#I feel like I haven't written about Barb in ages...

[misc-obeyme]

what drew you to barbatos initially? did you immediately like him when you started playing or did it take some time? 👀

Ohhh an interesting question!

It did take some time. I remember at first just being like huh well that guy has a cool design. But not really caring about him because I didn't know much about him. I was curious, but definitely not as obsessed as I am.

It was a gradual thing. I think the first time I started to go OH? was after Lesson 16 because that was when we first got a glimpse of his time travel powers. I remember being like wow that's kind of a big deal! But he was so nonchalant about it, like okay whatever you want Young Master~

And then in season three of the OG, we really got more of his backstory and suddenly I was like OKAY I can't stop thinking about this guy now??? Him and his pact with Solomon and his creepy room and his lil oya...

And then I played through some of his Devilgrams and I was like oh. I see. I'm obsessed. Right then.

So I think the first thing was his design, then his time powers, then just his general attitude. It had a lot to do with him having all this power that he just didn't use or only used when Diavolo asked him to. It made him super mysterious and interesting and left sooo much space for me to write all the fics mwahaha.

Ahh I love talking about Barbatos lol! Thanks for the question, Starr! 💕

[sssn-neptune-vasilias]

RWBY RWDE/Discourse Bingo 2

PART TWOOOOO. Again, I like stirring the pot, so here's a part 2 for anyone brave enough to try.

Explanations down below!

"Ironwood's plan was to abandon Remnant entirely." People think that Ironwood's plan after finding that chess piece in his office was to lift Atlas up into the atmosphere and just exist up there until the end of time. Abandon Remnant entirely and just float up there indefinitely, at least Salem wouldn't be able to get the Staff.

"Adam was significantly older than Blake." To me, this feels like one of those things that got retconned into the series after Adam's initial retcon. We still don't have an official age for Adam, but in the comics it was revealed he's like, maybe 5+ years older than Blake? And considering they met when she was 12... Is this something you gathered from the beginning? That Adam had always been intended to be significantly older than her?

"Neptune's "keep your hands above the waist" comment was sexist. People really didn't like that one at all. During the tournament he tells NDGO to do that and a lot of the FNDM went >:T

"Arryn and Barb are fetishizing lesbians." Basically the way that these two are constantly promoting the ship and talking about the characters- also the fact that they even read some Bumbleby fanfics on stream a while ago- seems fetishizing.

"Emerald's redemption was poorly handled." I don't think anyone was expecting a Prince Zuko level redemption but do you feel they could've at least done a little more?

"WoR's worldbuilding should've been explained in the show." Kinda self-explanatory. They made us do homework and took a week off every 5 weeks for like 3 whole volumes just to drop lore videos that should've been incorporated into the show.

"Ruby isn't allowed to be sad." Again, kinda self-explanatory, but I think most of this discourse happened pre-v7. There were a bunch of moments where Ruby could've been sad or upset or frustrated and she really wasn't allowed to feel those emotions. I haven't seen this one since v7 so I think people are happier with how she's been emoting in recent volumes

"Ren was bootlicking v7." Did you feel Ren was kinda Ironwood's Pet during v7?

"Raven wasn't a bad person." This one got me yelled at a few years ago 🤭. Basically people believe that Raven isn't really a bad person. That everything she's done has an explanation that excuses her behavior. What do you think?

"Jaune and Neptune's v2 conversation was sexist." People felt that that entire conversation was objectifying Weiss. Specifically the "you can have her" line.

"Jaune harassing Weiss = bad, Nora harassing Ren = good?" People felt that Jaune's harassment of Weiss wasn't being treated the same as Nora's harassment of Ren. Basically "why is it okay when Nora does it but not when Jaune does it?"

""Monty's vision"" The thought here is that some of what RT has done with the show contradicts some of what Monty had said would be happening and had laid out when he was still alive.

"Pyrrha's death only affected Jaune until v6." Pyrrha's death was only referenced once before v6, and it was through a recording Jaune was watching while training during v4. It never came up again until v6. Did you feel that Pyrrha was basically fridged for Jaune's (and maybe Ruby's) growth?

"Penny's unroboting was bad." This one has a couple reasons behind it. People either felt that it was handled really poorly (a lot of the language that RWBY used to convince Ambrosius to do what he did treated Penny as if her robotness was some external entity and not an intrinsic part of who she was), or that because Penny's story really fit in neatly with a trans narrative that her "becoming human" in the way she did felt kinda squicky. If you agree with either of those, this one's for you.

"RWBY men are purposefully written to be irrelevant and useless." I used to hear this SO MUCH in the past but haven't heard it much since Qrow's become a recurring character. Basically all the dudes in the show are purposefully written to be useless. Jaune has no combat experience, Ren gets folded every fight he's in, Team SSSN hardly exist, etc.

""BMBLB is about the bike"" I am trying so hard not to present any of these in a biased way, but basically people were legitimately, 100% non-ironically arguing that the song BMBLB was about Yang's bike "Bumblebee" and not the ship. I am not making this up.

"Prom arc was wasted time." The argument here was that prom arc was like... almost thirty minutes of screentime that was pretty much wasted time of Jaune trying to convince Weiss that he should have a shot.

"Penny's death was nothing more than a plot device." So the finale of season 7 and the entirety of season 8 all took place in less than 12 hours. And all that really happened in terms of Penny's growth was that she became the Maiden, got unroboted, then died and passed on the powers to Winter- the woman who was supposed to receive them in the first place. Do you feel that there was a better way for Winter to get the powers besides killing a popular character like Penny off for a second- and probably final- time?

"Adam's brand." Do you hate the way Adam's brand was revealed, or the backstory behind the brand? Basically RT said in the director's commentary that some rando "gave Adam a good one" with the branding iron during a fight because "Adam's always been such a bad person" and that's how he got that scar over his eye. Do you absolutely hate that explanation because you know how brands work? Do you think that further vilifying Adam that he was branded as SDC property in a way that he was the aggressor in the altercation is garbage for the racism subplot?

"Ilia was introduced as a "psycho lesbian" trope." The first time we meet Ilia she's working for Adam, and ready to literally kill Blake's parents and best (boy?)friend and cart her off to her abusive ex that's already threatened to kill her numerous times.

"Vine didn't have to die." Vine was able to stop that nuke's shockwave from leveling Mantle from the inside of his stretchy arms... why couldn't he do it from the outside?

"Weiss never apologized." Do you feel that Weiss never apologized for what she'd said to Blake during Black & White? Do you feel that she should have?

"V4&5 Quality drop." Kinda self-explanatory. Do you think there's a drop in animation and fight choreography quality? Or instances of the lore contradicting itself? Some people's least favorite volumes were 4 and 5 for this reason.

"Jaune endangered his team throughout the Beacon arc." This dude literally has no combat experience and every time he and his team go out for missions he's putting them in danger, especially considering he hadn't officially told Ren or Nora about this until way later.

"Shane's letter." PHEW. This is a big one that's definitely gonna start arguments. Here's the whole fucking letter so you can read the thing yourself, but basically Shane Newville- Monty's... I guess "apprentice" would be a good word, was fired from RT in 2016, about a year after Monty's death. This letter goes into some detail about him working with Monty, and goes into further detail on how things were like after his death while working on RWBY, and how RT fired him. This letter was also corroborated by Sheena Duquette- Monty's wife who was also let go by RT (and the inspiration for Neo Politan), and Kathleen Zuelch- Glynda Goodwitch's and Tex's (RvB) VA who also had a falling out with the company in 2013. This whole letter is super controversial, and it's discussing a LOT (it's 36 pages), but do you think that Shane's discussion of RT stepping on toes to get the people closest to Monty (including himself and J.J. Castillo (Mercury's first VA before Yuri Lowenthal took over) out of the company to have full control over RWBY has any merit to it?

[misc-obeyme]

Ooo human AU? Seems interesting… what is Barb doing in this human au? Y’know once upon a time I went to this little tea shop thing, do you think Barb would wanna work there? I don’t really know lmao-

I really really wanna like Mammon and I get that he’s a little tsun but it’s just kinda hard for me to like him- I need validation and knowing that the work that I put into a relationship is appreciated, and I feel like with Mammon I would feel insecure or like… does he think I’m annoying, does he just not care about that I wanna be friends? So yea-

I have a deep love for Solomon akdjdjs especially in NB?? I value emotional stability and just like. stability and domesticity in general in my relationships, and they fed us so well with that hehe :3

My sister keeps sending me angst </3 so I’m depressed now yay! But I like torturing myself lol (especially if it’s good angst)

I’ve been trying to learn some k-pop dances!! And. uh. I have never danced before (besides just like random flailing that has no choreo at all) so that’s fun! But hey, it’s not going too bad in my opinion!

Anyways sorry for bothering you with my rambling ^w^

- <3

Ahh, yes I have a few posts about my human!au ideas... they even inspired some amazing fanart! But I haven't gotten to Barb yet... I started with the brothers and I haven't finished them yet. And it was just random ideas, I haven't actually written anything out. You can find them under the tag #misc human au! But also here are some links: this is the first one about Beel, then Belphie & Satan, and lastly Asmo & Mammon.

HOWEVER I have been thinking about Barbatos because of course I have. I've actually thought about two different human!au situations for him. In relation to my general AU as linked above, I'm kinda back and forthing about what I think he'd be doing. This is because I'm not sure what Diavolo is doing in that AU and I think that would impact what Barb is doing. I don't really want him to just be Diavolo's butler but human style, you know? So I'm still ruminating on this one.

But aside from that, I've had an idea about human!AU tea shop Barbatos for ages! So yes, exactly what you're suggesting. I was thinking it would be interesting to explore a story where Barbatos is not in command of time and space, where he's just... a regular person. How would that change his dynamic with MC? What would that look like if they fell in love? How would Barbatos react in a situation where he doesn't have any obligations to a prince or magic or the world at large? He's just a man who runs a tea shop.

Because I think if he didn't have all those things and he was just a human, he would definitely run a tea shop. I like to think of it as a tea shop/bakery hybrid. And of course MC is a regular customer. It's a story I've been thinking about for a while... maybe I should write it lol.

ANYWAY I didn't mean to ramble about this, but as you can see I have many thoughts lol.

It's totally valid not to like Mammon. He has a lot of fans, but he's not for everyone! The trick with him, I think, is to remember that no matter what he says, he's definitely down bad for you. All you gotta do is flirt with him and you'll see - he'll blush like crazy. Or maybe you flirt with one of his brothers just to see him protest. But in the end, if you really need him to be honest with you, all you have to do is ask him when he's alone with you. Every time he's open and honest with MC about his feelings it's when they're alone. It's one of my favorite things about him, personally. I like to imagine MC just being really honest with him and asking him how he feels and when he tells them, he might still be blushing, but he's serious and he means it.

I also think the tsundere thing is more about before he's in a relationship with MC. He has a harder time with it until it's official and he's feeling more secure. Then I think he'd get real clingy real fast and you'd find him glued to your hip lol.

But that's just how I interpret his character! And it's okay not to like a character that a lot of other people do! That's just how it goes sometimes!

Ah, Solomon. I love him, too. I wonder what it'd be like if they gave all the characters this treatment - like, if each character lived alone with MC for a season it'd almost be like routes, you know? Because you'd get to have that domestic situation with each one of them separately.

That would be interesting, but you know it's never gonna happen lol.

I have to be in the right mood for angst... I think it's pretty obvious that I tend to lean toward fluff. I do like angst, though, especially when it's all wrapped up in complicated emotion relationships... ugh but it also makes me crazy lol!

Ohhh fun! K-pop dances are so fun to watch! I hope you're enjoying learning them! I don't think you need any prior dancing experience! Especially if you're just doing it for fun. Anyway you gotta start somewhere, right?

No worries, you are not bothering me. As you can see, I am something of a rambler myself so don't be sorry!