#But her relationships with Weiss Jaune and Penny are still super important

[the-god-of-nihon]

i don’t actually ship Ruby with anyone i’m not a big shipper in general but genuinely what the fuck is that person talking about?? they really think Ruby and Weiss’ relationship hasn’t changed at all since v1? what alternate reality are they living in i’m baffled

I dunno, this particular person is well-known on the RWBY subreddit for big leaps in logic, downplaying Ruby’s relationships with other characters to prop up rg, and attributing things other characters did to Ozcar.

[kitkatopinions]

Gonna do a quick headcount of things that SHOULD happen before the end of RWBY. No I will not be leaving out things that would be consequences for stuff from seasons ago, just because it'd feel awkward and clunky at this point doesn't mean it still isn't important because it never WAS addressed. And also note that some of these are obviously more important than others, but they all still should happen.

Ruby and Blake should have preferably more than one moment focused on building their friendship.

Members of RWBYJNROQ who don't have established dynamics need at least small relationship building such as Qrow and Blake, Ren and Weiss, Weiss and Oscar, etcetera.

What happened with Pietro and Maria in V8 needs addressed.

Someone needs to talk to Pietro about Penny.

Blake and Yang need to have a conversation where Blake opens up about her past, they address what happened when Blake left, and they talk about Yang's hesitancy to be apart.

Blake and Sun need to have a conversation (if only in passing) about her being with Yang and establishing that they're still friends.

Nora and Ren need time apart and then need to figure out where their relationship is going.

Nora needs a strong character arc outside of Ren.

Emerald needs more work done in her redemption and needs to face some of what she's done and the people she should logically be emotional about leaving behind.

We need to establish the fallout of Atlas going down and the logically-must-be-there distrust that would sprout up around Hunters, the Military, etcetera.

We need to know what will happen to the Schnees and how they're adjusting to things.

Consequences of revealing the Maidens and magic to the general public.

Someone outside of Ruby and freaking Jaune should grieve Penny such as Winter and the Ace Ops.

Weiss needs to be concerned with helping and/or connecting with Whitley.

Oscar and Ozpin's merge needs to be addressed and talked about and potentially happen or they need to find a work around.

Team RWBY + J should tell their friends what happened in the Ever After.

We need to address the Ruby stuff in V9, Ruby's recovery cannot be super quick, WBY and Jaune especially should step up and admit their part in it.

We need to address what's been happening in Vale.

We need to find out where the last two Relics are and the group needs to work to protect them from Salem.

We need to get the Relics in Salem's hands out of her hands.

We need to know who the Summer Maiden is.

We need to have the group realize that Raven is the Spring Maiden and address Yang's lie.

God knows I hate when he gets focus, but we need Jaune to deal with what happened to him and specifically give some focus to him reuniting with his team and them reacting to him mentally being like forty.

We need to deal with the whole 'once the Relics are united, the gods will come back and wipe out humanity if it isn’t perfect' thing.

People still need to learn to be sympathetic to Oz and not treat him like an enemy.

We need to learn about and deal with whatever Mercury and Tyrian are doing in Vacuo.

We need to establish what's happening with the Ace Ops and Happy Huntresses.

We need to figure out what's happening with Qrow and deal with how he handled Ruby and Yang supposedly 'dying.'

We need to establish what life is like for the Atlas/Mantle refugees and what Vacuo is doing for them.

We need to establish Theodore as a character and why we the audience should trust or like him.

We still need members of Oz's inner circle to emotionally deal with what happened with Ironwood.

We need characters that should by all rights be a bit more important to get brought back in and be at least a little involved such as Glynda, Taiyang, Ilia, and Sun and Neptune.

We need to know what really happened to Summer and deal with the fallout of whatever it is.

Yang and Ruby need something to heal the rift between them.

We need people to figure out a way to defeat Salem.

We need to have people struggling to get people together to fight Salem and deal with possible conflicts surrounding that (considering the fact that having an army was considered a sign of pure evil when it was Ironwood)

We need to defeat Salem.

If CRWBY intends to bring in the Crown from the ATF/BTD books, they need to be established and dealt with as well.

This is all just off the top of my head! Yes, some of these things seem like they're going to be (badly) addressed in passing from the little promo that was originally supposed to end V9, but we don’t know how much of that will change and I personally am unsatisfied with almost everything in it and still think we need further exploring for all that stuff. (And no, I'm not considering Justice League or RWBY Beyond to be good enough if the main series doesn't make sense or have emotional payoff.)

My point here is... There is so much left to do in RWBY (arguably that should've been done AGES ago,) that I'm having a really hard believing much of it will be done. And I fear that whatever they do try to deal with will just be jam packed into the next season at the speed of light with no real payoff and it'll wind up badly done or unsatisfying because of it. Especially if they try to introduce loads more in V10 the way they did in V9.

RWBY is for sure the show with good concepts, because while I was writing out that list, I was sitting here thinking about how some of it could be pretty good and impactful in the hands of good writers. But it's also the show of no emotional payoff, and I seriously doubt that this next season is gonna deliver.

[majoringinsarcasm]

It wouldn’t be my favorite show if ppl didn’t keep up the 10 year long tradition of not acknowledging banana boy as an important character the writers write things about on purpose. Feels like home going out this way.

“Why did they waste an episode focusing on JAUNE instead of anyone else? What about Ruby or Raven or Yang?!”

Deep breath.

Because the company is shutting down and anything that they release are the episodes or parts of the episodes they had already finished and can edit in such a way where they feel it’s good enough to release.

We don’t know. And may never know. What their entire plan for Beyond is. The last stream is on the 26 so maybe someone will ask how many episodes they had PLANNED before learning THE COMPANY WAS BEING SHUT DOWN.

“This is the very first entry in which I guess is going to become my journal.”

Maybe their goal was for 12 mini episodes to touch on specific things that they can’t show super in depth in volume 10 / things they wanted to shine a light on. In rwby proper Sun and Neptune being silly goofy detectives would not match the somber and serious tone of the epilogue we saw. Much like world of remnant was a world building story book of exposition and narration, Beyond doesn’t quite fit into show proper. What I love about rwby being a web series is that it CAN have these offshoots and branches and funny side things and STILL have the main story. Like an OVA.

IF we had gotten Ruby v9 aftermath in this episode instead: what would ppl be okay with seeing. It’s less than six minutes just like volume one episodes. She could not “Tell Yang about Raven, bond with Oscar, have a talk with Pietro” all at the same time. If anyone reads this then maybe they’ll snap “any one of those is better than what we got” and maybe they truly believe that. Or maybe if crwby picked the “wrong” thing to focus on they’d say why This and not That.

The company is shutting down and anything that is released is what they already had finished Enough.

Knocks on the glass. We still have Two Whole Episodes. Next week could be Bees or Weiss family or Penny talk or Ruby. We. Don’t. Know!!!!! What I do know is that it feels familiar in a toxic relationship way to see people bitching YES BITCHING about having a Jaune focused episode. That’s an uncomfortable constant. Won’t miss it but as the Company Shuts Down it truly feels like old times.

The episode was amazing by the way in case people haven’t watched it bc of Jaune. The art style is lovely, it showcases the lingering trauma of the ever after. It’s got Jaune having sympathy for Oscar. “He never apologized!!” And neither did Emerald who episodes before joining the team was helping Cinder fight Penny. It’s not a plot hole. It’s not lazy writing. We clearly have seen Jaune grow to care and worry about Oscar post his volume 6 wall push. Immediate after that he’s so upset when they find out he’s missing. I’m assuming in the show context they had made up. Just like I’m assuming Raven has told ppl she’s the spring maiden after her daughter went missing. Like. I too wish we saw more of things but we didn’t and we gotta move on about what isn’t gonna happen or might not happen the way we Think It Should.

It’s less than a month until the company is shut down along with the apps. Isn’t that fucked.

I WANT to tag this. But I won’t. But if you do find and read this please know that I’m not knocking people for Wanting Other Characters. I’m 100% on board with man I wish we had gotten a glimpse into someone else.

But under the circumstances of who they can get, what they’ve already made, and just. Their own emotions about working so hard for something they might never get the legal rights to work on again. Having a short episode about the secondary main character of the show (I count all of team rwby as main characters all four are the mains) after what he’s gone through and the specific context of feeling out of place. Coming Back Changed in a way that relates to Oscar. Was Intentional.

And to be perfectly honest if they took up five minutes of a show proper episode yall would fucking riot so. As a Jaune fan who understands the anting to see team rwby count your blessing this Jaune Feelings is presented the way it is bc again. Yall would throw a fit if this was a PART of the show proper.

[warriordreamer95]

RWBY Volume 7 Crew Commentary Notes!

All credit goes to Sweetfable over on Reddit! Sweet, if you’re on Tumblr and have already posted this or want to, let me know and I’ll take this down!

Chapter 1

Featuring Kerry Shawcross and  Miles Luna.

Miles says he was hoping people didn’t figure out Atlas was a floating city in the sky before they got there. Even in World of Remnant, they were very careful with how they worded things to avoid spoiling this fact.

A large portion of ep 1 was intended to be in V6

Originally it was going to end with Penny being revealed, dealing with the Grimm, and ending on “Salutations”

Almost everything up until the Penny moment was how it was going to be in V6. For production and story reasons they decided to end V6 with just seeing Atlas.

Mantle is a little more Blade Runner and utilitarian looking, while Atlas was made to look like it was created by Apple. Two different futuristic looks.

When making the four kingdoms, they compared it to parts of the real world. Atlas and Mantle were two different versions of America

The drunk guy (Drunk Mann) we see insulting Blake is based off of Joel Mann and the other is Dustin Matthew (Grape-kun).

We saw Pietro (his hand) for the first time in Volume 3. They didn’t want to make him too similar to Dr. Weller from gen:LOCK, and so they made him to be like a ‘big’ kid. It’s where Penny gets a lot of her attitude from.

Kerry wants to do a show with all the old RWBY characters

V8 was harder to write than V7

It was a challenge in this episode to make it clear that Atlas is a new place for some characters, but a familiar one for several others, but that the Atlas in V7 is a different one than what they remember.

They try to theme the grimm to the location. So Grimm from Atlas are those that are from the Ice Age.

Miles compare Grimm to Pokemon. Some will pop up in every region, while others are region specific.

They had a lot of discussion surrounding what they wanted Penny 2.0 to look like. They considered giving her a conflict of her being a clone or not having her memories, but ultimately with the amount of stuff that needed to happen this volume they felt that it wouldn’t have been able to be done well.

Chapter 2

Featuring Kerry, Conner (director), and Kiersi

Forest became a fan-favorite

This episode was tricky to write because it was getting close to being an exposition dump

They had to balance movement and how much the characters can emote (especially when characters lie this episode)

Ironwood’s office shifting to present his plan was a cool idea + it was another way to stay in the room without having things get boring

Really wanted team RWBY to feel like they were on the right path and had something to follow. Establishing the trust theme early on.

Qrow and Ironwood’s relationship is super interesting to Kerry, and he wishes they could have explored it more. Conner pushed for Qrow’s hand to be lower in the hug scene (lol)

Conner jokes that he also proposed Ironwood should propose to Oscar when kneeling

Ironwood giving the relic back was his biggest sign of trust

They comment about how positively Penny states ‘it’ll be just like Beacon again!’ when she got destroyed there in V3

Kerry calls Watts ‘Daddy Long Legs’

Chapter 3

Featuring Kerry and Miles

They were confused when they saw people on Reddit and Tumblr think that this volume would have a shopping montage

Team RWBY jumping out of a plane is a callback to landing strategies and to see how far they have come since V1

The crew thought everyone would love Jaune’s new haircut, and was shocked when everyone immediately hated it. Miles wanted to see Jaune grow up a bit, so he liked the change.

They wanted team RWBY to start acting like and learning from professional huntsman

Miles wanted Atlas to feel like the Beacon days at first, and first came up with the idea that some Atlas academy professors would teach them. But that evolved into mentors, which eventually became Atlas’s best of the best.

The Ace-Ops are not only fun characters, but also foils to some of our main characters to help move their stories along

The Ace-Ops having five members + a team name not based on a color was very intentional. It was to show that Ironwood doesn’t care about Oz’s rules and would rather have an efficient team.

Eddy came up with the name Ace-Ops. Each member is based off an Aesop fable.

The mine scene has us seeing the SDC logo everywhere. Adam, as a terrible of a person as he was, when he was younger, was arguing with someone at a SDC place and the other person grabbed a brand and gave him his scar. So seeing the logo all over the mine was very intentional to put that in the forefront of Blake’s mind, and Yang notices

The fight with the Centinel grimm was originally supposed to be a bit longer and there was going to be an alpha variant of the centinel (which they imply we will see in the future)

Some characters got more upgrades than others. Weiss is already perfect, so she didn’t need any changes. Miles was excited that they were able to give Ren heavy rounds to shoot with. Ren has his father’s dagger on his arm

Many things that seem like retcons are actually not, and instead is just Kerry and Miles learning how to tell a story while simultaneously telling a story. So things were not always explained well early on.

Qrow and Clover were an interesting couple of characters, Miles says. For a long time Qrow was the guy that worked best alone (compared to Shadow the Hedgehog) and wanted him to interact with people that aren't his nieces and their friends. Clover was made to be a total bro and like Captain America- who always makes luck puns. He constantly feels like he is in an action movie because things always go right for him, so he doesn’t need to look where he’s about the jump. Which ultimately leads to someone who relies too much on their semblance. He rides the line of confidence vs arrogance. Clover is kind of person that Qrow always wanted to be. At the beginning of their friendship, Qrow doesn’t really like Clover and finds him irritating. But eventually it evolved into friendship, and later tragedy.

They left RWBY out of the battle of the Ace Ops vs the Geist to showcase how they didn’t need RWBY to get things done. It was their moment to shine

Wanted to give a sense in these first few episodes that, maybe everything will work out okay

Spoiler alert: It won’t

Chapter 4

Featuring Paula (co-director), Dustin (co-director), Eddy Rivas, Kerry Shawcross

Wanted a chance for the characters to breathe a bit before bigger things went down

Kerry loves the lighting in the first scene. They referenced how lighting looks in the tundra

The first draft of the scene where Ironwood is giving orders originally happened in his office

From V5 they learned it’s great to be efficient with sets but they can fatigue the audience and the crew

Originally the celebration wasn’t going to be in Amity, and instead it was going to be in Atlas’s version of an auditorium.

The ship Jacques arrives in is the same one Winter arrives from in V3. It’s a Schnee company ship

Paula thought it was important that Blake hold Weiss’s hand and be the first to stand by her side when Jaques is yelling at Weiss since Blake knows what it is like to be in an abusive relationship. Ruby and Yang didn’t even really know a father would talk like that to his daughter.

They were excited to write Penny and Winter’s ‘mirror-destiny’, which they laid some of the foundation for this episode

Qrow talking to Ruby was barely on the outline for the episode, but it was on their wish list if they had time to get it in.

Dustin says ‘fatherly’ when describing the moment and Kerry is like, ‘you just opened up a whole can of worms’

Eddy loves the ‘Jim��� gag when referring to Jaune.

Watt’s entrance was a difficult shot to execute properly because of the door.

Chapter 5

Featuring Conner, Eddy, and Kerry

They originally weren’t sure about having a montage in this episode

The penguins we see for a moment were possibly going to be grimm penguins

Kerry wants RT to sell the cards Clover has, and Eddy thinks it’s funny he would have cards with him emblem on them.

They liked having the moment of Clover and Qrow in the middle of this episode to show that Qrow is now becoming a mentee of sorts.

Adding in the Robin encounter was a late addition to the outline. She wasn’t going to be introduced until Chapter 6 during her rally

But they wanted to put the two factions head to head earlier on.

It was also the first moment of Clover being a bit duplicitous.

The plot line of tying the supplies through Robin’s storyline was a late addition while writing

Weiss vs Winter with summoning is a callback to V3C4 with them training together

Weiss being able to sit on hard-light (a block) is something Kerry was unsure about at first

Originally Weiss and Winter going to see Fria was going to be Winter getting an alert from Ironwood and having to leave, and Weiss following her suspiciously. But it worked better as Winter revealing a secret while Weiss was still keeping one

Chapter 6

Featuring Paula, Kiersi, Miles, Eddy, and Kerry

Eddy is the one who came up with the idea for the middle part of the season while he had a really bad fever

Originally Tyrian was going to make it look like a bunch of Atlas soldiers fired on civilians in Mantle. Then Eddie thought it should frame RWBY, but ultimately they went with framing Penny.

Nobody has ever offered Penny a fist bump before, so she wanted to do it perfectly

An old draft had the team and Ironwood doing an investigation at this warehouse post-massacre

There was also no montage in C5, just them sitting around a table talking about what they did

Miles also mentions there was going to be a scene in C3 with Marrow trying to bond with Blake about being a Faunus, and also about him specifically being a Faunus in Atlas who is a part of Atlas’s military team. But that episode was so packed they wanted to move it to C6, but then that episode also became too packed. But they plan to get to it in future volumes

They wanted to show how much the Happy Huntresses care about each other and about Mantle

They also originally did not want to have anything political in this season. But the more iterations they did, they felt it was the best course of action to do that with the story.

They wanted to give the heroes a high personal moment with Renora kissing right before things went down

Penny was not used to fighting sneaky enemies, so that is how Tyrian got the upper hand

While they don’t usually check back up on extras, things turned out that we kept seeing Drunk Mann and Grape-kun throughout the season to represent the city of Mantle

Chapter 7

Featuring Conner, Kiersi, Miles, Eddy, and Kerry

Fiona’s semblance was originally going to be Torchwick’s semblance, and it was called Deep Pockets. But they never found a moment for him to use it. So they decided he could be a great example of how some people don’t unlock their semblances

Originally some of C7 was meant for C4 where they found out earlier that Tyrian was involved with things

Miles wrote the description we got of Tyrian’s past (Salem first contacting Tyrian), and it was one of his favorite things to write.

Qrow looking at Clover when he is willing to go with Ironwood’s plan was meant to show some distance growing between the two

We were going to get more of Ren explaining why he was feeling the way he was and agreeing with Ironwood, but ultimately they are pushing it to next volume

Originally Blake and Yang were going to directly reference Adam when they had their talk, but they later figured out how to reference him indirectly

The arm robot Pietro has in his office was originally going to have more of a character like the robotic arm Tony Stark has

They tried hard to get Maria more scenes, but there was often no room for it

Miles realizes he was dumb to suggest that Pietro cover Watt’s face with his thumb while looking at a picture since they already did that with Raven in V3

The lady in the photograph with black hair is not Cinder’s mom (which was apparently a fan theory)

Robin encountering the Bees was a late edition to the outline. But it gave every member of RWBY a moment

They wanted the vault in the Academy to feel similar to the one in Haven but not a direct copy

Miles believes that if Ironwood would allow himself to be more vulnerable more often things would’ve gone differently

The invitation to the Schnee manor was originally going to be to a news conference

Chapter 8

Featuring Dustin, Miles, and Kerry

They didn’t specify what the hood ornament on the car would be, so Dustin was happy when it came back as a velociraptor, which references a raptor Monty Oum would put in photos with RWBY characters

Fans have guessed what direction they are going with Whitley. He starts off as a jerk, but Miles implies that is going to change. It is also an easy way to remind the audience of how the elite act

At the table, Jacques’s chair is bigger than everyone else's

Miles wrote the gag of JNR sabotaging Whitley’s conversation with Weiss and expected it to take only a few seconds, but as more people worked on it the longer it got

The stack of food was taller than Dustin expected it to be, and they even had to scale it back because it was going to be even taller

Another power move of Jacques is to only give a few people wine, as well as not giving Penny any food

Willow was originally going to be in the intro

A joke was made about Salem being Jaune’s sister in the V6 intro before everyone knew who she was

None of the writers expected Penny and Winter to have such a bond this volume initially

Miles wanted to portray when Weiss is talking to Willow that she doesn’t really know how to act around an adult with such an adult issue. Since Weiss is quite young (Miles compared it to him having to help an adult with an adult issue when he was 13)

Chapter 9

Featuring Paula (director), Kiersi, Eddy, and Kerry

It was difficult to keep the shots interesting in the dining room

We see Grape-kun and Drunk Mann again this episode

In earlier chapters they made sure to have an orange glow to represent the heating in Mantle since they knew it would be turned off in chapter 8

They wanted to showcase that Ironwood was starting to have doubts, which would later be clearly seen in episode 11

The foot soldiers (AKs) that the Grimm are able to overwhelm in only a few seconds were meant to represent that Atlas wouldn’t provide them with much defense against Grimm because they don’t care enough

Every storyline was coming together in this episode, and it’s tricky to make a setup episode like this not seem like filler

Ruby and Oscar’s awkward interaction came from them both ‘riding the high’ of the moment where it seems like they each have great plans that will go well.

Oscar is starting to tap into some of Ozpin’s memories, as alluded to when he mentions how Atlas is held to a higher standard

Terry the grimm being hit by a fireball (part of a plane I believe) was a call back to Jurassic Park

They struggled a long time with where to put the Neo reveal

Chapter 10

Featuring Conner, Dustin, Kiersi, and Kerry

They felt that if they showed a lot in the first scene of the episode, they wouldn’t have to saturate the background with other fires and crowds.

The shot of Weiss’s knight being summoned and overshadowing Marrow is setting up their fight in C12

When seeing the shots of the enemies infiltrating the kingdom, they didn’t know if they wanted to show Neo and Cinder or Tyrian and Watts first. But they went with Neo and Cinder because it would show that they thought their cover was blown, when it would really be about the other two.

The place Neo and Cinder are staying at is an Atlas ‘high-life’ apartment

They always knew Elm would have a rocket launcher/bazooka, but never got the time needed to show it until now

They had to restructure Mantle a bit to allow the huge elephant to fit in the streets

The main characters working with the Ace Ops in this episode was to make it so things hurt so much more after events in the following one

All the background characters apparently have little backstories as they made sure they didn’t appear in two places at the same time

Ironwood jumps down a ridiculous number of feet to meet Watts. They had to cheat to not make that so obvious as well as say this is animation logic so people working on the shot would stop questioning how he could possibly make it.

Chapter 11

Featuring Kerry, Paula, and Miles

Originally a gravity biome in Amity was going to appear in V3C5. It was going to be Sun and Neptune vs Pyrrha and Nora. It was written, boarded, and ready to go but they realized there wasn’t time for it

This was a hard episode to write. A lot of stuff that needed to happen, and happen in a specific way

Watt’s gun was inspired a 20-shot revolver Kerry saw on Reddit

Ironwood losing another hand represents him losing another part of his humanity (possibly confirming he lost his one organic arm)

The first cut of this episode was 23 minutes and was deemed too long so they had to scale back, but they still felt they kept in everything that was needed to make the episode great

Initially the Tyrian vs Qrow, Robyn, and Clover fight was going to be a chase that turns into a fight that turns into another chase. And Qrow is the only one that could keep up with Tyrian since he can transform into a bird. Qrow would land in front of Tyrian and say ‘that’s enough’ and Tyrian would ask, ‘are you able to talk when you’re a bird or do you have to wait until you’re a person to throw your one-liners?’ (Tyrian asking the real questions here) Tyrian’s lack of self-preservation would be shown even more. He would have run down an alley packed with Grimm and would just trust that he could’ve made it through

The fight with Tyrian was initially going to be more of a Tyrian vs Qrow fight, but Miles loves that they made it a 3 v 1 so it could show off Tyrian’s exceptional skill

The fight was also a callback to the first Tyrian vs Qrow fight, where Ruby tried to be good back up for Qrow but was ineffective. But instead this time have Robyn and Clover be effective and more experienced teammates

Clover is defense, Qrow is offense, and Robyn is picking away at Tyrian with her long-ranged weapon

There was going to be more discussion of where Oscar was at the end of the episode, as well as a whole bit where the Ace Ops and the kids land and they get a hand-written note saying they’ve been compromised instead of getting it via scroll, but it turned out to be too much

The scene of Ironwood talking to RWBY and his turn to being against them was the most important scene in the episode, and something everything in the season had to build up to

Miles said it was about time the two sides met face to face with RWBY meeting Salem

They wanted to make Ironwood’s progression into villainy subtle and make sense

Salem made things personal for Ironwood, so he felt like he had to come up with a solution

They wanted more Cinder and Neo in the volume but had to cut back. But to compensate they had to be instrumental to the collapse of Ironwood (Miles first said collapse of Atlas so wonder if he slipped up)

Chapter 12

Featuring Dustin, Conner, Kiersi, Eddy, and Kerry

They wanted to have a false sense of resolution in the previous episode just to blow everything up here

Eddy handled the Ace Ops vs RWBY and Winter scenes while Kiersi handled the rest

Kerry learned from V5 that having everyone in one room for a fight doesn’t work well

Eddy is a big Weiss stan

Clover has no idea who he’s up against with Tyrian, and thinks of Qrow as the big threat, as well as Tyrian manipulating Qrow

Clover saw both Qrow and Tyrian on the wrong side of the law, so he felt like he had to fight both of them no matter what

They made sure team RWBY can’t just stomp on the Ace Ops, but still show their teamwork. Plus the lack of Clover being there didn’t allow for the team to have a ‘cheat code’

This is another episode they had to trim down in length

Cinder was always going to lay waste to the medical facility and attack Winter

They also wanted to do a Qrow vs Tyrian reprisal

Kerry said he loves Clover

It was crazy for Qrow to meet someone that was a genuinely good person

Chapter 13

Featuring Miles, Kerry, and Eddy

The Neo vs ORNJ fight could have been shorter

At one point they wanted to show Cinder using maiden magic to bring some dead AKs (Atlesian-Knight) back to life to fight Penny (was going to be some sort of puppet joke).

But Miles realized that Cinder could just blow up the room and bust through the walls

Ren is struggling with some heavy emotional stuff that is not resolved at all this volume, but it is hinted there will be a lot more for him next volume.

The writers knew a lot of people wouldn’t be happy with Ren’s attitude this volume. But he still cares about Nora, even if he doesn’t always communicate it well

Miles cried during the voice over session of Fria’s scenes for this episode

They had a lot of talks about how the maiden power would be transferred. They debated if Penny would have to kill Fria.

Originally one pod was going to be broken, with the one with Fria being in tact. But because Penny is a robot, she could ‘remote-interface in’ and get the powers. But that still felt like stealing, and they didn’t want to go that route.

Oscar has matured so much in his role (joking call him Farm Man)

Ironwood is still expecting Oz to show up. He still really wants that guidance

Ironwood arguing with Oscar was the finale scene they wrote this episode

Ironwood feels that he is backed into a corner and is doing the only sensible thing.

Winter was waiting to be the Winter Maiden her whole life, but in a split second she gives it all up

There was one line in Oz’s monologue they were struggling with for a whole day

They loved the idea of ending the volume on almost an identical shot from where they started

Neo’s look after Cinder takes the relic and doesn’t thank Neo for getting it is setting up some things for V8 (probably a betrayal)

Oz came back at that moment because he heard what Oscar said to Ironwood and that made him brave enough to return

Miles reveals that the Grimm whale is based on Monstro from Pinocchio

It is once again said that Volume 8 is the hardest one they had to write so far. Miles seems super excited about it

Volume 8 was made with some fan-input in mind (since it was still being written by the time V7 ended), but Volume 9 will be the first one written in a vacuum

[caithyra]

Aspirations and Aspersions

Y’know, writing that ramble about the Volume 8 OP made me realize that James Ironwood gave/offered RWBY everything they wanted out of life as huntresses as per Ruby talking to Ozpin about becoming a huntress in the interrogation/entrance room and the other three in Mountain Glenn’s camp.

Ruby: “My parents always taught us to help others, so I thought, Hey, I might as well make a career out of it! I mean the police are alright, but Huntsmen and Huntresses are just so much more romantic and exciting and cool and really, gosh, you know!” - Volume 1: Ruby Rose

Ironwood: “Ruby, I feel it's appropriate to let you know that I think what you did last night is exactly what being a Huntress is all about. You recognized a threat. You took action. And you did the very best you could.” - Volume 2: Field Trip

Weiss states that she wants to fix public perception of the Schnee Dust Company by being a heroic huntress, and that her father has been bad, and we know he’s been abusive towards her now and that she specifically went to an academy in another kingdom to get away.

Ironwood publicly defends her at the gala and assures her that if she cannot stand living with her father, she can join his academy and be safe there and a huntress to boot.

Blake’s entire character is about the (botched) racism arc against faunus, and more broadly, about prejudice (since she also fights against faunus she finds “prejudiced” against humans). She states that she became a huntress to fight the good fight as part of regular society, instead of the unlawful acts she committed before and her mentor (yes, she calls Adam a mentor and partner in this episode, never boyfriend or even “guy I liked”) still does.

Ironwood, in super-racist Atlas, as the headmaster of the academy has the entire kingdom represented by a flamboyantly perky faunus who is not ashamed to show what she is, and a man from impoverished circumstances, at the most important international event in the entire world, that symbolizes friendship and harmony (it is played out in the Amity Arena for goodness’ sake!). As the general he also has a faunus on his most famous top team in the military. In short, he’s using his institutional power for good as much as he can while staying within the boundaries of societal rules so that he wont lose those powers and abilities to help.

(Also, there’s that whole “running away” thing... I wonder how Blake would have liked it if she was trapped with Adam immediately following the Fall of Beacon instead of on her way to her tropical paradise palace family home...?)

Yang just want an adventurous life where she is free to do as she wishes. After she lost her arm and fell into depression, that was threatened. And society is not built for one-handed people, so even if she pulled out of her depression without a prosthetic, she would have to face the frustration of moving about in a world made for two-handed people and her diminished fighting ability, since she would need to learn an entirely new fighting style to compensate.

Ironwood, when global communications are down and people are panicking because a kingdom has fallen on the last international broadcast, manages to get a state-of-the-art, custom-made for Yang’s semblance (or it would break), prosthetic arm to the other side of the world for her, no strings attached and for free, which means that she has a choice whether or not to go through the physical frustrations of losing an arm (have to tie a ribbon? A zipper that wont close unless you hold the edges together with another hand? There are many, many little frustrations to remind Yang of her loss in everyday life), and to keep her usual fighting style.

And yet, once they all are reunited with Ironwood, they are not happy to see him as he is to see them, they are not his allies but present themselves as if they are, and so he gives them even more gifts; upgraded tools of their trade, training by masters of their trade, clothing, gear, a place to stay and food and a job (these are things, btw, we usually only expect parents to give children and even then, if the children are adults like RWBY, many would say that it shouldn’t be an expectation, but just a nice thing to do. RWBY aren’t even citizens of his beleaguered kingdom and he goes this far for them).

And RWBY’s conclusion is that he cannot be trusted.

Here’s the thing, I could see JNR argue it because they could blame Ironwood in part for Pyrrha’s death. Especially if Weiss describes the machinery around the Winter Maiden that Winter took her to see (sharing top secret info with RWBY just because they love and support them, and Winter is loyal to Ironwood and he clearly likes her, so Winter’s trust is also reflected in Ironwood’s trust), and Jaune recognizes it as the same type of thing around Amber and Pyrrha.

But RWBYOQ? If so, they should have mistrusted everyone else as well. No suddenly thinking Robyn’s cool (unless Robyn does something more than Ironwood to personally win over Yang and Blake), and no happy smiles when they train/work with other people because they would feel tense and mistrustful.

No Clover and Qrow bonding. No Marrow babysitting the kids. No happiness at Penny being rebuilt (which should have won Ruby over alone, since it was Ironwood who enabled it) without hesitation. Weiss should have started picking fights with Winter with snide comments as she did with Whitley, as that is common when trust issues suddenly manifest in a close relationship and there’s no fear of retaliation.

But we don’t get that. What we get is that Ironwood is specifically considered untrustworthy by RWBY without any of them dissenting or even raising the argument that “hey, he actually helped us out a lot in the past, and he seems happy to see us, maybe we shouldn’t outright lie to him? I’m not saying tell him everything, just the bits he needs to know right now before he wastes valuable resources and time on a fool’s errand.”.

That’s why it is so jarring, and why the villainization of Ironwood is so suspect to many of the audience; by the rules of the world before he shot Oscar, RWBY weren’t in the right to do what they did, but now when he shot Oscar and the councilman, it is supposed to show us how right they were.

Except that unless silver eyes gives Ruby the ability to look into the future, it doesn’t work that way.

And don’t get me started on how Ruby is treating Penny in Volume 8...

[valkyrieelysia18]

RWBY Rewrite: Pyrrha Nikos

Hello again! And this time I get to use that for the right post. Today we are taking a look at one of the characters that got severely short changed when it came to character development Pyrrha Nikos.

Pyrrha is perhaps one of the more popular characters of RWBY and her background and fighting abilities gave her immense potential. Her personality was rather sweet too. Unfortunately, the first two volumes didn’t really give her much outside of Jaune and when we finally got something in the third volume, she got killed off. Here’s the thing....I don’t actually mind that she got killed off.

Now before you all crucify me, let me explain. Volume 3 was a mixed bag of storytelling, but I don’t have any problems with the deaths and losses. It was a good way of setting the tone going forward: People are going to die, characters we have grown close to aren’t safe, and even our main team is not untouchable. Pyrrha’s death, the death of the seemingly untouchable perfect hero that seemed fated for success, was honestly a good idea.....executed poorly.

To get what I’m going on about, I’m going to talk about one of the few things I think the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime did better Brotherhood; the buildup and death of Maes Hughes. We get introduced to him a couple of years prior to the story’s present and when we come back to the current time, we see Maes quite a bit whether it helping the other characters or just him being his loveable self. We know him and his family very well. We see him as a father, a husband, a soldier, and a friend. When he dies, its a genuine gut punch. Especially because we know he had a life prior to the plot.

That was never something I got from Pyrrha. For someone who hates her fame, we don’t really see her deal with it all that much outside of her first conversation with Weiss and the Pumpkin Pete’s advertising which one episode in early Volume 1. We only get her talking about one member of her family (her mother) and it’s never brought up again. No, that scene in Argus does not count. Show, don’t tell is a very much a problem with Pyrrha’s story arc.

Then of course there is the biggest problem of all this: her relationship with Jaune. Now, I’m going to get into this more when we get to the Rewrite for the Jaunedice Arc, but I’ll give you a brief overview of feelings on him. I like Jaune and I don’t think that he’s an inherently bad character. He does have some good qualities and potential. Unfortunately, even though I like Jaune, I recognize that he has gotten way too much screen time (to the detriment of many other characters including Ruby and Pyrrha) and he has gotten away with a lot of things with little blowback to himself. I guess I’m more inclined to blame the writers than Jaune because everyone is done in by the writing. So, it’s still going to be there, but majorly changed to make it a lot more balanced and believable. Basically, the relationship is important to her, but it doesn’t define who she is as a character.

I feel this writing is going to get a bit more in depth so prepare yourself accordingly. Also note that I dropped RWBY after Volume 6 so anything introduced or mentioned in Volume 7 and beyond will be disregarded. So let’s get into it!

Before Beacon: Prophecy and Fame

In this Rewrite, Pyrrha was born in a port city in Southern Anima that draws heavily from the Ancient Greco-Roman culture. She was the only child of very prosperous merchants, her family having gained great wealth following the Great War due to their ties to other kingdoms in trade. Much like Weiss’s family, they’re relatively noveau rich. Her parents doted on her and when she got older, they saw she was a natural in the art of combat. They took her to a seer in the city, an older woman by the name of Laurel Visione who as you might guess is a reference to the Oracle of Delphi. Laurel tells Pyrrha and her parents that she was blessed with great strength and talent. That her star is bright and she has the ability to become a great warrior with a great destiny.

Her parents are pleased by these words, but Pyrrha notices the woman seems to be holding something back. As her parents leave, she lingers behind and asks the woman about it. Laurel smiles and tells that those gifted with that much brightness, also tend to burn out young. She goes on and tells Pyrrha that if she chooses the path of a hero, she will save many lives and inspire many more, but it will also take her away from what she truly wants. It doesn’t mean that she will die, free will should always be taken into account, but if she chooses this path she will meet death sooner rather than later. She’s telling Pyrrha this because it’s her destiny, not her parents, and its up to her to choose how she’s going to face that destiny. As a parting piece of advice, she tells her that everything happens for a reason, even if we don’t see that reason until much later.

Pyrrha keeps this all in mind, as well as keeping it a secret from her parents. We’ll get back to Laurel later.

Her parents, unaware of this, go all out in supporting her in her training. With every new tournament and success, their pride grows even more. They do however realize, that the success is affecting her standing among her peers, her fame making it all but impossible for her to have friends. There is an also accident with Pyrrha’s semblance that almost permanently injured someone because Pyrrha lost control. As a result, Pyrrha only uses a fraction of her semblance’s power and that gives more context to when she got upset during Volume 3 when she used it on Jaune in the courtyard.

When she announces to her parents she’s applying for Beacon, they’re shocked. Not everyone who graduates from a combat school ends up at the Academies (such institutes are super competitive) and with Pyrrha’s semblance mainly geared towards fighting people, throwing away her tournament career when she’s at the top of her game seems rash. Tournament fighting isn’t easy and isn’t as prestigious as being a Huntress, but it’s also much safer with sanctioned rules and the paycheck being just as lucrative. Not to mention, she’d be doing her schooling on a completely different continent. As parents, they love their daughter and want what's best for her, but they honestly can’t understand why she’s doing this. Nevertheless, she’s made her decision and there’s nothing they can say to change her mind. All they can do is see her off with a smile and wish her well.

Beacon: Fame, Friendship, and Love

Now a somewhat constant thing that comes up with Pyrrha during her school days is that her fame is very much hanging over her. Students are constantly trying to get her autograph, people like Cardin try to rile her up, and during the tournament some Haven students openly disparage her for transferring to another kingdom. This will eventually allow her and Weiss to get closer, as Weiss has had to deal with fame and even higher expectations since she was younger than Pyrrha.

Her relationship with her teammates become the first genuine experiences she has with friendship; Nora is a great workout buddy who makes everyone laugh and Ren is someone she can talk a lot of things over with such as the differences between Central Anima and Southern Anima. However, she is new to working with a team and it takes her a little while to get used to it. This is part of the reason why she’s so trusting of Jaune’s leadership at the beginning until it is shaken by him revealing the truth about his transcripts.

Of course, being a rewrite she also gets a lot more interaction with Team RWBY. Her relationship with Ruby is very much highlighted with the younger girl being a tad more idealistic and naïve with Pyrrha being a bit more reserved and more knowledgeable about her future goals. These two are very much foils to each other, which I will get to later on.

Then of course there is her relationship with Jaune. In the show, she says that Jaune was the first person to treat her as a regular girl and this rewrite will be showing that. While others will be interested in her accolades and fame, Jaune will show interest in Pyrrha as a person like the things she enjoys and what growing up for her was like. They start on a strong friendship with Pyrrha’s feelings developing into something more and Jaune a tad more oblivious to it. This will definitely change their relationship from Volumes 1 and 2, but not 3. Though I would probably cut out one of the Arkos songs because there are two more than it needs to be. It gives off the impression that Pyrrha defined herself solely by her relationship with Jaune and you never want to make a character come off as just a love interest to another character. And there are so many other people who would probably benefit with a song POV.

Death: Aftermath and Distrust

The main difference about Pyrrha’s death in canon and this rewrite is that her death affects everyone in the main group, especially her teammates and Ruby. Jaune is still very affected as he was her partner and friend and still has very conflicted thoughts over her romantic feelings towards him, but Ren and Nora are also noticeably grieving her in their own ways. Ruby tries to bottle it up most of the time, much like how she treats a lot of her negative emotions and that comes back to bite her much later on when she is at her lowest and reaches her emotional breaking point. For most of the story, she gets very haunting dreams about Pyrrha (occasionally accompanied by Penny) saying that she has accepted her destiny and questions what Ruby is going to do. This will be foreshadowing for what I’ll talk about in the next section.

The biggest effect that Pyrrha’s death has is that JNR is much more distrusting of Ozpin than RWBY. While they will recognize that Pyrrha made her own decision and they blame Cinder and the others for her death, they still see the whole choice presented to Pyrrha as extremely sketchy and questionable. Pyrrha was the type of person who would not have said no if it meant saving people. And more than just what could have been the result of the transfer, its the fact that they chose a first year student for the job when there should have been better candidates with more experience and a better understanding of what they were getting into (especially as we know the cut off date for Maiden powers is 30).

Jaune, Ren, and Nora still see Salem and her group as the biggest threat to humanity, but that doesn’t mean they like or trust Ozpin (this is not the same for Oscar, but that’s another post). And given that this rewrite will make Oz a much more morally gray character who HAS done some pretty reprehensible things in his conflict with Salem, this distrust will turn out to be very much justified.

Another change to the story is that after Mistral Arc, JNR would actually split off from the main group. Getting the Relic to Atlas is definitely a priority, but this also leaves Shade Academy in a bit of the dark with how things are going. So RWBY, Qrow, and Ozcar would head to Atlas with the Relic while JNR accompanied by Team SSSN would head to Vacuo (which doesn’t have closed borders and therefore would be easier to travel to) after a taking a short detour to Pyrrha’s hometown to give the news to her parents in person. This would make writing the Atlas Arc easier by trimming down the size of the group.

The meeting with Pyrrha’s parents....does not go well. The actual confirmation of their daughter’s death is heartbreaking and their grief and anger is focused on the immediate targets: her teammates. They angrily ask why they didn’t try to stop her or get professional help. They especially treat Jaune harshly when he tells them she sent him away before going to confront Cinder. The three very much realize that they’re not welcome and present what’s left of Pyrrha’s personal things (including her circlet). The two calm down a bit as they see these things and accept them with thanks, but politely tell the group to leave and allow them to grieve alone. They disapproved of her choice and this result makes them feel justified in their opinion. They feel cheated of their only child, who could have done so much...had she not chosen to become a Huntress. 

As JNR leaves the house, they’re greeted by Laurel Visione. After a brief conversation about her past with Pyrrha in Laurel’s home, they question why she would tell Pyrrha about her destiny if that destiny would lead to her death. Laurel would tell them that she wanted to Pyrrha to understand the full risks of the path she was walking towards. If she wanted to turn back from that, she could have, she’d have more than enough time to come to the decision, but she choose not to. She accepted her destiny and had viewed it with a measure of peace. Laurel states that she probably died with some regrets, very few people don’t, but she made her own decision to that end and she wouldn’t have blamed anyone for it.

Before the group leave to meet up with Team SSSN to head to Shade, Laurel tells them one last thing: That the choice that Pyrrha had in front of her is the same one that Ruby is also going to deal with.

Destiny: Ruby

Perhaps the best way to summarize the foil relationship between Pyrrha and Ruby is a quote from one of my favorite animes of all time Princess Tutu: “Those who accept their fate find happiness; those who defy it, glory.”

Pyrrha knew from practically the beginning that her destiny as a hero would lead to an early end. And she accepted it. If it meant saving others and doing what was right, she would gladly give her life to do so. During Volume 3 with the Maiden choice hanging over is when she actually considers walking away from everything and staying with her friends, realizing what Laurel meant all those years ago. But in the end, she still chose her path even if she didn’t know everything about what was going on.

As for Ruby, I mentioned Raven giving a warning to Ruby about using her eyes would lead to an early grave like her mother and grandfather (who are posthumous characters who will play a role in the greater story). I’m not going into specifics right now, but the Silver Eyes bear a great cost in this Rewrite and almost all Silver Eyed Warriors die extremely young. The path of a Silver Eye, of a great hero that Ruby had wanted to emulate, will turn out to have a dark price to it. 

The difference between Ruby and Pyrrha is that Ruby does not accept this fate. She will not walk away from the fight, but she is not going to readily sacrifice herself either. She is going to take a look at her fate, her people’s history, Ozpin and Salem’s conflict, and tell them to screw destiny. Screw people making assumptions and choices for her. The only person who gets decide who she is and what she stands for is her. And everyone has the right to make that same decision.

OKAY, that post took longer than I thought it was going to. At least I got it out before I went with my family on our Christmas vacation. The next post will probably get out in 2020. As for the topic, let’s just say it’s not about a person....

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Things I Disliked About RWBY Volume 7

Well everyone, Volume 8 will soon be upon us. IDK about anyone else, but I’ve never been so anxious about a volume in the near seven years I’ve been watching this show. Not even V3 had me this nervous, and I knew by nature of it being a Tournament Arc that it was gonna be painful. But as we near the new volume, I want to reflect on the previous one. So I am bringing back my Likes/Dislikes posts… except this time I DON’T have to do twelve posts for six volumes in a week. Only gotta do one Volume for today and tomorrow. Phew!

While V6 remains my favorite volume,V7 was a very well done one and by far the best written thus far. It was honestly super hard to pick five things I didn’t like, and are all pretty minor honestly. Heck I expect V8 to address some of these since V7 was clearly the build-up. But I did manage to make a Top 5 Dislikes List. As always, this is just my personal opinion and you are free to disagree with me. Take everything here with a grain of salt. Anyways, that’s enough exposition. Let the countdown begin~!

#5. Too Many Characters/Lack of Focus

RWBY has a lot of characters. A lot, loooot of them. You can tell it’s an anime for that reason alone, haha. Volume 8 thought might be the winner in the amount of it’s cast. We have our main cast, which consists of nine characters already (ten if you count Ozpin and eleven if you count Maria), which is already a lot to keep up with. But in this volume we have Ironwood, Penny, Winter, the Ace-Ops, Pietro, Robyn and her Happy Huntresses, the Schnee Family, Watts, Tyrian, and the list goes on. And those are just the relevant ones.

To the show’s credit, the volume mostly handles the focus well. They make sure that ones like Ironwood and Penny get a proper amount of focus considering their importance in this volume specifically. They also do a lot to showcase characters like Robyn, Clover, and Marrow so that we understand what they’re like and care about them, which makes how things end up even sadder. That being said, it did cause some of cast I think to get the short end of the stick a bit. Characters like Maria and Jaune pretty much got barely anything, and Blake and Yang would have also been out of luck if not for their talk with Robyn in Chapter 7. Some of the Ace-Ops, like Elm and Vine, and the Happy Huntresses who aren’t Robyn also didn’t get a lot of focus and the latter especially only got bare minimum glimpses into their personalities. Even with characters I was happy with like Ruby, Weiss, Ren, and Nora I feel could have had more done with their arcs here (the latter two especially but we’ll get tot hat later) had there been less characters and/or more time.

This is Number 5 because not only is it a minor issue, but it’s kind of inevitable. Shows only get so much time and the characters we focused on needed that time. Ironwood’s downfall wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful if it weren’t center stage. It’s one of those hard choices where you want to see more, but the show just had other things that took priority for the sake of both production and the story. Ultimately, it was the right decision and at most just makes me wish there was more.

#4. Emotionally Draining

Again, minor. I wasn’t even sure if I should add this because really I think it’s more of a personal thing than anything. But I failed to come up with another option, so... gotta take what I can get.

As good as this volume was, it was a VERY emotionally draining one. It was probably the only time I was kind of happy when it was over because ie meant a chance to breathe until V8. There’s the whole political plot that hit way too close for comfort, Tyrian’s murder spree and Penny’s framing, Ironwood’s downfall, everything from the halfway point of Chapter 11 to the end. Heck eve the first two chapters, and even bits of 3 and 4, were super tense and on edge. We had plenty of light-hearted and fun moments in the beginning. But by Chapter 6, that came to an end (or I didn’t find funny, like JNR’s antics in Chapter 8, sorry guys) and it was V3 again, but somehow even more on-edge.

Like I said, this isn’t really a dislike and is on here because I couldn’t think up anything else. As I said, the writing was very strong and on-point. I was nervous, but I’m pretty sure that’s because the writers wanted the audience nervous. They wanted us to feel the tension and fear. hey wanted us to be as conflicted about everything as the characters that we were watching. It was effective too. But it did leave me relieved that it was all over. I didn’t watch V7 in full again until recently when I got my Blu-Ray copy to put into perspective how drained I had been. I was fine upon rewatch, but yeah... way to rise up my stress levels CRWBY!

#3. The Ren/Nora Conflict

This is related to the Number 5 section. I think we can all agree that Ren and Nora tend to get the short end of the stick compared to Jaune and the rest of the main cast. V4 was an improvement, but 5 and 6 returned them to minor supporting roles and even V4 did more for Ren than Nora imo, who to this day is imo the least developed of the main cast. But clearly they wanted to start changing that, and given Jaune more or less got closure last volume it seemed like an ideal time to give the two development, especially where their relationship is concerned.

While Nora was overall fine, Ren... not so much? They do a god job setting up the two’s conflict, albeit the cliché ‘girl compliments boy, boy ignores her as they’re in the middle of something else’ joke in Chapter 3 was dumb. But Chapter 6 made it clear that there was far more going on. Nora is pushing to help Mantle and in the following chapter we have her snap at Ironwood for forcing so much sacrifice on it, but not on Atlas itself. Ren however is closed off (more tha usual), focus more or less solely on the task, is clealry afraid of their uncertain battle against Salem, and even seems to side with Ironwood in Chapter 7. It’s the first major conflict between the two with Nora just trying to get Ren to talk to her. She even finally kisses him... and we all know what happens after that.

The main issue here is two things. One, we NEVER get any clarity on why Ren is acting so cold to Nora, the one person he was always open around (well... for him anyways). I mean I have a good idea why and I’m 99% sure that V8 is going to go into it, but without any clarity it just comes off as him being unfair to Nora who is just concerned for him. The other issue is there is no closure to 9it. We have the final chapter where Ren tries to fight Neo, but as she’s disguised as Nora it goes badly. The poor boy is tearful, snaps at Nora when she tries to calm him down, and it ends in the boy looking like he’s about to have a nervous breakdown. It’s heart-wrenching, but still ultimately leaves the conflict unresolved. Plus we had a pretty large gap between the Renora Kiss (Chapter 6) and that moment (Chapter 13) with some brief moments sprinkled in. Otherwise, Ren acted as we’d expect even with the goofy plan in Chapter 8 where he seemed unusually chill considering. So it just kinda feels like for a while they... forgot about it.

This is right in the middle because as I said, I expect Volume 8 to go more into this. They’ve outright said that if there was something we were confused by or felt didn’t go anywhere, Volume 8 was going to address. This was set-up, and it leaves me anxious to see how things will go with these two especially going off the brief lines we heard in the trailer. But it still sucked that we got no closure and didn’t go further into why Ren is acting like he is. I know I was unsure of how to feel when it was all over. But I guess we’ll see the final result soon enough.

#2. The Truth Revelations

If you were reading my Volume 7 reviews, you know that I REALLY did not like how Chapters 9 and 10 were done. Why? Because of the truth reveals. Now I now know why t was handled like it was, which actually saved it from being out at Number 1 on the list. But does that change me opinion of it? Nope.

First, I want to talk about how it more or less began. That being Blake and Yang revealing the Amity Project to Robyn in Chapter 7. While I DO like them taking matters into their own hands instead of being complacent, I STILL have major issues on how they didn’t talk to Ruby and Weiss about it. I’ve heard the arguments about it, but imo when we have Yang having major hang ups with lies and half-truths (it’s why she was enraged at Oz), her and Blake seeming to pull the same thing... doesn’t look good. There is zero on-screen indication that they let the other sin about it later, which had they done so then the group could have planned proper steps in helping the two sides which may have caused Ironwood to not jump off the slippery slope as badly. Will V8 mention this? IDK, but it does bother me and I would like it addressed especially concerning the themes of trust.

Then we get to Chapters 9 and 10, where my issues go into effect. Robyn drops the hostility and reveals her knowledge of the project, but wants to try and work with Ironwood. The heroes reveal everything to Ironwood and while understandably shocked, he otherwise takes Salem being unkillable well. Then the two leaders reveal this to Mantle, using Robyn’s Semblance to prove it, and... that makes the citizens okay. Yeah... even knowing what happens later I still have issues with this. Because even with that knowledge, there was NO GOOD REASON fo AY of this to go well.

Robyn may know why Ironwood was depleting Mantle resources, but it doesn’t change that he caused a LOT of damage to Mantle due to it. Ironwood, despite his expected reaction coming later, still took the Salem news far too well especially considering how on-edge of her he’d been at that point. The citizens of Mantle know about Salem, but not why ironwood was depleting resources. Plus it doesn’t change that he was a borderline tyrant towards them and he didn’t try explaining that part to them. The fact that THAT calmed them down so easily, even with Robyn’s presence, just came off as... too easy.

Which it was. All of this was an elaborate psyche out. We think that things are finally going well... then Chapter 11 happens, and it goes downhill from there. Can’t lie, they got me. Chapter 11 was a HUGE gut-punch for that reason. As such, I decided to put this at Number Two. But it’s only because of the psyche out. It was still done to make the shock effective and while it worked, it doesn’t change that it felt like things got downplayed far more than they should have. Still, it saved this form taking the top slot. So what DID make it? Well...

#1. Willow Guilting Weiss

For a character that only got one major appearance, Willow left one Hell of an impact. All we knew about her prior was an off-handed remark by Whitley in V4 that implied that she was an unhappy drunk. Here? We see exactly what Jaques has done to this poor woman. She’s a drunk, unhappy, and her expression just screams exhaustion and broken. She knows that she did nothing for her children once she broke, something Weiss makes very clear, but she does make some amends by giving Weiss her Scroll and the evidence needed to expose Jaques and Watts, She’s even relieved when We3iss confirms that she’s never returning for good. It’s a very powerful scene that in minutes makes Willow one of the saddest, sympathetic characters in the show.

I do have one huge problem, however. That’s when she leaves. She has one request for Weiss, and that’s for her to not forget about Whitley. While it’s been becoming more and more clear that Whitley is a scared kid who has been just as abused by Jaques as his sisters, he WAS still a cocky jerk to Weiss. He was never nice to her, and when he was it was for his own benefit. He had zero issue rubbing into Weiss her misfortune in V4 after the concert and how he’s the new heir. Of course Weiss wouldn’t like him and be justified in believing that he didn’t like her. When she points that out, this is Willow’s line:

Of course not. You left him here... with us.

Yeah, this really pissed me off and I think is a problem on the writer’s end. They want to have Weiss realize, like the audience is, that Whitley is like he is because unlike her and Winter, he can’t escape, has none of the abilities that they do, and is thus still a prisoner and under his father’s control.. He succumbed to it instead of fight or get away because that was all that he could do, and hating his sisters kept him in his father’s favor. It’s all very understandable and yes, having Weiss realize this and make an effort to try and help Whitley would show how much she’s changed and allow the Schnee Family to all break free form Jaques once and for all.

But the way the line is worded make it feel like Willow, and in turn the narrative, is gui9lting Weiss into not realizing this and not helping Whitley prior. Umm... no. Hell no. Weiss was under zero obligation to help her brother, who at the time portrayed himself as an egotistical snake to her. He rubbed his success in her face. he rubbed getting the title in her face. He was even trying to do so again in the very same chapter Willow was introduced. Weiss HAD to help herself. And unlike her, who as far as we know never hated Winter and the two always treated each other well, as far as we can tell Whitley never had that relationship with them and we don’t know if he ever tried. Jaques made sure that Whitley and his sisters would be divided, and Weiss shouldn’t feel guilty at all for not seeing this.

I get why some may get after Weiss and what Willow was trying to hint to her. We know that Whitley is a victim. We know that because he had no one, he became the way he is. He still has hope, but Weiss is the only one in any position to get him the help that he needs. I expect V8 to go into this, especially since Weis sis why Jaques is now in prison and took away the only figure that Whitley had (a HORIRBLE one, but still the only). However Weiss did what she could in her position, and doesn’t have the advantage of NOT being in the audience to everything. Do I expect her to realize all of this and try to get Whitley to as well? Yes, and it’ll be her character coming full-circle as well. But did she deserve to be guilted? Hell No. Don’t think it was intentional, but it still rubbed me the wrong way and I still don’t like that bit. Thus, it is the moment I dislike most in RWBY Volume 7.

Okay, that’s it for now. Tomorrow, I’ll post my Top 5 Likes. Which trust me, I got plenty of ‘em~! See you all then~!

[good-rwbyaus]

An au where if you get a crush you become super tiny till you tell your crush you like them.

Nora has been tiny for years. But she refuses to tell Ren because she’s still scared about ruining their relationship. He knows though, so he just patiently waits and puts up with lil’ Nora. He loves her and has told her.

Week 2 of the first semester, Pyrrha wakes up tiny. Jaune is just as dense as ever, and has never heard of the tiny crush rules. No one has the heart to tell him. Surprisingly, he never gets tiny for all his pursuits of Weiss. But the inconvenience of being so small is a good motivator for Pyrrha to just confess. The spectacle of her suddenly growing is enough for Jaune to realize how important what she said was. So the confession is successful... and he gets tiny in turn. It takes way less time for him to confess. They are happy together.

Shortly after the Beacon Dance, Blake and Yang both get tiny. Blake isn’t sure which blonde she danced with that made her feel this way. Yang knows exactly what her catty partner has done to her heart.

Some people swear Weiss and Ruby were tiny at some point. But they just started dating at some point, often with Penny in tow. Who would have thought they would be the ones to be so easily open about their crushes?

[helihi]

The Good, The Bad, and the Dirty: RWBY Vol 6 Ep 13

#GayForSummerRose

#BeesConfirmed #RenoraStyle #RTWhatAreYouDoingWithMyEmotions #ThisShitIsIllegal.

Overall rating: 8/10.

A.N.: RT provided us with an official “Look how far we’ve come.”

The Good:

Okay, I can definitely say I love this season finale more than the vol 5 finale. yes, even if Vol 6′s greatest tragedy is having no Raven in it, I have to say, the rollercoaster of emotions the last 16 gave me were a thrill.

Where to start?

Let’s kick it chronologically. Watched it 2 more times for this.

"Yes, and we just ruined the only thing capable of stopping it.”

I want to applaud Kara for her delivery of this line. It was cold, in a very Grimm tone. Loved it!

I think the structure of the episode was well thought as most of the contents of this episode belong in this section:

Set up:

This whole episode is mainly centered around Ruby. She is the one the camera will follow and point and for reactions, this is crucial for the emotional beat of this episode.

Cordovin’s redemption is set up at the beginning of the episode and follows a good narrative in the next 16 minutes. 

Blake’s state and struggle is acknowledged by those around her, specially Yang and Ruby. This scene is great, not only because it cements that what Blake went through is not something to be shrugged off, but because also provides with one of the most wholesome moments of the whole episode: Ruby looks at Yang and she knows.

Maria comes in and paints an objective: 

The utilitarian route - They take the chaos as an opportunity to run.

The idealist route - They stay and fight, even if they are at a disadvantage.

Camera focuses on Ruby for choice —> Team for back up —> Back to Ruby for confirmation. She is the one who makes the call.

Strategy one: Doomed to fail.

Ruby states that she HAS to do this.

Build up:

Cordovin reaches her breaking point as she listens to Ruby’s resolution.

Cool flight sequence.

Plan fails.

New strategy which focuses a lot more on team effort. I love the scene were Blake goes over to Weiss. We are Weiss stans first, RWBY fans second. The fact that everything feels connected, shows you this was more thought out than the Vol 5 ending battle sequence (With the exception of Cinder vs. Raven vs. Yang). Ren and Jaune are out of the game, no aura. Yang and Nora are to distract the Leviathan. Blake is there for emotional support, she has no aura and Gambol Shroud is broken. Weiss is giving Ruby method of transportation.

Ruby faces the Leaviathan: This is the official RT RWBY “Look how far we’ve come” montage, I say this not only because this is meant to show Ruby’s memories, but because most of the time, the clear point of view of these is not Ruby, but the audience.

Toddler Yang + Young Taiyang: Emotional connection to childhood from Ruby/ Reminder of the fan favorite Burning the Candle episode.

Zwei joins the team: highlight of the time at beacon/everyone’s fav corgi.

Food fight: call back to the ‘good ol’ days’/ Everyone’s favorite fight sequence.

Blake loves tuna: nice team building/One of the funniest scenes for the FNDM.

Penny: scene were she tells Ruby she wants to leave Atlas.

Vomit boy: First time Ruby saw Jaune/Some old FNDM nicknames.

Team JNPR at the noodle station.

Pyrrha —> ANGST TRIGGER.

Jaune training at night: Ruby was woken up every night by this/Sad Arkos moment that hit everyone.

Yang losing an arm: scarring memory for Ruby to see her sister like that/one of the most telling shots of Vol 3 ending.

Yang closing up: see above.

Pyrrha dying.

Penny dead.

Ruby’s powers don’t work, focus on the Leviathan noticing her. Zoom to the lamp.

Pay off:

JINN INTERVENTION! Set up for future volumes, probably one of the smartest moves Ruby pulled up ever. And it’s perfect tied in to the way Ruby react after being reminded of the relic’s existence and how it affect Grimm, established in earlier episodes.

Continuation of montage:

Team RWBY ready for mission: fond memory/of of the iconic moments of the first volumes.

Weiss apologizing: Official beginning of their friendship/Iconic moment of vol 1.

Blake cheering: old classes/meme’d image.

Yang telling Ruby she will always be there for her: emotional contrast to the last Yang flashback/connection of Yang’s short to her self-sacrificial nature/mother hen attitude.

Vol 2 Ending: crisis avoided when the bad guys were easy to deal with.

Dance: Another excellent scene from vol 2.

Team JNPR together.

Qrow’s first appearance: emotional core of Ruby/Qrow relationship.

Oscar hopeful.

María giving Ruby lessons.

Penny when she confirms they are friends.

SUMMER ROSE OMFG

Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting to see her this soon, but I am so fucking glad to see her! I can finally draw all the Team STRQ I’ve wanted to draw! She's so fucking pretty aaaaaaaaaa

Does this confirm STRQ backstory soon?

Ruby is able to stop the Leviathan momentarily.

Cordovin redeems herself.

Now, we get to skip all the fight, which I find to be a great choice. After the last 3 episodes of constant action, we need a breather. We need interactions, a slow down of the pace and some discussion.

We get the small closing scene for the Qrow and Ruby arc. She restates her love for him and Qrow realizes he has someone new to inspire him. It’s very important that he hesitates before taking a drink, and actually pouts his flask down down.

María is also inspired by Ruby. After patting Qrow in the back (metaphorically), we get a reinforcement of team RWBY + JN_R + Oscar as the new generation who take on the mission of saving the world and protecting others as huntsmen.

We got some wholesome and organic exchanges between the kiddos. It’s so refreshing and welcome to see them interact, even if it seems like something so ordinary and miniscule.

Bees get confirmation Renora style. Volume 7 will be filled with filled with Bumblebee y’all! Happy to see they will explore their feelings for each other after they settle the Adam fiasco. They can move on and build a healthy relationship together.

When the Renora kiss tho.

Oscar reveals that Ozpin helped him land the ship. This is super important! Ozpin shows that he has faith in them, and instead of taking over, he shows his support and guides Oscar. This is a very good sign, even if it leaves a sour taste in everyone’s mouth.

Good for the Ozpin arc.

I love the way Atlas looks! It’s an interesting way to protect the city from oncoming Grimm attacks after what happened to Matle. I wonder however, how they keep the city up and what plan of evacuation/defense they have for the impending invasion.

It’s clear the set up for the next season is more political and I’m all here for it!

The Bad

The way Yang and Blake to join the others at the beginning of the episode has me face palming. How the fuck could they have gotten there in time when they were both tired, with no aura left and shocked after what they went through?

That was cheap as fuck, I’d rather they fly to pick them up, that woudl have added what? 1 minute to the 16 minute chapter?

The Dirty

The first scene of the whole episode is completely disconnected for everything else, and though it’s a clear set up for volume 7, I feel it would have been a better post credits scene than the one we got with Salem that was a huge meh.

I will make a Vol 6 review in the future (cause I can’t decide if I like it better or worse than Volume 5), but for sure, the Cinder scenes are completely out of place and only serve for set up for volume 7. They are so clumsily implemented, I can’t believe they couldn’t set up a theme to have them make sense.

Anyways, this is here for the following reasons:

Good callback to Pyrrha’s death. That exchange clearly triggered the audience because boi we’re not over that.

Cool new outfits, kind old how the CRWBY keeps pulling these outfits change to indicate a new arc and make it so obvious.

WHERE ARE MY RWBY ALTAS OUTFITS. I NEED THEM NOW.

Nice to see Neo’s Semblance being explored. She has limits, and we know more of how it works.

Still disappointed Neo doesn’t use sign language. I’m pretty sure Cinder would be able to get some context or read her lips, but whatever. I guess it’s too complicated to animate.

Overall rating: 8/10.

A.N.: Okay I am very gay for Summer someone body please help me the thirst—

[the-gayest-dump]

I FINALLY HAVE ARTISTIC ENERGY SO HERE’S THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THIS BLOG AND CANON FUCKING FINALLY AFTER LIKE 3 YEARS OF THIS BLOG BEING ACTIVE!

This is just gonna be a summarized list of the differences. Maybe 6 years from now I’ll actually start writing a story about it.

Cinders team infiltrated Beacon and Ruby got super attached to Emerald because she thought she was super cool and wanted to know about her weapons and semblance. Plus she seemed the nicest out of the group. Over time Ruby's innocence and humor got to Emerald and she had a change of heart. She told Ruby about Cinders plans now that she knows what actual affection feels like. She was scared she’d still be arrested or executed but she didn’t want Ruby to get hurt in the fall of Beacon (Friendship love but still love)

Ruby and Emerald were able to interrupt one of Ozpins meetings with Glynda, Qrow, and Ironwood (It’s tough to stop a girl from barging into places when she has a speed semblance and can grab others with her). With Ruby’s encouragement she told them of Cinders plan. With Ruby’s begging and puppy eyes despite the anger of Qrow and Ozpin Ironwood kept Emerald in his most guarded airship to be kept safe as an ally and not a prisoner.

Without Emerald’s illusion Mercury was exposed and disqualified for assaulting a contestant after a loss. While he was being taken away by medical staff and guards Ironwoods soldiers intervened and took him into a jail cell aboard one of his airships. Shortly after Cinder was found fleeing and was also arrested.

Without any Grimm attacking the school Torchwick and Neo made a calculated risk and decided that the robots being hacked would bring enough terror and chaos to bring the grimm in with just with a slight delay. What they didn’t account for is team RWBY being aboard the control airship ready to kick his butt. 

No help came for any of the prisoners as Salem had deemed them all worthless for failing one of her greatest plans. The White Fang tried to free Roman and Neo but without his expertise they only managed to get more of them killed or arrested.

A meeting was held with Oz, Glyn, Qrow, and Ironwood about what to do with the prisoners. Through long hours of debate and yelling they realized that they would either escape or serve their time and go back to their previous ways. (They had no way of knowing Salem's message). The prisoners were to be killed by firing squad. (If you don’t know how that works a line of soldiers is in front of a prisoner and all of them fire blanks at the prisoner except one bullet is live. The soldiers don’t know who has the live round so no one has any guilt. In this case it was a powerful explosive dust round)

Side notes

Ruby, Weiss, Penny, and Velvet are in a poly relationship, They refer to their group as PWRS (Like a team name. pronounced Powers like electricity)

Team JNPR are also in a poly relationship with Jaune and Nora being platonic and more brother/sister like. 

THE BEES! NOT THE BEEEES! (I had to make the reference. BMBLB is canon here)

NO BEAUTIFUL INNOCENT REDHEAD GIRLS EVER DIED. EEEEEEEEEEEVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRR.

Jacques Schnee mysteriously died in an elevator mishap. The heir was to be Winter but she declined as she would rather spend her time in the military by General Ironwoods side (That may be a hint to a ship. You’ll never know.) and decided Weiss would be the most qualified to run the company. While Weiss is still in school she has trusted Klein to handle the day to day operations and to call her if there is an important matter to discuss. (Of course her first action as CEO was to increase the wages of all Faunus workers, give them actually livable working conditions, and give them a massive bonus so they could buy a home and pay off any debt they were in. She knew this would not change their hearts in a day but it was a start).

Emerald is now seeing a therapist along with a very helpful and supportive Ruby to help her through all of the changes in her life.

I may have forgotten some stuff so I’ll add on as I remember or shit gets pointed out to me. I’m sure I’m gonna have to block a lot of BMBLB and poly relationship haters after this post.

[kitkatopinions]

Every single volume, Jaune becomes more and more proof that rwde posters in general aren't just "wishing a man was the protagonist" and "liking macho alpha men" like anti-rwde posters frequently say.

At the start of RWBY an argument could've been made that Jaune didn't fit the standard male power fantasy because he wasn't buff and battle-hardened and confident and knowledgeable. This argument would've been flawed because there's also a known male fantasy of being nerdy underdogs who get the girl anyway (like with Pyrrha) and who are still treated like they're super important, but it's still an argument that could've been made in the first three seasons.

Then an argument could've hypothetically been made that Jaune has non-romantic female friendships and shows deep emotions and stuff in RWBY volumes 4-6 and therefore doesn't fit a traditional mold of standard male fantasies despite having grown into a 'more built, strategist, leader role' and still getting special focus and attention. This would've been a flawed argument, because Jaune's emotional turmoil was built on Pyrrha's fridging and resulted in him taking on and holding his own against Cinder, and his lack of romantic relationships was more built on Pyrrha being his 'forever fall.' Very 'action hero who lost his wife' style of writing.

Then an argument could've been made very unconvincingly in volumes 7-8 that Jaune might be now getting played as a very muscley attractive guy that milfs lust after that keeps a cool head in arguments, but one could still argue that he was still not as experienced or skilled as Ruby, and also that he was less of a 'macho man' than the bearded older guy in charge of things that Ironwood was, and that Jaune's anger issues from the last few seasons had started winding down. Obviously this argument wouldn't be convincing, and wouldn't be a real counter argument to how he was being used and how his progress just read like a 'zero to hero,' 'kid who used to be a gangly nerd is now super desirable and cool' fantasy, but it could hypothetically be made.

But then in volume nine, Jaune becomes not only a bearded older man with all this information who is in charge of a village, but he also becomes a much more angry and prone to snapping person than ever, his emotional outbursts are now built on the deaths of two more women in Penny and Alix, and he quite literally becomes a hero of a novel he used to love as a kid, while Weiss openly is into him. Weiss, who is the girl he originally was perusing way back when who wouldn't give him the time of day. Jaune literally screamed in the face of a seventeen year old victim blaming her for stuff that either she wasn't at fault for at all or that he's at least just to blame for, and didn't get called out and instead got coddled and treated with more sympathy than Ruby. The fact that he got deaged back at the end just makes me think that the writers are intending to make him and Weiss get together eventually but didn't want there to be a twenty year age gap between them, despite the fact that he still has the memories of twenty years.

But yeah, Jaune always gave big 'male fantasy' vibes, but every single season it got worse and worse and he got more and more male fantasy vibes until he's become an angry macho man with a beard screaming in a teenage woman's faces and getting nothing but sympathy over it. And he's only gotten more and more focus and attention. So by all rights, if rwde posters actually wanted a man to be a protagonist and wanted macho manly men to be more in focus and treated as good and for them to get attention... We'd all be on board with Jaune and want more Jaune and like Jaune. Instead, with every single season, rwde posters in general dislike Jaune more and want him less. Whereas there's actually RWBY fans who do love and worship Jaune and want him around more and more and like half the fandom at this point are Jaune fanboys, but nobody actually pays any attention to them because apparently the real crime is thinking Ironwood's fall to villainy was badly written. XD The whole "Rwde posters just want men to be the protagonists and they love macho alpha men" is completely fake. It's a made up lie based in nothing that people throw around because they're mad that rwde posters don't like the writers' choices when it comes to Ironwood. XD

[myrtenasterrose]

Why I believe it would have been better if Jaune had died instead of Pyrrha

Before I even start... This is NOT Jaune “hate,” so don’t try and twist it into that. I am not hating on him by thinking it would have had a better impact on the audience and characters, as well as the plot, had he died. I’m a writer, and as such, I believe that Jaune dying would have been the better decision.

Here’s why. (WARNING: Super long!)

As I mentioned above, Jaune having died would have affected three things better than it did with Pyrrha’s death: the impact/emotions of the audience (us), the impact/motivations of the characters, and the continuity of the plot and previously established characters.

The biggest reason I think this relates to the latter. Ruby’s reaction would have made much more sense had it been Jaune she had just witnessed being killed. Why?

SHE AND PYRRHA HAD LITTLE TO NO INTERACTION THE ENTIRE SERIES UP TO THAT POINT.

One of my biggest complaints of the v3 finale was Ruby’s reaction to seeing Pyrrha die. Yes, seeing any one of your acquaintances die before you would be devastating, but we as an audience didn’t know up until then how close Ruby and Pyrrha apparently were. In volume 1, they never once speak to one another (including the scene in Forever Fall after seeing Jaune behead the Ursa; Ruby simply mumbled “you can control poles,” and “magnets are cool too” really to no one, but if you want to count the first as a line said to Pyrrha, go ahead), and volume 2 goes by without any interaction from them as well. And I’m not talking about Ruby addressing JNPR as a whole like before RWBY departs for their mission with Oobleck, I’m talking about actual conversation/character development between the two only. Two entire volumes pass, and not once have Ruby and Pyrrha even spoken to the other.

Then volume 3 begins, and all of a sudden Ruby’s exclaiming Pyrrha’s name on the fairgrounds and super excited to see her? When did they become so close? She also ONLY says Pyrrha’s name, not even Jaune’s, who is arguably one of her two best friends at Beacon. Then before PvP, Ruby wishes her good luck, and then after Penny’s death, reassures Pyrrha it wasn’t her fault. Then Pyrrha dies, giving Ruby and Pyrrha a mere THREE (four, if you have to include the volume 1 mention) spoken lines to each other, and even then what is said to the other are short little quips, like something you’d say to someone you know strictly by having classes with them, or having them be friends of your friends.

Not like something that would make you unleash your super powerful, super rare, special powers that had been locked away after seeing them die.

Even having Ruby have unlocked her silver eye powers after Penny’s death would have made more sense, strictly because we as the audience saw on multiple occasions how close Ruby and Penny were. They had meaningful conversations with each other multiple times, and helped each other grow. Yet Ruby simply cries for a bit after Penny’s death, and then she isn’t brought up again by Ruby, even in volume 4 where Ruby should have had plenty of screen time to grieve, but she didn’t.

But I’m getting sidetracked.

Jaune.

To me, this all comes down to “show don’t tell;” something RT has never done much of in RWBY, or done correctly. For instance, we are TOLD Ruby and Pyrrha were friends by forcing sudden lines of dialogue between them in volume 3 and the aforementioned reaction, but we were SHOWN that Ruby and Jaune were friends.

Right from the beginning of volume 1, we see Ruby bonding with Jaune. He’s the third person she speaks to at Beacon besides Yang (second, if you don’t count Blake since she walked away as Ruby spoke to her), and her first real friend. They help each other find the hall where Ozpin addresses the first years, Yang actually mentions Jaune being Ruby’s friend during the overnight, and Ruby even mentions hoping she runs into Jaune in the Emerald Forest to be his partner.

But it doesn’t stop there. They have that important scene outside JNPR’s dorm in which Ruby comforts Jaune in being team leader. This scene is important on so many levels, perhaps mainly because it is the first major character development on screen the entire series. We see Ruby coming into her role as a leader by assuring a fellow leader they can do this. Even if Ruby had doubts about her own capabilities at this point, she set that aside to make sure Jaune knew he could do it too. If that’s not something friends do for the other, than I don’t know what is.

Even though Ruby and Jaune’s screentime together dwindles down after that (and I’m not talking about anything past the v3 finale here), we as an audience still have seen firsthand Ruby and Jaune’s friendship, whereas we hadn’t with Pyrrha. In storytelling, this is key. You want to SHOW your audience everything you can, not simply TELL them. Your audience should never have to assume anything; such as two character’s friendship.

Since we knew Ruby and Jaune were good friends, as well as Jaune being high on many people’s favorite character lists, seeing him die would have been even more painful and shocking than Pyrrha. This was a character we KNEW had an established relationship with the main character; this was the guy we were all rooting for. I know many people also have Pyrrha high on their favorites lists, but the reasons she is ranked so highly I feel is more superficial than why people like Jaune. Jaune had more characterization that Pyrrha did, therefore people identified with his character whereas they liked Pyrrha because of her design, or what little of her personality we were shown. However, I’ve seen more people give more meaningful reasons as to why Jaune is their favorite character rather than Pyrrha, and so I’ll stand by what I said here.

That being said, Jaune was billed (at least it seems that way to me) as the audience’s character. He was there for us to be able to see Remnant through a character’s eyes who didn’t know much about the world like we did going in. While I think this has many issues in itself, that’s for another post. The audience immediately latches onto Jaune because we understand where he is coming from. We learn more of aura and semblance when he does, and he is more or less in our shoes should we have entered Beacon Academy ourselves. Pyrrha, however, is leagues ahead of him in skill and knowledge, and therefore leagues ahead of us. While there may be some points of her personality we can identify with, Jaune was still obviously meant to be the guy to introduce us to this world, maybe even more so than Ruby herself.

Moving on, however, another reason I think Jaune should have died, while still affecting the audience and characters in-show, is because of the trope he’s based on: the underdog.

Nobody kills the underdog. The underdog always succeeds, right? Wrong.

What better way to show how cruel a world Remnant is than to kill the guy we’re all rooting for? The guy who’s made all this progress since the beginning, but it still isn’t enough to save him in the end. To me, that would have hit home a lot harder than killing off the character who knows what she’s doing in a fight, and has been SHOWN and TOLD that she’s a champion fighter. Another thing that bugged me in the finale was just how quickly Pyrrha went down. I know Cinder is strong, but to have defeated Pyrrha in under two minutes? I just don’t buy it. Even though Cinder had absorbed more of Amber’s power by then, Pyrrha got a little herself before Cinder killed her, so she should have been amped up a little as well. Not as much as Cinder, clearly, but losing in under two minutes? She hadn’t even been fighting the Grimm and Atlesian soldiers like the rest of her friends, and her fight with Penny hadn’t been that long to have drained her THAT much, as well as the fact that it had probably been a few hours between PvP and the finale.

Again, I’m getting nit-picky here, but sue me for thinking Pyrrha went down too easy.

Getting back on track; the underdog being bested.

Think of the guilt it would have put on Ruby and everyone else--the guilt it would have put on PYRRHA--to have had Jaune die by Cinder’s hands. I feel it would have set volume 4 up better, and we would have seen more people grieving for Jaune than we saw grieve for Pyrrha, simply because--again--we SAW how many people Jaune affected while at Beacon. Hell, even Weiss could have been shown to grieve, feeling guilty she had always blown Jaune off and never given him a chance! The grief wouldn’t have had to be contained to just one character; because let’s face it, at the end of the day, the only person Pyrrha really mattered to, that we were SHOWN, was Jaune.

So yes, I truly believe it would have been a better choice for Jaune to have died up on that tower than Pyrrha. We knew more about him, we cared more about him, and the characters cared more about him. It would have had a much more meaningful impact than the typical “oh my god the strongest character just died, what now” route. 

But that’s just me.

[masterofhamsters]

Final thoughts about RWBY4

Okay, so after 15 weeks of volume 4, how do I feel? Well, let’s just say I was incredibly optimistic when the trailer dropped and now I regret every single defense I had as the episodes kept rolling out. Volume 4, while I personally don’t think it’s volume 2′s level of bad, is in a league of its own.

So what do we got? Volume 4 had a good premise: the characters we’ve grown to love for the past three years are now separated due to things out of their control. Now we have to see how they react to and deal with their individual situations on their own.

Though I became a late fan of the show (didn’t start watching until it was available on Netflix, long after Monty’s death), I could clearly see the flaws in it. Since I watch a lot of what people would consider bad anime, I let it slide. I’m quite the apologist when it comes to these things. So that’s why I wasn’t too bothered with some of the flaws in volume 3. Yeah, Pyrrha could’ve been much better executed. Had she had more attention as a character rather than a love interest in previous volumes, I think her death would’ve been loads better, but this was their first volume since Monty passed and they worked with what they had I don’t blame them. In fact, volume 3 was probably the best volume to date.

But things got really shaky in volume 4. Ruby is now with the remains of JNPR and the other girls are at home with their parents. Each characters’ stories have a different premise to them, from Yang’s PTSD to Weiss’s domestic abuse to Blake’s mixed feelings of going back home to Menagerie. The fact that the girls are separated for the first time had much potential to show what the girls were like as individuals rather than constantly playing off of each other. It gave us an opportunity to see another side of them we wouldn’t see otherwise.

However, that’s where the flaws of the volume come in. Up until this point, we’ve only had 12 episodes per volume with the exception of volume 1 (where we have 16; 10 if you’re following the Blu-ray’s episode count). Frankly, I was aware that there was no way they could’ve satisfactorily concluded four different stories in a span of 12 episodes. Throw in Jaune, Nora, and Ren in there with some new characters? Yeah, no way that was happening.

Speaking of new characters, let’s talk about them, shall we?

We have three new villains (six, if you count the new White Fang members), Hazel, Watts, and Tyrian, and a walking plot device in Oscar. Out of these four, only Tyrian has really done anything of note. The only reason why we believe the other two to be threats is because they talk down to Cinder, a person whose strength we can already measure for ourselves. Meanwhile Tyrian did advance the plot somewhat. He indirectly pulled Qrow out of hiding and helped made aware that Cinder wasn’t the top threat in the series to the characters. But even then, he doesn’t accomplish much. Granted, that one scene when he cried did humanize him a little, it made me feel like he was even less of a threat than he already was.

Now, fucking Oscar. Boy, this kid is a mess. His introduction was stupid for one thing, being in the first damn episode and us as the audience having no idea what the fuck it was about. Yeah, you can argue it was some sort of foreshadowing, but it was poorly done. It didn’t make me care for him in the slightest. In fact, I was actually annoyed whenever he was on screen. So far, we know nothing about him as a person. We know what he is: a farmer boy who’s for some reason harboring Ozpin’s soul. But we don’t know who he is. That bothers me on so many levels because he’s clearly an important character. I want to care about a character as a person more than a pivotal plot point.

Speaking of characters who are more plot points than people, let’s talk about our darling Ruby Rose. Now don’t get me wrong, I adore Ruby. She’s like my favorite female character in the entire show. But man does the writing fuck her over. So, after the events of volume 3, Ruby watched two of her friends die as a result of the Fall of Beacon. Now, for a 15 year old, you’d think that would be mentally traumatizing. But no, Ruby hasn’t reacted at all over the course of volume 4. Everything relating to Pyrrha’s death was for Jaune and Jaune alone. Hell, they didn’t even mention Penny until episode 11.

Really think about that. Ruby’s first real friend that didn’t try to judge her for who she is was only mentioned in a passive manner. Not only that, Ruby barely even reacts to it. They put all of Ruby’s development in this volume into a two-minute one-sided conversation between her and Jaune. The biggest flaw of Ruby’s story is that she’s surrounded by characters with unconcluded character arcs. What’s even worse is that one of those characters was Jaune.

Okay, let me get this straight. I DO NOT HATE JAUNE. I HATE HOW HE’S WRITTEN AND THAT HE’S TAKING OTHER CHARACTERS’ MOMENTS. Jaune is the result of too much focus in writing. From how I see it, Miles and Kerry are trying to get his development out of the way in order to move on to other characters.

The problem is, it’s not working nor is it apparent to the viewers. Hell, me thinking that was just me rationalizing their actions as writers. Even then, it’s poor. They know how much hate Jaune gets from the fandom, yet they insist on doing things that would get the fandom angry. They continually ignore the criticisms he gets and make him do things that other characters could’ve easily done themselves.

Look at the last episode. Why the fuck was Jaune the one to save Qrow? They were at each other’s necks just a few episodes ago and now they’re sharing a moment? You can argue that it’s because he knows how much Qrow means to Ruby but in that case, why didn’t Ruby save him? She clearly could considering her goddamn semblance is super speed.

Was it so they could show off Ren’s semblance one more time to reconfirm to both the characters and the audience what it is? In that case, there’s an easy solution: have Ruby save Qrow, but the Nucklavee sees this and decides to give chase. Ruby, in a panic, accidentally trips. That’s when the other three help her get away. Perfect time to show off Ren’s semblance as well as Jaune’s new upgrade. Ruby and Qrow have a character moment they desperately need in order to make Ruby relevant as a character again and then you’re done.

Also, can we talk about that Nuckalvee fight? Why the fuck did Ruby forget how to use her semblance and scythe? The entire volume 4 trailer was her abusing her semblance and it even looked like it evolved to a different level. Why didn’t she used her super speed at all in the final battle? The animation crew seriously need to watch the older episodes to get a better feel to how Ruby actually fights. Ruby gets so fucked over by the writing that she hasn’t been developed since the first fucking volume. Now they didn’t even try to give her screen time.

But enough about Ruby, let’s go to Weiss. Weiss, I think, had one of the more compelling stories of the bunch along with Yang. We knew she came from an abusive household, but we didn’t know how truly fucked up it was so it was interesting to see what her situation was really like. And it just felt... strange. While her dad was pretty much how people made him out to be, but her having a brother was a little jarring. It makes sense in the full sense of things, but I think he should’ve been at least name dropped in volume 3 like Winter was in volume 2. Overall, her story felt a bit rushed since I wanted to see more about her relationship with her mom and brother, but I can’t say I really have much to say about her story.

Same thing with Yang. Like, I have no idea what it’s like to have PTSD and clinical depression, but the common consensus is that they completely rushed Yang’s recovery and that’s something I see. Yang seemed reluctant to put her new arm on, but I would’ve liked more scenes of her trying to get used to it or still hesitating to going back into the battlefield. The bit about her mom was nice and I do like how Burnie and Barb’s relationship sorta translated into Tai and Yang’s relationship.

Now, Blake’s story. Blake’s story was a fucking mess. Her story introduced five new characters: ones that were totally unnecessary (Fennac and what’s his face), ones we didn’t know exist (Ghira and Kali), and one that shares a past with Blake but was not explained or expanded upon (Ilia). Okay, as much as I like Blake, she, like Jaune, gets far more attention than the other characters. The only reason why I’d pardon it is because she’s a titular character. But that doesn’t justify why she’s suddenly more important than the others.

When will it ever get to their heads that introducing even more characters is not an solution to every problem? I don’t know about you, but I love when there’s some build up to character introductions. We all assumed Blake was an orphan but now she’s the daughter to the chief of Menagerie and the ex-leader of the White Fang? Kinda important info there, guys.

TL;DR Too much exposition and overly focused character moments is what ruined this volume for me. I don’t care about the lore if it digs into possible character moments. I don’t care about character moments if it’s about characters I already know too much about. Overall, the only high points of the volume were the Renora moments. Ren and Nora also suffered from lack of reaction to Pyrrha’s death, but at least they had the moments they deserved after being put onto the sidelines for as long as they have. 

[kitkatopinions]

I know alot of people thought this volume was Weiss time to shine but her contribution has been marginal at best. Now she's in the same situation as Blake and Yang then their arcs were ended in volume 5. This means when can we expect her to be shipped with someone and be mostly useless?

The way that Weiss was benched this season and the way her seasons-long story was just glossed over is confusing and frustrating. I was really looking forward to seeing Weiss not only interacting with her family in meaningful ways, but seeing her - the Atlas born and raised girl who’s used to how everything works there - not considering things as big of a deal as the others, being something of a celebrity, coming up with solutions only an Atlas born person might know, her having a full arc with her brother Whitley, her interacting with her team more and relying on them for strength instead of being mostly a support character. Instead, Weiss’s arc with her family not only is resolved like it’s easy, and Weiss doesn’t have to grow at all to get it, but it also barely involves Weiss’s friends at all. Also was Weiss treated like a celebrity? Or recognized by the people of Atlas or Mantle? As the very public singer-celebrity daughter of Jacques Schnee? And also, Weiss has spent the past volume acting like Ruby’s sidekick, barely doing more than throwing in some quips and taking four minutes or so to talk to her brother, and then the rest of her story in volume eight is just, being an extra fighter, making the appropriate faces when the creators want us to be shocked or sad or smug. Her last thread with Whitley and Willow has been tied off in a very unsatisfying and weird way...

And oh gosh, you’re right, this sounds really familiar.

Caution, this post isn’t super kind to B//umbleby or the characterization of Blake in particular. Bees I’m sorry if this shows up in your tags, I tried my best and used filterable tags. This is all just my personal opinion.

As soon as Blake’s arc, which was tied up in the problematic White Fang/Faunus racism plot was mostly solved in volume five, the quality of her character started going down, but there was still something there for her until they killed her abuser, and then her whole character was more or less stripped away and she was left hinting at her past in awkward dialogue, doing nothing but emoting in the proper way, occasionally patting Ruby or the others on the back, and being one half of a non-developed ship. Blake has had two moments in the past two seasons that seem to even somewhat include real fleshed out character, and that’s when she decided to trust Robyn, convincing Yang to go along with it, and now showing anger because Neo ‘killed’ Yang. Both of these are framed - and taken by the fans - as ‘bees moments’ though, so it’s still all tied up in her romance.

Now we’ve had some of the same sort of thing for Weiss. Her arc was also tied up in the problematic White Fang/Faunus racism plot (considering her family’s history that Weiss was originally trying to ‘reclaim’ despite her own racism never being fully called out and addressed in a meaningful way.) Once Weiss had broken away from her abusive father and thus at least somewhat solved her arc by volume five, then her quality of character started going down in volume six, and then she had a couple moments with her family in volumes seven and eight - although again, solved in fairly unsatisfying ways. Outside of only a couple of semi significant scenes in the Atlas arc, Weiss has been regulated to emoting in the proper ways, occasionally patting Ruby or the others on the back, and being an extra fighter in the group.

It is possible that she’s going to get some kind of romance and then kind of just... Fall into the same kind of stuck position as Blake and Yang - CRWBY won’t commit to them enough to give real confirmation or make them grow their relationship in significant ways, which means that in order to get across that their is a relationship, they keep the two mostly together, have them seem to revolve around each other and care about each other more than anyone else, and diminishing the connections the other characters have with both people in order to make Blake and Yang’s connection seem clearer. To be completely fair to CRWBY, Yang has been allowed to branch out and have real and natural interactions both with villains (taking on Salem, protesting Emerald’s involvement) and teammates (arguing with Ren, talking with Jaune, acting like Ruby is her close little sister again!) This season, Yang has started to act like her own character again, but Blake hasn’t been allowed much growth. I’d say Weiss would more likely to wind up in the ‘Blake’ position than the ‘Yang’ position as far as being allowed to grow, especially because we’re already seeing her character start to kind of falter now that they’ve tied up her arc in a messy bow, and especially if she wound up with Ruby or Jaune, who I think are the most likely romantic partners for Weiss at this time. But there’s also the possibility of them starting to force a relationship between her and literally anyone else, including any of the three boys waiting in Vacuo, or Emerald, or Marrow.

As a quick note, please keep in mind that this is all speculation for fun and it really might not amount to anything. It would be kind of funny and frustrating both if CRWBY repeated how they’ve done Blake with Weiss, but it’s possible that they’re going to give Weiss a more significant arc and growth in season nine, put more focus on her relationship with Whitley and Willow once things cool down a little after all of season eight was equal parts ‘a crisis mode’ and a ‘sit around and wait for the plot to come around’ storyline. This post is kind of running on in length pretty badly, but here are a couple of ways I think Weiss could really shine next arc.

1. Have her and Yang trapped in the void together without Ruby and Blake. I’ve talked before about how Ruby’s ‘protagonist’ framing swallows up her friend group before, and how Blake and Yang’s relationship tends to swallow up one or both of them, as well as other characters having to be a bit more diminished to try and make bee moments more significant, and I think splitting up the team between Weiss and Yang, and Blake and Ruby could make Weiss grow more significantly and have her and Yang interact meaningfully again (which we haven’t gotten since season five.) In an ideal situation, I’d personally throw Jaune into the mix as well, since I’ve started to enjoy both the concept of him and Yang as friends and the concept of him and Weiss as friends. I think it’d really speak to Weiss’s character and show growth if she made the choice to go in after Yang, since Ruby is needed more in the world immediately (because of her Silver Eyes,) Penny is needed too (because of her Maiden powers) and Blake is needed at least somewhat (since she’s the one with the connections to the reformed Faunus group and Ghira and Ilia and all.) This could add a layer to angst, with Weiss proclaiming herself the least important, but also make Weiss’s character seem much more selfless, as she’s willing to risk her life and is willing to risk being alone in the Void herself even though her whole thing is loneliness, in order to save Yang. Jaune then surprising everyone by going with Weiss, and having an emotional moment where Ruby and Blake realize they have to trust Weiss and Jaune to do this and try and force themselves to still fight and work while they wait and panic and worry... That’s some good stuff! Of course, that would unfortunately bench Weiss’s relationships with her family, but I’d still be very happy with this outcome.

2. Have Weiss go on to Vacuo and not go after Yang, but be the one to rally the people, help them all to the city, deal with Theodore, etc. If Blake and Ruby went after Yang, or Blake, Ruby, and Jaune went after Yang, or just Ruby and Jaune, I think there could be some interest there. Not quite so much for the Void Team, but for the Left Behind Team. Having Weiss have to deal with being thrown into a leadership position when she’s not a leader at heart would be really interesting. Having her trying to hold it together and not let any grief, worry, or panic take her over so she can focus on her mission would be really interesting. We could have at least one member of Team RWBY facing the consequences of their actions and taking the brunt of it, while defending their choices and trying to find a place for millions of refugees. Once again, this could play into Weiss’s themes about loneliness, and Weiss could maybe even wind up resenting her team for leaving her and knowing it’s unfair and knowing they did what they had to do, but it would still create tension when they come back. And this sort of arc could also really push and flesh out her relationship and interactions with Whitley. There’s a lot that CRWBY could do with their relationship in this sort of scenario, but I would love it if Weiss’s themes of loneliness played a part in the early episodes of the volume, with her kind of secluding herself because she doesn’t have her friends and she thinks she’s alone, but then getting closer and closer to Whitley and realizing that she’s not alone, because she has her little brother who she loves. Idk, I just think it could be really good and sweet.

So... Yeah. Those are the ways I think Weiss’s character could grow and be fleshed out. Currently, I’m not happy with how she’s been, but there’s still hope for her. However, I will laugh so hard if she gets some romance and starts being one half of a pairing. XD