and struggles to see herself as a true person. Still, this flaw does not really drive her plotline (others’ control of her does) and, as @hamliet​ has stated, it does not eat everything around Penny.

So, she dies tragically because she never gets the chance, not even to overcome these self-issues, but to properly face them. At the same time, her death is powerful and cathartic because she negates others’ control and manipulation. She negates the mechanisms that had her develop self-issues to begin with.

Is it a happy outcome? Not at all. It is sad and contradictive. It is gray, but this is precisely why it is powerful. It manages to convey and explore complex and contradictive ideas. It does not offer an answer, but only bittersweet questions.

I also really like how Penny’s allusion is used in the story. It is played straight in terms of plot since Penny becomes human as the story goes on. However, it is problematized in terms of themes. It conveys that humanity is about making choices and experiencing both happiness and pain. Finally, Penny’s final scene is an inversion of the original novel.

Penny is not the Blue Fairy’s creation, but the Blue Fairy’s creator:

She goes from Creation (passive, a child) to Creator (active, an adult).

Incidentally, Penny too has one of my favourite songs. Friend is beautiful and it perfectly describes her arc. It conveys how much she loves humanity despite how complex and painful it is. The music starting slow and melancholic to gain more power as it goes on describes Penny’s life beautifully. It is a story that ends too soon (the music interrupts at its most vibrant), but it is still a melody full of love for life:

An answered prayer A chance to Share the world To be a girl Who fin'lly felt alive

4) Cinder

Cinder is probably the most complex and best written character so far.

She manages to make me feel for her and to make me incredibly angry with her at the same time :’’’)

I have written several metas on her, so you can read my thoughts on her background, the focus she received this volume, how I think her arc will end and some minor symbolism.

Cinder is built on an equilibrium between victim and perpetrator. She is both and the narrative strikes perfectly with its framing of her. It is both sympathetic and strict and most of all tragic because no matter if Cinder wins or loses... she keeps spiralling either way and she can’t understand she is fighting a worthless fight.

She is also full of interesting motifs and symbolism. One I would like to explore more in the future (and for it to be explored more by the story itself) is her fall motif.

She chooses the surname “Fall” herself when it is decided her first target is the Fall Maiden. This makes for a nice juxtaposition between her and Winter.

Cinder is born with nothing. Her own name refers a substance almost completely burnt, something with almost no color. It is a very humble name, so she chooses a surname which is important. It is a surname that hints to her role as a vessel of the Maidens.

She is not chosen to be a Maiden... she is not supposed to be one. However, she decides she is going to take the power even if it is not hers. She is taking destiny in her own hands.

Winter is born with apparently everything. However, this is also why everything gets decided for her. She is given the name Winter before she was born. Similarly, Ironwood chooses her as the Maiden even before she discovers about them.

Cinder sees Winter as having everything Cinder deserves. However, she misses how Winter is facing very similar struggles. She might be given what Cinder is negated, but she too has to make that destiny hers. She has to take her story in her own hands, just like Cinder.

At the same time, Cinder’s fall motif is linked also to the idea of falling. She falls and makes others fall. Exactly like she burns and is burnt. The orange of her flames aesthetically calls back to the orange of the falling leaves.

This idea is also conveyed through Cinder constantly mistreating and even killing characters representative of sides of herself.

She abuses Emerald and Mercury aka her child selves.

She kills Watts aka her negative foil.

She kills Pyrrha and Penny aka her Maidens’ foils.

It is clear that all this hurting and killing parts of herself won’t end well for her. I mean, she, not Salem, is the one responsible of the two major deaths in the series (Penny and Pyrrha), so she is bound to receive consequences.

Another thing I love about her is how her intelligence is people focused. She is very good at reading and manipulating others and this is how she wins her major fights. This is both her flaw and her major asset. I like it because I think RWBY is good in showing different kinds of intelligence and Cinder’s one is very coherent with her personality.

Finally, I love how her Cinderella allusion is used. It is a deconstruction of the original fairy tale that is born from a question: “What if Cinderella were not the kind victim of the story, but a bad victim?”. It is also interesting how the key character in Cinder’s allusion is not the Prince or the Stepmother, but the Fairty Godmother who fails her twice (Rhodes and now Salem).

As a side note, I can’t wait for The Truth to be out in its complete version.

5) Oscar

Aka the one who deserves nothing of what he gets :’’’)

I love him because he is an example of how to write a character who is a cinnamon roll, but that also is not boring and has complexity.

His struggle is about his sense of self. He starts the story by wishing to become more than what he is, but he does not like that this “more” turns out to be about fusing with another person. He wants to grow not to lose himself to another entity.

This is his major fear:

Who will you see? There in the darkness When no one is watching Who will you be? When you're afraid And everything changes Will you see a stranger? Feel proud or betrayed?

This is well conveyed also by his relationship with the rest of the group. He starts as the odd man out and others mostly rely on Ozpin rather than him. He sometimes even seems to disappear behind Ozpin. However, as time goes on, he forges genuine bonds and he becomes dependable on his own. He becomes even more so than Ozpin because he has something Oz lost out of cynism. The ability to trust.

In the Atlas volume he is the character that embodies the thematic statement about trust:

Oscar: You want him to trust us? Then trust me.

The point is that to be trusted you should trust first, even if there is no guarantee it will work.

It is interesting because the theme of trust is explored starting with Ozpin, Oscar’s foil, who does not trust others, so our protagonists feel betrayed. However, in Atlas they find themselves in Ozpin’s shoes and must choose if to trust Ironwood or not.

Here, we explore a form of conditional trust. This idea is presented by Ruby, who wants to be sure it is safe to trust Ironwood. So she keeps secrets and studies him until she decides she can trust him... only to discover that was not the case immediately after. This happens because trust can never be completely safe. Actually, in its most negative declination, this kind of trust becomes the control symbolized by Ironwood.

No matter what, trust is always a leap of faith. This is why trust is a risk. Oscar shows this concept well. He decides to still trust Ironwood at the end of volume 7, but it does not work. Still, he does not stop and decides to trust Emerald and Hazel. This time his trust and faith are repaid. He is fred and gains a new ally:

I love Emerald and Oscar’s interactions btw :’’’) It is good that Oscar is the one who is growing closer to her. They escape Salem together and Oscar has not been hurt by Emerald the same way the others are.

Anyway, even if trust is worth it, the exploration of this theme in Atlas actually ends on a negative note. It ends with Cinder who is an enemy of trust because she uses others’ trust and feelings against them.

Anyway, Oscar is a key character and I can’t wait for his story to develop more!

6) Ironwood

He breaks my heart.

He is a an excellent tragic Hero.

He thinks he is the Great Good, but this is precisely why he spirals out of control and falls with his own Kingdom, hated by his allies and forgotten by his enemies.

His downfall stems from his inability to trust, his refusal of emotions, his single-mindness and mostly his convinction he is better than others. This idea is structural of Atlas society and is seen in many of his inhabitants. No matter the social class, we see multiple people thinking they deserve better and that they are above others. This is why Atlas falls and his people becomes refugees in the poorest Kingdom of Remnant.

Anyway, Ironwood thinks he is better than others, so he should be the one deciding for others as well. This idea is flawed and perfectly conveyed through his ideology of sacrificing everything. He feels he has everything, so he can sacrifice what he wants. Still, this is not the case. Others’ lives and feelings are not his. He doesn’t own them.

7) Weiss

I love Weiss. She has one of my favourite designs and one of my favourite semblances and fighting styles.

Her snowhite allusion being played to explore the idea of a dysfunctional family is very good.

In general, I love how much she has grown slowly, but steadily and how she has progressively become warmer. I enjoyed her interactions with her siblings this season. She also gets many moments where she shines for her humanity and intelligence.

She is both Snowhite and the Prince, but also the Huntress that changes and makes others change. She becomes an inspiration for her whole family and since the Schnees are all in Vacuo and she will eventually join them, I am curious if there is going to be more about their family dynamic.

Other than this, I am excited about her Nevermore summon, what is means symbolically and when she will use it.

8) Ruby

I think Ruby’s arc must still enter its climax and that she will shine towards the end of the series.

That said, I love her as a protagonist. She has an interesting set of skills that makes her competent, but not invincible. Moreover, I like how she is important and a participant of the plot, but also does not single-handedly solves everything by herself. She has to learn just like the others. For example, this volume she learns that trust is a risk and the importance of taking risks.

Moreover, she is actually very rarely the protagonist of a volume climax. Speaking of the most climatic volumes, Pyrrha is the protagonist of the climax in volume 3, Yang and Raven are in volume 5, Penny in volume 8.

The climax where she is the most in focus as a character is volume 6 and that is the volume where her eyes are explored and her personal arc is set up. That said, she still manages to be important and to contribute to the action in many ways.

I think her role is to inspire others and I guess that by making that speech this volume she is gonna grow into a symbol even more. If that happens it will be interesting to see what this means for her.

Apart from this, I am curious about her subplot with her mother and if it will tie to her choice to save Cinder with her eyes (since I think this is where we are going). She is going to be both Hood and the Huntsman who kills the Wolf and saves the Victim.

9) Nora and Ren

They are my favourite canon romance.

Their story starts with Ren getting focus (with Nora as a support) and is slowly shifting to Nora developing as her own person (with Ren as a support).

It fits for them to be one of the series main romances because as characters they both explore the concept of emotions and emotional intelligence.

I would say Nora is one of the most emotional intelligent characters in the cast. She is aware of her own feelings for Ren and tries to push their story forwars. She quickly picks up on Pyrrha’s crush and encourages her to make a move. Honestly, she sees herself as a dumb jock, but she is far from it. She is one of the wisest and most sensitive characters:

Nora: You shove people out so you don’t have to feel things that are hard!

Ren is ironically the one struggling with feelings, even if his semblance is all about emotions. In a sense, it is as if he develops it precisely because he struggles with this part of himself.

As a child he is easily overwhelmed by emotions like fear, which goes in the way of his actions. So, when he is under stress he deveops a magical power that lets him control this part of himself. However, as time goes on, it becomes more and more obvious that he should face his own feelings. And once he faces them:

Ren: No! No one is replaceable.

Then he becomes able to see both himself and others more clearly.

In general, both Ren and Nora must overcome their issues if they want to end up together.

Ren’s issue was his fear of being completely vulnerable and to open up with another person. Nora’s is her complete dependance on Ren and how she sees herself as only a part of him, while she is much more.

As a side note, Ren finally confessing his feelings for Nora only to be (temporally) rejected is a great note for his character arc. He was repressing his feelings out of fear, but now he has grown enough to take a risk (opening up, showing vulnerability). Well, this risk does not pay off immediatley. Nora asks him for some time and this is surely not how Ren would have hoped things to go. Still, he understands and supports her. He takes an emotional risk that does not pay off immediately, but he is able to live with it.

In terms of writing, I also think Raven is top notch. Moreover, Winter is a lowkey favourite as well.

I also like some minor characters like Ilia, whose background is built on a very interesting premise that fits her chameleon motif, and Whitley who manages to be helpful even if he is not a fighter. Velvet also has a cool weapon and semblance that tie with her photography motif.

I also love Yang, Blake and Jaune aka the other members of the main cast.

In terms of design, many of my favourites have also my favourite designs (Emerald, Weiss, Mercury, Cinder, Penny, Winter, Ruby, Ren and Ilia).

Other than them, I love Neo’s design, characterization and fighting style:

Finally, I also like Tock’s design and concept, even if she only appears once.

Thank you for this ask! I had fun with it!

[kitkatopinions]

So, let’s talk about James’s semblance, Mettle.

Ironwood's Semblance, Mettle, strengthens his resolve which allows him to carry through with his decisions, helping him hyper-focus (RWBY wiki)

Actual quotes on Ironwood’s semblance from the RTX RWBY Panel.

“So Ironwood does have a semblance. We - it’s in the show, it’s in like little bits, you can kind of see it. It’s more like a passive semblance that runs in the background.” Eddy Rivas

“The whole thing is just this kind of like, iron resolve-slash-will that like kind of powers him to - almost like a very stubbornly, narrow-set focus like mind set on things, to kind of like push himself to do what he’s decided he’s gonna do-” Eddy Rivas

“It kind of helps him like, hyper focus,” Kerry Shawcross

“Or like, pushing through something like searing the flesh off your arm. If like, this is the goal he needs to accomplish, everything else just goes by the wayside.” Miles Luna

“So that’s kind of running in the background of seven and eight a little bit.” Eddy Rivas

“So it felt a little weird and we just never put it on the page, but you can actually see it happening.” Eddy Rivas

“We could possibly get it out later, but we thought it’d be more fun for you to be able to watch volume eight, and go back and watch volume 7 knowing that.” Kerry Shawcross

So I’m going to be talking about some of the problems I think there are with Ironwood’s semblance and it not being included in the show. I’m going to be very critical of and bashing RWBY, and there’s probably going to be CRWBY bashing too. If you don’t want to see any of that or if you’re against any sort of pro Ironwood content, don’t read this post or interact.

So let’s try to piece together from these statements what Ironwood’s semblance is.

It’s a passive semblance. As far as I know, the only other passive semblance we have to judge how those work is Qrow. Unlike active semblances, Qrow’s passive semblance can’t be controlled, and can only be increased at will, but always runs at frequencies severe enough that Qrow thinks of it as controlling his life and preventing him from being able to be close to his family. From the way Qrow’s semblance behaves, we can extrapolate that James’s semblance likely works in the same way, and in the panel, it’s described as ‘running in the background.’ I.E. He can’t turn it off, it runs through his entire life, he can only increase it in certain times.

It’s described as hyper-focusing, stubbornness, narrow-set focus, being unable to concentrate or care about things outside of his set goal, and pushing himself in doing what he’s decided he has to do.

There are several reasons I want to talk about this semblance.

1. This semblance might’ve been newly invented for season 7 and 8. Why do I think this? Eddy Rivas says ‘I believe we called it Mettle’ in the panel (emphasis is mine,) and is talking like he was included in inventing it, even though he became a co-writer for volume 7. Also they don’t mention if it affected Ironwood pre-volume 7, they only mention it being seen or considering including it in volume 7 and 8. Also, the voice actor of James Ironwood didn’t know about this semblance until a fan told him. It’s possible that this semblance was written earlier, but I doubt it and I think that this semblance was invented in the conception of volumes 7 and 8 with Eddy Rivas being involved. As such, I’m going to view everything pre-volume 7 as actions we were intended to consider James’s actual character, and everything post-volume 6 as actions influenced by his semblance.

2. The fact that it’s not included is lazy. This is a character defining semblance. This colors literally everything that Ironwood does in seasons seven and eight, this is a major game changer, this changes any understanding of the character. I’ve said this before, but fans shouldn’t have to do homework to understand the story. Many fans don’t want to go searching through panels, wikis, books, and zoom meetings to try and piece together why a character might be the way they are or how the magic systems work. The fact that the semblance isn’t included has led to confusion about how the semblance works. Some RWBY fans will present the way they decided the semblance works and get actively angry at fans who headcanon that it works differently or are upset with the way the creators themselves described the semblance. Other fans act like RWBY critics who think Ironwood’s fall to villainy is hard to track are stupid for not knowing this completely unincluded detail, and other fans villainize the semblance and use it as a reason why Ironwood is an inherently bad person. On the flip side, James Ironwood fans are rightly confused at this semblance that seems like it could be an explanation for the sudden shifts in his character. Some of them don’t understand why this semblance isn’t explained and at least treated as a part of his fall and treated more sympathetically. The fact that it wasn’t explained in the show leads to fans coming up with their own conclusions, and then arguing over what version is viable or what the collective fandom should accept.

3. The semblance itself is a lazy explanation for his villainy. The creators didn’t write a convincing hero-to-villain story. Ironwood’s leaps in morality are made with very little groundwork or explanation, he goes from ‘doing what he feels needs to be done’ to threatening to bomb the remaining citizens of Mantle in a completely irrational time with laughter and smiles over the course of a season that didn’t really put the focus on that progression. The semblance wasn’t explained or even mentioned and Ironwood wasn’t treated with sympathy or understanding, because we were meant to hate him and see him as the enemy to the protagonists, who we were meant to see as completely right. But the semblance is then an easy explanation that ‘fills out the plot holes’ if CRWBY is asked, that they can use to justify the fall to villainy - or use to suddenly redeem James if they decide they want to. And as I said before, this semblance is already being used by the mega-fans to explain the fall to villainy and throw it in the faces of any critics. Once again, it feels like the writers are just coming up with whatever they can to make up for their shitty writing, while they also rely on their fans to fill in the gaps and ‘explain’ to critics exactly how they think the semblance works and act like the critics or bashers should’ve just come to the same conclusion they did.

4. The semblance is problematic because of how villainized James is specifically for things like his semblance. The semblance is literally the best possible explanation for Ironwood’s fall and the only one I’ve heard that makes any sense. But his semblance is literally described by the creators as ‘hyper-focusing.’ The fact that his semblance is treated as something that makes him more of a villain and something that aids in his destructive behavior that isn’t ever treated with an ounce of sympathy or understanding, is a really bad look. There are real-life people who hyper-fixate on things and can’t help it, and while James’s semblance might not be hyper-fixating exactly, CRWBY still hurt people with the way they talked about this semblance and how they included it in Ironwood’s fall. I’m not diagnosed and I’m therefore never sure of this, but I think I’m ADHD and hyper-fixate on things (like RWBY, lol.) I’ve never been sure exactly how I view Ironwood’s semblance, but hearing the way that the CRWBY head writers talk about it made me feel like I should keep that side of me from people who don’t know me well like my co-workers. Whether or not it was intended, that’s what CRWBY did, and there are many more people than just me who were hurt or bothered by this personally.

5. Since I’m assuming this semblance was a new addition to James in season 7 and 8, it really honestly feels disconnected. It’s a passive semblance, it’s meant to affect James during the course of his whole life because he can’t turn it off. But in volumes 2 and 3, he seems honestly receptive to Oz, listens to him, never goes too far, never seems too stubborn, never seems to ignore other problems to focus on one thing more than what’s perfectly normal for regular people. Before literally near the tail end of volume 7, Ironwood acted like a regular person unaffected by a semblance at all, who just happens to be a determined person facing hard situations. It really feels like the semblance was invented to explain the jump to villainy, and then used to explain how he did things like sear the flesh off of his arm in the Watts fight to be like ‘look, this didn’t come out of nowhere! There it is in this scene!’ which is really lazy. And the disjointed feeling between Ironwood from his first appearance and Ironwood post-shooting Oscar still takes you out of the story and makes you go ‘wait, what’s going on here?’ You shouldn’t be able to see the hand of the author, but it was very clear to me that the writers just wanted villain!Ironwood and just did whatever the hell they wanted to get there whether or not it made sense or what they had to force or forget to do it.

6. This semblance... Really makes Qrow look like a jerk. It makes everyone look like a jerk, but it especially makes Qrow look like a jerk. There’s a very, very strong probability that Qrow never had any idea about this semblance that Ironwood couldn’t control. But after spending volumes sympathizing with Qrow and feeling bad for him and understanding that a lot of his problems stemmed from his horrible lot in life that he wrongly blamed himself for, to see him ready to kill a former friend who is even more affected by and ruled by a semblance than Qrow ever was made me seriously annoyed with the writing. In my opinion, they should’ve had Qrow know about his semblance, know that it was affecting his every choice, be deeply sympathetic and bothered by the situation, and be trying to get out of jail so he could break Ironwood’s aura and jolt him out of his affected state. It would’ve been much, much better in my opinion, for Ironwood’s character, Qrow’s character, and the story as a general whole. The way that villain Ironwood was done just is not interesting to me in any way. Not only did CRWBY miss any opportunity to present a compelling hero-turned-villain story, but they also invented a reason for Ironwood to be deeply sympathetic and easily redeemed and then made no one understand that this was a problem and seem to be going out of their way to act like it’s not there at all to make Ironwood a full villain! Why give him the semblance at all if they were going to not use it and expect everyone to want him to be a full, incredibly hard to redeem, EVIL VILLAIN?

I seriously can’t understand CRWBY’s choices. In my opinion, they should’ve either made Ironwood a sympathetic hero forced into doing villainous actions by this semblance that they should’ve rephrased in terms of how it works, or they should’ve just left him with no explained semblance.

Also, I think Mettle is a stupid name.

[itsclydebitches]

Fuck Yang, Ruby is the child I have trouble thinking Tai cares about. Like, when he was like “No, come back!” and started crying I felt no sympathy and was like “Good. Maybe next time join Yang in going to look for her, idiot”. Got some unintentional character development, right there. Tai went from not joining Yang to crying about Ruby being cut off. 10/10 would dad again.

All the parents in this series suffer from the same limitation: the story being about the younger generation rather than them. Due to the authors unwillingness to incorporate them into the story proper, combined with their struggle to come up with convincing motivations (see: the recent Vacuo discussion), families just... don't get involved For Reasons and look pretty awful as a result:

Tai doesn't go with Yang to find his daughter. Doylist explanation: Tai is not a part of the Haven/Atlas arcs to he needs to stay home. Watsonian explanation: He just doesn't love Ruby, I guess.

The Belladonnas didn't look for Blake after she left with the White Fang, nor did they come to Beacon after (presumably) seeing her on TV. Doylist explanation: They likely didn't exist as characters until Volume 4. Watsonian explanation: They just don't love their daughter, I guess.

Oscar's aunt didn't go looking for him after he ran away and we haven't seen any officials look for him either. Doylist explanation: She's so little of a character she didn't get a model or even (I think?) a name. Watsonian explanation: She just doesn't love her nephew, I guess.

Jaune has two loving parents and seven sisters who, if we base this on his interactions with Saphron and his comments during the dance, he's also close to, yet no one out of the nine seems to have questioned how he got into Beacon, whether he survived the Fall, or what happened to him afterwards. Doylist explanation: They're also characters who don't exist yet and their relationships with Jaune are not a part of the main plot. Watsonian explanation: Jaune's family just doesn't love him, I guess.

And on and on. The only ones who have decent excuses are the ones the story actively frames as abusive: Raven abandoned Yang, Jacques is the worst, Willow is too drunk to care. Meanwhile, Winter exists in this awful in-between place where the plot incorporates a care for Weiss, but not for Whitley. Qrow is likewise running into problems where he is a core part of the story, he is fighting alongside the main group, and yet second the plot needs them in different places, he forgets they exist and they forget he exists too. Qrow doesn't care about anything other than getting at Ironwood, Ruby and Yang don't care that he's missing, Ruby doesn't care that he's been thrown in jail. Care in this story only exists when the plot benefits from it existing, otherwise it's forgotten or outright erased. Example: The Ace Ops are a skilled, happy team whenever the plot wants a cool fight or banter; a dysfunctional team that all hate each other whenever the plot wants to provide a supposed contrast to the heroes.

But given this trend, given how clear it is that the adults in this show are quietly shuffled off screen and out of the thoughts of the cast the moment they're done serving the plot, we're given a choice: prioritize the Doylist reading, or the Watsonian reading. Personally, I'm inclined towards the Doyalist. I dislike drawing such conclusions about the adults' characterizations when it's clear they never had a chance to be better, or didn't even exist when we wanted them to be better. I'd rather sit with, "RT isn't interested in writing their stories, so we have to overlook the shoddy ways they're removed from the narrative" as opposed to "All the adults in RWBY suck. Every parent/guardian is either abusive at worst, terribly neglectful at best" because that just doesn't make sense, especially when they do come back on the screen and we're meant to emotionally buy into that bond: Qrow screaming Yang and Ruby's names, Tai crying in front of the TV, etc. Yeah, Tai didn't go after Ruby and we're never given an explanation for that, but Ruby also never went after Qrow and we're never given an explanation for that either. Tai, as a character, was never a core part of this story. Ruby, as the title protagonist, absolutely is. So I'm personally a lot more forgiving of the background characters who never had a chance at better characterization and I'm a lot more critical of our main cast whose characterization and choices are the main draw of this show. Tai isn't purposefully written as a bad dad, Tai is a dad whose actions are determined purely by what the plot needs, not his own characterization.

[hyperfixation-hideout]

Be sides ruby who do you think is Oscar favorite in team rwbyjrn I like to think it's Nora XD

Hm... I dunno about favorites, cause they all love each other and he’s gotten some nice moments with most of them here and there! So instead, how bout some reasons why he loves each of ‘em in no particular order? :)

Blake - Fellow bookworm, major sibling energy (more accurate sibling dialogue than the actual siblings in the show), sassy interactions and great to just vibe with. They’ve got that thing where they can just be near each other and it’s comfy. They sit near each other in a lot of scenes, which was nice to see back when no one was really talking to him in v6. Blake just interacted with him like normal, which was nice and grounding when he felt most lost. While the others are off being chaotic or intense, they can just chill and talk about their favorite stories! Oscar used to dream about living through these books, but now he’s realizing he actually has, and that many of these books should not be classed as “fiction.” Blake asks him to autograph her copy of The Man with Two Souls.

Weiss - She’s the teammate he’s interacted with the least onscreen (which I think is a shame since he’s close in age to her brother and yet so different from him), but Oscar likes and admires all the Schneeblings (he remembers Winter fondly). Weiss went to the movies with him in v7! If only to get away from the bees XD She’s the one who tells the waiter when Oscar’s order is wrong. “It’s okay, you really don’t have to--” “Oscar you’re allergic to peanuts you could die.” “I mean, can I really though?” “No. I forbid it.” “So did god.”

Yang - She’s such a bro with him! Yang was the FIRST (and I think only??) character to ask how Oscar feels/what Oscar thinks about something. Ever. (Only took until Volume 7 for someone to ask that; maybe one day it’ll be asked to him and not just about him). Leaning on his shoulder was real cute :) Yang and Oscar were the only two to voice discomfort with lying to Ironwood, Winter, Penny, and the Ace Ops, both gently asking Ruby about her decision, disagreeing, but following her lead. Yang ruffled his hair in Monstra, that was such a sweet moment. She’s also the first member of her family to stop herself from punching him! (Okay with Ruby it was sparring but still) XD

Ruby - He looked up to her from the start, and now they treat one another like true equals. Ruby has always treated Oscar as his own person, even when he himself doubted it. She was the one to reach out and open up to him when he was more scared than he’d ever been, and that clearly meant a lot. During V6 he began to offer her comfort and support in return. V7 let them have discussions about what’s right, and come together to make decisions they could both agree on. They have a very healthy relationship to one another, where they’re allowed to disagree and talk and work together, remaining supportive and trusting through it all.

Jaune - They’ve both been the underdog, and are both still growing and finding their feet. Neither had their semblance when they met, and both feel like they have to work harder and train more than anyone else just to keep up. They practice together sometimes. “How’d you get to be such a good teacher?” “I had a friend help me like this when I was just starting out. Now it’s my turn.” They went to the movies in v7 and the huge smile and big hug in Monstra truly showed how much they’ve bonded and the effort Jaune’s put in to make sure he can be comfortable around him again. He’s given him compliments, called him brilliant, and has become a solid teammate and friend. Oscar lived alone with his Aunt. Jaune was always the baby brother. Now he has someone looking up to him. They are brothers, your honor.

Ren: Ren defended risking his life in the hopes of saving Oscar, truly viewing him as not only a part of the team, but as a friend. He was always soft with him, (even if he lost his temper when Oscar lost the lamp). After riding the hoverbike with Yang, Oscar switched to ride with Ren because no way was he going through that again. Ren is a much safer driver, especially with Oscar on board. He’s been more of a supportive figure from afar, a background comfort to him. Ren accepted him right from the start, patiently teaching him about aura and semblances, and encouraging him that it’s something he can work towards.

Nora: She’s always been so affectionate with Oscar, almost motherly (but like, the world’s most chaotic-yet-loving mother whose son is more responsible than her). She stopped calling him “little cute boy Ozpin” or “cute boy Oz” as soon as it became clear he values being his own person, and has only referred to him as Oscar since. She regularly greets him with tackle hugs, but when he returned after being shot, she gave him a soft, gentle embrace, just happy to see him safe. Nora and Oscar were also the most vocal about helping Mantle, and both confronted Ironwood about the morality and consequences of his choices. Both wanted to warn the people of the kingdom about the incoming attack, actively opposed his implementation of martial law, and explained why it will only cause more division to treat some people as not worth saving. Listen, they’re both commies and you cannot change my mind.

RWBYALPN has accepted Oscar as one of them, an irreplaceable part of the team, making sure he knows they want him around for who he is. <3

[keets-writing-corner]

Analysis on a scene from RWBY

Been a while since I’ve done any meta, and even longer since I’ve done meta just for me and not for a class. I’ve been on a RWBY kick recently, and I’m once again obsessed with Qrow Branwan and thought I’d do a little analysis from Volume 6. Of course there will be spoilers for volume 6 but also a little for volume 7, so I’m gonna put a cut

So I’d like to talk about the scene where Qrow’s trust in Ozpin is completely shattered. It’s quite famously memed. You know the one. (Quick Disclaimer, this is not meant to be a dunk on Ozpin, who’s one of my favorite characters, this is just an analysis on Qrow’s POV)

Jinn pops out being all naked

And Qrow’s all AVERT EYES

You know the moment. The whole “oh haha the local gay-leaning Bi-man got enough tiddie for a lifetime now” Or maybe it’s just respecting Jinn’s privacy. Whatever, but in actuality this little moment is less about Jinn herself, and more about Qrow’s entire image and pedestal of Ozpin is being shattered into pieces. 

Let’s look at how much Ozpin really means to Qrow. We all heard Qrow’s little speech at the end of V6E3. How Ozpin was the only one who actually wanted Qrow’s help, trusted him with things, help and things that people likely spent Qrow’s entire life pushing him away from, in addition to making likely more than one scathing comment. Sure, in Volume 4, Jaune might’ve been a bit over emotional at the time, but the first thing he says when Qrow explains his semblence is to passive-aggressively MOCK him, and Qrow just bows down his head and takes it. This is likely something Qrow has heard his entire life and believes about himself. Aka the whole, the only thing he’s good for is for making everything worse. So of course it would make sense that when Ozpin comes knocking at the door, aka the prodigious cute headmaster of beacon academy, and then tells Qrow he can be MORE than just his semblence, MORE than just bad luck for others, that he can actually HELP with Oz’s cause, that Ozpin trusts him, more than other people around him, it’s small wonder Qrow hyper fixates his loyalty on Ozpin, and raises him on a pedestal. Qrow is aware that Ozpin keeps secrets, Qrow even helps him keep those secrets hidden and justifies Ozpin’s decisions, but he never once thought that Ozpin would hide something from him. No not him. Ozpin hides things from others sure, but not Qrow, right? Ozpin trusts Qrow. Ozpin is the only person who completely and whole heartedly trusts Qrow in a way no one ever has before. 

Qrow’s loyalty to Ozpin is so great, that our first introduction to Qrow can arguably be considered an outlier in his usual behavior. Most of the time, Qrow has repeatedly proven himself to be chill, intelligent, patient, and someone who at all times tries to de-escalate the situation, knowing that agitation will attract more grimm. When we meet Qrow? What’s the first thing he does? Get angry-drunk waiting for Winter’s ship to show up, provokes her into starting a fight with him to make her, Atlas and Ironwood look bad, and then proceeds to sass, snark, and call out the ever living hell out of Ironwood. All of this because he was thoroughly pissed off at Ironwood disrespecting Ozpin’s trust. Something Qrow knows Ozpin does not give easily, and something Qrow considers sacred. Qrow only ever shows his brash, impulsive and aggressive side to him when someone is directly challenging Ozpin. Another great example being back in Volume 5, when Qrow is upset at Lionheart for not following Ozpin’s orders and not being even remotely helpful to Ozpin’s cause. 

Aka, this man who will take jabs at his insecurities lying down, and tries to de-escalate situations, will straight up pick fights and throw hands with anyone who dares challenge Ozpin. The conversation between Qrow and Raven back in Volume 4 also implies that this loyalty to Ozpin could have been the very thing that caused him to completely abandon his family in the bandit tribe (along of course, with a shiny new and better set of morals). Qrow has demonstrated remarkable loyalty towards his new family in Tai, Yang and Ruby, and despite his disagreements with Raven, and disapproval at her life choices, he still hangs onto loyalty to her to a degree. Qrow is easily one of the most loyal people on RWBY, and Ozpin trusting him managed to get him to change his tune about his origins with the bandit tribe and become disloyal to them. That is how much Ozpin means to Qrow. That is how large the pedestal Qrow built for Ozpin is. I’m not going to get into shipping here, and quite frankly, it doesn’t matter if it’s platonic, romantic or just idolization, Qrow seriously loves Ozpin, just as much as he loves his nieces and his family. 

Which leads me back to Qrow getting his loyalty to Ozpin shattered in Volume 6. 

Qrow’s doubts about Ozpin started far earlier than that single moment with Jinn. It starts back on the train when Oz reveals that the grimm are attracted to the lamp. Qrow’s reaction is for the most part innocent, and he might be used to Ozpin revealing information on a strict need to know basis only. Still the surprise on his face that Ozpin withheld information from him is undeniable. 

His initial reaction is to check in and confirm with Ozpin. While he is gentle, there is a bit of reproach to his tone when he says “Are you serious?” He is clearly unhappy in this moment. It’s important to note that Qrow also crosses his arms here, and remains with his arms crossed for the rest of the scene. Crossed arms can mean a lot of different things for a lot of different people. Oftentimes it’s a sign of a person become defensive, either by physically closing themself off to others, or because they’re suddenly feeling uncomfortable. 

Of course, he doesn’t get much time to dwell on this at the time because Ruby rightfully points out “HEY, WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING RIGHT NOW, WORRY ABOUT THIS LATER”. This is mostly aimed at the others, who were more vocally upset about Ozpin withholding information, but Qrow remains cross armed in the background. 

Qrow is just as unhappy at this as the others. 

Of course, later is when things start getting real for our poor bird man. After everyone’s crashed, we’re shown flashbacks of Ozpin explaining the relic of knowledge to the group and by extension Qrow, showing us exactly what Ozpin told them, including but not limited to what the lamp does (not how it works), and that it has no more questions left to answer currently (which we later learn to be a big fat lie on Ozpin’s behalf, like an actual straight up lie). First thing Yang does is complain about their situation, to which Qrow’s immediate response is to tell her to knock it off because they don’t want to attract more grimm, aka trying to deescalate the situation so that they can focus on the least amount of problems as possible. 

Of course, Blake points out that that might not even be relevant since apparently they’ve been attracting grimm that entire time due to the relic’s presence. At this point everyone agrees. We don’t see Qrow’s reaction to this, but he doesn’t vocally disagree with it either. 

This might be a good place to remember that Raven encouraged Yang to not take anything Ozpin said at face value and to question him constantly. Which she absolutely does. It should be important to note that nothing Ozpin told her when she was questioning him for the first time back in volume 5, surprised Qrow. Qrow already knew everything, or at the very least, he thought he already knew everything, which further reinforced to him that Qrow was the person Ozpin told everything, and never lied to. He never had any reason to doubt Ozpin before Yang started bringing these things up on the train and he realized that Ozpin maybe was not being entirely honest with Qrow too.  

While the others are confronting Ozpin after the crash, Qrow is pretty silent, but he can be seen reacting in the background. 

He’s staring at the ground, listening to what the others are saying, probably thinking about it too, and then he looks at Oscar, wanting Ozpin to explain himself. Once again, Qrow is not jumping to Ozpin’s defense. Hands on hips also has a myriad of meanings in the world of body language, but it’s especially notable for when a person is getting ready to be assertive, aka preparing for some action. I don’t know for sure what Qrow was subconsciously preparing himself for, maybe he didn’t know himself, but he could feel a confrontation coming in which he’d have to pick a side. 

While the team are questioning Ozpin at this time, Ozpin is openly and freely admitting to a few of his lies, and explaining his reasonings behind him, both to the ones the team knew about, and the ones that they had only just discovered. Qrow is still only listening quietly, not really taking any sides yet, but judging by his reactions to the conversation, he’s not liking what’s happening. 

He seems almost in disbelief, and as if he’s currently unsure of who it is he’s supposed to listen to, or who he’s supposed to be defending right now. He’s not defending the girls, but he’s most definitely not defending Ozpin either (something we’ve seen he’ll easily go up in arms to do). By this point, his loyalty to Ozpin isn’t completely shattered, but it’s in jeopardy. He doesn’t know what he should do. These girls aren’t Ozpin, they haven’t trusted him the way Ozpin has, they haven’t told him he can be more than just his semblence the way Ozpin has, they haven’t told him that he can do good in the world despite of the entirety of his life and what other people have told him. But Ozpin is admitting to lying, coldly justifying his own reasons, and while Qrow was aware of many of these lies and in on them, he’s starting to see some flaws in that reasoning. 

Then of course Ozpin gets distracted at the absence of the relic which is when poop REALLY hits the fan. He had just openly admitted to additionally having even more secrets, and now didn’t want anyone to hold the lamp, which as the others point out, is awfully suspicious if it’s supposedly useless at this time, and how it technically doesn’t matter who carries it since they’re all trustworthy, right? 

Then cute boy Oscar starts taking control of Ozpin from the inside, realizing Ozpin is trying to keep even more secrets from the others. This is the first time Qrow says anything in all of this and it’s just a single questioning, “Oz?”

He still doesn’t seem particularly happy at how this conversation is going down, and he also hasn’t picked a side yet. He saw a man he was intensely loyal to suddenly act strangely and be under stress. He’s never seen an Ozpin host fight Ozpin before. Despite voicing his concern for Ozpin, he’s clearly still trying to process everything that’s happening, given that his eyes don’t stay solely focused on Ozpin and drift a little before he refocuses back to the moment. 

Then Oscar reveals that to get the lamp to work you have to say Jinn’s name. Qrow did not know this, he seems as puzzled as everyone else when Oscar tells Ruby to say Jinn’s name. 

And again, he’s waiting and watching quietly. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what side he should be on. For now, he’s just waiting and listening, and getting increasingly more and more uncomfortable with all these revelations. Then Ruby calls Jinn’s name, and everything freezes. 

Qrow is the first to react beyond just looking up like everyone else. “What?” 

Qrow didn’t know this would happen. Ozpin never told him this would happen. Ozpin never told him that time would stop when you used the lamp. Ozpin told him instead that the lamp was currently on a questions cooldown. His “what” was more about the shock of time stopping which he had no idea what happen, but it was also about realizing that Ozpin had straight up lied right to Qrow’s face and hid something from him. 

And then Jinn comes out.

Then comes the shot I put way at the beginning of this meta

Qrow had exactly 0 clue this is what was going to happen if you used the lamp. He had no idea. In this exact moment, he’s not thinking about the large, mystical, blue, naked woman floating in the air right in front of him. He’s thinking “Ozpin didn’t tell me this...” Or maybe “Oz lied to me?” 

Jinn then introduces herself, and while she does so, we can see Qrow still being in complete shock in the background

Jinn is about to tell them how many questions she can STILL answer this century, when Ozpin interrupts her trying to get her to stop talking, aka very clearly with no room for doubt he is intentionally trying to hide things from everyone there, including Qrow. 

Qrow is one of the first people to turn around and stare at Ozpin when Ozpin tries to hide more things from them. What’s notable about Qrow’s position here, is that Qrow usually slouches. Maybe it’s a depression thing, maybe it’s a self-loathing thing, maybe it’s a tired thing, maybe it’s all of the above. Qrow is not slouching. He’s standing straight, and even looks like he’s leaning back a little, as if he’s so appalled by Ozpin that he’s trying to create more space between them without stepping away. 

Jinn then reveals that she can still answer two questions this era. Earlier in this episode we were given a flashback of Ozpin telling everyone that all the questions had been used up. In this moment, it becomes crystal clear just how blatant Ozpin has been in his lies, and even worse for Qrow...

He realizes that Ozpin lied to HIM to his face with a smile. 

Ozpin, the one person who had believed in Qrow, told him that he wasn’t just bad luck, that he could do some good, granted him the ability to turn into a bird, trusted him with secrets, supposedly was the person Ozpin trusted so much that Qrow was tasked with carrying Oz’s staff until he reincarnated... Ozpin had lied to him. This is truly the nail in the coffin for Qrow. He’s now chosen his side and is not going to support Ozpin. 

He’s feeling betrayed by Ozpin, and in all likelihood, is also feeling used. He turns to say something to Ruby. What it is he was planning on saying we’ll never know because the others immediately jump on him the second he opened his mouth. 

We can hardly blame them since, as I’ve previously established, Qrow is known for picking fights and throwing hands on Ozpin’s behalf despite usually being calm and level-headed. It’s usually the only thing that can get him to act out. Still, I highly doubt by this point that he was actually going to support Ozpin. I think he wanted actual answers just as much as everyone else, and was actually going to suggest to Ruby to ask Jinn exactly what she did in the episode. However, when the others threaten him, Qrow instead aims for de-escalating the situation, calmly putting his hands up, not even questioning the others’ threats, and voicing his support for Ruby. 

As I previously stated, Qrow will, on average, aim to deescalate a situation above all else. The only exceptions have been when it was unavoidable (such as fighting Tyrian) or when Ozpin was being disrespected. This is something that has been very consistent with his characterization throughout the series. The fact that at this moment, Ozpin has basically been dragged through the mud and berated by others right in front of Qrow, and not only did Qrow not do ANYTHING to help Ozpin, instead just listen quietly, trying to determine what his own actions should be, he also did not lash out aggressively at anyone, instead aiming for his usual, deescalate the situation. This says absolute volumes for him to do a complete 180 on what’s been established to be his usual behavior in regards to his loyalty to Ozpin. 

Of course, as we all know, Qrow is trying to be the bigger person, in this situation, but when Jinn starts telling everyone exactly what Ozpin was hiding from them, it pushes Qrow past his patience. 

He had absolutely no clue about any of this. He was just as confused and lost as everyone else

Which, again, I know this is a highly memed moment because Qrow is essentially checking Ozma out, but consider for a second that he’s genuinely trying to understand what is happening, trying to come to terms that this man here is the real Ozpin, the real man he came to know, love and trust. And here he was not knowing anything about him, unable to even recognize him. 

Most of V6E3 is focused on Ozma and Salem, while occasionally showing everyone else’s reactions. While I’m not going to sit here and analyze why each character was chosen specifically for each scene, but I will point out that probably the reactions we saw were deliberate and personal for each character. Qrow only shows up in this moment right here, when he’s introduced to the OG Oz, probably because out of all the characters there, he was the one who was closest to Ozpin, and narratively was seeing him with new eyes, which then was represented visually by the real original version of Ozpin, aka a new person he didn’t know. Qrow isn’t even present for the reveal that Oz can’t destroy Salem, because to him the information and revelations themselves matter less than the fact that he spent all these years believing that Ozpin trusted him like no one else ever had, and believed in him like no one else ever had, only to discover that not only had that trust, and vulnerability been increadibly one sided, but that Ozpin had straight up lied to Qrow. The person Qrow looked up to and trusted the MOST, LIED TO HIM, and not just about one little thing, about almost literally everything. 

Qrow can’t even bring himself to look at Ozpin after the reveal of everything, he has his back turned. 

The others are just further interrogating Ozpin at this point, upset at how much he had hid from them. Qrow is the only one not speaking. As a matter of fact, Qrow’s first immediate reaction is to give Ozpin a solid punch to the face before lamenting how Ozpin hurt him personally. He didn’t yell at Ozpin, except for the punch, he was pretty non-aggressive, aka the quiet type of upset, disappointed, and angry. In a way, Qrow’s softness almost hurts more than it would’ve had he been yelling at Ozpin. It shows just how far his trust and loyalty to Ozpin has been broken. 

Now, I don’t think Qrow was particularly in the right to just dock Ozpin because that also means he’s landing a solid blow to Oscar, who’s barely figured out how to use his semblence as a shield, and was trying to HELP them this whole time. However, given everything I just explored, it does make complete narrative sense. Qrow was feeling very hurt and very betrayed by likely the person he trusted the most. He was acting pretty passively up until this point, and I think that his breaking point when he could no longer contain himself was seeing for himself everything that Ozpin was hiding, but especially that Ozpin didn’t have any real plan to defeat Salem. Ozpin was constantly telling Qrow that he could do good in this world, despite his semblence. That he could save people, make lives better, and then he finds out that Ozpin can’t defeat Salem, which could make that previous sentiment feel pretty manipulative and deceitful in order to gain Qrow’s alliance and loyalty. In short, Qrow feels used, betrayed, and that he’s been wasting his time doing absolutely nothing worthwhile that could help. That was his one thing that helped him keep chugging through everything. “At least I can do some good” but it turns out, even that’s a lie. 

All of this is so devastating for Qrow, that he reacts the only way he knows how and falls even deeper into his depression and alcoholism, and spends the entire rest of the volume being The Load on the team. This “betrayal” has messed him up, shaken him to his very core. While it was uncool of him to further shut himself out from people who were trying to help him like Ruby, and to isolate himself and sulk, it is understandable. If it’s true that Ozpin was the person Qrow valued and trusted the most, and was likely the person closest to Ozpin besides Glynda, then it would make sense that Qrow had also been emotionally vulnerable with Ozpin. It can take a while for a person to bounce back after an apparent “betrayal” of someone they used to be so close to, and being emotionaly vulnerable with others, might lead them to reminisce on a person they don’t want to think about. Which would explain, that despite how much Qrow loves Ruby and Yang, that he couldn’t bring himself to open up to them. Instead going for the trying to not deal with reality by being black out drunk “coping mechanism” (someone please get this man some therapy and a new liver)

This post was pretty bash-y on Ozpin, so in Ozpin’s defense, I don’t necessarily blame him for his secrecy. As Ozpin pointed out, he’d been betrayed multiple times throughout his lives, he’s experienced many things, he’s likely tried multiple different approaches, which has led him to his current conclusion that he must play things close to the chest and keep information on a need to know basis only. However, when Ozpin was first explaining his cycle of reincarnation, one of the first things he says, “I am changed”. Given how badly keeping secrets has backfired on him in Volume 6, and how Oscar keeps being resident good boy, I do think Ozpin will grow and change in future volumes.  

In addition, as many people have pointed out, Ozpin only retreats back into Oscar, AFTER Qrow calls Oz out and tells him how much Ozpin hurt him. Ozpin did genuinely care about Qrow, and was devastated when Qrow finally turned on him. Ozpin trusted Qrow to be the one to carry his staff until he reincarnated, that says a lot. Ozpin spent a lot of late nights chatting with Qrow during Volume 5, and just spending time together. Qrow’s insane loyalty to him probably didn’t go by unnoticed either. Ozpin genuinely trusted Qrow a lot, and valued him as a person. While Qrow certainly doesn’t view it this way, Ozpin did 100% believe that Qrow was doing good in the world by helping him, and even gave him some magic as a gift. He also gave that to Raven, who ultimately left, and this is one of the driving points of conflict between Qrow and Raven, BUT STILL. Ozpin trusted Qrow enough to give him magic. Ozpin probably spent a lot of time is Oscar’s head reevaluating what his secrecy has done TO Qrow, and also to his relationship with Qrow. The series makes it very clear that Ozpin gives people choices and doesn’t judge them on their decisions, Qrow had the choice to leave at any point in time, to leave Ozpin, just like Raven, but he didn’t. Even though Qrow feels manipulated and used by Ozpin, that doesn’t mean that that’s what Ozpin was doing. Everything about their relationship Qrow probably chose. It’s unfortunate that Ozpin was going around with half-truths and secrets that led to this moment. I wonder how this Oz-Qrow relationship will further develop in Volumes 8+, especially considering Qrow’s currention emotional and mental state and Ozpin’s return. 

[groovegalaxxxy5]

The Art School AU nobody asked for

I’ve had this idea for an emercury AU fic kicking around in my head for a while now, but I have so many other projects on my plate rn and nowhere near enough time or energy to write it. So instead I’m just gonna post all the deets in the hopes that one day I’ll be able to come back and actually do something with it.

Emercury Art School AU Summary:

“Emerald Sustrai may have managed to get into the dance program at one of the most prestigious art schools on Remnant, but she has one big issue – after just one year of study, she’s barely managing to stay afloat even with two part-time jobs and her grades have been suffering for it. Fortunately for her, her school offers extra credit to any students who are cast in the school’s yearly exhibition performance.  Unfortunately, this year’s production’s theme is “passion” and the only spot up for audition for sophomores in the dance program is for a couples’ dance performance based on said theme.   

Enter one Mercury Black—a fellow dance student with a reputation unsavory enough to overshadow his considerable talent, and quite possibly the last person on Remnant Emerald would ever want to work with…He also happens to literally be the only other person she can find to pair up with her for the show.  Somehow, improbably, the unlikely duo actually make a pretty good team once they finally start to work out their differences, but as they perfect their routine for the big audition, Emerald finds herself in a whole new predicament: She may have set out to steal the show, but if she’s not careful she might just end up getting her heart stolen in the process...”

So yeah…as you can see, the basic premise is that Em and Merc are classmates at this school for the arts, but both of them are having trouble earning passing marks in this one foundation course they both need to graduate—Emerald because she is completely on her own and has to work a lot to pay for her living expenses and studio fees and stuff even though she has a pretty decent scholarship, and Mercury because he keeps really odd hours and misses class quite a bit for unexplained reasons.  Noticing that she’s struggling even though she is a gifted dancer, one of Emerald’s teachers suggests that she try out for the big show that their school puts on every school year, since anyone who makes the cut receives a bunch of extra credit and each faculty also gives a grant to the students who they judge to have put on one of the top three best performances.  The problem is, there are only a limited number of spots up for audition for each graduating year of each concentration course due to time and resource restraints, and this year’s 2nd year dance spot happens to be billed as a couples’ performance.

Emerald hits up everybody she can think of, but they're all too busy or can't commit to the project for other reasons. Pretty much out of options at that point, she’s just about ready to give up when she has a chance encounter with a classmate, one Mercury Black, after school.  Through some sort of clerical error they managed to book the exact same practice studio for exactly the same time, and since they both really need the extra practice time and neither one is willing to back down, they end up sharing the room for a few hours.  When they do, Emerald is really surprised to find out that Mercury is actually a really talented dancer, she just never noticed before because even though they have some classes together he comes in very irregularly.  After a long, sleepless night contemplating doing something really, really ill-advised, she ends up approaching him at school the next day to propose that they team up and audition for the big show together since they appear to both be failing the same class and need the credit really bad, and to her surprise he agrees rather easily.

Thus, the two of them become reluctant accomplices. However, once they start working out the choreography together, they just can’t seem to see eye-to-eye on anything, which doesn’t bode very well for their performance considering that it’s supposed to embody the show’s theme. Emerald is more of a ballet dancer, while Mercury is more of a street dancer, having started out with breaking and had almost zero classical training before starting school.  After a while (with a lot of practice and a LOT of unsolicited intervention from their nosy friends) our two favorite mayhem children finally start to bond and find some common ground, and naturally, lighthearted romantic hijinks ensue and sparks fly between the unlikely duo as they struggle to cooperate and put together a passionate couples’ dance good enough to get into the final production.

The Supporting Cast:

Em’s peeps -- Cinder (in the class above, sort of her mentor and was the one who encouraged her to apply to school in the first place), Weiss (met in freshman year, in the same ballet, jazz and contemporary classes this year, snarking buddies), Blake (ended up in most of the same classes together this year), Coco (upperclassman in the design course, loves dressing Em in different outfits and often forces her to stand in as a house model for her when she needs to work late into the night to meet a deadline)

Merc’s peeps -- Sun (met in class in freshman year, breaking and sparring buddies), Neptune (met thru Sun, in pop class together this year), Scarlet (ditto), Blake (in a few classes together, waits tables at the same diner where he works), Yang (met at a stunt training camp the Summer of freshmen year, waits tables at the same restaurant, fellow gym rat and occasional sparring partner)

Salem -- Headmistress of the most prestigious arts school on Remnant; has a bitter love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with her ex

Oz -- The headmistress’ ex-husband who runs a very successful Circe du Soleil type show and recruits a lot of his performers from her graduating classes

Glinda -- Chair of the dance department; Contemporary and ballroom dance instructor; is so so weary of her faculty’s incessant bickering

Winter -- Ballet instructor; came up in a rigid traditional Atlesian ballet school and generally looks down on all the other dancing disciplines and their instructors (”What they do can BARELY be described as dancing”); wishes the dance department were as disciplined as the music department

Qrow -- Jazz and tap dance instructor; doesn’t think that what his sister does really counts as actual dancing; jazz hands, rain hands and double dream hands and he’s dead serious about em

Raven -- Acrobatic and contortion instructor; thinks jazz hands look really stupid, just like Qrow and his corny, goofy ass dancing; was actually trained extensively in traditional Mistralian Highlands step dancing from childhood alongside her brother and used to perform internationally before switching disciplines

Tai Yang -- Hip-hop and pop dance instructor; specializes in pop and lock; Raven's ex; constantly catching strays from Qrow and Raven’s feud; just happy to still have a job tbh

Arthur & Tyrian -- Co-chairs of the theater department; Arthur teaches classical acting and Tyrian teaches method acting and they both think the other doesn’t teach “real acting”; somehow their department is actually really popular and all the students love the yearly musical theater production, which is the only time they ever seem to agree on anything

Hazel -- Long-suffering theater production instructor; works really hard to keep things running smoothly in the background despite the department heads' antics; hates the headmistress’s ex with a burning passion

Ironwood -- Chair of the music department; runs his department like a well-oiled machine and has put the fear of god into all his students; has won the national marching band championships seven years running

All the other students are in various departments at their school—e.g. Ruby plays the sax, Yang and Jaune are both acting majors, Oscar plays the cello, Nora and Ren play the tuba and the erhu respectively, Pyrrha is a triple threat etc.

A bunch of random plot points:

-Merc, Em and their friends are all in the same foundation classes together and the two of them start off vaguely aware of one another mostly owing to the fact that all their friends are friends, but they don’t really know each other (…or DO they??? *DUN DUNNN DUNNNNN*)

-Most of the faculty at their school can’t stand each other and the different departments have been engaged in bitter rivalries for years but somehow they all work really well together because at the end of the day they’re all professionals who are good at their jobs

-All of their friends are convinced that they’re secretly dating or hooking up at the very least, because they suddenly start hanging around each other a lot, holing up in the practice studio together until all hours of the night and showing up school at the same time the next morning and are constantly snipping at each other whenever they interact.  Merc’s squad is actually v supportive and (against his wishes) are doing their very best to try and help their boy lay down the mac (Sun: “Hey Merc! Thanks for letting me drive the convertible last weekend!😉👍”) , even though they all generally acknowledge that he’s way out of his league and is headed down the path to utter destruction. Meanwhile, Em’s friends are pretty appalled by her abysmally low standards (Weiss: “Emerald, you’re dating down....WAY down.🙁”) and think that shes going thru some kind of self-destructive phase or something.  They’re convinced she’s about to have her life absolutely ruined by that one smirky fuccboi type from their grade who has super sus habits and “reeks of criminality” (also Weiss).

-Almost everybody including most of his friends are convinced that Mercury is doing something really, really shady for cash on the low because he keeps super odd hours, misses class a lot and is always showing up with all these bizarre, unexplained injuries.  In reality, Em finds out that it’s all because he’s been training as a stunt-man outside of school and works a lot of weird hours at his part-time job so that he can pay off his prosthetics, finance his extra courses and pay for his own living expenses, etc. Although he actually was involved in some serious criminal activity in the past, he’s been trying his best to stay on the straight and narrow ever since he finally cut ties with his scumbag dad, and now just works a lot of nights and weekends as a short order cook at the local greasy spoon.

-Once Mercury realizes that Emerald is like...constantly on the brink of starvation because she’s a destitute vagabond baby but has too much pride to ask for help, he starts subtly bringing her leftovers from work, which she grudgingly accepts (because he owes her for putting him onto the whole extra credit thing, so it’s not really charity...definitely NOT because she is extremely susceptible to offerings of food and her partner also happens to be a surprisingly good cook).  

-Cinder is in the year above them and has known Emerald since they were in the foster system together as kids. She’s a prodigy at ballet and also a very accomplished acrobat and contortionist (as in, like, can easily shoot an arrow into a bullseye with just her feet while her legs are bent backwards all the way over the top of her head and stuff).  At some point she sits in on one of Em and Merc’s rehearsal sessions and ends up dragging the hell out of them both for being way too stiff and exhibiting almost zero chemistry despite the “obnoxiously obvious sexual tension” between them.  She basically ends up barking directions at them until they alter their choreo a bunch and finally start to look somewhat like an actual couple ("For fuck's sake... Lift her like she's the most precious thing you've ever laid eyes on and you're about to make sweet love to her, you idiot, not like she's a frigging sack of potatoes you're bringing home to peel!!!" "This man is supposed to be the moon to your stars...if you don't loosen up and melt into his arms like your soul is on fire, I will flip ALL this shit over and burn this wretched studio to the ground with both of you trapped inside!!!" ), after which things gradually start to get all awkward and messy between them because they start thinking about one another differently.  

-They get into a bunch of compromising situations by virtue of the fact theatre and dance people are just kinda naked  a lot and don’t care.  At various points in the story their friends will walk in on the two of them in some sort of really eyebrow raising situation, get the complete wrong idea  and run away, which in turn makes the two of them start to feel awkward as hell toward each other.

-Coco forces them to wear matching outfits that she made just for their performance.

-Their act ends up being this spicy contemporary couples’ dance that incorporates a lot of elements of acrobatic dance, breaking and ballet, essentially blending together both of their unique dance backgrounds.

 This story idea has absolutely nothing to do with canon and Remnant is a lot like modern-day Earth with some exceptions, so there are no semblances etc. There’s no antagonist; in fact everyone around them is generally supportive and wants them to succeed--the main conflict comes from Emerald and Mercury only having three brain cells between them and not being used to caring about someone else in a lovey-dovey sort of way. I got the idea when I was watching dance videos online and started remembering all those cheesy dance-themed teen movies from the 90’s and early 2000’s.  It’s pretty much just a wholesome little meet-cute/will-they-won’t-they type school romance in that same vein, where Em and Merc are forced to team up out of necessity, start to fall for each other and then have to deal with all the awkwardness that ensues...all with a bunch of help from their extremely eccentric, meddling-ass friends who are all convinced that the two of them are either already dating or about to be and are trying to keep them both from getting their hearts broken lol

 Whew! Guess that’s about it for now...I’d like to try and flesh this one out more and maybe even publish it as a legit fic one day, but first I’ve gotta get back to work on *signal lost*

[coredrill]

alright here are my rwby8 thoughts now that i’ve had a few days to sit on ‘em!! spoilers for the entire volume under the cut

so if anyone happens to open this and is like “wow this is more words than i’ve seen you use ever” lol yup! it’s probably the most words i’ve written since high school lmao. feel free to read through if ya really want but this is mostly just my own way of organizing my thoughts for this kind of stuff rather than making a million different posts on random parts of it. this way if i want to look back in the future and say “haha wow can’t believe i thought THAT” it’s all in one easy location! i don’t expect anyone else to be reading all this shite lol

thoughts on the volume as a whole:

honestly i loved it!! there’s very little that i would’ve changed and most of that is nit-picking stuff. i’m very impressed that this volume was made in quarantine lmao. the animation in and of itself was STUNNING (shout out to the finale’s water animation...the aura break particle effects...the cinnamon topography of the amity scenes...all of the facial & body expressions...the whale disintegrating...)

i’d honestly say that it’s probably my second favorite volume?? volume 4 is still my beloved but v8 was so good. i’ll probably need to watch it through a few more times but god. i LOVED IT.

honorable mention cause idk where else to put it: some of the scores were breathtaking!!! i tend not to notice background music on my first watch unless it really sticks out to me and there were quite a few scenes where that happened in a good way this volume. the ones where cinder breaks into the atlas control room and the one at the end when atlas is flooding are probably my favs!!! also there was this one part where it was just screeching over ironwood and it worked really really well.

okay so now for individual characters. let’s start with ruby:

i would like to fund her therapy

very surprised that she didn’t “break” this volume! i was sort of expecting it to happen--between ironwood, the amity plan only kind of working, the hound, the virus, and the fact that she was separated from her usual support system (qrow, yang, and jaune), i was definitely expecting her to. i’m glad she didn’t though cause it’s gonna be so much harder when she actually does (probably when she finds out that cinder has the relics and penny’s dead...)

massive shout out to lindsay jones for managing to make squeaky-voiced ruby still sound like ruby even while going through a whole host of emotions we’ve never seen ruby go through before!

god. that scene where crescent rose fell into the drink and ruby scrambled after it. my heart dropped lmao.

also. this is likely because i’ve got an engineering degree (which came with a free stick up my butt when it comes to technology in media) but the line where they say “mass no longer matters” wrt her semblance??? WHAT??? bro splitting mass up into smaller chunks doesn’t change the actual mass of the material itself what is going on here 😭😭😭 (this isn’t a real criticism of any kind i just yelled WHAT after they said that line lmao)

weiss:

i have one single weiss criticism and its that, in the scene where she’s leaving whitley to go fight the hound, she says “we still need to work on your attitude” and for whatever reason, the voice track doesn’t sound like it was quite mixed right? like it sounds like she’s just standing there rolling her eyes but my girl is BOOKING it out of the room lmao

other than that: weiss you are PERFECT. she really spent this entire volume saving and taking care of the people she loves!!! and i loved every second of it!!!

i would’ve liked to see more of her and klein/whitley/willow. i think there’s a lot of great stuff in that dynamic (not me crying when klein showed up at the manor...) and especially between weiss and her mother. i hope we get one big schneeuinon in vacuo once they + winter are all in the same location (but that’s gonna be a while i think lmao)

it’s been said a million times before but weiss?? shaking and crying but using gambol shroud anyway?? even though she thinks her teammates are all dead?? giving ruby the staff and pushing her out of the line of fire and pulling blake back to safety??? fighting cinder, a fucking wholeass maiden, with no aura because she needs to protect penny?? only unable to get up and keep fighting after she watches gambol shroud (the last physical piece she has of her teammates) go over the edge??? bro. BRO. i’m legit tearing up just TYPING THAT. god she’s gonna find her team at that island resort and never let them go. gonna be like v4 jaune all over again huh??

blake/yang:

not as much here since they didn’t get a whole lot of focus this volume, but i enjoyed all their scenes! yang just fuckin going at salem was 1000/10.

i will say...i think blake’s gonna kiss yang when they meet up in tropical paradise. and good for her!! (especially if this volume’s been planned since the beginning, it makes sense that this would be the writers’ idea for where they wanted their first kiss to be)

jaune:

going from ren saying “he has no fear. he believes that we can do this” about jaune to, five chapters later, forcing jaune to deliver a killing blow to penny was just CRUEL

the fucking dissonance of jaune haha!-awkward-renora-moment-exit vomit-boy-through-the-portals hit-in-the-head-with-a-rock arc being the one that penny asks..............bro. don’t hmu.

it’s going to be such a long time until we see him smile again.

also. the moment when crocea mors snaps in half...again, my stomach dropped.

but it’s okay! he’ll be fine without a weapon! he’s the ~strategist~! *breaks the fuck down*

it hurts so much too to think about, like oscar mentioned.....even if/when he does reunite with ren and nora, he’s not gonna be the same person he was when they last saw him. he’s not gonna be their goofy, wholesome, soft, snarky, healer team leader anymore. he just got his shit sorted out, he just stopped being actively suicidal, and tbh i think this might affect him worse than what happened with pyrrha. especially since they were compounding in his brain--what he did gave penny more of a choice than pyrrha ever got, but GEEZ.

pain. just. pain.

nora:

NORA MY BELOVED

okay. OKAY. so like she was passed out for half the volume but what we did get of her was fucking amazing

nora’s mom i am going to find you and have some words. i’ve mentioned this before but this woman has the same energy as the mom from grave of the fireflies who was like “i know we’re actively being bombed right now but i’m going to abandon my children and get myself to safety.” SQUARE UP BITCH. i hope we never see nora’s mom in the show because i will become filled with rage

but nora herself??? flawless. perfection.

i really did love her journey this volume. realizing that she wants to become her own person apart from ren, and then telling him that when he says that he loves her?? nora sweetie that was heartbreaking but i am SO SO PROUD OF YOU.

nora putting herself first for once and being told that people love her WE FREAKING LOVE TO SEE IT

except NOW that’s all gonna go haywire 😭😭😭

like...the moment in the finale where you can see she’s hesitant to leave jaune to to go vacuo but she goes anyway because he’s her leader and he doesn’t like splitting up either and she loves him and she trusts him only for her to get STUCK ON THE OTHER SIDE BANGING ON THE PORTAL. that scene fucking BROKE me. you just KNOW she’s gonna be hating herself for going through and leaving jaune (even though nobody knew it was one way!!!) and when the portal dissolves and he doesn’t come through........

she really thinks that she’s lost TWO teammates now. that’s TWO teammates that she wasn’t able to save. she saved ren from the nuckelavee but pyrrha’s dead and as far as she knows jaune’s dead too

and jaune’s her fucking family!!!!!!!

and like. when we see her on the vacuo side of the portal, we see that she’s got the happy huntresses behind her. she did her job and she gathered them but now she can’t get back through and AHHHHHH. FUCK. when she drops to her knees because she realizes.........that fucking killed me. i’m tearing up now just typing this sdmndbm

and like. the worst part is that she just realized that she wants some time away from ren. but everyone else is gone and just like when they were kids he’s all she’s got and they are gonna lean on each other harder than ever because this time they both lost EVERYTHING. not just jaune, but ruby, who was their teammate for a while too. weiss, who took such great care of nora while she was injured. penny, who nora helped with blake’s advice. yang, who ren had time to bond with this volume. FUCK

it’s gonna hurt so bad to watch but i cannot WAIT to see what nora does next and how she moves forward. god. this is gonna kill her. it’s killing ME and i’m just a viewer lmao

ren:

remember that one week where neath went on twitter and was like “i love renora and i’m gonna make that everyone else’s problem”??? yeah. that was a good week lmao

speaking of neath. MASSIVE PROPS TO HIM FOR HIS WORK. he managed to give ren every single emotion in the book this volume and none of it sounded ooc despite ren being such a repressed character before. he did incredible!!!!

I LOVED REN SO MUCH THIS VOLUME GOD. i mean i love him in every volume BUT HE HAD SO MANY GOOD MOMENTS AND SUCH A GOOD ARC

i’ve already talked about it at length but the scene where his semblance evolves is one of my favorites in the whole show. he’s so fucking full of love that it’s literally tearing him apart and when he finally accepts that fact his ENTIRE SOUL levels up!!! he looks at himself and there are pink petals falling off of him because he can’t contain the love in his body anymore!!! it’s there in a literal, physical manifestation and it’s so. fucking. GOOD. FUCK.

and also my obligatory remark about how he was thinking about oscar and pyrrha and his parents in that moment. people he loved platonically and familially. rwby goes so fucking hard for platonic love and i can’t ever thank them enough. to see ren have this realization because he was thinking about oscar.....god i’m gonna cry again LMAO

and then after that the way that he just. looks at jaune in every scene with the biggest fucking heart eyes. i’m gonna fucking combust he loves his  leader SO MUCH. (which. as i mentioned in the nora section. pain now)

and the nora stuff........JUST AS GOOD

another thing i’ve talked about a lot but to see him apologize, be emotionally open, listen to what nora’s saying and what nora needs, TELL HER THAT HE LOVES HER FIRST, not holding a single thing against her, agreeing to wait for her to be ready.........literal perfection holy shit

romance is normally not one of my favorite aspects of any media but i will make an exception for whatever the fuck ren and nora got going on

basically as a ren stan / jnpr stan i was thriving this volume and then that finale hit me and i know i will be in pain until they reunite again

i have a handful of jnr gifs that i was planning to make during the hiatus but now they’re all PAIN aksjhdasjdh

oscar:

deeply worried about the quickly approaching merge. i’m really hoping that oscar and oz stay separate but i also love seeing all the animation/voice acting nuances that indicate that they’re getting closer to the merge.......AH

this volume really hammered home just how strong this kid is. he stands up to SALEM and does the right thing even despite the torture cause he’s so BRAVE and STRONG and when he trusted hazel with the password DESPITE IT ALL. ugh. so good.

i love oscar so much and i’ve loved seeing him grow!!!

penny:

serious stuff coming in the next bullet point but. GOD. her model’s head is so big and i don’t know WHY but this stuck out to me every time she was standing next to someone else. it might be because of the volume of her hair (but yang’s hair also has a lot of volume, and her head is normal sized)??? idk it just threw me off a lot. every time she was like, talking to ruby or something, all i could think about was how her head was bigger than ruby’s ENTIRE TORSO lmao. (also why didn’t they give her human body shoes skdjhaksjh)

that said.........oh, penny 😭😭😭😭😭

i’m surprised that she died but only because i thought her plot armor was pretty thick LMAO. narratively it makes a lot of sense and i’m glad her story ended the way it did.

i’ve seen a lot of people interpreting her actions in the finale as “choosing to die,” but i don’t think that’s the case?? penny’s friends all saved her every single time that she presented her own death as an option. that’s what makes this so tragic, is that they successfully saved her every time she offered that, and that in the end, she still died. she was gonna die anyway. she was impaled by cinder--jaune didn’t have enough time to heal her before cinder defeated weiss (who had no aura!!) and turned on them again. penny made her own choices when 1. she asked to die at the hands of a friend, rather than by cinder’s soul-sucking grimm arm and whatever horrible fate that includes and 2. to choose her successor. and i don’t blame her for making either of those choices! she wanted to die with as much dignity as peace as she could and to choose whose life she would be intertwined with. and while it’s very sad, i’m glad that penny finally got some sense of control over herself and her legacy.

and like...she was so happy when she met up with winter!! she was so happy to have full autonomy for once!!! that scene was both heartwarming and heartbreaking!!!

i also think that penny’s death reinforces the idea that remnant is gonna be very different by the time rwbyjnorqe is done with it. now not one but two kindhearted girls have gotten killed because they got tangled up in the maiden powers—which were originally meant to be a gift!! and i’m very interested to see what the resolution is gonna be!! (i know it’s gonna be in like. volume 52 or something alsjfndnx but still!!)

also, if nothing else, i am very glad that whole “pietro sacrifices the last of his aura to revive her” theory is gone. i hate that theory lmao

i will say, while i enjoyed penny’s role this volume, i do think that maybe some of her screentime could’ve gone elsewhere. i get that there needed to be a lot of focus on her, so that we would be attached when she died, but i think it would’ve been beneficial to spread that screentime elsewhere just a bit, especially since she wasn’t really developing at all. hitting the same point with her like seven times did start to feel a bit repetitive lol. my vote would be for extra time with the schnees, or the jn(o)r reunion at schnee manor, or maybe a scene checking in with pietro and maria!!

emerald:

EMERALD MY BELOVED

YOU DEFECTED!!!! GOOD FOR YOU GIRL!!!!

i hope we get a LOT more time with her in the future. she’s still gotta work out the cinder thing of course but i also think it’s gonna be super interesting to see how she acts now that she (alongside oscar, ren, nora, the hh, and winter) is one of the closest things their group has to a “leader”

also like........good for her for being one of the LEAST traumatized people this volume despite being THREATENED BY SALEM

somebody give emerald a nice long hug

i love her

that is all

winter:

WINTER OH MY GOD

seeing her struggle with her emotions all volume.....only to finally accept them and save marrow’s life.....and because of that choice she realizes how long overdue it was and goes all in on helping the heroes.....and is eventually chosen to become the next winter maiden by the girl who challenged her to accept her emotions in the first place......😭😭😭 chef’s kiss

“you chose nothing. this was a gift.” *demolishes ironwood but doesn’t stick around cause he’s not worth it* *fights cinder* POETIC CINEMA!!!!!

also i cannot wait to see her schneeunion with willow, whitley, and klein.......even if she does have to be the one to tell them what happened to weiss 😭

cinder:

CINDER I HATE YOU BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU’RE SUCH A GOOD VILLAIN

her backstory was pretty self explanatory but i think this was a good time to spell it out especially while we were in atlas. the culmination of that, her consistent failures to achieve her goals after v3, and watts dragging her really all just came together to make her so much more intimidating and efficient and i loved watching it.

like i know there’s people who don’t like her as a character but she’s always so fun to watch and her va does AMAZING and she’s just. so INTERESTING

also. i cannot wait for her to find out that ruby and neo are both alive (and especially when salem finds out they’re both alive LMAO)

also also her line to ruby about never being born feels.......awfully specific??? i wonder if it’s a hint at some other part of salem/cinder/ruby/summer lore (like her “and i refuse to starve” line from last volume)

also also also CINDER.......lying to salem is gonna backfire on you at one point or another.......HM

salem:

gosh i love salem. she’s such a good villain and i loved all her scenes (especially the fight scene...SO COOL).

very interested in whatever she does next!! since the only remaining lackey she has is cinder (who is now starting to try to manipulate her) and tyrian and mercury, who are in vacuo, i’m curious about her next steps. is she gonna keep recruiting, now that people know who she is?? is she gonna come to vacuo herself?? she could definitely do a WHOLE LOT OF DAMAGE with the refugee situation there, so i’m super excited to see how her next moves play out!!

hazel/tyrian/watts/merc/neo:

rip hazel. glad we were able to get an INSANE fight scene out of him before his death BUT ALSO WHAT’S WITH YOU BEATING THE SNOT OUT OF A 14 YEAR OLD HUH

listen. listen. i know merc-rescues-oscar was never a possibility BUT i still love that idea. it lives in my mind rent free!!!

i feel like mercury’s gonna be so insane after the worst road trip ever in a confined space with tyrian that he’s gonna be immediately redeemed by team sssnn and the power of himbofication upon landing in vacuo LMAO

real talk though, i am VERY interested in what happens when mercury sees emerald again and learns she defected. like, this is his friend, who he’s tried to keep safe the only way he knows how (by keeping his head down and not angering their abuser) and she got out but he didn’t. GOD. AND in the first fight she was in after defecting, she used the move that she learned by watching him!!!! that’s gonna be SO GOOD and i can’t wait to see it!!!

neo is a wildcard and i love watching her fight and i think it’s SO INTERESTING that she went over the side with rwby and jaune and i CAN’T WAIT to see what she does next.

WATTS MY DUDE. what a GOOD volume for him. like the stuff where he yells at cinder was SO COOL to see and it was so funny that he thought that wasn’t gonna come back to bite him LMAO. i think this was super fitting for him and while i like him as a villain, i think this was a good place for his story to end. i had a lot of fun watching his scenes this volume.

qrow/robyn:

I LOVE THEIR SIBLING ENERGY. robyn talking qrow down and them bonding over their semblances together was so great.

i also loved qrow’s semblance...evolving?? changing?? idk what exactly happened yet, but i know that if i too hung out with robyn hill for 48 hours straight my outlook on life would improve dramatically.

i do hope robyn makes it to vacuo soon because she will be invaluable at handling the refugee crisis there.

on the other hand, if qrow gets to vacuo and finds out that ruby and yang (and three more of his adopted kids) never made it........PAIN. oh my god it’s gonna be like summer all over again 😭😭

aceops:

did not expect to get teary-eyed when vine died. and yet i did. that “themes of death” cw on the finale was CERTAINLY SOMETHING HUH

hell yeah marrow!!! what a good boi!!! i loved his defection ofc and him going off on ironwood...chefs kiss

i hope marrow sticks with the main cast. he’s my favorite and he deserves to see his friends again!!!

as for elm and harriet, i’m not sure?? i think harriet still has a lot of work to do before she’s redeemed in my eyes. maybe they can be dropped off at beacon to help glynda fight the grimm/rebuild so that they can be back for the show’s ending but the cast is somewhat trimmed for vacuo lmao

also. i know they’re not aceops. but WHERE ARE FLYNT AND NEON ARE THE MEME KIDS OKAY

happy huntresses:

may marigold is literally perfect in every way

loved them! would’ve loved to see more of them lmao. maybe even just cutting back to them in the crater reacting to some of the stuff going on.

i very much hope we get to see them in the future! i know the vacuans aren’t gonna be happy with the atlas/mantle people showing up unannounced but i feel like if there’s anyone who’s gonna be able to earn their respect, it’s the organized-and-saved-the-lives-of-those-downtrodden-by-atlas-happy-huntresses.

maria & pietro:

okay. SO. my thoughts are either that they made it to vacuo (penny did see where amity would touch down, so it’s possible that a portal was placed in that location and they made it through) or qrow picks them up.

either way, i hope we get to see them again. I LOVE THESE TWO GEEZERS!!!

oh, pietro......... *cries*

ironwood:

not much to say here except that i loved it. i loved how he got more and more paranoid, i loved that he vaporized jacques schnee, i loved that he only went cartoon-villain at the last moment, i loved that he died unceremoniously surrounded by the thing he thought would save them all. i love that cinder got in one final chess reference beforehand. 10/10

the hound:

it feels like a lifetime ago that this guy died but holy shit. holy SHIT.

i want whitley to summon the hound!! it was an enemy that pushed him to grow, i think it would be neat!!

ambrosius:

LOVED THIS DUDE. i LOVE how his powers work!!! like, even though it’s magic, it’s so realistic because that’s how creation works!!! you gotta design the EXACT thing you want or else its gonna be fucked up!!!

like. okay. so (back on my engineering bs again lmao) for example. let’s say i’m writing a program where the user enters a number from 1-10 and it’s displayed on the computer screen. so i write whatever code i need that says “take user input and put on screen.” that’s what ambrosius did when he created the portals and the pathways between them!

and then let’s say i also put a warning to the user that says “only enter numbers from 1-10.” that would be ambrosius saying “do not fall.”

but...the user can still enter whatever they want. what happens if they put in the number 100? what happens if they type a letter? this program only puts numbers from 1-10 on screen, so who knows what’s gonna happen. and that’s what happens when people fall off the railings!!!

“oh, but you told them what numbers to enter” yeah but humans are unpredictable and ya gotta account for the human element when doing stuff like this!! team rwby didn’t account for people falling off--because why would people fall off if they were told not to? but the human element messed that up anyway!!!

anyways i’m a fucking nerd apparently but it was super cool to see that reflected in ambrosius!!! i’m a big fan!!!

like whenever people call him tricky or sneaky...no!!! he was just doing exactly what he was told to do!!!! so good!!!

also i wanna see him hang out with his sister jinn lmao

alright and here’s my thoughts/predictions for v9:

first off i just wanna say that this entire section (this entire post really, but especically this section) is just me spitballing lmao. we literally have ZERO clue what’s happening next or where they are, i’m just throwing out some stuff that’s crossed my mind! whatever crwby gives us is gonna be infinitely better than whatever i come up with lmao

that said, i have two ideas for what could be happening in madagascar.

option one is the one i’ve seen other people toss around, which is the whole wonderland-land-of-the-dead thing. i’m kinda torn on this because i think it could be good for penny’s storyline, but not really anyone else’s?? sure, yang and ruby could see summer, but weiss would see...jacques?? and blake would see...adam?? i’m not sure what weiss and blake would have to say to them/learn from them the same way ruby and yang would.

on that same idea, jaune could definitely see pyrrha, but again, i’m wondering what purpose that would serve? obviously jaune’s actions in the finale were guided by pyrrha (or specifically her mom, and realizing that pyrrha never had a choice either), but it’s clear that that’s the case for all of team jnpr, and it will be probably forever. their scene together at pyrrha’s memorial felt like they were closing the door--specifically--on their grief. on the other hand, those actions are super relevant right now and i will never turn down the chance to see pyrrha!!! it’s just free waterworks babey!!!

neo also has roman, but i can’t really see roman admitting to anyone that he got swallowed by a grimm 😭😭 just seems too embarrassing for him LMAO

for penny, i think this could work nicely. all she ever wanted was to not have her life controlled by others--kind of like alice in wonderland (the disney movie version because i am fairy tale illiterate lmao). if penny gets to exist after death in a land where she gets to choose everything for herself i think she would be very happy!

again, if this ends up being the case, crwby could 100% make it work! (and i am 0% opposed to maya model pyrrha.) i just personally am not as sold on this being the case as some others are.

option two imo is vacuo but in the past. which i know seems kind of weird BUT i have reasons!

so we know a few things about vacuo. one, it used to be an oasis and was considered a paradise until atlas and mistral destroyed it for the dust. two, it has giant motherfucking crabs that people like to eat. yes this is all i have to go off of BUT both of those things are in the end credits scene we got!

also, them landing in past-vacuo makes sense on ambrosius’ level. their “one way ticket” probably didn’t include all four dimensions of coordinates--so i could see them landing in the same x, y, and z as the official doorway, but at a different time. the creation would still do exactly what it was asked to do--drop them in vacuo.

there’s also a couple other things. “vacuo” means “in a vacuum” which i’ve heard v9 is supposed to be. also in before the dawn, sun saw some bigass magic tree that awakened his semblance which this one definitely could qualify as

(okay. side note. when i first saw the tree i thought of the glowy tree from james cameron blue people avatar. IDK WHY, i haven’t seen that movie in years??? i also had to google it to make sure i wasn’t making it up and apparently it’s called the “tree of souls.” which would also make sense if it helped sun awakened his semblance. i don’t think rwby based something off of blue people avatar, it’s probably more likely that blue people avatar is based off of some fairytale/mythology that i don’t know anything about LMAO)

i don’t actually think option two is gonna happen, but it was fun to think about!!

also either option opens the opportunity to time not passing 1:1 in current vacuo & rwby’s island getaway which???????? AHHHHH

alright so now to the actual characters lmao. i mentioned wby earlier. i honestly have no clue what neo’s gonna be up to, she’s such a wild card and i LOVE IT.

ruby and jaune is gonna be...........PAIN. NO MATTER WHAT. i have no idea how ruby is gonna react--she might just be so overwhelmed by everything that she snaps/yells at jaune which. PAIN. but she also might not?? which. ALSO PAIN. i feel like no matter what ruby does, jaune’s gonna blame himself anyway. god. i love their friendship SO MUCH and this is gonna HURTTTT

and on that, he doesn’t have ren and nora this time to pull him back from the ledge. this dude’s guilt complex is gonna go crazy especially since he doesn’t have his team and double especially if ruby/rwby blames him for what happened. god it’s gonna HURT TO WATCH.

on a wildly different note, i hope we do get to see vacuo/qrow throughout volume 9. if i go a whole volume without ren and nora i WILL cry lmao.

also it’s gonna be super interesting to see how their group fares!!! vacuo’s fuckin nuts and i’d love to see winter just destroying the grimm there (3 headed giraffe my beloved) and see how the atlas/mantle refugees handle the climate--and how the vacuans react to all of them LMAO

ALSO!!!! THE SULFER FISH WERE THERE!!! very glad to see that they’re in vacuo too because from the concept art it seems like they have super unique abilities and i’m excited that we may get to properly see them, instead of just cameos!!!

team cfvy pspspspspspsps theodore and rumpole pspspspspsps team sssnn pspspspspsps

and, of course, i gotta mention that any possible jnr reunion WILL tear my heart out and i will probably cry for days. i gotta start emotionally preparing now LMAO

alright and that wraps it up!! if anyone makes it down to the bottom props to you!! i don’t expect anyone to actually read this mess lmao. tldr: INCREDIBLE volume and i’m so hype for v9 already!!!

[littlemisssquiggles]

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

(1) i understand how the other feel about ozpins lies but I don't thi k how they act with Oscar is awful ,I hope he snaps at them ,and stands up for ozpin an himself

(2) I was hoping that oscar would some how thanks to ozpins memories ,would bring the people in the city of mantel together to fight the grim some how get them all to atlus,

(3) I was hoping that oscar would get a episode to him self were maybe a few days go by and he on his own but v8 going to b 2 episodes even if he did get time to him self for an episode or 2 I feel like I would get to see him do as much as I'm hoping 4

(4) like ur self I'd like to see ruby reaction to him maybe being maybe gone,I'd like to see Oscar feeling on losing the lamp an letting ruby down

(5) I think oscar should get gravity dust or wind to help him keep up with the others

(6) I now we're going to see Oscar with y,j, and r but i want him to be with Weiss and Blake

Uhm…since I already gave my answers to Points 2, 3, 5 and 6 in other RWBY response posts, I’m just gonna only answer Points 1 and 4 for this one to avoid having to repeat myself XD

 “…I understand how the others feel about Ozpin’s lies but I don’t think how they act with Oscar is awful. I hope he snaps at them and stands up for Ozpin and himself…”

Assuming that you meant that you think the way how the group treated Oscar back in Argus was bad and you’re hoping for him to go off on them, I don’t blame you for feeling that way anon-chan. Not to sound overdramatic or anything like that but V6CH9 is still considered my most despised episode of that season and RWBY in general and I’ll even toss in V6CH8 as well since I didn’t and still don’t like how the show basically had everyone stand idly by and allowed Jaune to walk across the room and slam Oscar into the wall.

And what was even worse is that no one dared to pull Jaune off of Oscar as he practically shook the kid while screaming accusations in his face for actions that weren’t even his. And the real kicker to me is that even when I rewatch that scene it just feels so out of character for the others to just let that happen. They all literally just stood there as Jaune wrongfully manhandled Oscar.

Sure we had Weiss attempt to stop Jaune but outside of that and Ruby barking at Jaune to back off of Oscar, nothing else was done. No one thought to step in front of Oscar and come between him and Jaune before the Arc boy could lay a finger on Oscar.

And what sucks even more is that even after watching what Jaune did to Oscar, NO ONE thought to check in on him and see if he was alright after such an ordeal. Instead Ren and Nora leave to comfort Jaune---Oscar’s accoster mind you----while the others divided to do other things. And yet one of them wasn’t making sure that Oscar was fine emotionally. Yet they all act surprise when they find him gone from the house?

Which makes the fact that all he did was leave to go shopping so utterly bad that it’s not even funny. I know it’s a meme in the Pinehead community (along with Oscar’s missing character development and the fact that he’s practically the pet gold fish of the hero team that they keep neglecting and losing each season yet he always comes back and still loves those silly bastards anyways) but I honestly hate that that’s canon. Anyways, I’m not here to rant about V6CH9. In respect to Oscar telling off the others for the way they treated him and Oz back in V6, I think it could be mighty swell for that to happen.

As a Pinehead, I am genuinely tired of this weird approach that the show has of having Oscar be perfectly complacent with everything that’s happened to him---even when he’s downright being practically abused to some degree. It’s not fun to watch as a fan of his character. Oscar has been through a lot since his introduction and outside of the dojo moment from V5 where he confessed his fears to Ruby, we haven’t really gotten any more moments of Oscar coming clean about his true feelings over his current experiences.

And NO I am not counting his speech in V6CH9 where the showrunners deadass had the audacity to have Oscar say to the hero group that he’s been contemplating about all that happened between him, Oz and the whole reveal of Ozma and the events of the Lost Fable despite never showing the audience scenes where we can see Oscar doing just that.

It is insulting at this point how poorly the CRWBY Writers have handled Oscar’s treatment in the show. While V7 was definitely an improvement (albeit except for that one episode where Double D Rivas downright forgot Oscar in the episode while all his so-called teammates and friends were up in Amity celebrating), it still doesn’t quite make up for the mistakes of V6 nor does it erase my disappointment for that volume in terms of how they handled Oscar’s side of the story.

All the more reason to hope for better things to be done for Oscar in V8. Like you, I would like to see Oscar speak up against the team and their past actions (especially with the mistakes they made with Ironwood and still have yet to take responsibility for), not necessarily in defence of himself since Oscar has been shown to be a selfless individual---always placing others before himself---but more so for Oz.

I want Oscar to be the one to mend the tethered bond within his team between the others and the other half of himself. After all, while two differing souls, Oz is still a part of Oscar especially once the Merge occurs. They may not be the same person but they are a part of each other and will come together to complete one another. Or at least complete Oscar since according to V5, Oz is the one meant to change with the Merge. Not Oscar. I mean Oscar will technically change but I’d still like to strongly believe that his soul will become the dominating personality and persona as Oz’s fades more into the background as it combines with his.

And while the other heroes may like and trust Oscar, they can’t favour only half of him. This is especially the case since Oscar and Oz are expected to become one entity at some point. So I’m hoping that before that happens, Oscar uses this time to get everyone back on the same page---burying the hatchet after all that transpired between the last two volumes and thus starting things anew with everyone having a clean slate.

This needs to be done in order for the heroes to move forward and work together since uniting against the common foe will be what helps not just them but all of humanity and Remnant. At least that’s what I assume. While I don’t necessarily need Oscar to go off on the other heroes, I would like it if it he did call them out for their past mistakes with Ironwood---mistakes that he unfortunately partook in encouraging---as well as their treatment of Oz, finally helping them to see the bigger picture and what’s more at stake. I’m honestly tired of the story having our heroes pin all the blame on Ozpin while making it appear as if RWBY were in the right despite doing the exact same thing that got Oz in trouble with them.

So for what it’s worth, I hope that’s addressed in the series and I hope it lends to Oscar aiding to patch things between the team and Oz especially now that he’s returned. The group and Oz need to reconcile and I’d like to believe that Oscar is the key to helping with that.

“…Like yourself, I’d like to see Ruby’s reaction to him maybe being gone. I’d like to see Oscar’s feelings on losing the lamp and letting Ruby down…”

Ooooh I’d love it if V8 kicks off with Ruby learning that Ironwood had ‘killed’ Oscar. That’s a scene I am literally praying would happen when the group split up and RWBN_P head up to Atlas or Amity Arena to confront Ironwood. I want Ironwood to just blurt it out like it meant nothing to him that he shot and killed a child---I want to see Ironwood basically treat Oscar as nothing more than another face for Oz---not even his own person despite promising him in the second episode of V7 that so long as Oscar was in Atlas, he would be safe.

And most of all, I want to see the reactions of everyone---Ruby and Nora especially---when Ironwood says with the straightest and most cold-hearted of expressions that he killed Oscar. If we don’t get a scene like that then not gonna lie anon-chan, I will be beyond disappointed. Because what’s the point of having Ironwood shoot Oscar to his death if it wasn’t going to be brought up at some point, ey?

Give me that angsty scene where either Ruby or Nora---most likely Nora--- get super pissed at the reveal of Oscar’s alleged death, thus sparking her to attack Ironwood and thus, a fight breaks out between RWBN_P and the Ace Ops, talks of negotiation completely out the window since Ironwood killing one of their own (Oscar) practically meant war.

I also wonder if Qrow being framed for killing Clover might also come up as well. Like imagine a scene where one of the Ace Ops accuses our heroes of treason after letting them know that Qrow was charged for Clover’s murder, much to RWBN_P’s surprise only for Ironwood to indifferently say something to the extent of the group being even in some way---Qrow allegedly killed one of his own (meaning Clover) while Ironwood killed one of theirs (meaning Oscar) and that’s how it’s revealed. Or something to that level. Who knows? All in all, I want that scene to happen and I really, really, REALLY want it to see Ruby’s response to Oscar’s alleged murder since she’s someone whose always protected him since the start. It’ll be even worse if she learns that her actions resulted in Ironwood killing Oscar for that added double whammy. That could be great storytelling and character-building-wise! Buuuuut we’ll see for next season.

As for Oscar being saddened over losing the lamp and letting Ruby down---well technically we kind of got a scene like that already last volume anon-chan. It was during the moment in the finale episode after JNPR 2.0 had managed to evade capture and were hiding away in the training room. While taking a breather, Oscar apologized for losing the lamp leading to Jaune trying to reassure him only for Ren to ruin the moment by bringing up the fact that the villains now have possession of the Lamp of Knowledge while the Staff of Creation was still in Ironwood’s grasps.

In that scene, the camera made sure to focus on Oscar’s troubled expression as Ren went on his tangent. As a matter of fact, it was Ren going off that made Oscar run off to go confront Ironwood in the first place as his way of trying to fix everything on his own.

I’m not sure if we’ll get to see Oscar apologizing to Ruby personally for losing the lamp after she entrusted him. However I think it could be a potentially cute Rosegarden moment if the first thing Oscar does when reuniting with the others is apologize to Ruby specifically for losing the lamp only for Ruby to disregard his apology completely and straight up just embrace Oscar on the spot; more relieved to discover that he was alive to even care about the relic. That’s something I’d like to see done for V8 but who knows?

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

[kob131]

https://twitter.com/VexedViewer/status/1302256282968166400

There's no getting around just how shitty this is. Vol 7 is the first volume that acknowledges Penny as a robot, before this ,she was just a "poor girl" that died. The writers wanted you to feel something so they made the characters blind to this fact.

You know what’s hilarious about the clip Vexed is showing?

Let me show you it.

Ruby: (to Pietro) And how are you doing?

Pietro puts his glasses back on and heads over to Ruby and Weiss.

Pietro: If Maria hadn’t offered to help me these past weeks, I’d have likely collapsed by now. Getting a communications tower into the sky seems impossible on its own, but now, to think of what people wanna do to my girl…

Pietro gets tears in his eyes, and his bottom lip wobbles as if he is about to cry. However, he begins coughing again.

Ruby: Even if the worst does happen, you can always reactivate her again, so maybe try not to worry so much.

Pietro: There’s a reason why Penny is the only one of her kind.

He heads back over to the counter and picks up a framed photograph of himself and other scientists from years ago. His right thumb covers the face of one of the scientists, and there appears to be an Aura transfer pod in the background.

Pietro: When the General first challenged us to find the next breakthrough in defense technology, most of my colleagues pursued more obvious choices. I was one of the few who believed in looking inward for inspiration.

Ruby and Weiss walk over to him.

Ruby: You wanted a protector with a soul.

Pietro: I did. And when General Ironwood saw her, he did too. Much to my surprise, the Penny Project was chosen over all the other proposals.

Weiss: Why would you be surprised? You created an artificial Aura.

Pietro: Well, not quite.

Pietro’s Aura flickers and becomes visible. There are several holes in it, with blackened edges. Ruby, Weiss and Maria gasp.

Ruby: You gave her part of yours?

Pietro: Yes, and each time I rebuild Penny, it takes a little more. If people get their wish and she’s destroyed, I won’t be able to…

He covers his eyes with his hand and begins crying.-

They treat her as a person (this half of the scene is all ABOUT seeing Penny as a person and WHY she can’t be infinitely rebuilt).

Problem? EVERY Volume from 2 onwards treats her like this. Volume 2 openly showed her as a robot and Volume 3 has Ruby’s first interaction with Penny that Volume reference her being a robot. Volumes 4, 5 and 6 have no reason to reference her being a robot (Do you reference your dead friends as being a different race than you every time you mention them?) so this has always been the case.

This has ALWAYS been the case- Vexed is just using his follower’s bias to ignore this.

Also funny is how the thing he’s quoting.

‘Hey, how come Ruby didn’t ask about her friend being salvaged after being torn apart, unresponsive and in the middle of a mini-APOCOLAYPSE?’

Guess what he does to avoid looking like an idiot? Ignore the context. Again.

This is one of the guys stated to be a GOOD critic. And he pulls this kind of dishonest shit.

[psyga315]

Fixing RWBY Volume 7

Much like my Volume 6 Tweak, this Volume 7 Tweak doesn’t change a lot of things, but the things that do change will be to be centered around a theme: Who Can You Trust? With the amount of the word “trust” being thrown around, it helps to add more than just characters parroting “I trust you, do you trust me” and “can we reeeeaaaaally trust you” ad nauseum.

Now, normally, I’d begin with Episode 1, but for the most part, Episodes 1 & 2 do a great job setting up the conflict for the Volume. The only thing that would be changed is an earlier introduction to Robyn. Either through a character short style random fight or have the group bump into her during their trip to Mantle.

Also, probably change up how Weiss handles the drunkard because… Yeah, you don’t just fling a guy into the trash bin for being racist after you spend the past six volumes having a villain faction of murderous terrorists motivated by racists attacking their kind. The problem is that I don’t know how. The best I can say is that Weiss tries to do something about it, the dude’s like “wait, aren’t you a Schnee?” and then Weiss realizes “Oh shit, we should be incognito.”

Episode 3

Now here’s where things start to change up. Have a split in the group over whether Ruby was in the right to omit Salem’s immortality to Ironwood. A clear 50/50 split or as close to one as possible. If I was deciding who was on who’s side, Weiss, Blake and Nora would be on Ruby’s side and Jaune, Ren, and Yang would be on Ironwood’s side. Over the course of the Volume, they give their reasons, but I’ll explain their reasons now.

Weiss and Blake’s reasons are virtually the same, with Weiss’s added caveat being that she overheard Ironwood going “OZPIN SHOULD HAVE TRUSTED ME!” bit. Nora would be too pissed at Ironwood to care what he wants and anything to fuck him over is a win in her book, even egging on the other side to join by saying how he disqualified RWBY from the Vytal Tournament and how this would be good payback.

Ren’s reason was implied, but it’d be more pronounced that he wants Salem dealt with now. Not out of apathy or tiredness, but because he knows the Grimm now have a mistress and that the only person who has an actual plan to deal with her is being lied to. Yang and Jaune share their reason, but in different ways. Yang isn’t too keen on Ruby omitting information to Ironwood after they had just spent an entire two Volumes distrusting Ozpin for the same thing and Jaune especially doesn’t like that Ironwood is going to go into an unwinnable battle without knowing all the details, much like how Pyrrha never found out about Salem.

Oscar, Qrow, and Maria would be the middle of the fence. Maria doesn’t care too much about the situation and is just there to help out Pietro, Qrow has known Ironwood more than anyone but recent events had him uneasy, and Oscar just doesn’t want to be hurt because that tends to happen whenever people find out about Ozpin’s many, many skeletons. However, they all have faith that Ruby is doing something right…

The only other thing I’d change with this is giving the outright confirmation that these are the mines that Ilia’s parents died in. Maybe even have Marrow allude to how it was a major turning point in making the White Fang what they are now.

Episode 4

Not much changes, except for Ironwood showing genuine remorse for what’s going on with Mantle and trying to make amends by making the group Huntsmen and having them broker peace to Mantle by helping them out.

The other major change is Qrow not telling Ruby that she’s done nothing wrong. Instead, he warns that Ironwood, while he’s a very valuable ally, is also one whose trust is hard to earn and easy to break. He reveals to Ruby about how Ozpin was put on thin ice in Volume 2 and how Ironwood became the head of security for Vytal. Because the Tweaking Volume 6 showed Summer in the flashback to Ruby, I don’t think we’ll get that here.

A minor bit would be Penny and Jaune talking about Pyrrha, because what’s Jaune’s character arc without bringing Pyrrha into it?

Episode 5

Nothing really changes that much except for a training montage between the Ace Ops and RWBY so that we get that out of the way. Maybe even have Nora note the hole in the wall and get more furious at Ironwood for just leaving that out in the open when a simple patch would fix it. Ironwood would then give a rebuttal that it wouldn’t fix the Manticore problem.

There’s a small change in Robyn’s demeanour in which she doesn’t like Penny. “Just because you’re the protector of Mantle doesn’t mean you’re not another one of Ironwood’s machines. Once I get in power, you’re the first bot to enter the scrapyard!” Like, the world knows Penny is a robot, right? Speaking of, we have Ruby talk to Penny about how depressed she was when she died. Because remember when she broke down into tears over that and had Penny’s death be a major impact to her psyche?

The biggest change would be that whole scene with Winter and Fria. Weiss is appalled that Fria is locked up in a room before Winter tells her that it’s to secure her, explaining how Maidens end up having their powers taken from them through murder instead of the natural way and using the Fall Maiden’s death as an example. Weiss then asks “isn’t that what you’re going to do to her? Why don’t you just do Ironwood a favor and stab her right now?” Winter is silent.

Oh, and there’s no scene of Jacques inciting a riot. You’ll understand why later, but this will eliminate the stupid “riot happens off screen” bit. Instead, we get a scene where a plane flies towards the blockade. They demand to know who’s on the plane, only for Cinder to come out, smirk, and her Maiden eye flares as a snowstorm kicks off.

Episode 6

Not a lot changes here save for the obvious minor detail of a snowstorm hitting Atlas and Mantle (as well as Ironwood receiving reports about his blockade being taken out, thus he tells the group to take the night off while he looks into getting replacement planes) and one major detail: Tyrian’s attack during the rally would be him busting in during a power outage (engineered by either Watts’s hacking or Cinder’s snowstorm) and slaughtering people as they try to whip out their phones to try and illuminate the area. We’d even have an earlier scene where we could see Tyrian sneak in the background as Nora kisses Ren, giving the notion that, had Nora not macked on Ren, they would have seen Tyrian.

Penny tries to fight Tyrian because of her night vision, but Tyrian gets the better of her, even dancing through her slashes and have other people get hurt and possibly killed by her blades, blood being on her swords once the lights go back on. Robyn instantly attacks Penny, leading to Ruby to try and defend her and prove her innocence. Marrow gets the angry mob to “STAY!”, but it’s pretty clear that Robyn was out of the radius when that happened. As Ruby and Penny run off, Robyn gives chase, the Grimm invade, a plane lands without any problem on Mantle, and we get perhaps the largest change in the entire volume: An entire episode gets shafted in favor of one we were promised.

Episode 7

We see Blake and Yang with FNKI when they hear the Grimm siren go off and they go to investigate. Meanwhile, Weiss, Jaune, and Oscar exit the theater only to get attacked by Grimm. The majority of this episode would be them fighting the Grimm until Ruby, Penny and Robyn come in to Blake and Yang’s perspective.

Not sure what’s going on, Blake and Yang fight Robyn while Penny runs away. It isn’t until Robyn rants about Ironwood does Blake stops fighting her, tells her about Ironwood’s plan, and the whole truth Semblance thing happens. Yang confronts Blake on this, to which she gives her rant about how she distanced herself from the White Fang and that what RWBY is doing is exactly like the White Fang. It doesn’t help that, when Yang reassures Blake that they did what they had to do, she sounds exactly like Adam, right down to her saying “It's good to know I've still got you...”

Weiss, Jaune, and Oscar find Ruby and Penny and have a brief moment to reconvene before a mob comes after Penny, demanding her head. In the middle of this, Cinder and Neo look on. Neo nonverbally asks if they should get Ruby while they have the chance, but Cinder smirks upon seeing her scroll and says she has a plan. During a stand off where Ruby tries to proclaim Penny’s innocence, Cinder sneaks into the mob and, with the help of Neo disguising her as an old lady (because what’s RWBY without making characters into two different fairy tale references at once?), tell the group how Penny had been going out and murdering people for Ironwood, showing the group the doctored footage of Penny murdering Forrest and Cinder lying about how Forrest is her (grand)son.

Now in an even bigger frenzy, the crowd swarm Ruby as Cinder slinks into the background. Despite all their best efforts, the people of Mantle get their hands-on Penny and dismember her from limb to limb. The despair of Penny dying again followed by several more Grimm coming in causes Ruby’s Silver Eyes to go off, turning the Manticores to stone (and, if you want some instant karma, one of them could be in midflight and fall on top of some of the more ruder Mantleans, crushing them in the process) before she gets weak and Weiss carries her away, with Jaune and Oscar carrying Penny’s remains from the blinded crowd.

In the middle of all this, Ren and Nora fight Grimm on their own, getting into an argument about how Mantle is being treated. This is where Nora’s rant comes in, not to Ironwood, but to Ren. Ren tells her his reason why Ironwood is their best bet and because of his words, it upsets Nora enough to go her separate way. We end the episode with Nora coming across Robyn.

Episode 8

It’s been a week since the battle and we reconvene on Penny being rebuilt. Ruby and Jaune converse about how coincidental it is, with Ruby being clearly upset that she had to watch Penny die twice now. Jaune, however, elates that at least she’s alive, awkwardly bringing up his dead girlfriend again. Pietro comes in and tells them that it is not as coincidental as they believe and demonstrates by using his Semblance, the ability to be a make shift deliberator.

Basically, this is where I reinvent how Pietro’s relation to Penny works. I’m keeping the disturbing aspect that he slowly dies a little each time he uses this power while taking out the unintentionally disturbing aspect of Penny really being just Pietro in the robotic shell of a young girl. As for who Penny is… You saw this coming and if RT wanted to really make those fairy tale references, it just makes sense for them to pay homage to the very first anime that just so happens to also reference Pinocchio, or at least is compared to Pinocchio.

We have a flashback to Pietro and Watts working on the Paladin project together before Pietro gets a call. We don’t hear what it is, but we can definitely tell from how he reacts and how it’s framed exactly what happened. We cut to Pietro in the morgue grieving over a dead girl who looks similar to Penny and get that hard confirmation that Penny was Pietro’s daughter… or rather was the basis of Pietro’s daughter.

He uses his Semblance, which he says allows him to jumpstart people’s aura and save them from the brink of death. While normally an Aura technique in of itself to awaken another’s aura, it’s another thing to awaken another’s aura and save their life in the process. However, he tried that on a long dead Human Penny and all it did was put her in a comatose state, needing to be put on constant life support or else she’d die. Not wanting to let go of Penny, Pietro invented a means to transfer her aura over to something else: The Aura Transfer Machine. He places Penny into the shell of V1!Penny and jumpstarts her. She opens her eyes and says “Salutations!”

As the flashback ends, he explains how what he did was unnatural and, as a consequence, whenever he jumpstarts Penny with his Semblance, his Aura completely depletes and it damages him. It’s how he became crippled. Normally, the Aura would return slowly and he’d be recovered, but because he had to do it so many times in a short amount of time, it damages him. Jaune says he’ll use his Semblance to save Penny next time, but Pietro brings up the contrast between their Semblances: Jaune just dumps aura into other people, but Pietro is bringing the dead back to life. Even if Jaune were to use his Semblance, all it would do is put Aura into a robotic shell and not Penny. A sad reminder that, no matter what he did, Penny will never be a real girl again. Especially since, as one last flashback shows, Ironwood was more than pleased with Penny and convinced Pietro to turn Penny into a living weapon, something he was very hesitant about.

I’d add that Pietro would die right there to show that Penny has no ‘extra lives’ left, but I feel like RT would do that already… So I’ll say he’s written out of the volume by going into a coma.

Interspersed with this is the dinner scene. Because there’s fewer people going with Ironwood, RT might splurge a bit and give characters different outfits for the scene, like Weiss having an all-white version of her Mistral dress or having Qrow’s new outfit be the outfit he wears to the dinner. Obviously, not everyone gets new dresses, as the Ace Ops still have their uniforms. Only Weiss, Blake, Yang, Ren, and Oscar attend for obvious reasons.

Weiss investigates Jacques like usual, but she gets quite a few encounters, such as running into Harry Marigold (who gets in a heated argument with May and establishes who she is right there and then instead of doing Twitter) and even the Trophy Wife who she tried to kill. They’re brief, but show the consequences of Weiss’s actions. Maybe have the Trophy Wife flee in terror. She then comes across Willow, who, for the first time in Weiss’s life, is not drunk. In fact, she is elated to see Weiss return, but understands why she doesn’t share the same notion. She reveals to have sobered up since Weiss ran away and had done a lot of contemplation. She doesn’t say too much, but she does leave Weiss with the video and guilt trips her about Whitley.

While Watts turning off the heating grid is still in, it’s not the final scene. Instead, it’s during the dinner with Ironwood and the others, in which Robyn, as part of the “get Ironwood impeached” party, brings in someone who had been “tormented by Atlas’s boot on Mantle’s face for far too long…”: Nora.

Nora’s Backstory

Okay, granted, this is something that is operating on information we don’t know yet, so there’s a lot of speculation to go on here. I’ll probably make an update to this once we get a proper backstory for Nora, but for now, this is what I think would be Nora’s backstory:

Mantle had been scapegoated as the cause of the Great War and while they had a hand in it, the real cause of it, the nobles, decided to take their ball and go home by using the Relic to lift their Kingdom high into the clouds, leaving the rest of Mantle to take the fall. The Oz at the time allowed this to happen knowing exactly why they did it, but instead tried to cite it as creating a beacon of hope instead of what it truly was.

As a result, Mantle hit an unstable depression and unable to even be on the same level as the other Kingdoms, essentially being Menagerie before they made Menagerie. This resulted in people starving and dying. Of the few people who remained hopeful was Fria Valkyrie, who proposed life living out in the lands of thriving kingdoms rather than be ruled over by Atlas. She went to Mistral and got a few people into pooling their resources to make a new Kingdom, one that would exist outside the four and be by the people, for the people.

Unfortunately, not everyone shared her vision and some even took her resources to create Menagerie for the purpose of dumping the Faunus there. After she gained the Maiden powers by chance, she was forced to give up her dream by Oz. Her child grew up and inherited that vision, getting a child of their own, moving to Mistral, wooing someone to birth Nora, tell her about how Mantle became a shithole thanks to Atlas, and then head to make Oniyuri with the others. The Nuck came, killed Nora’s parents and left her an orphan, only for her to bring the Nuck with her to Kuroyuri and the rest is history.

Of course, this wouldn’t all be shown and is a rough idea, but the core idea is: Mantle suffered long ago because the people who caused the Great War refused to take blame and went into their floating castle while Oz just looked at it and said “hey, look at this shiny beacon!”

With that in mind, let’s return to the story:

Episode 9

Nora lays down Mantle’s grievances to Ironwood in front of everyone before she includes the two members of the council and Jacques into the shit pile, saying how they’re not blameless. When called out on going all “sins of the father” on the group, she says how they should have thought of that before doing that to Mantle. Robyn attempts to expose Ironwood before Weiss drops in and tries to expose Jacques…

And here’s where major change #2 comes into play. As the video plays of Jacques and Watts having their conversation, it takes a turn for the weird as Jacques just throws Watts out of his house and refusing to hear any further of his offer. This is one of the major scenes that convey the theme of trust. Throughout the Volume, we’re built up to not trust Jacques and trust Ironwood before the tables turn around this exact moment. Now, with the revelation that Jacques refused to work with Watts and Ironwood turning Penny into a weapon against her and Pietro’s will, Jacques is the trustworthy one and Ironwood is the deceitful.

Though, before any consequences play out, it’s all put on hold as news of the heating grid had been turned off. And yes, before you ask, in this tweak, the heating grid is in Mantle and thus is just as easy to hack. The reason why Watts decided to do this now is to make it look like Ironwood is doing it in retaliation for what happened to Penny. As a result, riots and Grimm naturally come. Robyn asks Ironwood why he’s working so hard to hide Amity Arena and this gives Oscar the (unintended) signal that now’s the time to tell him the truth. He covers for Ironwood, then gets him to a secure room to tell him all he knows about Salem.

Especially how she boned Ozpin.

Okay, joking aside… The rest of the episode (as well as Episode 10) play out like normal, but with Ruby and Jaune arriving to help from the ground instead of from the plane for obvious reasons.

Episode 10

The only big change is the reveal that Tyrian is a serial killer here because we retconned the original Episode 7. The only sight twist I can add to this is that he was part of the White Fang, had a hand in some of Weiss’s family members being killed, and that’s why Salem knew of them.

Episode 11

Okay, this is the best episode of Volume 7 so there’s not a lot to change. The only major changes are as follows.

Ironwood confronts the group over Robyn knowing about Amity. When confronted on why he had to keep that a secret, he explains that it was to prevent the enemy from learning about it, like what happened with Watts. When Yang calls him out for lying, he snaps and calls her out for lying.

“Oscar told me the truth. About Salem.”

“What!? He wasn’t supposed to!”

“Then who would have? And when? When everyone threw their lives away for nothing? You’re just like Ozpin.”

And then Salem shows up, gloats a bit, goes yo mama, and Ironwood decides to use the Relic of Creation to send Atlas somewhere else. He’s not doing the stupid thing of yeeting it into space, though. Instead, he’s going to use it to move them away from the continent and towards another Kingdom. When Blake says that they’re leaving Mantle to die, he just coldly remarks that “they did this to themselves”.

Naturally, RWBY protests about this. The funny thing is, The Ace Ops are almost able to convince the girls to leave Mantle… But then Ironwood says this to Ruby:

“After what they’ve done to poor Penny… Surely, you’d agree that they don’t deserve our protection.”

This causes Ruby to quietly turn that comment around:

“Yeah… But after I heard about what you’ve done to Penny… The only thing I agree about is that you don’t deserve my trust.” Before she calls the others and says how Ironwood had gone mad. This leads to the confrontation with the Ace Ops and the end of our episode.

Episode 12

Well… How do we make the worst episode of V7 better? Well, we begin with showing what happened to Oscar. Robots come to take the Relic from him, Ruby comes in and Oscar saves her. They have some romantic tension, but uh oh! It’s Neo! And she took the Relic!

We then cut to the airplane. I should bring up that the arrest warrant has been changed a bit, excluding Qrow, Oscar, Jaune and Ren from the list. Qrow and Oscar because they gave Ironwood their trust and vice versa, Jaune because Ironwood overlooking Jaune would be hilarious, and Ren because of the kids, he was the most trustful of Ironwood. Nora, however, is still on the list due to her standing against Ironwood. As well as Robyn.

This leads to a more natural reason for Robyn to pick a fight: She’s resisting arrest. They crash and Clover calls for a medical team. Qrow and Clover have a conversation about what’s going on. Qrow insists they talk to Ironwood about this, only for Clover to insist he arrests Ruby. This leads to a natural conclusion as to why Qrow fights Clover: He wants to protect Ruby.

Tyrian joins in and the fight isn’t a 2v1 like the original, but instead Qrow vs. Clover but with Tyrian running interference against both sides. This leads to Qrow and Clover teaming up against Tyrian, but Qrow, at the last minute, knocks Clover aura out so as to disable him. Tyrian is kinda shocked at the betrayal but stays around to let it play out, especially since he knows something Qrow doesn’t.

Clover asks Qrow why he did that and Qrow told Clover that sometimes, you have to do the right thing instead of doing what you’re told to. Clover remarks that the right thing is often the hardest and stands firm with his belief that Ironwood will do the right thing, even if the cost is people’s lives. Qrow then says “then he will take the fall.” Clover chuckles, says good luck, then dies because it’s freezing out on Solitas.

Tyrian laughs at this, Qrow gets pissed, he runs off, and the aircraft comes.

RWBY vs. Ace Ops goes about as well as the best of the best of the best going up against a bunch of college drop outs who only had a week or so of training with said best. Very poorly. In fact, the group takes advantage of the team’s insistence of fighting in the White Rose and Bumblebee pairs, curbstomping them by exploiting their weaknesses. However, just as they’re about to be arrested, Marrow takes a look at Ruby.

“You know, I never wanted to actually arrest you guys…” He breathes in. “And I don’t want to.” Turns around and shouts “STAY!” to the rest of the Ace Ops and tells Ruby and her friends to run. As soon as they do, he gets out his weapon and glares at his ‘friends’. Harriet asks why he did this, only for him to reply:

“Well, maybe we were just tired of being pushed around.” He says before he tosses a volatile Dust crystal on the ground and hurts the group, making a getaway.

And the JNPR bit stays the same.

Episode 13

Because this will be setting up Volume 8, this is mostly speculative at this point. But then again, I did the same with Volume 6’s Tweaking before Volume 7 premiered… That said, Volume 6 was more conclusive than Volume 7 so…

Bottom line, this will most likely get disconfirmed by the time Volume 8 rolls around.

JNPR vs Neo stays the same, but Nora and Ren bicker about whether to stay on Mantle and help the others, causing Neo to give them the slip with the Relic and further sever the ties between Nora and Ren.

Cinder vs Winter, Penny and Fria is also a little changed. Namely, Penny takes a blow for Winter that destroys most of her body. Despite this, she struggles to go through the whirlwind that Fria makes and saves her from Cinder. Penny is dying as a result of putting herself through the extreme and with no Pietro to save her, this will basically be her final death.

Fria knows this. She also knows that Ironwood had sent only one person to see her to make it easier for her Alzheimer’s and that Penny is not that person. Despite this, she is moved by Penny’s dedication, asks for her name, and passes on her powers to Penny, saving her life. Ruby flashes Cinder and secures Penny. On the ship during Ozpin’s speech on fear, Pietro wakes up, checks up on Penny to see if she’s alright. Upon seeing that there’s blood on a cut from Penny, he’s at first afraid, but then cries in joy as she had become a real girl. However, if RT decides to do a plot point like this in a future volume where they make Penny a real girl, then disregard this bit.

The final bit (don’t worry, I’m going to the Ironwood vs Oscar bit later) is that Maria explicitly says that they’re leaving Atlas. As soon as she says that, Nora and Blake object. Nora because they’re leaving Mantle as well and Blake because they just had an entire fight where they wanted to stay and fight. Yang tries to reason with Blake, but she just comments about how she’s not going to run. Likewise, Nora is tired of sacrifices after losing Pyrrha. They both leave and go to Mantle just as the plane leaves.

Ironwood and Oscar’s Conversation

Okay, no amount of summary is going to do this justice, so I’m going to include this as a subsection like with Nora’s backstory. This would take place roughly in the same spot(s) as the original. It starts out roughly the same until Oscar pleads to work this out.

Ironwood: There is no working anything out. People have been demanding me to do things their way, to make things easier for them, and every time I try to bend to their whims, Salem and her forces go two steps ahead. The easiest solution is for me to do everything myself.

Oscar: Including leaving people to die?

Ironwood: That’s what Ozpin had been doing for most of his life. You don’t hear people complain about that. Because he kept it all to himself and never told others the bigger picture. Just like Ruby.

Oscar: Ruby only hid the truth because she was afraid of what you’d become if you found out.

Ironwood: That’d I’d become another Lionheart? I’m not that weak-willed a coward.

Oscar: Then why abandon Mantle?

Ironwood: Because Salem’s forces are on our doorstep. If we don’t do anything, then we will fall!

Oscar: No… If you divide us, then we will fall… It’s what she wants, James.

Ironwood: … James is what my friends call me. To you… it’s General.

And the rest of the scene plays out like normal, including the ending of Salem’s forces arriving.

Stinger

This is less fix and more wish.

Marrow stumbles onto a rooftop, the top portion of his face heavily burned from the explosion, and sees Salem’s forces arriving. A recovering Fiona approaches Marrow and tells him how protecting Mantle had just become more complex. Marrow shakes his head and takes out something from his pocket before he fixes it to his face.

“It was never about protecting Mantle, Fiona… It’s about making Atlas pay for what they’ve done.” He turns around, wearing a White Fang mask.

And that was Tweaking V7, perhaps the most intense tweaking I’ve done with five thousand words.

[blackcatmanor]

RWBY V7 Episode 12 Photo Review (Spoilers)

..................WUT

I mean….I can’t really process what happened

 So let’s get this part out of the way:

The Good: 

Penny and Winter are the true BFFs

Penny becoming more human is endearing to see, and it’s been interesting to see her struggle with understanding emotions against Winter, who also struggles to understand them, in a way. Penny challenging Winter but never abandoning her to join RWBY is nice, and their light conflict is very well done because it shows Penny’s growing humanity struggle against Winter’s much chillier perspective.  I really like the dynamic between these two and hope they continue on in the next volume (If Winter dies too this volume I’ll ragequit RWBY), and to be honest it’s become more of a cute bond than Ruby and Penny this volume. Don’t @ me 

The fights

Although a lot of the “fights” in this volume were done off screen, when there is fighting this volume it has been extremely good. The camera moves around a lot less so we get a better sense of what is going on, and the moves feel more deliberate to whoever is doing the fighting, such as Ruby and Harriet who dart around a lot, delivering only occasional blows (and Ruby taking more of the blows because she’s not as good as Harriet in hand-to-hand), while Yang and Elm go all-out lady brawl (and it’s nice to see Yang’s semblance again)

Exception: Weiss. 

Weiss’ over-reliance on Summoning is making her boring to watch in fights. Seeing the 300 different ways the animators show her spinning around and waving her sword like a magic wand is getting OLD. If you’re going to have her summon all the time, fine, but stop focusing the camera on her. Just show her very distantly in the background waving her sword/wand and focus on how people fight whatever she summons.

 The meh:

RWBY vs Ace Ops- welp… I didn’t think the Ace Ops were gonna lose, I thought RWBY would flee and barely get away because the Ace Ops were supposed to be the best of the best. I guess I’m glad they didn’t just go down like total chumps (except Vine- sorry dude), but apparently if you train with the Ace Ops for 6 weeks, you’re as good as them. *Shrug* Who knew? It’s like Fitness Bootcamp- Train with a soldier on an obstacle course once and you’re basically ready to become a member of Seal Team 6, right?

 I wish they would have explained this a little more- maybe looping back to the discussion they had in Episode 4 about being friends vs teammates. Maybe RWBY’s personal bond gives them more incentive to win, while the Ace Ops are just going through the motions because it’s just a job to them. Plus I think Elm and Marrow’s inner conflict also maybe helped tipped the sales towards RWBY, perhaps they weren’t trying their hardest, but I wish this was a little more clear

 JNPR vs Neo

It’s kind of weird that Neo didn’t incapacitate Oscar, if she was planning to try trapping JNR as well… Or maybe Oscar barely managed to get away? Regardless, Neo had the lamp, so why stick around and wait for more people to show up? The plan was for her to get the lamp FROM Oscar, not necessarily grab Oscar as well. Maybe Neo has her own agenda, which would be cool, but from this episode it looks like she completed her objective but then waited around to fight some more. Maybe getting the lamp was too easy and she likes a challenge...? Who knows (I am saying that a lot for this episode, huh?)

 Cinder vs Winter and Penny

This is obviously meh because not much happened, and it’s just set up for the big final fight. With the Ace Ops incap’ed, hopefully RWBY can come in as well to finally fight Cinder directly after dancing around her in V5. I think most of this will go down probably in the Relic room because a grand fight in a cramped hospital room is hard, so I think Cinder will be able to Grimm-snatch the Winter Maiden powers and go down to the relic room, or she will incapacitate whoever does get the powers and drag them there, only to be stopped by RWBY for a big battle. However I don’t think it’ll be Winter Schnee getting the powers since it’ll take too long for the transfer device and they are out of time. I KINDA think now it might be Penny- a girl with an aura/soul- somehow she’ll receive them and it’ll be part of her becoming a real girl (like Pinocchio).  Who knows? At this point who gets them is totally up in the air.

  The Ugly:

 I guess I was right about Tyrian escaping custody again, but it wasn’t because of Salem intervening with Grimm like I thought. It was because Robyn is a terrible person!

Robyn- Please kindly f- off:

 I officially HATE Robyn the most. After teetering on a “meh-leaning-towards-general-dislike” feeling, I loathe her now and I hope she gets killed off quickly. She’s a one-dimensional generic hothead character with no personality that is purposely stuck in to create conflict. She is the good guy’s Tyrian- but Tyrian has a reason to be chaotic: He’s an insane zealot. Robyn is just a poorly written idiot. 

Robyn just does stupid things that get in everyone’s way all of the time, and actively works to undermine the hero’s at each turn. She prevented the launch of Amity by stealing all the supplies, and now she is going to try and fight in the middle of a cramped ship, risking Tyrian’s escape rather than waiting 5 minutes to duke it out with Clover once Tyrian is safely in jail. The entire time they were squaring off on the ship I kept thinking “Uhm Tyrian’s right there….Tyrian is RIGHT THERE! He’s gonna get out!” Robyn is a liar. She doesn’t care about the people of Mantle, because she’s doing things that could (and did) lead to a serial killer who killed Mantle Citizens escaping.

Not to mention she could have taken Qrow’s advice and talk to Ironwood first! Literally 2 episodes ago you were saying the General had your support and now you’re like “I’LL FIGHT ANYONE, ANYWHERE. Forget talking to people to get the full details and actually following through upon that trust I claimed I had in Ironwood two episodes ago, I’m gonna risk everyone’s lives to fight this out RIGHT here!” She’s the worst! 

  Confrontation with Qrow and Clover- 

This falls under the Ugly because, despite some good dialogue between Clover and Qrow, with Qrow expressing that he feels manipulated while Clover tries to explain his own point of view, every decision made from here on Qrow’s part is inexcusable and totally irrational. 

Tyrian joins the fray and inexplicably Qrow agrees to team up with him to take down Clover because THAT can’t possibly fail spectacularly. 

Tyrian suggests “putting the kid to bed” but the entire time I knew Tyrian would betray Qrow and go too far with attacking Clover because OF COURSE HE WOULD. But I thought he would sting Clover as a chance to get away, because Qrow would have to focus on getting Clover help. However, what we got was…much, much worse. 

Qrow’s questionable decision making

Hey DUMMY- Why not team up with Clover first to neutralize Tyrian again, and then you and Clover can duke it out. Or you and Clover can go talk to James like you wanted to 10 minutes ago!

Oh right…because “You got a score to settle” with Tyrian because this is now a cheesy western where your ego is more important than logic.

I think his bad luck semblance is really just an idiot semblance- like occasionally his semblance makes him do stupid things, leading to horrible outcomes but he mistakenly chalks it up to “bad luck.” It’s also frustrating because this volume they were setting Qrow up to grow into a good character- someone with a lot of anger from the past who learns to cope with it, and learns to accept friendship from others. I guess that’s all over. 

So, sadly, Tyrian then murders Clover. It was shocking I will say that...I actually GASPED, and it led to this really cool shot: 

But the shock was partly for the wrong reason. Like I said before, I thought Qrow being a dumb-dumb would lead to Clover being injured, sure, but KILLED? Yikes! Qrow’s idiocy leading to Clover being injured would be frustrating, but not unforgivable narratively and he could learn from it. He would learn to not treat his friends as transactional, and automatically write them off when one hint of struggle happens. Qrow’s idiocy in teaming up with a serial killer and getting Clover killed kinda makes Qrow unforgivable in my book. Does CRWBY want me to hate Qrow? I guess so, especially because Clover’s dying scene didn’t exactly stick the landing and alleviate my anger towards Qrow either.... 

So poor dying Clover is lying there, and a visibly shaken Qrow kneels next to him. So the thought is Qrow is going to realize his horrible mistake, and dive down a pool of self-loathing: tearfully blaming himself, blaming his bad luck,  APOLOGIZING, upset about how it’s all his fault, etc. Instead, he delivers (with a straight face) the weirdest line ever about James taking the fall. UHHH- WUT? You teaming up with Tyrian led to this. WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

  This sucks. On several levels. Clover’s death was just plain poorly done and a good character was wasted. I really liked Clover. I thought Qrow was going to actually get a break from being shit on this entire series and finally get, at a minimum, a friend that would continue to help him grow and develop as a character, pushing Qrow to see the best in himself and stop continually hating himself. With that cut short, I of course felt super sad and emotional about Clover’s death, even to the point of almost crying.

However, I can’t pretend like a significant part of that isn’t pure frustration anger about how this episode played out. Not only did Clover’s death came about in the dumbest way, but his final words with Qrow were wasted by the weird “James will take the fall” bit. 

Qrow should have blamed himself and his semblance (I mean...it actually kinda is his fault, not gonna lie), and Clover could have maybe been the ultimate friend to him, telling Qrow that it happened because Qrow was fighting for what he thought was right, and even though the outcome was horrible he shouldn’t stop fighting for what he believes in…? I dunno….ANYTHING other than “GRRR James will pay”

 I can’t help but remember a mere few minutes ago.....

This episode.....woof. 

 In a long series, you want your hero’s to sometimes lose just to keep it interesting, and to give them something to have to crawl back from. However, what’s interesting is seeing the characters try their best, make reasonable and decent decisions and still suffer a loss, because it makes us want to continue to cheer them on and watch as they make a triumphant comeback. Seeing hero’s simply choke and fail because they make the dumbest, irrational decisions with no logical reason is just frustrating and excruciating to watch, and seeing those moments lead to other characters suffering makes your “hero’s” unlikable. 

This argument was made for the V6 climax- that RWBY made a dumb decision and others suffered the consequences, making them “evil” to some hateboner watchers, but I thought this assessment was over dramatic. You have to take things in context, and literally nothing came of RWBY’s decision to steal an airship: the universe was the same as it was before with some filler in the middle. No one was injured or killed, and even the damage to the city was minimal (one roof). Clover, though, is full-on dead and that is entirely Qrow’s fault. I just can’t believe the writers put this down on paper, re-read it, and though- “yea....Someone who totally make the decision to team up with a murderer to subdue their good friend....this is gonna be GREAT.”

But who cares about the story- NEW MERCH DROPPING SOON AMIRITE?! 

Ok that was a low blow, but the writing and characters inexplicably took a logical nose dive this episode, after having a lot of thought put into last episode. The characters (especially Qrow, but also Robyn and to a lesser extent Clover) could have made some reasonable and logical decisions and Clover still could have died, which would have had way more impact and made the situation seem way more hopeless. Instead we got Robyn kicking off the shitshow by being just the worst, and Qrow taking the shitshow torch and cranking it up to 11, effectively un-doing all of the development we’ve seen from him this season. 

Lastly, even if you are going to have the characters completely fail at making decisions and it leads to a horrible outcome, at least stick the landing and don’t have them go off on some odd tangent about how this is someone else’s fault. *facepalm* 

Overall I’d give this episode a very generous 2/10.

The 2 points is because of the decent fight animation and occasionally decent dialogue.

I’m tired... 

[afoolforatook]

Alrighty, here’s some (late) Fair Game Valentine’s fluff for everybody!

Every Part of Ourselves

A Fair Game Valentine’s day fic by Farley M. (afoolforatook.tumblr.com) 

Will post it on AO3 when I have the whole thing ready. 

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

Trigger Warnings / Tags - Past character death, loss of partner, Not direct mention of anxiety / panic attacks but heavily implied,  / hurt/comfort, Fair Game, Hummingbird, Qrow is Ruby’s dad.

(Probably more but can’t think of them and want to get this posted. Let me know if there’s something big I missed and should add)

Probably the lightest on angst of any of this series really just at the beginning for set up. But the rest is just pure fluff. 

Also, still plan to put up some art based on this, but haven’t had time to finish it and didn’t want to wait for that to post the fic.

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

Author’s note: This is really a chapter of a much longer fic, but I wanted to get it posted for Valentine’s (even though I’m a bit late). So there are some things, especially at the beginning that need background, but you should be able to understand everything without it. Also, there are a few aspects here and there that I’m not sure I’m happy will and that might change when I post this as the actual chapter (specifically the stuff about Ironwood, haven’t really figured out how I want to handle him in this yet, but felt like it was necessary to mention him contextually.) 

A little bit of needed background though is that, in this story Qrow and Summer were together and he is Ruby’s biological father. Not getting into all the debate of that actual theory, but this whole thing is basically a big therapy fic that requires Qrow and Summer to have been a couple. Also, I like to think that (even though it doesn’t necessarily fit in canon) Qrow’s cross necklace was either a gift from Summer, or in memory of her.

Episode 12 was a nightmare of Qrow’s that Clover helped him deal with. 

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

Clover had left Qrow’s room a few hours earlier. Once he’d gotten back to his room he’d started pacing, his mind racing. 

It had been a few weeks since that first kiss and they’d continued their nightly check-ins, now with a bit of a different atmosphere. They were still casual, and usually relatively short, unless one of them had had a particularly hard day. But they were a little looser with each other, falling into a comfortable routine, not flinching nervously when the other leaned against them. And there had been more kisses. Even a few that had seemed like they might lead to something more. 

That was when they’d admitted they needed to talk about how they were going to handle this aspect of their relationship. They both agreed that there were still a lot of things they needed to talk about before taking any big steps. Clover knew he had his own issues that he still had to tell Qrow about.  He knew Qrow wouldn’t let him shrug it off forever, wouldn’t let him continue to pretend he was fine. 

Qrow was especially sensitive to thinking he was being pitied, or that people were holding themselves back because they thought they had no place to be hurting, when his wounds were so much ‘bigger’. And Clover was pretty good most of the time about not falling into that kind of  thinking, but Qrow had a tendency to worry that that was why Clover held back. It was complicated and hard for Clover to watch.  He knew that Qrow hated being the one who ‘won’ the trauma lottery, who always had to choose his words carefully, not telling most people the full story, partially because that wasn’t who he was, but also because he knew as soon as his tragic backstory was known, the atmosphere would change. Clover knew that Qrow hated being reminded how sad his story was by well-meaning people who thought they should tell him their pain was nothing in comparison. 

But Clover also knew that, while his own problems weren’t less important than Qrow’s, there was a lot more to them that directly affected any decision they made about their relationship moving forward. 

So a few nights after the first kiss, Qrow had told him all about his past. And most importantly he’d told him all about Summer. About loving her, and about losing her. Then they just talked about him. About how everything had affected him. About all his fears, insecurities, anger, bitterness, worries, and longing surrounding relationships after Summer. He explained why, sometimes, telling Clover he loved him was the easiest thing in the world, and sometimes, it was a spiral of panic waiting to happen. How sometimes his own desire to be close to Clover was enough to scare him so much that it was actually painful to do so. How he worried, putting aside his own fears about losing someone again, about how his pain would affect Clover. How he worried that Clover would feel like a replacement. That he’d resent Summer, or Qrow’s inability to move on from her. 

Qrow had been as confident, strong, and unwavering as Clover had ever seen him, when he told Clover how that would never happen. How no matter what happened with them, he would never be ‘over’ Summer, and how he never wanted to be, and that he would never apologize for that.  But he still wilted some then as he explained how, as proud as he was of that certainty, he hated the idea of it hurting Clover. He worried that Clover would get tired of Qrow’s sudden, often unpredictable, tears surrounding any kind of intimacy. That he’d mistake Qrow’s sadness as him wishing he were with her rather than Clover. And how Qrow couldn’t tell him that that would never be at least somewhat true. But mostly it was about him feeling guilty for making Clover be in a relationship that would always have a ghost attached. 

And Clover had listened, he had absorbed, and had been honest with Qrow like he’d promised. He’d told him that, yes, some of that was hard to hear, or worried him. That he couldn’t guarantee he’d never have some insecurity, at least at first, but that he wanted to work through it. He assured Qrow that he understood, and trusted him enough to work through that together. 

A few weeks passed after that talk, and the nightly check-ins continued. Though they still hadn’t moved beyond some urgent, deep kisses, they were good with that. Both of them liked just letting themselves get used to this, without the pressure of what came next. 

And then, a little over a week ago, Clover realized something during a briefing, as he really looked at the calendar on his scroll for the first time in a while. He’d been letting the days blur together a little, enjoying the routine of things. He knew of course what month it was, but it hadn’t really registered until then what that meant. So by the time he noticed, there was barely a week left until Valentine’s day. 

He’d gotten through the day, and luckily his visit in Qrow’s room had been short, Qrow being exhausted from a supply run with the kids. After he’d left, Clover’s head had been spinning, trying to figure out what to do about the impending minefield of a holiday. They had talked about what this was between them, and decided that they were comfortable calling it a relationship. Even agreeing that, while not telling people quite yet, they could be a little less careful around each other in public. But Clover had no idea where they’d stand with this part of being in a relationship. He wasn’t even sure he could bring himself to talk about it with Qrow, unless the older man brought it up first. Would it presumptive of him to expect they do anything? Was it diminutive to expect they wouldn’t? He was way too in his head about it and had flipped back and forth on whether or not to broach the topic over and over again. 

That had continued for the next week, with Clover waking up every morning, barely feeling rested, and his mind a little off during meetings and routine runs. He knew Qrow had noticed, and had tried to get him to talk. But Clover had promised him that he just needed some rest, and that he was just overthinking little things and wearing himself out, but nothing was wrong. Their nightly visits were now usually short and quiet, the two of them just sitting beside each other on Qrow’s bed until Qrow insisted Clover go to sleep. 

And now. Now it was the night before and they’d still never talked about it. He was sure that Qrow hadn’t even acknowledged a calendar enough lately to realize what was coming up. 

That evening, before dinner, Clover had panicked, and rushed to a small flower shop in Mantle, determined to buy a small bouquet of red roses… before realizing that that was probably a bad idea. As were white roses…. Roses just seemed out of the question all together, actually… But could he really risk being completely empty-handed, on the off chance that Qrow did expect something?  For a split second he actually considered just getting a bouquet of clovers. And then he wanted to sink into the pavement at how fucking pretentious that would come across, not to mention it being likely impossible to find. He had been standing outside the shop long enough by then that the owner had come out to ask if he needed anything. Clover shook his head and hoped he gave a convincing smile as he turned to leave. As he was walking home, his hand went instinctively to his rabbit’s foot. That was when it occurred to him. 

He’d been antsy during dinner and forced himself to play it cool while he sat in Qrow’s room. Finally he’d hugged Qrow goodnight and headed back to his own room, thoughts running through his head so quickly he couldn’t even focus on what they were individually before another one replaced it. 

He’d gotten the gift prepared before he’d gone to see Qrow, and now he just held it in his hands, thinking. He wasn’t going back on the decision, he knew it was what he wanted to do. But he was still worried, and that was what had him up most of the night, overthinking. He knew he’d promised Qrow that when he got in thought spirals like this he’d text him or come over, let him know, like just like Qrow had promised him. But this was different. He couldn’t just drop this on Qrow, that’s exactly why he was so worked up over it in the first place. Finally he couldn’t look at the gift anymore and opened his bedside table drawer, carefully placing it inside and closing the drawer again. 

After that he’d sat on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands, for who knows how long. He didn’t move again until he heard a knock on his door. He glanced at his scroll, groaning quietly. He’d left Qrow’s around midnight. It was 6:30. He hadn’t gotten even a minute of sleep. How was he supposed to handle today with no sleep, already tired from the awful sleep he’d had all week? 

Certain that the person at the door was Marrow, or one of the other Ops, he ignored it, flopping onto his stomach and sighing. He hoped they’d think he was still asleep and give up, despite everyone knowing that Clover never slept past 6. Sure enough, after a moment another knock came. Right as Clover was resigning himself to having to get up and tell them that he was feeling sick, he heard a voice, just loud enough to reach him without yelling. 

“Clover?... Cloves? Let me in… please?...... I know you’re awake, Lucky Charm! I could hear you overthinking all the way down the hall.”

There was a slight, almost nervous chuckle. And Clover sat up, heart racing. Shit. He thought he’d have some time to prepare before seeing Qrow that morning. Time to get his shit together. But apparently not. 

He cleared his throat, jumping up and fumbling to put his uniform on before rushing to the door. He’d only managed to slip his tunic on, and still hadn’t buttoned it up completely, when he opened the door, coming face to face with Qrow. 

Qrow, who…. who was wearing a suit?… or at least the closest thing to a suit Clover had ever seen Qrow in. His cape was gone. There was a tie pulled loose around his neck and a slanted cross necklace, that Clover thought he remembered seeing him wearing when he’d first gotten to Atlas, was nestled carefully on top of the knot. His low neck shirt and vest had been changed out for a long sleeve black button up (the sleeves shockingly not bunched at Qrow’s elbows but buttoned at his wrists with cufflinks that matched his necklace), and a deep red waistcoat with black accents. His pants and boots were the same as always, and his bracelets and rings remained. But his hair was combed, and while still slightly messy, it was obviously more meticulously quaffed than Qrow usually had the patience for.  Clover also noted that he didn’t have Harbinger with him. He knew that Qrow had struggled carrying Harbinger around for a few days after the night that Clover had found him, but they had talked about it and Qrow had seemed to move past it, not hesitating to pick his weapon up around Clover for weeks now. So why…. 

Clover was pulled out of his wandering thoughts by a stifled laugh. His eyes focused on Qrow’s face now, seeing the man nearly lose his balance as he held his left hand to his mouth, trying to stay quiet. Finally he straightened and smiled warmly at Clover, wiping a tear from his eye. 

“I have a feeling that that might not be exactly regulation there, Cloves. How ‘bout you let me in while you finish getting dressed?” 

Clover looked down and realized, with growing embarrassment, how utterly disheveled he looked.  His tunic was not only not fully buttoned. It was lopsided and misbuttoned. And it was the only part of his uniform he’d managed to pull on; still wearing his sweatpants, and no socks. Ironically, it was his hair that was ruffled, rather than Qrow’s, from a night of messing with it in frustration. 

Qrow saw him floundering and smiled kindly, placing his hand on Clover’s shoulder. He gently turned him around and led them into the room, the door closing behind them. Qrow hit the light by the door and watched as Clover walked to his bed. Clover was frantically looking for his pants, that he’d managed to fling somewhere in his haste. And Qrow noticed that the bed was made, something he was sure Clover hadn’t just done that morning. 

“Clover? Did you sleep at all last night?” He turned, putting something that he’d been holding in his right hand down in the chair by the coffee table near the door, and walked over to Clover. 

Clover hadn’t even noticed Qrow holding something before, and now the shorter man was blocking his view of whatever it had been.  And then he remembered what he himself had been holding all night. He hastily checked his bedside drawer to see it was still there, before shutting  the drawer again, right as Qrow reached him. Qrow raised an eyebrow at the quick movement but let it go, instead leaning to pick up Clover’s pants from the end of the bed. He laid them by Clover, who had gone back to his spot on the edge of his bed. Qrow then crouched in front of Clover, gently putting his hand on the younger huntsman’s knee. 

“You alright there, Lucky Charm?” He reached up and brushed a stray hair out of Clover’s face, his eyebrows slightly furrowed, obviously a little concerned. 

Clover stammered for just a moment before his voice finally worked. 

“N-no. I mean…. Yeah… yeah I’m fine, just….. Couldn’t sleep…. Like you said, overthinkin….”

He trailed off, realizing just how tired he really was after a week of restless sleep and now a night of none at all.

Qrow frowned slightly, pushing his hands up off his own knees and standing, huffing slightly. He moved towards Clover, reaching down gently and unbuttoning his distorted tunic. 

“Why didn’t you let me know? I could’ve come over and calmed you down, or just kept you company.” His voice was soft, kind, more worried than hurt. 

“I…. It wasn’t like that… I just…. Had some stuff to think about that I didn’t want to bother yo-” 

He paused, seeing Qrow about to object to the idea that he would be a bother. 

“No.  I just mean, it was just some stuff I needed to figure out myself.” Clover smiled, his head slowly clearing. He tilted his chin to look up at the ceiling, now focusing on trying not to think about how dumb he looked opening the door. 

He looked down when he noticed that Qrow had finished unbuttoning his tunic, and was having to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Clover saw why; he was still wearing the tank top he’d slept… or not slept, in; an old, ratty, bright green thing with a cartoon four leaf clover on it and a cheesy phrase about feeling lucky, that his sister had given him years before as a birthday present. He only ever wore it before going to see Qrow, knowing it would always receive an adorable chuckle and snarky quip. But it definitely didn’t belong under his uniform. He paled at the idea of Ironwood seeing him in it. Or worse...Marrow, or any of the kids. They would all find way too much enjoyment in it, and their teasing wouldn’t be nearly as endearing as Qrow’s.  He laughed weakly.

“Whoops…. Guess I was still kinda in my head...” 

Qrow rolled his eyes, fumbling with the collar of Clover’s tunic, and smiling at the contrast of it, now significantly wrinkled, over the ridiculous shirt. They stayed like that for a moment, awkwardly, Clover still in his undone tunic and sweats with Qrow standing in front of him, both unsure of what to do next. Finally Clover spoke. 

“So… why’d you… I mean… did you need… I mean... “ 

He sighed, dragging his hand over his face, feeling a few day’s worth of stubble pull against his skin. He’d been too tired to wake up early enough to shave the past couple of days. He shook his head and looked at Qrow, up and down, before smiling goofily. 

“I mean.. You look… nice. Great! You look….” He paused, pretending to adjust Qrow’s tie, leaning forward slightly and grinning.

“Didn’t think I’d ever be lucky enough to see you in a tie.” 

Qrow just scoffed and pushed Clover’s face away from him affectionately, turning and sitting beside him. 

“Thanks. Guess we’re both seeing a different side of each other this morning.” He teased, brushing his thumb over Clover’s stubble. Clover didn’t miss the tiny shiver in Qrow’s hand at the rough texture. 

“I was beginning to think you just magically woke up clean shaven every day.” 

“Dang it! I’ve ruined my mystique!” He smirked, squinting at Qrow jokingly. 

Qrow chuckled and leaned against Clover’s shoulder, so much easier than he would have done so just a few weeks before, and took his hand, interlocking their fingers. 

“Yeah… where will your magnetic charm come from now that that grand illusion is broken? I’ll have to find some other thing to find attractive about you… that’ll be such a struggle, I’m sure.” He looked up at Clover, nudging his shoulder playfully, and winked.

 Clover pretended he didn’t feel his face turn bright red at that, and he recovered from the wink, so much quicker than he would have just a few weeks before, smirking back at the older man. 

“Well, just imagine being in my position! You all put together like this?” He gestured dramatically to Qrow. 

“What am I gonna do without that unkempt broodiness to lure me in?” 

Qrow actually stuck his tongue out at him, his eyes and nose scrunching up.  Clover had to actively steady himself on the bed so as not to fall back on the bed and bury his face in his hands, like a smitten school girl, at how damn cute that was. 

They sat like that for a minute, not at all awkward, just comfortable. Qrow’s leg knocking against Clover’s playfully every so often. Clover was the first to speak again.

 “Really though… Not that I’m not a fan of the new look.  Cause, trust me…. I am.  But… what’s the occasion?” He hoped he sounded convincingly oblivious. 

“For someone who actually has a great poker face when he wants to, you’re painfully  transparent when you’re tired, Lucky Charm. There’s no way you haven’t looked at a calendar in the last few weeks.” 

Qrow smiled and puffed up his chest a bit, like he was preparing himself for something, before jumping up and retrieving the item he’d placed in the chair earlier. 

Clover’s jaw dropped as Qrow, who suddenly was looking a little sheepish behind his puffed up facade, held a bouquet out towards him.

“I… I know we never talked about it or anything… And I know you probably were trying to give me space because you thought this might be something kind of hard for…” His eyes flickered to the bouquet and then back to Clover. 

“And maybe I should have brought it up myself so that you didn’t… ya’know… stay up the entire night before, worrying about it…”  He rolled his eyes lovingly at Clover’s surprised look. 

“I told you, Cloves. Could hear it coming down the hall…. But anyway… I just thought. I don’t know... I was worried that if I turned it into some big talk, we’d both just get all in our heads about it and it would feel like some…. Like something we’d have to manage… and I…” He sighed, finally taking another breath and slowing down. 

“I don’t want you to think that we’ll always have to just manage stuff like that… I wanted you to know that I…” He stepped closer to Clover, placing the flowers in his lap and leaning to press his lips to his forehead gently. 

“That I don’t just have to ‘deal’ with my feelings for you…. That I enjoy them... I enjoy you. Us. That I… that I want...I’m excited to celebrate this.” 

Clover’s face was burning hot, his eyes wide, mouth hanging open, as he stared down at the flowers in his hands. It wasn’t from a shop like the one he’d tried to go to the day before. It was a bundle of wildflowers, surrounded by strands of ivy, all held together with what Clover was realizing was a small strip of Qrow’s cape. But the thing that held his gaze was the flower in the exact center.  

He realized Qrow had been talking for a minute, scratching the back of his head shyly.

“ -tried a flower shop in Mantle, but they were talking about ‘flower language’ stuff and I had absolutely no idea what to do there-” He took a breath. 

“Or what you’d like... so I just decided to do it myself…. Then I couldn’t exactly find any clovers…. And I happened to find some ivy, so I went with that... .… but I wanted there to actually be something nice, ya’know...so I went back and got the….Cause…” Another breath, finally.

“I just thought maybe…. I don’t know… It might have been a bad idea and weird….maybe I should’ve just stuck with…..”

Clover’s vision blurred with tears as he stared at the single white rose tucked into the wildflowers and ivy, his breath catching in his throat.

Qrow had paused, pinching the bridge of his nose, starting to step back, obviously trying to force himself to speak slower, to just slow down. 

“I just thought…. I wanted to show you that… you know… that you… that you’re not a consolation pr-”

“Q-qrow, I….”

“Shit…. This was too much, right? Right. I shouldn’t have… And especially when we hadn’t even talked about… I’m sorry just…I got carried away... Just prete-.” 

Clover cradled the flowers carefully as he stood and gently pushed past Qrow, who stammered as he turned and watched Clover walk to a small closet.

“C-clo-..? I.. I mean… I know we didn’t talk so… and of course I didn’t expect you to have anythin….I just… Clover… Just… just forget it, okay?  It… It was a...”

Clover didn’t speak as he grabbed an old vase from behind a stack of towels.  Someone had given it to him as a congratulations on getting the Ace Ops position, he’d never really seen the point of it before. He went into the bathroom and filled it with water, before slipping the flowers in, making sure the strip of cloth was secure and high enough to not get wet. Then he came back out and sat it on the table by the door, before walking back to Qrow, who was glassy eyed and biting his cheek nervously, keeping himself from talking.

Clover didn’t care about his unbuttoned tunic, or his dumb shirt, or his sweatpants, or his messy hair, or the bags under his eyes, or his scruffy stubble. He didn’t care about any of that as he pulled Qrow to him, one hand around his waist and the other at the nape of his neck. 

The only thing he could think about was how absolutely astounding this man was. How he was kind, and thoughtful, and patient, and protective, and brave, and dependable. How incomprehensible it was that anyone could see him as cold or callous or unrefined. How he’d do anything to keep this beautiful, strong, resilient, loving man from experiencing anymore pain in his life. How he knew that that was impossible, that he would watch the man before him suffer more than he could ever fully understand, hoped with everything in him that he would never understand, and that he wouldn’t be able to stop it. How, despite that, he wanted to be there anyway. Always. How he never wanted Qrow Branwen to have to deal with his pain alone ever again.

That was all Clover could think about as he pressed his lips to Qrow’s, feeling the shorter man stiffen slightly and then sink into him, one hand clutching the edge of his tunic and the other gripping Clover’s hip to steady himself in the sudden embrace. After a moment Clover pulled away, staring at Qrow. Who was looking back up at him, eyes slightly unfocused, cheeks flushed and lips ever so slightly swollen.  

“Thank you, Qrow.”

Qrow just stared, mouth still slightly parted. 

“You have absolutely no clue how utterly amazing you are, do you?” He asked quietly, not expecting an answer. 

“I-” 

“You are… You... Shit… Qrow…. you... “ Clover pressed another soft kiss to his lips, smiling as he spoke without pulling away. 

“I am so thoroughly in love you, you beautiful, stubborn, old bird.” 

Qrow chuckled weakly, tears in the corner of his eyes. 

“Clover…. I….”

Clover pulled away gently, holding Qrow in place for a moment before letting go and turning to reach over and open his bedside drawer, picking something up and holding it tightly in his fist,  before standing in front of Qrow again. He took Qrow’s hand in his free one and pressed a kiss to it before placing his closed fist in it, pushing Qrow’s fingers to curl up over his knuckles, and then placing his open palm on top.

 “I’ve been second guessing myself for weeks. About whether to bring it up or wait for you to. If it would be too forward to assume we’d do something, or rude to assume we wouldn’t. Not knowing what you’d want...what you’d need… If you were ready for something like this… Or if it would bring up old memories… and whether that’d be good or if you’d feel bad for…If you’d think you had to protect me from knowing how much you’d be thinking of her…” He paused, now having to make himself pace his words, wishing that his open palm would stop visibly shaking like that. 

“I don’t know.. I…. I thought a lot about it. About the right way… if there was a right way… about what I felt and what I wanted. And what you felt and wanted….and… and what I’d do if those didn’t match up…. And…. I thought about everything I don’t know.  All the stuff I’ll never know because you can’t possibly tell me everything that I know you feel about her… or… or about me….” He felt his knees starting to lock and pulled Qrow down with him so that they could sit back on the bed, without letting go of his hand. He took a deep breath and forced himself to meet Qrow’s eyes and not look away.

“...I thought about her.. About Summer. About how much I wish I’d gotten to meet her…. To tha- to thank her...To show her how important you are to me… how important ….. How important she is to me.” He wouldn’t look away. This was too important. 

“How much I understand that I don’t get you, without also getting her. And how I wouldn’t want it any other way…. I love every part of you, Qrow. With every part of myself. And she is part of you. She is why you are the man I fell in love with. How-” He chuckled and let himself smile, his free hand, now steady, reaching to wipe a tear from Qrow’s cheek. 

“How can I not love her?” He glanced down as he saw Qrow’s free hand move, worried that this was too much, that he was pushing him too far, too fast. But Qrow’s hand had just curled around the hem of Clover’s tank top, his thumb running over the fabric slowly. 

“ I- I didn’t… I didn’t know whether you were ready to hear that…. Or how to even say it…And then last night, before dinner, I went down to that...Ha… I guess that same flower shop. I  was going to get you some big bouquet... but nothing seemed right. I didn’t know if roses would be respectful or…. I didn’t know if you’d want me to try to make her a part of…..” He stroked Qrow’s cheek, laughing at himself a little.  

“I stood outside that place for waaaaay too long… trying to figure out what to do… but nothing felt right, so I left... And then, walking home, I realized.” 

He took his hand from Qrow’s cheek and looked down as he placed it under Qrow’s hand, still curled around his fist. His thumb ran over Qrow’s knuckles as he took a moment to close his eyes and breathe, before looking back up at Qrow and smiling. 

“She’s a part of you. She always will be. And trying to symbolize that, or me trying to quantify that somehow… didn’t feel right…. But… but showing you that… That I want to be a part of you, alongside her… and that both of you are part of me, now…. That I want the parts of you that are her just as much as the parts that aren’t… and that I know those aren’t identifiable like that.… showing you that… that felt right.  Immediately… and… well, this was the only thing that made sense… the only thing I could think of that could mean that for me… that could show you how certain I am that this… that you, are what I want.”

Clover glanced down as he opened his fist and pressed the green and silver pin into Qrow’s palm, before looking back up at him, his own tears forming now. They fell as he saw the realization wash over Qrow. 

Qrow scrambled to push the pin back into Clover’s hand, fumbling, pushing himself up onto his knees urgently, nearly losing his balance. And for a split second Clover saw in Qrow’s eyes that fear that had overcome him that first night, the panic that by loving Clover he was putting him in danger.

“Cl-clover I can’t take…. This is… You need this!” 

Clover cupped Qrow’s hand around the pin, pulling Qrow towards him by the waist, and catching their hands between their chests as he pressed his cheek to Qrow’s ear, nestling his chin in the crook of his neck. 

“As long as it’s with you, I’ll have it. It’s part of me. It’s my reminder of what’s important to me, what I want to protect. And you’re what’s most important to me, now. I don’t need something to remind me of that... So you keep it. You make it a part of you, right beside those parts of Summer.” Clover’s eyes flickered to the necklace over Qrow’s tie. 

“... and I’ll know it’s where it belongs… I’m where I belong.” 

Qrow snorts in a half sob, half laugh, his free hand threading through Clover’s hair.  His voice was steady but heavy with barely controlled emotion.

“You know, Cloves...Every time I think I’ve seen how sappy you can get, you surprise me…” He turned his head and pressed a kiss to Clover’s temple. 

“Th-thank you, Clover…..Thank you for…. For….for saying… for her…. For understan-...” 

And finally he broke, burying his face in Clover’s neck, quietly weeping. Clover guided him down, off his knees, further on the bed. He pulled his legs up beside him, allowing himself to support Qrow’s weight as he gently rubbed his back, humming quietly. He knew how feeling the vibration in his chest helped soothe Qrow. He didn’t speak, aware that any of what he wanted to say right then would just feed the tears. They were good tears though. They were relief, safety, acceptance, hope. Qrow needed this. 

When Qrow seemed to have quieted fully, Clover gently nudged him, pulling back slightly to look down at him. 

“Hey, Birdy. What do you need?” 

Qrow nuzzled his head back into Clover’s neck, smiling,  and the warmth of his breath sent chills down Clover’s spine. 

“Just this.” His voice was quiet, scratchy after crying, but happy.

Clover hummed in acknowledgement and moved them so that he could lean back against the headboard with Qrow still pressed to his chest. Clover closed his eyes, remembering how tired he was all at once. He started to drift a little before forcing himself to speak, mumbling.

“We should… mmm.. get breakfast… I know you didn’t really eat dinner last night.  You…hmm.. You must be hungry…And people’ll start wonderi-” He yawned, pressing his cheek into Qrow’s hair. “ Where we are...” 

Qrow’s voice was muffled against his neck. 

“ Let ‘em. Too comfy….”

Clover chuckled and they were quiet for a few minutes. Clover was just about asleep when Qrow spoke, turning his head so Clover could hear him clearly. 

“Ya’know… I had planned on coming by to pick you up earlier and take you out somewhere…”

“Yeah? Where?” Clover asked, his eyes closed, wrapping his arms tighter around Qrow’s waist and rubbing his stubbly cheek against the, once again messy, black hair.

“Hadn’t decided. Wanted to let you choose what you wanted to do for our …. Our first real date, I guess.” 

Clover was glad Qrow couldn’t see the immediate flush that brought to his cheeks.

 “Oh… well… umm…” He tried and failed to stifle his yawn. 

“Or we could leave that for another time and stay here all day… You could take a nap and I’ll get food and just tell people that… that my boyfriend and I are…. taking the holiday off….” He smirked to himself, waiting for a reaction.

“Yeah…. Yeah that soun-....” Clover started to mumble, pressing down into the mattress for a moment before registering what Qrow had said. 

“Wait… really? Like… like everyone? What about General-”

“I can deal with Jimmy… he’s actually not as awful as I act like he is… We… I can talk to him.” 

Clover reluctantly let Qrow pull away, the warmth of his bed pulling him in. Qrow maneuvered the taller man, sliding the tunic from his shoulders and pulling the comforter up over him.

“I’ll go get food and… very quickly let people know we’re out of commission for the rest of the day…. Pretty sure that might end up resulting in some bet payouts but….” He grinned as Clover laughed groggily at that. 

“You just rest… and the only thing you need to be thinking about is what you want to do after your nap.”

He pressed a kiss to Clover’s temple and turned to leave. But a hand shot out and caught his wrist before he could get off the bed. Clover was sitting up slightly, eyes focusing on Qrow with what Qrow could tell was a good bit of effort. 

“Qrow… I uh…. Hmm... I know what… mmm” He frowned as he yawned again.

“Save it for later, Cloves, you can barely hold your head up.”

“N-no… I want… I wanna make sure it’s okay…” He grinned and let go of Qrow’s wrist, patting his cheek lightly, in a way that was at first jokingly patronizing, but quickly turning into a gentle caress. 

“But… you gotta promise me two things, ok?”

“And what’s that?”

“Gotta promise to tell the truth… and to...mmm… not to cry.” He smiled, trying to keep the moment light. 

Qrow raised an eyebrow.

“O..okay?”

“No, I mean it.” Clover tried to change to a glare but his eyes just kept wanting to close. 

“Ughhh. I mean it, no water works. It...it’s happy… It’d make me happy….” He paused and watched Qrow, his face a little steadier, serious. 

“But… you have to be honest. If you don’t want… if it’s not a good time…I won’t be ups-”

 “I promise, Clover.”

Clover smiled and laid back down, mumbling. 

“....Want you to tell me… tell me more about Summer….” He laughed to himself smiling. 

“I like how happy you look when you talk ‘bout her…” He paused and cracked an eye open to see that Qrow turned away from him, a hand to his mouth, and obviously trying to keep his shoulders steady. 

Clover clumsily threw a hand up, laughing and mumbling happily. 

“Ha! I knew it! You’re sappy too, Mr. Tall Dark and Brooding!” 

Qrow spun around to face him and for a split second Clover worried that he’d crossed a line, that he was about to get yelled at. But Qrow was smiling as tears streaked down his cheeks. 

“That’s because you don’t fucking play fair, Ebi!” He leaned forward quickly, pressing one hand over Clover’s eyes as he kissed him. It was quick, strong, and playfully annoyed. 

“Now shut your eyes and get some fucking rest. I’ll go get food and be back in a bit…” 

Clover thought maybe he wasn’t comfortable with it and just didn’t want to tell him no right then. 

“Qrow… It’s.. it’s okay..” 

Qrow’s hand was still over his eyes, so he didn’t see the eye roll as the older huntsman hopped off the bed. 

“Eyes closed! Sleep! Stop thinking and just sleep….” 

And Clover just barely caught  him mumble to himself 

“How do I keep managing to fall for goofy brats?” 

Clover grinned as he buried his face in his pillow. He didn’t see Qrow pin the charm to his vest, his thumb glancing over it and the cross over his tie in one motion. 

Qrow paused and smiled as he stood at the door, turning back to look at Clover, who was already digging himself deeper under the covers. “I’ll think of some good stories that I haven’t told you yet.”

[toooldforfandom-liveblogs]

RWBY V07E03 - Ace Operatives

I think this episode is going to be about two things: new outfits and a mission with the ace ops. I really want to find out how well RWBY is going to handle having 5 new characters around plus everyone else so let's do this!

Huh, I'd have thought they'd change their outfits before a mission since Ironwood wanted them to upgrade. Wouldn't it make sense to have the better equipment before going on a mission?

Interesting that Qrow is not on the list of Active Huntsmen (congrats everyone else, you're official huntsmen and huntresses now!) Oscar is also absent but I guess he's being held back because he's Ozpin.

How long of a timeskip was this?

Ooh, now it all makes sense. I was a bit confused about the timeline but mission briefing -> upgrades -> first shot of ships flying around fits more than what I was thinking.

Ooh, a promise for even more enhancements!

I don't remember anything too different about Jaune's new outfit that would make him look so forlorn. But I guess any kind of change makes him move further and further away from the Jaune that Pyrrha knew.

The closest Blake has ever been to making a :3 face.

Are they going to talk about Ruby's decision?

I can imagine Pietro holding his face wondering why Blake and Yang requested so many zippers.

It's interesting how Blake almost reads like a completely different character while with Weiss she's still just Weiss but cooler. The difference that a haircut makes.

Or maybe they changed her facial features a bit?

I'm feeling weirdly proud of Jaune having a proper landing strategy. More than the hair and the "complete" armor, I think that's the most noticeable sign of how much he has grown.

Qrow went from pirate to... fancy pirate.

This is the weirdest thing to geek about but I love that Weiss's aura meter is slightly lower than the rest. She used her summons!

I was going to write a bad joke about them being "totally straight and _just_ friends" but screw that, they are gay and cute and I love them.

Weiss is very blush-y this season but I can't tell if it's because of the cold or if it's just more noticeable because she's the one with the lightest skin.

So, which kingdom uses kilograms and which one uses pounds?

Ruby finally realizing that wearing a skirt in the frozen tundra probably isn't be the best of ideas.

Yay, they are addressing it.

I'm glad they are actually talking about it. Did they wait to be outside of Atlas on purpose or is it just a coincidence?

I still can't tell what the show is trying to say about Ozpin. "Honesty is always the best policy" would have worked during the first seasons but the Fall of Beacon changed things enough that being irresponsible with what and how you say things would be naive.

I just can't decide if the show is going to prove Ruby right and Ironwood will turn out to be hiding his worst tendencies from them or wrong, with Ironwood feeling betrayed and maybe causing him to go off the deep end.

Proving her right would redeem Ozpin. Proving her wrong would maybe cause Ozpin to reappear after finally realizing his way of doing things only made things worse.

The way the show is framing the situation, with Ruby clearly feeling uncomfortable, avoiding the question, Yang being worried about it (even though she has always been Ruby's unconditional support), the fact that Ruby is a "honest soul" and this goes against that, makes me think it's going towards the "Ruby is making a mistake" side but who knows. Maybe I'm underestimating the show by thinking there's only two clear choices and it'll do something unexpected and more realistic.

Interesting that Qrow's bad luck manifested in him instead of on Clover. Is Clover's semblance that good of a counter to Qrow's?

I always knew Ren wasn't to be trusted. Only someone evil would make Nora sad. Forget about Watts and Tyrian, I'd watch out for Ren in the future.

I think this the dumbest Jaune has ever been.

Her ears moved! Having someone with super hearing in your team seems like a great idea.

Oh. I thought she heard the Geist. Has she been here before in a White Fang mission?

Nope, not that. Was this explosion where Ilia's parents died?

The use of depth of field during a battle solves all my issues with the way they handle having too many fighters in the same shot. It's just blurry enough to hide the simpler animation the fighters in the background have but clear enough to know who's fighting.

So, what's the name of this ship?

Whenever there's someone "new" that's acting cool I wonder if they are just being set up as awesome to be defeated later on to show how powerful the enemy is. CFVY's introduction in Volume 2 and later defeat in V3 was almost 99% that so I'm hoping this is not a repeat.

I'd have thought that dividing her body to go past obstacles was clue enough for Ruby to maybe start thinking that "go fast" wasn't exactly what her semblance does.

I can't believe they relegated the best part of the episode to the background of a scene.

I commented before (maybe on the Discord?) that I thought Tyrian was trying to stir up the population of Mantle instead of specifically trying to sabotage Hill and I think this supports that idea. It's just the best way to make the population of Mantle feel threatened since it looks like Atlas is trying to silence the opposition by killing journalists and vocal "civilian" supporters, causing even more civil unrest.

It may even improve Hill's chances of winning the election as a response.

I think this was a necessary episode but I'm not a big fan of it. By now it's probably no secret that I can take or leave the fight scenes and the second half's focus in showing off the upgrades and how cool the Ace Ops are made my eyes glaze over a bit. It did have some strong character moments though!

And the outfits are finally here! The more I look at them, the more I like them. It may be just in my head but I feel the character themselves look slightly different too. Blake's head is slightly less... Blake-y (she always looked weird in screenshots in the past) for example. Weiss looks similar but her expressions are more animated. Maybe I'm just imagining things. But the outfits are great in movement and a straight up upgrade for everyone except for maaaybe Jaune's hair which I still can't get used to.

Jaune's growth being so clearly shown in his landing was great, and his armor finally looking "complete" makes it even more obvious that this is not the Jaune that cheated his way in to Beacon. Or rather, he still is but he is so much more.

Blake and Yang's moment was incredibly cute. LOL at anyone who still thinks that they are just totally platonic and straight friends who awkwardly flirt with each other. (I just remembered that a comment about a haircut was one of the biggest clues about what was really going on between two characters in another show I don't want to spoil by accident.)

Weiss is carrying around a lot of guilt which I'm sure will come up later in the season. But, as Marrow said, every human is complicit in the oppression of the faunus, and while Weiss was close to the one of the main direct sources, it's not like she could have solved anything on her own.

Aaand, that's the first half. The second half is mostly the fight which, while it wasn't very interesting for me, it was very well animated and it did do a great job showing not only how cool the Ace Ops are, but also their personality. Pretty notable considering it's a team of five in an episode with eight other characters running around with their own little moments.

Qrow's reaction to Clover is intriguing. There's no way to tell what he's really thinking, the emotions shown across his face are just subtle enough that they could support any theory. Does he resent Clover's "luck"?

In any case the fact that they are _so_ cool and friendly makes me suspect something bad is going to happen. Because nothing good lasts.

Most of the pieces in the OP have already appeared, the only one left is Robyn Hill. Is the fourth episode going to be her premiere? I can't wait. Until next time!

Note from the future: While reading this again before posting I realize it sounds maybe too negative. The dangers of liveblogging while tired instead of waiting a couple of days like I did with Gravity Falls. * sigh *