#Oscar is necessary because Ozpin is necessary; and to put Ozpin in anyone else's head would've changed their personal story drastically.

[rwby-encrusted-blog]

WHO CHOSE PENNY

WHO WOULD DARE SAYMY GIRL IS THE WROST

YOU'RE PICKING A FIGHT MOTHERFUCKER

THAT BETTER HAVE BEEN AN ACCIDENT

Be honest.

[bug-the-chicken-nug]

on my latest rwby au bullshit, which I think i will officially start to also tag as the "Silver Wolf" AU.

Silver Wolf AU: Premise

A combo of Ruby being a wolf faunus (on top of getting rid of the stupid rule about one trait because fuck that i want her to have the ears, tail, AND sharp teeth and nails) and having silver eyes, but silver eyed warriors now being considered like... this creepy-but-unfortunately-necessary group who barely anybody wants to really associate with, under fear of it "cursing" you. By extension, they are now known as "Witches" rather than "Warriors", regardless of gender. (This also makes it possible to just shorten it to 'Witch' and have it already be pretty obvious what a character is talking about, so it rolls off the tongue better, while also creating this uncomfortable implication that these people are put on the same level as Salem despite directly opposing her.) The "curse" is a more superstitious exaggeration of the unfortunate reality that associating with them really can put you at risk of becoming collateral when they're hunted down, on top of their eyes now being not all-or-nothing Grimm nuking, but instead having a sort of "level up" system, and the potential to unlock certain abilities that can affect people too. (the new common thread being that all of these abilities have to do with sensing and/or eliminating "darkness" and "negativity", not just Grimm) The fear of association, powers that can be directed towards humans, and the societal shunning would also do a lot to help explain exactly why Witches are so scattered and fragmented, and why people know so little about them. Because in canon, it just seems like they should be heroes who everyone should know about and have a vested interest in supporting.

Relationships:

Also, this AU would 100% be a Ladybug thing. Because I can just see Blake standing up for Ruby, and Ruby immediately being head over heels in response, but having no idea how to actually express it and also being paranoid that Blake will just think she's weird like everyone else. (And meanwhile Blake is paranoid about how Ruby will react if she finds out that Blake is technically a terrorist, and also friend/sister-zoning Ruby big time for the first few volumes, less out of a genuine lack of interest and more because of her subconscious fear of commitment)

Although there'd also be other fragments of Ruby ship teases, just because I imagine this version of her to have developed "gets a crush on anyone who's nice to her for five seconds" syndrome. (Yes I'm sorry, I know a ton of y'all hate Jaune but my Ruby's friendless, bullied, avoided, desperate-for-validation ass sees him being nice to her and unafraid of her for like ten seconds and is lowkey already thinking about a spring wedding.) This also includes a one-sided crush on Ozpin, just for how I think that'd be kinda narratively interesting and potentially a little fucked up. (Especially because the full nuance of why it's interesting can change depending on how grey this Ozpin's morals end up being. Is he subtly using it as leverage? Could this version of him be dickish enough to lead her on? Does he do it on purpose? Or does he even notice her feelings at all? Does he notice and subtly try to discourage it? What happens when he gets stuck in Oscar?) And a crush on Marrow, literally just because I think it'd be funny. Marrow: *obliviously friendly* Ruby: *practically ready to become Ruby Amin, just because he's a fellow Faunus, complimented Crescent Rose, and didn't say anything about her eyes* Blake, looking on: hmst,,, don't know why but. this is bad, actually. Weiss: *sighing deeply* you obviously know why. Meanwhile I figure Yang is human, because only Summer was a Faunus, and it kinda puts this weird Thing between her and Ruby where Ruby both greatly admires and envies her, but lowkey resents her, because she feels like Yang will never truly understand what she goes through, and gets to "have it easy". On her own end, Yang has had to sacrifice a lot of social opportunities to prioritize a good standing with Ruby, because even just admitting relation to Ruby makes people treat Yang differently anyway. So Ruby thinks of herself as a burden, and Yang is desperately trying to hide the fact that she *agrees* with Ruby, deep down. She thinks the burden is *worth it*, but she doesn't know a way of properly conveying "It's okay that you're a burden sometimes, I know it's not your fault, and I still love you even if I get frustrated with you sometimes" that doesn't make her feel incredibly guilty and paranoid that she sounds insincere. And finally (at least for now) I think this would be inch-resting for Adam because now Ruby has something that can actually give her something to do with him too, and make her feel more connected to the things that go on around her. She could even have weird mixed feelings on him, stemming from him seeing her silver eyes and not only expressing approval of them, but trying to get her to come around to his side, using the extra discrimination she's faced because of them to try and butter her up and manipulate her.

[harostar]

Illusion of a Plan

One argument I keep seeing around the fandom is that “Ironwood is the only one with a plan”. The argument goes that no one else has tried to come up with any alternatives, that no one else has a solid course of action.

Which is......not what is happening. 

Ironwood symbolizes the kingdom of Atlas, which includes the ILLUSION of control. The ILLUSION of having a plan, of having a course of action that could succeed.

Those arguments that “Ironwood has a plan” ignore that Ironwood has ALWAYS crumbled under pressure and that his plans has always collapsed. What I mean by this is that Ironwood is ultimately an amazing Ideas man, and he excels at providing support to others. But whenever he tries to take control and be the leader, things......tend to go horribly wrong. One reason for that is because Ironwood himself tends to panic, and he makes rash decisions.

Ironwood does his absolute best when he has all the advantages or when he is working to help and support OTHERS. Think back to when Ironwood has done his absolute best, when he’s been heroic and saved the day. What did those moments have in common?

He was working with others and had put aside his ego to cooperate. 

Beacon:

Ironwood is starting to lose himself to panic, he’s spiraling and more worried about defending the PENNY program than dealing with the current crisis. Ozpin gives him direction: Use his army and save the city. 

Ironwood rallies the students, tries to deal with the hack, and then joins forces with Glynda and Qrow. He supports the evacuation and the efforts to save people. 

He SUCCEEDS in what Ozpin asked him to do. He saves an untold number of lives that day. 

But then he makes a critical mistake.

He goes back to Atlas and begins a process of isolation. He starts giving into his paranoia. He recognizes that Haven is the next target and tells Jacques Schnee that “Leo” won’t be able to handle it. So Ironwood starts closing the borders, abandoning his closest allied kingdom. Salem’s forces explicitly state their plan requires that Ironwood remain isolated, that he not reach out to Theodore and reaffirm his alliances.

Ironwood starts taking and taking from the most vulnerable citizens. To repurpose Amity Arena as a new communications tower, he begins placing greater strains on Mantle. He uses his authority to take supplies from Mantle, creating greater danger for the kingdom in the name of an ambitious and far-off plan. He ignores the immediate dangers in favor of gambling on what COULD eventually be a major benefit for everyone. 

Mantle: 

When the heating grid is deactivated in Mantle, Ironwood once again shows his greatest strength. He joins forces with Robyn, and TOGETHER they manage to come up with a multi-point plan to address the crisis. They lure out Watts and Tyrian, they organize evacuations. Everything is going in their favor.

But then Ironwood sees that someone associated with Salem has broken into his office. His trauma comes crashing down on him, and he throws away literally every bit of progress made. 

He sends Winter to kill Fria, leading Cinder to the Winter Maiden’s location as she wanted. He falls into the same trap that was played at Beacon, and they nearly lose a second Maiden to Cinder.

He turns on his allies, ordering their arrests. He doubles-down on abandoning Mantle, because among the refugees could be more of Salem’s agents. He decides to abandon the Amity Project, even when pressed about trying an emergency launch. (Something that Ruby’s team later PULLS OFF, in spite of his interference.) 

He hasn’t planned beyond “Fuck Off into the upper atmosphere, let this be other people’s problems”. We see this in the simple fact that people in Atlas are out on picnics and living their ordinary lives while Salem’s forces are on their doorstep. While the people of Mantle are facing death by Grimm or Hypothermia, the people in Atlas don’t even know anything is going on.

There are clearly no emergency procedures of any kind, because of course not. Atlas is always safe from everything because of their military. The people do not even know how to react to the sight of Grimm, nor do they have any way to deal with sheltering the population other than shoving them down into the subway. There’s no emergency shelters, no evacuation plans, absolutely no emergency planning in sight for the wealthiest kingdom with the best technology and the one standing military.

In Mantle, people are coming together and getting shit down with what little they have. The Happy Huntresses, the Mantle Police, and other random Huntsmen are doing everything possible with almost no resources and their main source of support/resources (Atlas military) completely cut off.

In the mean time, Ironwood has spent an entire day watching things go to hell. Clinging to his desperate Escape Plan, to the point of ordering a major enemy to HACK PENNY. On the slim hope he can force things to go the way he wants.

Meanwhile, Ironwood has rejected literally every single attempt to discuss alternatives. And he has rejected them with increasing violence. Oscar nearly died, and Councilman Sleet is dead now for questioning Ironwood. 

His best plan to deal with the Whale is “send my best operatives to hand-deliver a bomb on what is very likely a suicide mission”. When he....literally......has drones. He has machines designed for the purpose of handling dangerous things like that, but instead he’s sending his best and most loyal team to probably die on a long-shot. 

Meanwhile, Team “Don’t Kill Everyone” has actually accomplished a lot. Again, with very limited resources and almost no logistical experience. I think that’s important to remember in this discussion:

Teams RWBY and JNR + O are teenagers. 

The people that should have all the experience, expertise, resources, and means to get shit down are actively hindering them. EVERYONE is in over their head at this point. But only ONE PERSON has actively and consistently made things difficult.

Ironwood has decided his plan is the only plan. And he won’t even consider the multiple attempts to discussion alternatives, to discuss other options. To......anything. He’s already decided he cannot risk his City and therefore, everyone else is a necessary sacrifice. He’s providing increasingly willing to harm and even kill the people around him, in the name of defending a single city. 

He’s managed to convince himself and his subordinates that he has a plan. 

But he’s merely dressed up his panic, and presented it as something reasonable and rational.

It isn’t and pretending that he isn’t the primary party responsible for things being so bad at this point is a mistake. He’s the one with every single advantage and most of the cards, who has consistently refused to even talk with anyone else. 

He’s covered a turd in gold, polished it, and presented it as the only possible choice. 

And then insisted anyone going, “But it’s still shit” is too naive and getting in his way. Unfortunately, some of the fandom seem to also believe you’re not allowed to point out that a gold-plated turd is still shit, unless you independently offer up a completely unique and separate, better option. 

That’s not actually how things work. You’re supposed to be able to go: “But that idea sucks” and start asking questions and making suggestions. 

[itsclydebitches]

The post about how characters don't connect to the setting is one of the reasons why the beginning of V7 frustrated me so much. James gives this plan of telling the world about Salem, Weiss rightfully points out their will be panic everywhere and NO ONE connects that with the very real fear that this plan could put all their families in danger. Nor does anyone get excited about the Amity project potentially allowing them to call home. Ruby's been away for A YEAR. Doesn't she miss her dad at all?

Exactly! This isn't a bad faith criticism where we're demanding the show do a ton of emotional work that there just isn't time for in the fighting focused plot; a claim that it's awful because it's not functioning as one genre (like a drama, soap opera, etc.) over another (action/adventure, fantasy, sci-fi)... I mean we get nothing in regards to this issue. Not even crumbs. And these connections are, supposedly, at the very heart of the "trust love" narrative. I think it's easy for people to forget what happens between volumes — especially given the "Only the latest volume is canon" mentality — but we literally had Ironwood announce to Ruby that he'd need to use his army to keep the grimm attacks at bay once the Salem secret was revealed and then a volume later Ruby reveals the Salem secret (along with a whole lot else that is scary, horrifying, and generally negative-emotion educing) after she's cut all ties with Ironwood and his army is fully engaged in keeping Salem at bay. There is no discussion, let along concern and worry, about how many people she just got killed for an announcement that the show has failed to justify. Why is telling the world about Salem worth the casualties it will cause? What is the world going to do against the immortal witch? Ruby doesn't know. That's her whole dilemma this volume: wanting easy answers and then crumbling when she can't think of any. Problem is, she endangered the whole world before admitting, "Oh, I have no idea how to stop all this awfulness."

I mean, I understand on an emotional level why the hypocrisy of Ruby's lies and secrets don't land because most people in the fandom dislike, or outright hate, Ozpin. That's really going to color any reading there, when suddenly the beloved hero is mirroring someone you despise — you'll do whatever mental gymnastics are necessary to keep them separate. But Ruby has no evil contrast here. This is all her. We watch her make a decision that she knows will endanger the entire world, including her loved ones, and it's never even raised as a concern. The same way no one raises concerns about going to Vacuo. Yes, supposedly escaping was the only option available (I say "supposedly" because the plot did a terrible job of convincing us that evacuation was still necessary with Salem currently exploded and it having been established that she's only after the Relic on Atlas), and in a crisis situation they aren't necessarily thinking about long-term survival (that's my own stance regarding Ironwood's desire to rise high: he's not thinking about how to live there indefinitely, just how to survive the next few hours), but why send them to the Kingdom they know Salem will attack next? The Crown is hidden. You have the Lamp and the Staff. You know Salem is after all the Relics, so of course she's going to Vacuo. And so you dump however many refugees there, in the city she's gunning for next, intentionally setting up the next Fall of Atlas? Yeah, we all know it's because structurally the story hasn't been to Vacuo yet, but in-world it makes the characters look incredibly stupid. Why dump an entire Kingdom's worth of people in the most hostile environment, with the most wary citizens, a place you know the Big Bad is heading to next, when you could instead split them up and send them to safer Kingdoms that aren't currently in Salem's path? "Oh, it's because Vacuo still has huntsmen and they need huntsmen to combat all the grimm." There wouldn't be a massive grimm problem is Ruby hadn't told the whole world about Salem!

And this problem of not thinking through actions in a way that demonstrates real care for the world is just compounded over and over on a personal level. It's the same way Ruby doesn't care about what happened to Qrow until she hopes he can fix everything. The same way she doesn't react to Yang "dying." The same way Yang didn't mention Summer for five volumes. The same way Jaune, Yang, and Nora rejected Ren until he fell in line. The same way Blake is trying to inspire Ruby when they've barely exchanged a handful of sentences since Beacon. The same way, as you say, no one has made mention of the family they've left behind, let alone considered how building a communications tower might be a way of reconnecting with them, especially when at least two of them — Ruby and Oscar — left completely out of the blue. Are they presented as caring about how that inevitably hurt their care givers? Nah. The fandom gives Tai so little slack, but at least the story showed him watching Ruby's message and being upset at the danger she's in. When was the last time the girls mentioned Tai?

... have they mentioned him since they left home?

The show has done a terrible job in the last couple of years of showing that these characters actually care for one another, beyond a superficial level, especially when all the cute friendship moments that function as filler are obliterated the moment one of them disagrees about something (see: Ren). There's no sense of place and little sense of real family, from Weiss doing multiple 180s with Whitley, to Blake being the only one who reacts to Yang's "death." It all rings so hollow. I'm supposed to believe that Ruby is still the one to inspire the world towards unity when she, at the point of her speech, still hasn't even tried to reconcile with Ozpin, has been betraying Ironwood this whole time, insta-turned on the Ace Ops for trying to make her face consequences for the crimes she knows she committed, fought her way into the kingdom because she didn't like the peaceful solution Cordovin offered (send Weiss), hasn't made mention of her father, collapsed over hearing her mother's name only to get over it seconds later, at this point in the volume barely interacts with her sister, and is leading a team whose attitude ranges from "Glares at Marrow for daring to suggest she works with anyone other than Yang" and "Points a weapon at her baby brother because she, apparently, can't even manage to work with a minor civilian family member." This is the team who is going to inspire Remnant to unify against Salem, the group who keeps not unifying with everyone they need to work with? There is a serious disconnect here. You can't tell the audience to "trust love" while failing to show basic love and support among the cast, and you can't try to make Ruby the poster child for unity when she has, since Volume 6, has consistently failed to unify with anyone: not Cordovin, not Qrow until he agreed to stop questioning her, not Ozpin, not Ironwood, not the Ace Ops, not even Robyn considering that was all Yang and Blake. Ruby's struggle right now is an inability to work with people who don't agree with her 100%, her biggest flaw is an all or nothing attitude, and the writing is failing to see how that might just be a problem when she's telling everyone else to put their differences aside to work together. Having Ruby actually try to connect with people more, worry about them, express love for them, etc. — both family and allies — would at least help soften this issue, but without it her characterization has severely tanked in terms of the compassion the show wants us to believe is still there.

[pilot-boi]

Five Injuries Hidden: Chapter Six

Rough Sailing

He was a paper boat in a thunderstorm lost at sea. One wave, just slightly too big, would be all it would take to swallow him up whole

AO3 LINK

Jaune moaned, squeezing his eyes shut. Was the world supposed to spin that fast?

He could’ve sworn it had been cold when he went to sleep, so why did it feel like he was melting? But that wasn't the worst part, not by far. The icy cold that stole his breath away always came rushing back after he had melted, freezing him. His skin, his bones, his blood, all of it, making his body react with bone-rattling shivers that seemed to make everything worse.

But all of this waned in the face of the sheer ball of agony his leg had become.

It made him want to die. Seriously, just put him out of his misery already. He had to fight to keep the two meager bites of fish he had managed to choke down last night from making a reappearance.

He wasn't fine. He couldn't even try to fool himself into thinking that when he couldn't even move, save for half curling painfully into a ball on the ground before he had to stop lest he passed out.

The only thing he hoped was that Nora or Ruby didn't find him first. Gods they were going to kill him.

Jaune knew his fever was getting worse, but at this point, it was only a distant thought.

What was that blob?

No, stop shaking me.

Why are you being so loud?

Shuuuussssshhhhhh.

Your hands are cold, lemme alone.

Suddenly pain. Blinding, unbearable pain that made tears come unbidden to his eyes as the blob… Blobs? Were there more than one? He couldn't tell anymore. As the blobs brushed against the broken bolt of steel sticking out of his leg.

What was that sound? Who was screaming? Oh wait... That was him. It kinda sounded like it was far away.

Underwater.

Muffled.

Mmmuuufffffffllleeeddd… Muffled was a funny word...

Oh, wait. He was moving. Hrrk. Nope. Abort. Abort.

Jaune could feel the horrible feeling of stomach acid burning his throat as he heaved wherever his head was pointing. Uggghhhhhhhhh.

He was in pain, sick, confused and really wanted to die. Why has no one putting him out of his misery?!

Jaune could hear a bubbling stream of voices, but just like the water of a stream, it slipped through his fingers. Nothing made sense anymore. Why were there so many different colored blobs? It made his already pounding head hurt even worse. He closed his eyes, the darkness instantly soothing the added thorns to his headache.

Then, he felt a super-cooled hand pat his cheek. But all his strength was sapped out of his limbs, his mind, and he barely even flinched. Please, please leave him alone. Let him sink into the nice, comforting darkness. 

His lack of reaction caused a flurry of action, sounds, maybe voices, and just the barely perceived sense of pure panic. Why? What was wrong? Jaune struggled to blink open his heavy, sticky eyelids. He could only manage to open them to about half-way, but it was enough. 

Slowly blinking, and that was a true challenge, because his eyes did not wanna stay open, everything slowly came into focus.

He... was in the house? Hm, they must have found them. Good. That... that was good.

The next thing that came into focus was Ruby’s determined, tear-stained face. Why was Ruby crying? Did someone hurt her?! He had to help, had to get up and stop whoever it was from hurting her-

All thoughts fled his mind as the pain in his leg increased a thousand fold. Next thing he knew, he was screaming. 

His world blotted out, and all he could feel was the tormenting feel of mind numbing agony. His leg was on fire. It hurt, oh did it hurt. Stop. Stop it. Stop it stop it stop it stop it stopitstopitstopitstopitstopitstopitstopitstopitstopit-

Unable to bear the pain any longer, the world went dark.

--------

Ruby sighed as she wrung out the cold, wet cloth before she placed it back onto her best friend's sweltering forehead. How had it come to this? How could they have missed such a grievous injury that friend had?

This was all her fault. If she'd only been more attentive, and not wallowing in her own doubts and self-pity about the mission. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Ruby flinched as Jaune whimpered softly, no doubt his fever spiking. She softly took his scalding hand in her own, gently rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb. They'd found Jaune delirious with fever when they had gone to see why he wasn't up yet, the hard ground underneath him stained red with his own blood.

She'd never forget the sheer lifelessness as they tried to awaken the knight. 

That was when they found the horrendous injury in the form of a steel bolt lodged deeply into his leg. The steel bolt went deep, and the muscle around it was torn and irritated. It must have gotten worse with all the running around and fighting he had done. Not to mention the raging infection that must have set in sometime during the night.

Her friend's screams as they'd removed the bolt would haunt her nightmares.

She'd known that it wasn't going to be painless, as they didn't have the necessary equipment to put him under, they were too far from the nearest hospital, and the only person who could’ve numbed the pain was the one injured. It had been their only option that would ensure that Jaune would survive until they could get to proper medical help... But it didn't mean that she had to like it.

Yang, unnaturally subdued, quietly made her way into the room, closing the door behind her before she made her way over. The brawler gently rubbed Ruby's shoulder, his eyes never leaving the haggard, pale-skinned form in the bed. 

"We'll be at the hospital in a few minutes." She murmured softly. Sucking in what was supposed to be a steadying breath, Ruby nodded, briefly scrubbing at her eyes. 

Yang wisely said nothing and instead started helping her ready Jaune for transportation. Pulling off his armor was a struggle, as it made him wince in pain even unconscious. His shirt was sticking to his chest with sweat, and his hair was plastered to his forehead. She couldn't help her full bodied shiver as she watched his lungs struggle for each breath.

It... it just wasn't right seeing their dorky, passionate friend like this.

Not at all.

--------

Nora breathed.

In.

And out.

In.

And out.

Crunch.

She growled, frustrated, and was this close to throwing this flimsy chair that insisted on its armrests breaking every time she laid a finger on it.

It totally wasn't because she was too upset to properly control his strength. Nope. Completely the chair's fault.

She was about to throw it across the room when Oscar despondently trudged his way in looking for all the world he was carrying the world's burdens. Shoulders slumped, he didn't even look up as he bonelessly collapsed into the chair next to her. Nora could relate.

Getting Jaune into emergency care had been a nightmare. Not because of the staff, but because the knight had stopped breathing as they loaded him onto a gurney. Ruby had frozen, her eyes wide in terror and helplessness. Yang had taken her home, and Weiss and Blake had gone with her. Ren was still stuck at the Bounty, and his absence was making her antsy

And now she and Oscar were stuck waiting.

Nora could tell that Oscar was trying his hardest to keep it together, to be the strong future immortal wizard guy that he thought that he needed to be 24/7 no matter what anyone else said. 

She got it, she really did, but it didn't make it any less upsetting. Shaking her head, she wrapped an arm around her little brother and tugged him closer to her side. Oscar stiffened, but soon relaxed, burying his face into her shoulder. 

Nora clenched her jaw and closed her eyes at the sheer helplessness to stop the tremors shaking the boy's shoulders as he struggled to quiet his hiccuping sobs.

She could feel Oscar mumble something into her now soaked jacket and rubbed his shoulder while glancing down at the mop of shaggy brown hair, "You're going to have to speak up buddy, I didn't catch that."

Oscar revealed his tear-soaked face and heart shattering, shiny-with-tears, big hazel eyes that just destroyed Nora's soul just looking at. Something howling inside her to fix, or destroy, depending on the situation, whatever was hurting him.

And she... couldn't.

It physically hurt her not being able to fix this kind of hurt.

She knew there was only one thing, one person who could... And he was in the emergency room struggling to survive.

"It's just not fair." Oscar whimpered, half-hiding his face back into her jacket, snapping her out of her thoughts. 

That took Nora aback, blinking down at him. Oscar never complained about things being fair. Ever. Even though he had more than enough reason to, what with the whole Ozpin thing. It was sad, but true. And they had never heard him once say anything about it.

But... this wasn't about Oscar.

This time, it was for Jaune's sake.

If her heart hadn't been hurting before for Oscar, by the gods was it now. She wrapped both arms around her friend, offering every ounce of comfort that she was able, gently shushing him.

"I know. I know it's unfair, and I know you know that's the way life is," she added on, knowing what tended to run through her own head and hoping it would apply to this, "But Jaune's the strongest person I know, and if anyone can pull through, he can."

With a final sniff, resolve hardened in Oscar's eyes as he nodded, wiping away the tears still rolling down his cheeks, "You're right. Jaune can do this. We just... We just gotta put our faith in him."

Nora gave him a tired half-smile and tousled his hair, "That's right."

"That's exactly right."

--------

Ren was pacing.

That in itself was worrying.

But he really didn't care at this moment in time.

There was still no word, after hours of waiting.

After Yang and Ruby had returned, one grim and the other still in shock, he had taken to pacing around the ship and hadn't stopped once for eight hours.

Eight hours of worrying. More like nine, since he hadn't stopped worrying since they found Jaune this morning.

Eight hours of "what if?"s.

Eight hours of not knowing whether Jaune was going to pull through.

It was enough to wear a track into the poor floor. Ren just hoped that news, any kind of news, would be given to them soon.

He wasn't sure how much more they could take…

--------

It had been twelve hours since Jaune had been admitted, and only just now was he being settled into his hospital room in the ICU so that he could be watched over for any complications.

The news had been grim. Jaune'd flat-lined five times. Five. And had, on the last one, been legally dead for an entire forty-eight seconds.

Forty-eight seconds, the world had been without it's lovable, dorky noodle boy.

That was forty-eight seconds too long in Yang’s books.

But, that wasn't all. Ohhh, no.

The nurses had revealed that their friend’s body was littered with scars of all sizes. From paper-cut worthy, to how-the-heck-are-you-even-still-alive?! sizes. They had all been gobsmacked, and then unbelievably angry, when they'd found out. 

Why hadn't he told them? Just how often had he been injured without their notice?! Many of them from this past year alone!

Needless to say, they all wanted some answers.

Sadly, they might not be getting any.

Jaune had a raging infection trying to tear him apart from the inside-out, and with his blood-loss, there was a very high chance of him never waking up at all.

As she said. Bad.

Really, the only reason Yang wasn't falling apart right now in a panicking mess, was because Ruby needed her. So she stayed strong, toughing it out in silence as she watched her slowly fall apart with each near mechanical breath.

Machines. She was good with machines. If they broke, you could fix them. If they died, you could revive them.

But Jaune wasn't a machine.

He was broken in ways that she couldn't fix.

And if he died... she couldn't revive him.

There were no do-overs. No magic reset button.

Nothing she could do.

Yang decided she hated that.

---------

Jaune wasn't aware of anything, really... Just that it was soft. Warm. Painless.

...Painless?

That seemed wrong to him somehow. But... he couldn't remember why...

He sunk into a haze.

Drifting aimlessly, he could vaguely tell that time had passed. 'How long?' He distantly wondered.

The question faded.

Thoughts continued to trickle through his hands, touching the surface of them, but never being able to grasp onto them for long.

He continued to drift.

Something was missing, he realized later. That realization came with a certain, clear clarity that allowed him to grab onto it with both hands in a vice-like grip. The haze lifted a little. He was suddenly aware of a sore ache that he could feel deep down into every bone.

He'd forgotten he'd even had bones...

The feeling of something missing and the general sense of something is wrong grew. Where was he? How did he get here?

A sudden thought slammed into him like a rampaging Boarbatusk.

Where were his friends?

Desperation burned out the rest of the hazy darkness he had settled into for who knows how long, his injuries that he'd forgotten about up till now made themselves known with a vengeance. And his memories became crystal clear along with them.

Oh.

Perfect.

They were going to murder him for this...

But first, he had to wake up.

After all, he couldn't be dead because he doubted that he would be this aching and sore in the after-life.

Waking up proved to be more difficult than he had expected.

But, never the one to be deterred, he finally pushed though.

And found himself staring at a ceiling in a dark hospital room.

--------

Good news. Finally.

After a week of no relatively no improvement from the knight, the doctors had informed them of increased brain activity and that his Aura was finally replenishing properly. His chances of waking up, of surviving this, went up a little more each day.

They were up to two weeks, two horribly long weeks, the doctors saying that Jaune could be waking up at any time now.

Anytime.

Any time at all.

The clock read midnight. The witching hour.

Oscar never understood that saying. And really, he was too tired to even try. He was pretty sure that his heavy eyes were blood-shot, red from crying.

Red. Red was the color of fire. The color of power. The color of warmth.

But it was also the color of war. Of danger. Of blood.

Jaune's blood.

Every time he blinked, the images seared into his eyelids, he could see Jaune laying pale and still, oh, so still, and in a puddle of mostly dried blood. He could see and time the exact moment he stopped breathing, stopped fighting.

But, then, Jaune never did stop fighting, did he?

No, he fought tooth and nail, even while deeply unconscious, and his heart continued to stubbornly hold onto life even if it faltered at times. 

Even with a raging infection that the doctors had only just been able to battle back, calling it a close thing and that if Jaune hadn’t had such abnormally high Aura reserves, that they probably wouldn’t have been able to save him. 

Same with his leg. The doctors had been amazed that Jaune had evaded having it amputated, though by a narrow margin. Yet they doubted that he would ever be able to walk without assistance of a cane from now on.

But Semblances and stubbornness were powerful things. Especially where Jaune was concerned.

They gave it about a month or two before Jaune was walking around like nothing had ever happened.

Oscar smiled at the thought, before a soft groan shattered the silence as if it was spun glass. It immediately held every ounce of his attention as he scrambled to his feet and closer to Jaune's side, daring to feel hope as it blossomed in his chest.

Jaune's face was scrunched, and then...

He blinked open his eyes.

[real-jaune-isms]

RWBY Volume 7 Chapter 12 Review/Rundown

Well well well, looks like it did NOT get much better this week than it was last week. And with Miles and Kerry saying Volume 8 will still have our heroes in Atlas, I don’t see much of a happy and satisfying end to the finale next week either. But you know what they say, the night is darkest just before the dawn. I will say, there are definitely some things in this episode that folks did not like one bit, and subject matter that must be taken quite seriously. We will get to that, and I will do my best to take care. But just to be safe we’ll save that portion of the narrative for last.

So since we’re skipping over the first scene let’s instead begin with Winter stood still in the hallways of Atlas’s research labs looking at her phone. Ironwood has sent out wanted posters for Team RWBY, JNR, Oscar, and Qrow. It was only RWBY that he saw oppose his plan, but Ruby did tell everyone else and he knows them well enough to realize they would agree with RWBY. Winter is concerned over what Weiss has done to cause this, which seems a bit rude to assume but she does know how vocal her sister is about not trusting Ironwood so... it’s a somewhat fair assessment overall. Penny is instead worried about Ruby’s warning of Ironwood leaving Mantle to die, and she can’t believe Winter seems unfazed by that news, that she is actually defending his actions. We get a reprisal of their conversation from a few episodes ago about personal feelings being discouraged in this line of work and how they need to instead do as they are told. But Penny seems to have more of a heart here than her superior, or is at least more willing to listen to it. Winter may be groomed to think that her terror about her sister’s safety is a liability and weakness and shouldn’t be allowed to affect her judgments and obedience, but Penny stands firm that regardless of what they’re told these feelings should matter. Winter tries to appeal again, saying that Ironwood is making the tough decisions as a leader so they don’t have to. But that’s taking away their power of choice. A political leader doesn’t get to just do as he pleases because he’s the leader so clearly his actions are for the good of the Kingdom... whoa. Got a little to topical there. The point is, it’s not up to Ironwood to decide these things for them. They need to be able to think for themselves, it’s part of human life to be faced with hard choices and grow from the mental turmoil of decision. Taking away that choice and forcing them to accept whatever decision he makes is taking away their freedom. Winter says this is for the good of everyone, though when Penny says this does not seem to be for the good of anyone she quietly agrees.

When we next see these two Atlesian maidens they are putting the actual Maiden into... an Aura transfer machine like the one Ozpin used on Amber and Pyrrha. Oh good, so that wasn’t in the room back in episode 5 just for funsies. But at least Winter isn’t actually killing Fria. She’s just attempting a scientific procedure that has never successfully worked before on a dying woman. That seems safer. She does say she hopes it will be painless for Fria, so at least she has some empathy and realizes this is a risky move. But Penny is still holding onto her earlier words and chooses now to throw them back in her face. Why express a personal sentiment for the comfort of another if your personal feelings don’t matter? Winter just says that she understands how serious the situation is and how necessary it is to put the Maiden powers into a healthier host so the Vault can be more effectively protected, even if it costs a good woman her life. But she admits that struggling to balance that duty with the importance of your personal feelings and your moral compass is essential and even she is having a tough time of it. But that’s what being human is. That’s not an especially comforting thought, but Penny understands. She’s doing that deadly dance in her own head too, and it’s not easily mastered. But their internal battles are interrupted by a great booming shudder outside, and Winter rushes out to check the situation. Only the flashing red emergency lights are on, and at the other end of a hallway filled with broken robots stands Cinder, who throws a fireball at Winter. She’s quick enough to dodge back into the medical room and lock the door, but that does next to nothing as a giant hole is blown in the wall where it once stood. Cinder of course believes this will be an easy slaughter of Ironwood’s “puppets”, which I think is a bit insensitive toward Penny after all the trouble she’s had with getting caught in her own strings. But of course Winter is ready to do her damn best to beat the Fail.. I mean Fall Maiden. Penny instead points out that Cinder was responsible for all the tragedy at Beacon, including her own original destruction, and Cinder laments how that was only temporary. But she assures Mantle’s protector that this time the annihilation will be far more total and leave much less to salvage. With little to no reason outside of it setting up Penny’s next line, Cinder asks what she thinks about that threat. All things considered, “it gives me personal feelings” isn’t the greatest epic one liner, though it does have the benefit of context and meaning something. Penny having the determination to stand for what she believes in is very satisfying, and I certainly hope she sticks to those convictions when Ironwood’s next orders come. But for now we have to wait on the epic fight sure to come until next week.

Now, if you want some really good banter and one liners, the return to Team RWBY’s story thread has that almost right out of the gate. Weiss is still trying for diplomacy and saying the Ace Ops should reconsider, but Harriet just sticks to what they were ordered, arrest Team RWBY. To this end, she puts the office in some kind of lock down with metal barricades covering the escape routes of the giant windows and the door. Vine doesn’t want his side to have to use force, but Blake makes it clear the girls won’t hesitate to fight if the Ace Ops don’t back off. Marrow is the only one who doesn’t draw his weapons at first, he really doesn’t want to have to fight their new friends. But Harriet says it’s up to the young huntresses if there will be any fighting or not, at which point Ruby finally walks back from behind the desk to deploy Crescent Rose. Marrow sees this is inevitable now and pulls out his gun too, but the first attack is verbal instead. Harriet laughs at the idea of Team RWBY trying to fight the Ace Ops since they are the best of the best in Atlas, but Ruby says they sealed their own fates by training Team RWBY and now they’ve been replaced. In a feat of strength that astounds many, Ruby petal bursts past the Ace Ops... and busts open the reinforced steel of the locked doors with her speed form. Imagine what she could do if she hit a person with that kind of force... Harriet of course gives chase, annoyed that the pipsqueak is trying to outrun her and escape to most likely catch Ironwood. Ruby is playing on Harriet’s competitive nature to goad her into acting recklessly, and it works. The older woman becomes obsessive about proving she’s better, and it costs her overall. The Hare is still falling victims to challenges of speed and superiority, it would seem. The others start fighting in the office while Harriet cuts Ruby off at the elevators and their brawl begins. Ruby tries to appeal to her again, saying this kind of division and internal fighting is exactly what Salem wants, but Harriet isn’t listening. She claims she was suspicious of Team RWBY all along and now she’s been vindicated. 

Meanwhile, Yang is fighting Elm in an open area back up the hall and Blake is trying to outmaneuver Vine as they both swing around and dodge each other. Elm isn’t budging much and Vine throws Blake into her grip to get Yang’s attention. He still wants them to just surrender, but Elm has taken this very personally. More than anyone else, she feels betrayed by this change of goals. I do feel a little bad since she was one of the more friendly members of the group. And when Yang says it’s not worth appealing to their better natures because they’re puppets blindly following orders now, she just gets more angry and charges the blonde down. Vine stretches out his feet to get to a vantage point while Elm lands a few hits with her hammer. We shift back over to the office where Weiss is fighting Marrow, including forming ice on the ground to make him lose footing and fire a wave of fire that he barely jumps over. It does singe the end of his tail though, and create a fog. He tries to insult Weiss, saying she’s always gotten everything she ever wanted as a Schnee so she should let something go for once. One, that’s not remotely true of her life but you never empathized enough to learn about those nasty little details. Two, You’ve spent time with her so you at least know she’s not the spoiled brat the world assumes she would be. Three, Weiss Schnee is a hard woman to bargain with and she summons her Knight to help her, saying she’s not giving up on her home without a fight.

Ruby and Harriet are seen fighting again as the latter kicks the former back into the office then berates Marrow to “cut the crap”, since he’s apparently not trying hard enough to beat Weiss. His perfectly logical excuse is that he’s just trying to incapacitate her, not the more excessive option of doing a murder. After having deflected Marrow’s boomerang from hitting Weiss, Ruby takes the chance to run for the exit again while Harriet is insisting the extra effort is necessary. Harriet of course notices and gives chase again, and we next see the Bees fighting again... where they are getting their butts kicked. Yang knocks Elm off her guard long enough to get a shot in at Vine so he’ll stop shoving Blake against a wall. Elm says now is the time to get serious and wrap this up, but Vine points out that she probably needs that pep talk herself. Blake and Yang reevaluate their plan and realize they have more teamwork than their opponents, so they’ll use that. The girls dodge their opposing pair’s attacks more successfully and throw one of the piece of debris Vine was chucking down back at him with some explosive guests. He avoids that and grabs Blake, but she’s actually a shadow clone decoy covered in sticky bombs. Without any time to dodge, Vine is sent flying and Yang leaps up to meet him. In one fluid motion she grabs his gravity cuffs/bolas and ties him up in them before slamming him into the ground hard enough to break his Aura. Everyone else takes notice. One down, three to go. This 3 pronged fight scene was already spectacular in terms of fluid animation and choreography, but this is where it goes up to 11, complete with a new song sung by 4 women including the voice of Elm herself. This new bop, called War, is sure to be a hit when the soundtrack comes out. I just wanted to let folks know since this whole episode deserves huge props even for those factors alone. Back to the combat itself, Weiss creates a bunch of sharp icicles along one wall and pushes Marrow against it with a Glyph. He manages to avoid getting skewered but then has to dodge the Knight’s sword as it chases him across the length of the icy wall. Marrow uses his Semblance to stop Weiss from sending any more glyphs or elemental woes his way, but the Knight is still after him so he jumps into the middle of the room and tells it to Stay. Unfortunately that means he’s no longer focusing on Weiss and she is unfrozen. A few fireballs and he is down for the count too. Halfway done, team! 

Harriet is still running circles around Ruby and getting plenty of hits in, even knocking her to the floor and trying to cuff her. But Ruby petal bursts out of her grip and wraps the bola cuffs around Harriet’s arms and torso instead. No more punching with those techno knuckle dusters, but she can still headbutt the Huntress and keep running around. Back to the Bees, Elm is standing her ground but it’s not staying so sturdy for much longer. While she’s been dodging Blake’s leaping attacks from above the big bruiser didn’t notice Yang was turning the footing around her roots to rubble. The blonde brawler runs in to knock her down since she doesn’t have her sure footing anymore, but Elm just brings out the rocket launcher to try and shoot Yang point blank. Luckily Yang is quick thinking too and uses her Semblance for a shockwave punch into the ground that sends Elm skyward. The fiery effect enveloping her hair is really really cool to see, but what is more impressive is Blake launching off of the ceiling and Yang leaping from the ground to catch Elm from both sides in a brutal punch-slice combo that decimates her Aura before she loses the last of it as she hits the ground. I can only imagine how much that must have hurt, seeing how her body bends when Yang wallops her in the face. Three down, only Harriet to go. And she’s not going down easy. She’s dodging every shot Ruby takes at her, and catches the younger girl in a flying leg lock that makes me greatly miss MCU Black Widow. Ruby recovers quickly and dodges most of the flips and kicks that follow until the two are staring each other down from across the hall. With a determined and enraged yell, Harriet charges at Ruby again... and instead runs into a wall of ice. Weiss came to back her partner up, and the blunt impact was enough to knock Harriet out. Triumph for Team RWBY! And it was enough of a struggle for both sides to make the win feel well earned, so I don’t wanna hear claims about this being a cop out plot armor win. The team is piling up all the unconscious bodies in the middle of the hall, when in come Maria and Pietro! I missed our sassy grandma, and she reminds us why in only a single line. “This is the part where they ask us to help”. Her tendency to state the obvious and just be so done wit everyone else’s shenanigans is quite endearing, and the fact that she and Pietro rushed over to check on them when they heard there was trouble shows she was going to offer help anyway. We love you Maria, and I wish we had gotten some more of you after how you snuck into our hearts last Volume. Maybe she’ll pull another grand scheme to create a distraction in the finale? Who knows, though I do have some thoughts on what help they will actually provide. Maybe Pietro has finished the weapon upgrades he said weren’t ready yet back in episode 3, or he can re-enable their Scrolls so they can get another warning out?

But for now, we instead shift to Jaune, Ren, and Nora. They’re still looking over the mess of broken robots in Oscar’s room, and Nora in particular starts calling his name and looking down the other hallways. Sure enough, they spot Oscar rounding the corner with the Lamp in tow. Our dear leg breaker runs to hug him, very relieved that their missing friend has been found... but they hear a desperate cry from where he had come from. Sprinting towards them is... Oscar? Okay, I act like it’s some big mystery when we had all kinda puzzled it out already, but we weren’t immediately sure what the situation was going to be. The real Oscar looks like he’s been through hell by the state of his clothes, but he’s got enough fight in him to sucker punch Neo in the face and send her flying down the hall. She lands on her feet, but he knocked the lamp off of her waist and reclaims it. So she’s gonna want that back. But it seems like Ruby shared a few stories around the campfire during the trip to Mistral, because Jaune and the others know Neo’s name and apparently her reputation precedes her. We’ve got a 4 on 1 fight on our hands for the finale, and it should be a doozy. But here’s where some perspective might be necessary. We have this picture in our heads of Neopolitan, the great agile fighter who outmaneuvered and beat Yang in Volume 2 and didn’t seem all that fazed by Ruby in Volume 3. We assume that since she’s held her own without taking much of a beating for it against two of the main cast’s best fighters she’s on a whole other level and she can’t be beaten. But I think it’s more of a matter of who she’s been paired against in the past, and how the odds have been. Ruby and Yang both have particular fighting styles that Neo is naturally pretty good at evading and countering. But Jaune and Ren both have vastly different ways of fighting that she might not be so ready for, not to mention the powerhouse that is Nora. Not to mention, every fight we’ve seen her win has been a 1v1 or 2v1 where she had help from Roman. She hasn’t fought multiple people at once before, this could very well be too much for her to handle on her own and she may very well fail or have to retreat empty handed. But defeating them isn’t her objective to begin with, she just wants to get the Lamp for Cinder. So it’s going to be a matter of playing keep away, and I do hope our good boys and girl can manage it.

And now, boys and girls, we must come to the tragic portion of the episode. And it starts with how this group left off. Qrow, Robyn, and Clover are in their airship escorting Tyrian up to Atlas when they hear Ruby’s warning. Robyn is of course vocally against Ironwood’s plan, but Clover defends his boss, says he surely understands how much these goals would effect the rest of the Kingdom. Or he would, except he gets the notification that RWBY, JNR, and the others are to be arrested. So he gets up to explain, and maybe he intended to arrest Qrow at that point too. Unclear. But when he mentions that RWBY have warrants it just cements in Qrow’s head that Ironwood has gone overboard. And Robyn understands why he would want to arrest the kids, because they’re opposed to the awful plan. She takes out her crossbow on Clover saying she won’t be taken in quietly. But she doesn’t actually load a bolt into it until Clover expressly says he intends to arrest Qrow. Now Clover has his weapon drawn too, and Qrow tries to talk them both down like a sensible person. They’re almost back to Atlas, they can try to reason with Ironwood there. Unfortunately, the peanut gallery won’t shut up and Tyrian says they should stop talking and just kill each other already. And because Robyn is a hothead, she takes that as an invitation. You can feel like you should say or do something daring all you want, but as soon as someone else brings it up that’s in the air now and you can’t go back. So she shoots, Clover blocks, and it looses the bolt Tyrian’s cuffs are tied to. While Qrow gets annoyed and jumps into the fray, the criminal they all just worked so hard to capture gets loose and kills the pilot. He even puts his hat on for a laugh... and then purposefully crashes the ship into the snow. Clover is the only one quick enough to jump out.

 We see Qrow walking out of the wreckage and finding Robyn’s body. She’s alive, but she needs medical attention. Clover confronts his friend and says they can get her to a hospital as soon as Qrow surrenders. Qrow points out how manipulative that is, but after everything he’s learned about tonight he’s not too shocked anymore. Like his teammates, Clover implores the other man to just give up, he doesn’t want to have to fight him. But Qrow has been through this song and dance with people he called friends before. This is the inevitable conclusion to associating with a bad luck charm like him, and that’s rather depressing. The two men resign themselves to this inevitable clash and charge each other down. Back in the ship, Tyrian seems to have nary a scratch on him but still has to figure a way out of his cuffs. And he has a very unsettling solution. He manages to dislocate his right thumb so his hand is able to slip out of the tight cords. And then he just hits his hand on the ground and pops it back into place. Personally, I’ve been watching Arrow for 8 years so the concept is nothing new after Oliver Queen has used it to escape from capture on several occasions, and I’m not that affected by seeing it here. But it is admittedly a rather gruesome body horror concept to see out of nowhere so I understand how it might have unnerved or sickened some people. The CRWBY did put out a warning on Twitter to warn people there would be something in this episode that might make people want to puke, and I can believe it would be this. Regardless, the madman unties himself completely and joins Qrow and Clover out in the snow. The two seem evenly matched, but once Tyrian makes his presence known Qrow shifts priorities to taking him down. That leaves him open to Clover’s attacks though, and it becomes an utter free for all. Unfortunately, this is when Tyrian starts talking again. With such a grudge between the bird and the scorpion, why not take Clover out together so they can settle their feud without interruption? It’s a terrible idea of course, and you should never trust Tyrian at his word. He can’t help but screw you over, it’s just his nature~. Qrow doesn’t want to side with this killer, as you would expect. But after Clover has the nerve to throw a goddamn lucky horseshoe at him, the poor guy suffers a lapse in judgement. Better the fight be 2 on 1 against Clover than every man for himself and Qrow having to guard against two opponents, I guess. So he stops attacking Tyrian and the bastard laughs his ass off at how the tables have turned and things have grown so chaotic before the two charge at Clover.

The makeshift teamwork does a good enough job of keeping Clover off his guard and they land a few hits on him, but he still fends them off fairly well and holds his own. The back and forth continues until Clover hooks Harbinger and knocks it out of Qrow’s hands. While he gets back to his feet and tries to decide if he can reach it, Tyrian is trying to claw at Clover with his hands. We see his hands glowing with his Aura so we can assume he’s trying to tear open a weak spot like he did against Fiona back in Chapter 6. But the Ace Op is nimble enough to dodge all that and wraps the faunus up in his fishing line again. To Tyrian’s apparent delight, Qrow decides to just run in and gut punch Clover instead of retrieve his weapon. And that gamble works for the moment, the punch breaks Clover’s Aura. Qrow tries one last time to talk to his former ally, to ask why he had to be so stubborn and loyal to the man telling him to do such awful things. But Clover says sticking to his convictions was a hard choice but the only right one in his mind. He trusts Ironwood after all these years, and even after knowing each other for so little time Clover really wanted to be able to trust Qrow. But their morals and ideals just aren’t aligned. In an instant, everything changes and tragedy has struck viciously and swiftly. Tyrian was left unsupervised again, and grabbed Qrow’s weapon... the same weapon that has just been thrust through Clover’s back and out his chest to leave a splash of blood on the snow. We see the reveal in a visually captivating silhouette shot where the only color besides the black of the bodies is the grey of the sky... and the bright red covering the blade. Harbinger is pulled back out of Clover’s back, he stumbles away dropping his now bloody lucky badge before falling onto his back, and Tyrian tosses the murder weapon into the snow. See, Tyrian thought it would be fun to frame Qrow for his friend’s murder and then run away while the incoming police arrest the huntsman instead of him. Only he would find that fun, Qrow is just enraged and wants to kill him where he stands. But he can’t give chase because he decides it would be better to stay with Clover in his final moments. So Tyrian gets away, oh goody... Clover seems to say he understands and he doesn’t really blame Qrow, but Qrow promises he will make sure James takes the fall for this. It was his paranoid overreacting and crazy plans to isolate Atlas from the world that lead to the arrest warrants and this whole fight after all. That’s not to say Qrow and Robyn don’t have some of the blame for getting riled up and fighting rather than surrendering to the law. But the initial problem was Ironwood. Clover wishes him good luck and breaths his last before succumbing to his wounds, and we see the sun rising behind them. Everything from the dinner party in episode 8 until now has taken place over a single brutal night... and a new day is here with new determination to make things better. But before that, we have to talk about what this whole scene meant for these two, and what they meant for the fandom.

Ever since they started interacting in Chapter 3, and even since people noticed all the good luck charms Clover carried, people had been shipping Qrow and Clover together. There is nothing wrong with doing so, their chemistry seemed quite healthy and playful and they seemed to bring the best out of each other. Clover’s good luck gave Qrow hope that he could bond with someone without that ending in misfortune like his presence has caused so often before. Even if you didn’t ship them and just thought they were good friends, you had to admit they worked well together. And a healthy male friendship is nothing to be discouraged by either. A mlm relationship is completely acceptable and to be honest is rarely seen in animated shows in comparison to wlw romances. We have a lot of female characters in this show especially so the shippers had a lot of fuel for lesbian pairings while Martial Arcs (Ren and Jaune) was one of the only gay male ships that got anywhere near as popular. But then Lucky Charm, or Luck of the Caw as I personally called it, came around and so many people were happily on board. And now Clover has died, and a few people are quite outraged. But here is what must be understood. This pairing had only just started and for all the flirting and chemistry we saw between the two men, they were not in a relationship. There was no more proof that they were headed that way than there was for Bumbleby after Volume 1. Sure there were plenty of good moments between those two in that Volume, but their bond had not grown and developed to what we see it is now. Lucky Charm was still in that early stage and we cannot explicitly say Qrow and Clover were going to be a couple. You can be sad they didn’t end up that way, no doubt about that. But this is not a case of that old tragic trope of “bury your gays”. We had no confirmation that Clover was a gay man, or that Qrow is either. We can infer things from their conversation, but that’s it. An unfortunate loss to the fandom, yes. But this was likely not intentional baiting. And it is too bad that we couldn’t have this ship become canon, it would be great to have more mlm relationships in cartoons. Even if it only stayed a friendship, we need more of those that aren’t just macho action heroes. These two were emotionally open with one another and expressed their thoughts and doubts. It was a great thing while it lasted, but hatred over what could have been should not be the response to it ending. Nuff said.

One has to also wonder how the other Ace Ops are going to react to their leader being killed. He was the most level headed of the bunch and the one to keep them all in check when egos or tempers ran high. What would they do without him? We will have to see. But as Qrow screams in sorrow and frustration in the cold snow, the fans are left just as cold on the inside while we wait for the finale where things will hopefully wrap up on a better note. Like I said at the top, the night is darkest just before the dawn. And we literally see the dawn coming over the horizon behind Qrow. This is tragic, demoralizing and polarizing. But it is sure to be the worst this Volume gets. So lets all band together and face the new day with optimism and hope. 

[megashadowdragon]

  eva-nine-has-a-sonic-rifle . tumblr . com/post/185848589914/hey-look-some-more-trash (the source for whats written below

“ and don’t forget the old chestnut: “Yang not telling anyone that Raven is the Spring Maiden, a single omission out of respect for Raven’s wish to stay out of the conflict,”

Respect Raven doesn’t deserve and frankly is stupid because Raven INVOLVED herself the second she took the Spring Maiden’s powers. She literally TIED herself to this fight and then acts all ‘I doN’T WaNNA bE a pART oF THiS!1!!’ and she was going to tie it to herself even FURTHER by trying to swipe the Relic. Sorry, Raven’s opportunity to duck out has already flown the coop.

“and a personal matter that Yang has every right to keep private about as it doesn’t effect anyone else,”

Ozpin’s past up until The Question was a personal matter that he had every right to keep private that doesn’t affect anyone else too, but, you know, the sun shines out of Yang’s ass for you. But even then, the Raven matter does affect them. They can’t use the Spring Maiden vault anymore PERIOD and Raven is running around using the Spring Maiden powers to terrorize villages in Mistral.

‘Raven: I lead our people now. And as leader, I will do everything in my power to ensure our survival.

Qrow: I saw. The people of Shion saw, too.

Raven: The weak die, the strong live. Those are the rules.

Qrow: Well, you’ve certainly got someone strong on your side. I’ve seen the damage.’

-Volume 4, Chapter 4, Family

You know, like Shion. And she clearly doesn’t have any qualms about doing it, either. At least, not enough qualms to stop.

“ that doesn’t put anyone except maybe Yang herself in more danger than they’re already in,”

Refer to my above point about Raven using her powers in the raids to utterly decimate villages, as well as Raven’s loyalties are wildly unreliable.

“ makes her a hypocrite and just as bad as, nay, worse, than Mr ‘Lied about not lying in order to cover up even more lies and was willing to put hundreds of civilians in danger rather than tell everyone that the Relic is a Grimm magnet’ Ozpin””

Evidence contradicting that the relic was actually the cause of the attack, as it is specified as a weak attraction, Oscar Pine was never swarmed while holding the relic, and they were never attacked when walking out in the wilderness (or heck, not once on the way to Argus and no the Apathy don’t count because they were already there). And I guess I should crown Yang as Queen “Do as I say, not as I do” Xiao-Long? She’s a wonderful example.

“and also “RWBY are evil for invading Ozpin’s private matters -”

They have the excuse of ignorance up until after the vision. What they did afterwards was not okay.

“they had no right to know what they’re up against or how much danger they’re in if it means breaching the privacy of someone who won’t stop lying to them and wilfully leading them to their own deaths””

A. Aside from The Question, nothing in that vision tells them anything they didn’t already know or was Crucial Information. Salem’s immortal? Great! We already knew that! Salem is part or mostly a Grimm? Great! We already knew that! The Silver-eyed power probably is fueled by the God of Light? GREAT, that wasn’t necessary for learning how to use them!

B. He’s not leading them to their deaths. I will metaphorically smack you over the head with this until it sinks through your thick skull, even if I have to do it until the end of time itself. He never planned to confront Salem with them, he never ASKED them to be there at all, in fact, ALL of them showed up independent of his control.

But please, keep singing the praises of Queen “Do as I say, not as I do” Xiao-Long.

[thinkingaboutrwby]

Myers Briggs-ing RWBY: Ruby Rose ENFP

Hello world!  I’ve decided to Myers Briggs all of the RWBY cast starting - obviously - with our main character.  Ruby Rose is any ENFP (Ne - Fi - Te - Si).  It’s a misconception that she’s an INFP (Fi - Ne - Si - Te), a type that has the same cognitive functions.  This post will prove how she functions as an ENFP and point out her traits that make her not so INFPish.  So without further any further delay: let’s start!

Cognitive Functions

Extroverted Intuition (Ne): Ruby operates first and foremost with Extroverted Intuition.  Extroverted Intuition is a perceiving (information gathering) function that deals with seeing theoretical possibilities and abstract connections in a person’s surroundings.  Essentially, Ne drives a person to seek potential from external sources and is open to alternate abstract ideas (for non-Myers-Briggs fans please message me if you want me to explain it some more).  Ruby has evidently strong Ne which shows probably most importantly in her battle strategies and her role as team leader.  Ruby is easily able to jump from one strategy to the next, improvising.  This is evident, for example in Vol. 1 when she comes up with the idea to launch herself at the Nevermore.  Another prime example is in the Vol. 6 fight against Cordovin.  When Oscar’s initial plan to take down Cordovin through her dust canon doesn’t work, she takes the plan (Ne) and changes it around so it does work, attacking the canon head on.  Ne also is what allows Ruby to see the potential in others and makes her a good team leader and give her inspiring and motivational speeches.

Introverted Feeling (Fi): Ruby’s auxiliary function is a judging function (which allows a person to make decisions and conclusions based on information): Introverted Feeling which deals with a persons individual feelings and ideals.  Introverted Feelers are very aware of their own emotions and morals, and tend to be a bit individualistic.  As Fi is Ruby’s auxiliary function, it is also well-developed.  She obviously reflects and acts on her internal values.  She seeks to protect people, and to quote her in Argus Limited “not let anyone else die.”  Fi also causes Ruby to inspire others to similar individualism.  Her interactions with Penny and Oscar (telling Penny she is still real and telling Oscar he is his own person) being more evidence of Fi.  There are tons of other examples of Ruby being an Introverted Feeler but I think you’ll get it so I’m not going to bore you with the details.

Extroverted Thinking (Te): Ruby’s tertiary function is a judging function (which allows a person to make decisions and conclusions based on information): Extroverted Thinking.  Extroverted Thinking deals with making the external world more rational through procedures, planning, and logical structures.  Te is a blunt function, and can make the user a bit bossy or overbearing if used in an unhealthy way (which thankfully Ruby doesn’t really display).  As it is Ruby’s tertiary function, however, her Te is not as strongly used or developed as her first two functions.  It is clear that she does use it though more passively.  She’s a good leader, taking charge when necessary and giving logical suggestions to teammates and allies to improve battles.  Her Te actually put her at odds with Weiss when she was still trying to assert herself as team leader.  Ruby also looks for logical facts in her environment.  Another evident scene displaying Ruby’s Te was in V6 “So That’s How it Is” where everyone was reacting to Jinn’s vision.  Qrow and Yang were both relying on Fe (they both have Fe as their extroverted judging function, I’ll be typing them in a few weeks) and having harsh emotional reactions.  Ruby, instead, reacted using both Ne and Te.  She attempted to see another potential outcome in the situation through Ne (despite Oz’s lies can we still defeat Salem), and bluntly asked for facts from Ozpin.

Introverted Sensing (Si): Ruby’s inferior function is a perceiving function (for information gathering): Introverted Sensing.  Si allows the user to focus on subjective internal worlds of personal experience and compares and contrasts new experiences to past experiences and memories.  As it is her last function, Ruby does not firstly rely on Si nor has she fully developed it.  Ruby’s Si is evident, however.  A funny example of this is when in battle against Cordovin, she makes video game references to explain an idea to Oscar (Si comparing the past to the present).  Ruby’s Si also causes her to be nostalgic at times (she remembers all the good times at Beacon and uses her good memories to activate her silver eyes).  It also makes her prone to sticking to certain habits in battle - most notably her hand to hand combat weakness.  Her introverted sensing caused her to rely on Crescent Rose (a constant in battle to seek out) and not develop hand to hand combat skills.  Only after she failed her fight against Mercury and was prompted to train by Ozpin was she really ever able to break said habit.

Why is Ruby NOT an INFP?

I know I’m going to get some arguments against Ruby’s status as an ENFP as its the current consensus in fandom is that she is an INFP.  I understand how people came to this conclusions as INFP’s and ENFP’s share the same cognitive functions in a different order.  Additionally, Ruby characterizes herself as shy (especially in Volume 1), a trait commonly associated with introverts.

So I’m going to debunk this...

Its a misconception to think that only introverts are shy or socially conscious as Ruby was entering Beacon in Volume 1.  Everyone is shy; in fact extroverts could arguably be more prone to social anxieties as they primarily absorb and gain energy from their surroundings.  Ruby, specifically as an ENFP uses Ne to gain insight and ideas from her surroundings.  Ruby’s anxiety stemmed from a Ne-Fi function reaction.  Her Ne saw possibilities when going to Beacon: the good and the bad which caused her Fi to worry, giving her social anxiety.  An INFP would not have the same reaction.  An INFP would use Fi first and foremost and than Ne.  An INFP’s social anxiety would rise up from internal emotions or values being threatened which leads to worrying.  Its a small difference for sure but still present.  Additionally, ENFP’s as extroverted perceivers are more introverted than other extroverts as their judging function Fi is introverted.  Though Ruby passively gathers datas and creates theories through Ne as her first function, but acts on this data through Fi (a more visible function).  This also is likely why people confuse her as an INFP.

Another important observation of why Ruby is not an INFP is how she reacts when stressed.  When stressed, people tend to used their inferior function as a crutch, a sort of last resort in situations.  For ENFPs, the inferior function is Si.  For INFPs, the inferior function is Te.  In the few times we’ve seen Ruby stressed  or angry, she doesn’t attempt to blindly seize control as an INFP would with poorly developed Te.  She uses Te in a more healthy way as explained above by logically but generally calmly asserting control.  When stressed, Ruby withdraws and doubts herself, needing to revisit ideas and concepts ot invoke stability.  When upset about being team leader and interactions with Weiss in Volume 1, she withdraws, doubts herself, and seeks stability (Si searches for a common source of stability) through Professor Ozpin.

One last thing.  I know this isn’t necessarily hard evidence, but as an INFP, I don’t get the same connection with Ruby as I do with INFP Characters.  Reading novels and watching movies- I’ve felt an automatic connection and understanding of characters like the Little Prince or Zuko.  I automatically get the functions of their decisions.  Ruby, well, I understand her actions as she is a well written character and because I understand ENFPs, but I don’t get the same “I would do that reaction with her.”  She’s honestly less passive than I am or any other INFPs I’ve met for that matter (and trust me I know some internally wild INFPs).  Ruby in all honesty reminds me of one of my current ENFP friends who was quiet and unassuming before I got to know her but honestly one of the most ingenious, moral, and encouraging people I’ve met in my life.  ENFPs aren’t always the wild jumpy eccentrics we see in stereotypes, they are sometimes the most genuine people you’ll get to know: a lot like Ruby Rose.

PLEASE REBLOG IF YOU AGREE!

[eva-nine-has-a-sonic-rifle]

hey look some more trash

“ and don’t forget the old chestnut: “Yang not telling anyone that Raven is the Spring Maiden, a single omission out of respect for Raven’s wish to stay out of the conflict,”

Respect Raven doesn’t deserve and frankly is stupid because Raven INVOLVED herself the second she took the Spring Maiden’s powers. She literally TIED herself to this fight and then acts all ‘I doN’T WaNNA bE a pART oF THiS!1!!’ and she was going to tie it to herself even FURTHER by trying to swipe the Relic. Sorry, Raven’s opportunity to duck out has already flown the coop.

“and a personal matter that Yang has every right to keep private about as it doesn’t effect anyone else,”

Ozpin’s past up until The Question was a personal matter that he had every right to keep private that doesn’t affect anyone else too, but, you know, the sun shines out of Yang’s ass for you. But even then, the Raven matter does affect them. They can’t use the Spring Maiden vault anymore PERIOD and Raven is running around using the Spring Maiden powers to terrorize villages in Mistral. 

‘Raven: I lead our people now. And as leader, I will do everything in my power to ensure our survival.

Qrow: I saw. The people of Shion saw, too.

Raven: The weak die, the strong live. Those are the rules.

Qrow: Well, you've certainly got someone strong on your side. I've seen the damage.’

-Volume 4, Chapter 4, Family

You know, like Shion. And she clearly doesn’t have any qualms about doing it, either. At least, not enough qualms to stop.

“ that doesn’t put anyone except maybe Yang herself in more danger than they’re already in,”

Refer to my above point about Raven using her powers in the raids to utterly decimate villages, as well as Raven’s loyalties are wildly unreliable.

“ makes her a hypocrite and just as bad as, nay, worse, than Mr ‘Lied about not lying in order to cover up even more lies and was willing to put hundreds of civilians in danger rather than tell everyone that the Relic is a Grimm magnet’ Ozpin””

Evidence contradicting that the relic was actually the cause of the attack, as it is specified as a weak attraction, Oscar Pine was never swarmed while holding the relic, and they were never attacked when walking out in the wilderness (or heck, not once on the way to Argus and no the Apathy don’t count because they were already there). And I guess I should crown Yang as Queen “Do as I say, not as I do” Xiao-Long? She’s a wonderful example.

“and also “RWBY are evil for invading Ozpin’s private matters -”

They have the excuse of ignorance up until after the vision. What they did afterwards was not okay.

 “they had no right to know what they’re up against or how much danger they’re in if it means breaching the privacy of someone who won’t stop lying to them and wilfully leading them to their own deaths””

A. Aside from The Question, nothing in that vision tells them anything they didn’t already know or was Crucial Information. Salem’s immortal? Great! We already knew that! Salem is part or mostly a Grimm? Great! We already knew that! The Silver-eyed power probably is fueled by the God of Light? GREAT, that wasn’t necessary for learning how to use them!

B. He’s not leading them to their deaths. I will metaphorically smack you over the head with this until it sinks through your thick skull, even if I have to do it until the end of time itself. He never planned to confront Salem with them, he never ASKED them to be there at all, in fact, ALL of them showed up independent of his control. 

But please, keep singing the praises of Queen “Do as I say, not as I do” Xiao-Long.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Worthy”

Happy Saturday, everyone! I mean that seriously for once. Regardless of what I have to say about this episode — and as always, there's a lot — I want it on the record that "Worthy" was leagues ahead of... pretty much everything else we've gotten lately. For all of RWBY's continuing problems, there's a level of effort here that I really do appreciate. Especially for the penultimate episode.

Our title, "Worthy," immediately conjures thoughts of Watts' speech about Cinder needing to be "worthy" of the power she craves and, what do you know, our villains work hard to prove their worth this episode. Hallelujah! We start with the heroes though and do you recall how last week I said that our opening may as well be a summary of the whole series since Volume 6, what with the grimm conveniently avoiding the team's airship and them just looking vaguely sad that the people around them are perishing? Well, same here. Or rather, same problems, different flavor. Oscar opens with the question, "What do we do now?" and no sooner has he asked that then the magic portal appears to give him the answer. Useful!

More seriously though, I've been intensely side-eyeing the group's wish since last week. Not (just) because of the awful decision to turn Penny human, but simply because the story emphasized how "smart" the group was, heavily insisting that their portal plan is a masterpiece of well thought out strategy... and I really don't think it is. There was a lot of confusion last episode about how exactly the group was using the vault, with my own interpretation — that they were funneling everyone to Vacuo's vault — proven wrong today, but one of the problems brought up was how Ambrosius could possibly create portals across a kingdom precisely where the group needs them. Yang asks him,

"Can you make a bunch of doorways in Atlas that open at a single spot in Vacuo?"

To which, simply, Ambrosius says no. He'd need, among other things, "coordinates and specs for each door" and "an explanation for bending space and time."

This is why, prior to the very end of "Creation" where we saw portals appearing everywhere, I thought using both vaults was the solution. Ambrosius knows (or can easily receive) the coordinates for his own vault and the one in Vacuo. As weird, alternate dimensions, they're potentially capable of bending space and time as necessary. If you put the portal in Atlas' vault and open it up in Vacuo's vault, you're golden. The only challenge now is getting everyone in the kingdom to the Winter Maiden's vault.

But then... that didn't happen. Apparently the vault just becomes the in-between place for everyone to pass through and the portals appear all over the kingdom, even though the group didn't provide those "coordinates and specs." What they did was show Ambrosius a schematic of the cities. That's not the same thing as telling him precisely where each portal needs to appear — which is what he asked for. I bring this long-winded explanation up not merely to emphasize "RWBY's wish isn't as smart as the story wants you to believe it is" but because this wreaks havoc on who is getting a portal. How did the group tell Ambrosius precisely where to put a portal for Jaune's group? Why didn't they try to make one appear for Qrow and Robyn? Or Winter? Or Pietro and Maria? They had to have been somewhat specific in terms of saying where these portals appeared because if they just wished for everyone to get one, Jacques and Ironwood would have gotten one too. Basically, the portals do appear for characters whose “Worthy” plot now takes place in this in-between space and the portals do not appear for those whose plot is still taking place in Atlas. That's a mess. To say nothing of how it implies that our heroes just don't give a damn about all their other allies — including an uncle (Ruby, Yang) and a father (Penny) — and that, ultimately, Ambrosius did the very thing he initially said wouldn't work. He put a bunch of doors around Atlas that opened on a single point in Vacuo without making the group meet these requirements first. The rest is just a bunch of mumbo jumbo to distract the viewer from the fact that none of this actually makes sense.

But that's a tangent. To get back on track, Jaune's group decides to "spread the word on foot" since they can't contact anyone via their scrolls anymore. What this translates to is Jaune going to one spot and Nora doing the rest of the work because she can suddenly ride her hammer like a broomstick. 

You know what? I'm fine with it. Have we ever seen Nora do this before? Not that I recall. Is it a cute image that feeds my witch-loving brain? Yeeeeeaah.

They're not sure if the portals are safe though and everyone turns to Jaune as the joke test subject. Except everyone else is right behind him when the go through? Even the jokes in this show aren't consistent.

What I do like though is that we get another interesting team split: Oscar, Emerald, and Ren heading to Vacuo while Jaune and Nora help with the evacuation — even though Nora and Jaune aren't actually doing anything together. Still, I can see that (for this volume at least) RT has taken the duo criticisms to heart. It would have been incredibly easy to attach Nora and Ren at the hip again, despite her desire for space, so I'm glad that they're still striving to mix things up a bit.

Nora says that Shade is "armed to the teeth with huntsmen and huntresses." It is? I mean sure, it has its school, but so did Vale. So did Atlas. In fact, we've spent the last two volumes emphasizing that Atlas is really the only armed kingdom remaining. Remember the plan for them to protect the world after knowledge of Salem's existence threw everything into disarray? Well, the people know about Salem now. And Salem herself is attacking. And they're about to slam an entire kingdom into another one. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Nora ends her observations with the assertation that Vacuo will need as much help as they can get, but that worry feels far, far too late. Where were these concerns when Ruby made her announcement to the world in the first place? The fact that the group never went, "Hey, is it really worth telling people about Salem now when we can no longer provide the protection against the grimm that this announcement will necessitate? Yeah, we need backup, but can they even get here in time? I don't think so. Maybe we should hold off and try to find a way to solve this ourselves. Or, at the very least, just tell them Atlas is facing a massive grimm attack. That won't create quite the same panic as 'Magic immortal lady eager to kill you all' will."

Our heroes only acknowledge these problems when they're already neck deep in them. Forethought is not their strong suit.

For our obligatory humor, the people of Atlas are hiding behind the staircase after the evil portal appeared (weren't there, like, twenty of them in the last episode?) and a brave dude trying to toss a rock through accidentally hits Jaune. He — I kid you not — uses the Atlas huntsmen license gifted to him by Ironwood to gain authority over the group.

Talk about the story being tone deaf.

We segue to a shot of Penny who flies herself through the portal using the Maiden powers, precisely as she would have with her boots. Okay, I try not to pull many "I told you so"s because that's rude, petty, and all around just shit behavior... but boy is it tempting at times. Because RWBY's fandom is so staunchly against criticism that even the most polite pushbacks boil down to an equally rude "Just wait" mentality. Readers of these recaps know we were told to "just wait" for the group to talk to Ozpin. Or "just wait" for them to be punished for their crimes. "Just wait" for the complex forgiveness arc the group is sure to undergo with Emerald. "Just wait" is the go-to response when someone doesn't entirely disagree with our problems with the show, but still believes we're not giving RT enough credit. Most recently, I was told to "just wait" in regards to Penny. We don't actually know that her body is human. We don't actually know that her Maiden powers will still be the same. We don't actually know that this won't be the start of a long journey wherein she has to figure out how to use this new body, both on the battlefield and off. And the issue of RWBY failing to answer any of these questions isn’t valid criticism either because the only point being made here is that we’re not patient and supportive enough. Just wait. RT will prove you wrong. 

Well... Penny's body still appears entirely human, her Maiden powers still work just fine, and now they've given her the ability to create all her old weapons out of aura, meaning she fights exactly the same as she did before.

The only thing making Penny human did was force her to fight barefoot. Oh, and erase her journey of accepting herself as an android. 

Again, I don't want to be that asshole, especially when so many people want the show to be better — just like I do. By all means, hold out hope with me. But before slamming into someone's inbox to explain why they're being too negative because things are bound to be taken seriously down the road, keep in mind the staggering number of times we've decided to "just wait" and nothing ever came of it. Keep in mind that RWBY should be tackling these questions and expectations from the start. Now here we are, disappointed again. We're not pessimistic because we want to be, we're pessimistic because there's a clearly established pattern at play.

So Penny's change is, at this point, meaningless for her development and, at this point, we've lost the chance to introduce challenges later. If RT does, we're forever going to wonder why Penny didn't express any doubts upon waking up in a human body, or why she didn't face any problems while fighting another Maiden. Like Emerald getting the group to laugh and immediately being trusted with important duties, it's too late to suddenly backtrack and insist that there's still work to be done here. RT missed their chance.

That fight is a few minutes off though. For now, Oscar and the others arrive in Vacuo to discover that there's a sandstorm going on. Who could have ever expected that?

Seriously though, this is just one of the many reasons why our heroes come across as stupid. They deliberately chose to send everyone "outside the city limits of Vacuo," in a desert kingdom, after Ruby got the entire world panicked about Salem, and they somehow didn't think that a) weather might be a problem or b) grimm were going to show up? These characters have been though enough shit that they should be planning for the worst and hoping for the best, not planning for the best and assuming the worst just won't happen to them. Why wouldn't they have everyone appear inside the kingdom if they (against Ambrosius' rules) got to choose where everyone ended up? Why in the world would they rely on communications being up when CCT has been spotty since Volume 3 and Watts just took out Atlas’ entire system? Our characters don't think anything through — despite Ambrosius’ claims otherwise — and it makes for some pretty awful characterization. Because RWBY isn't trying to be a story about teenagers seriously messing up their attempts at heroics, it's trying to be a story about True Heroes... and we're just supposed to ignore the endless number of times the group doesn't think the most basic problems through. So now, Oscar and the other stand there doing nothing for the rest of the episode because a sandstorm in the desert threw a wrench in their plans. 

The only reason I didn’t bring this up last week is because I had no idea they had chosen to dump everyone outside of the city. I thought they were going to the vault, or at the very least appearing inside the border. Why wouldn’t you send everyone to the city??

It’s so stupid, but then Cinder arrives and blows a whole bunch of people off the edge of the pathways. HELL YEAH.

I mean, obviously not hell yeah for the poor civilians who just took a tumble, but yay the villain causing some damage. It's small potatoes compared to what we were promised at the end of last volume — Salem decimating a whole kingdom in The Fall of Atlas — but at least it's more than we were getting last week.

So Cinder is having her evil fun when the entire group leaves Penny to go after her. Again, stupid. You're going to leave the girl who (at this point) may not have been in a position to fight with her new body and stands vulnerable with a Relic? Not a single member stays behind to guard her? It would have served Team RWBY right if Neo had shown up and just clocked Penny, taking a second Relic for herself.

Cinder taunts the group with information she shouldn't have: “Your little friend Oscar was right, but the easy part ends here" then mimics them with the question "How’d you know about that?” at their shocked looks. This starts a flashback where we return to Cinder, Neo, and Watts in the alleyway. 

Again Cinder is given more development than a supposed hero like Emerald, apologizing to Neo for not upholding her end of their bargain. In fact, Cinder displays more growth here than our entire title characters combined, it's just that her growth turns her into a better villain. She apologizes to Neo, compliments Watts as a means of acknowledging the work he's accomplished — “You tore this kingdom apart with nothing but your intellect. How about we finish what you started?” — and tells the heroes that she did learn something from them: “Sometimes, if you want to win, you simply can’t do it alone.” 

I quite like all of this. Again, not that Cinder should be our biggest threat with Salem on the scene, but if you remove that context this is a great moment for her. She's actually learned something, but instead of following in the rather abrupt and, in Hazel's case, nonsensical footsteps of her peers, what she's learned has made her more dangerous, not a sudden, convenient ally. Since Volume 7 RWBY has hammered home the idea that only friends can truly be a good team and now, well, Cinder is kind of making friends. She's apologizing to Neo. She seems glad that Watts is happy. RWBY took the concept of working together and applied it to our villains with devastating effect. Team RWBY has been skating by on the idea that power comes from friendship, so what happens if your enemies become weird friends too?

To be clear, this doesn't erase the staggering number of other problems with Cinder's character, or the villains as a unit, or the volume as a whole... but it is an interesting step in the right direction. Props for that.

Granted, outside of the fight itself, the villains don't really win because they're smart, the heroes are just — again — staggeringly stupid. Cinder promises to get Ruby for Neo if she can ask Jinn a question... which she does! 

This moment could have been avoided if our heroes had just put the Lamp in the vault. Or not had Oscar carrying it around. Or used up the wish after they'd already summoned Jinn. Cinder's victory here rests entirely on her own enemies' ineptitude. At least she has the smarts to exploit it. She asks Jinn what the group's plan is and our three villains are shown the revelation outside after saving Penny and the discussions that took place in the dining room. They learn everything they need to inflict maximum chaos.

And it’s great. 

Three other details of note:

Cinder spots Emerald with the heroes during Jinn's vision, but doesn't have much of a reaction beyond her expression tightening.

Jinn looks sad when she reveals the group's plan, reinforcing the idea that she's biased towards our heroes. I'd be more on board with that characterization if a) she weren't created by Light whose own Good Guy persona is dubious at best, and b) she wasn't so cruel towards Ozpin. Again, it's just this strange insistence that everyone adore Ruby Rose.

Neo reveals the Relic by pulling it out of Roman's hat. Uh... is that how hats work? They contain objects twice their height? While resting on someone's head? This wasn't one of Neo's illusions, she literally just pulled it out like a real world magician. That's weird. Showy, but weird.

Anyway, the flashback continues as the villains infiltration the Atlas military headquarters. I really enjoyed the music and cinematography here. It's a strangely uplifting tune — rather Cinderella-esque — which doesn't appear to work until you remember that these moments are through Cinder's perspective. Of course this is a Happy Ending for her — even if it's not for the audience. The quick cut between her summoning some fire and the whole room alight, bodies everywhere, was an excellent touch.

The happiness of this moment is then emphasized by Neo skipping as she beats people and Watts admitting that this is "everything I’ve ever wanted." I'm really digging the contrast between this scene's celebratory nature and the knowledge that the story is celebrating the wrong characters. It creates an enjoyably uncomfortable feeling for us and helps flesh out the villains more. From their perspective, life is good.

There's even a shot of that #1 Dad mug. Sometimes, RWBY gets it right.

Watts in particular is enjoying himself. He snags a discarded apple — no fairy tale symbolism there, I'm sure — and casually rubs the blood off it before taking a bite. This guy has style! 

Watts watches Jaune try to send out his message to the kingdom and cuts communication at the worst possible moment. But then, we knew that already.

Elsewhere in the facility, Robyn and Qrow are trying to round up the Ace Ops. They all feel Atlas shake, realizing that the group has used the Relic, and Elm is appropriately horrified. "They'll destroy the kingdom!" Robyn says some self-righteous words about how a kingdom is made up of its people, not the land it exists on, which, while ignoring the importance of land to so many cultures, completely ignores that right now the majority of people are still on Atlas, or below it, including them. "They set the house alight!" someone cries. "Who cares about a stupid house," Robyn says, uncaring that the entire family still resides inside and she's starting to inhale smoke.

As Robyn tries to paint herself as a hero, Watts hacks one of the droids and sets it to self-destruct, telling it to run full-tilt at the group. Their weapons don't stop it and at the last second Marrow throws himself in front to take the blast, shattering his aura. Uh... after everything we've seen in this show, a single, small explosion wipes out his aura? I don't care about that so much here, but I absolutely care about it for an upcoming scene. Keep this in mind.

Also, I'm not going to get into the potential problems of trying to execute Marrow, beating up Marrow, and then blowing up Marrow. Others can tackle that leviathan of a subject.

At least he survived? But only RT knows if Robyn and Qrow bothered to put him on their ship.

Because as Atlas begins to fall Harriet, free of Marrow's semblance, races for an airship going off the edge of the open parking garage. Idk what else to call that space. I'm sure there's something appropriately military-esque, but we're going with parking garage for now lol. This is the one — one — moment where I felt like the Ace Ops were actually written like they weren't friends, what with Harriet's willingness to race off and leave them behind. Again though, it's too late and there are, frankly, other aspects to consider. Like the fact that Marrow just betrayed her. I don't think she's in the right mind for trusting the rest of her team, especially when there are only seconds to save herself.

Vine uses his stretchy arms to grab hold of her ship though and heaves himself on board.

Cutting to the jail, Ironwood wakes up and is greeted with a despondent Jacques. As Ironwood realizes that the group has the Staff, Jacques goes, "That's right, you lose! … we both lose." Before there can be any interesting discussion though, Ironwood's cell... goes out???

I suppose the explanation for this is things falling apart as Atlas descends, but man is that another moment of head-scratching convenience. What's even worse is that Winter apparently just left his weapons beside the cell. "Hey, what should we do with Ironwood's giant gun?" "Idk, leave it for him on the off chance us removing the city's power source wreaks havoc with the electrical bars?" I mean seriously. At least Qrow had to go find his weapon in a locker.

For a second Jacques is thrilled, sure that Ironwood will open his cell too... right?

He does open the cell, by blasting the whole thing to smithereens, Jacques included.

You all know I'm horribly disappointed with how they've written Ironwood, but I can't bring myself to dredge up any fury over this murder. It's Jacques. You know, the abuser and slave owner who has never shown a single shred of decency? Can't say I'm sorry to see him gone, especially since one of the Schnee girls were never going to kill him. The only other thing they could have done was have Jacques die an accidental death.

So villain!Ironwood can have another murder, as a treat.

Meme jokes aside, it's interesting that Ironwood's never-seen-before-last-episode gun produces a green blast and fire. It looks incredibly similar to what Penny created as an android and the fire around her Maiden eyes. Unlike Watts' apple though, I don't think this is a parallel RT intentionally included. Not unless we want to dig deep for more “Metal bodies = evil” symbolism, but there’s already plenty more persuasive examples of that. 

Returning to Team RWBY, we finally come to the highlight of the episode: Yang falling off the edge.

Okay, I want to praise RWBY for having the guts to kill off a main character... but we all know they haven't killed off a named character. If next episode — or perhaps even next volume — it's revealed that Yang is really dead, I'll happily eat these words. For now though, this is not the consequence that RWBY critics have asked for. This is, in fact, quite a mess.

Let's count up all the ways this scene has failed spectacularly.

No one believes that Yang is actually dead. Not just because she's a title character, not just because Ambrosius never confirmed that the void was deadly or even dangerous — "Don't fall," however ominous, doesn't actually tell us what happens to someone who falls — but also because we have been here before. Three volumes ago. Remember how it looked like Weiss would die only for Jaune to unlock his semblance and save her? Yeah. The audience is both genre and RWBY savey. This cliffhanger feels cheap because absolutely no one is fooled.

Feel familiar? 

Worse, Yang falls because of another round of stupidity. Nothing about this moment is convincing.

First, she notices Neo sneaking up on Ruby. What's her reaction? To flare her semblance, charge her in fury, and be horribly injured. Oh wow, where have we seen this before?

This is the exact same series of events from Volume 3. A loved one of Yang's is about to be harmed, she gets mad, charges without thinking, and takes the brunt of the attack herself, resulting in a far more serious injury than likely would have otherwise occurred. Emotionally understandable, but stupid. More importantly, it's the exact thing Tai tried to warn her about. The fandom praised Yang's arc because she got a moment of calm with Mercury, but since then we’ve ignored that development, reverting Yang to the same, impulsive fighter as before. Volume 6 showed us this problem in a non-combat setting and this moment solidifies it. Yang has learned absolutely nothing since Beacon. She's the same protective, reckless fighter she was back then, getting herself grievously injured because she can't think before she acts. What was the point of sending her on that journey if she was never going to improve? 

Neo cuts through Yang's aura in a single hit. A single hit. These characters have long, drawn out fights filled with crazy attacks and you're telling me a single slice of Neo's weapon is enough to shatter Yang's aura? Really, aura has been an absurd plot device for a while, but this volume has been particularly bad. Ren's aura breaks so the group is spotted by Salem's grimm, but then is back just a few minutes later so he can see purple petals around Emerald. Jaune's aura is said to be running just as low, but then is totally fine to boost Penny for the next hour until she reaches the vault. Now, Yang has had just as much time to rest as they do, but she’s instantly taken out?

This is a problem not because the loss of aura itself sends her over, but because the hit was apparently so powerful Yang passes out. She's groggy at least, blearily looking at everyone as she falls, but not reacting to them and, importantly, not trying to save herself. 

Yang could have reached for Blake's throw. She has a landing strategy. She could have blasted herself up, or towards any of the three paths she falls past. Instead she just... plummets. In a show where our characters are introduced through their ability to survive being launched off a cliff. Neo's attack needs to be miraculously incapacitating to justify — "justify" — Yang doing nothing to get out of this situation, in an episode where, minutes later, Ren's aura will also go out (again) but he's standing up and ready to fight a horde of grimm. But losing her aura through one hit somehow incapacities Yang?  

Also, to ward off the expected claims: she didn't hit her head. Yang's back hit the path and her eyes were closed before she ever made contact. Neo's hit just... knocked her out.

That's absurd.

Worse than her not helping herself, no one else on her team helps either. Except Blake. Ruby, who this volume has learned that she is basically able to teleport and negate the mass of carrying someone else, doesn't fly towards her sister. Weiss, who can summon flying grimm and create platforms for someone to land on, just reaches out a hand. They all had time to do something, Blake's action is proof of that, but neither of them did. Why? Because the show wants this to be a bees moment. I say that not as someone who hates the ship, but as someone who loves it. Or at least, I've always loved its potential, but if you need to prove their devotion by erasing the devotion of others... that's incredibly bad writing. And that's what this is. The choice to have Blake the only one capable of acting sends the message that she loves Yang enough to overcome the shock of her falling. That love powers her to act. But Yang is Weiss’ teammates too! Yang is Ruby's sister.

You’re telling me neither of them had the drive to push past shock and save her? 

I find it particularly insulting that Weiss comforts Blake rather than crumbling in grief herself. I find it doubly insulting that Blake cries and screams, but Ruby stoically continues her fight with Neo. In trying to show Blake's love for Yang — and hers in turn — the show has unintentionally pulled back on the love everyone else has, even between siblings. This is a far more harmful repetition of Yang's moment in the outpost: she cares more about the imagined disagreement with Blake than she does the actual fight she had with Ruby. Blake shows more emotion for Yang's assumed death than her sister has. You can't prove love by diminishing it elsewhere. The scene 100% needed all three girls doing everything in their power to save Yang, failing, and then continuing the fight while expressing the appropriate emotion for such a massive loss. Ruby can fly towards Yang and be pinned by Cinder. Weiss can start to summon and have an attack disrupts it. Ruby can scream and cry while she fights Neo. Again: that's her sister.

There's nothing about this scene that works for me and honestly? After Yang returns they better kiss. Or there better be an "I love you." Something canonical. There will never be a better, more obvious time for a confession than after Blake thinks she's lost Yang for good and if we don't get one... the ship has well and truly sunk. We're living in a post-Supernatural finale world. You can no longer take your one, implied to be queer main couple, toss one into this fantasy's version of super hell, give them a second chance together... and then leave things dangling. RWBY has to make them canon when Yang returns if they have any hope of maintaining a large portion of their queer fanbase.

As a final note on this scene, I don't like what it implies about both Blake and our lost civilians. Like Yang, (and like Penny last episode) this attack undermines the growth our characters have undergone. Yang learns not to attack out of emotion with her semblance... and then does just that. Penny learns that she's a person with an android body... and then gets a human body to make her perfect. Blake realizes that she isn't willing to kill people in this war anymore... and then goes after Neo with an intensity that implies she's ready to kill her. It's a detail that might have been meaningful if Blake's struggle had existed in more than a single line in a single scene. As it is, it just feels like they've forgotten — or are ignoring — another character beat they introduced. 

As for our civilians, will the show bring them back too? Look, I'm pleased Cinder blew them off the edge. I'm glad there were finally consequences for the kingdom-wide attack, even if none of have to come about from our main antagonist. But that impact was erased the second they threw Yang off the edge too. If they bring only her back, Team RWBY look like assholes who only care about their friends, not all the people they were charged with protecting (a recurring theme in this series). If they do bring the civilians back, we've lost that consequence. RWBY never should have tossed a title character into that void especially when, as said, everyone watching knows it's not a real consequence of this fight.

This was a terribly crafted scene, imo. If the only purpose here is to push the bees to confess, we could have gotten that after the whale. Yang was captured by Salem. That's more than enough danger to justify coming clean about feelings and the volume could have easily been reworked to make Blake aware of that danger, forcing her to stew in it until Yang returned, unharmed.

Instead we get this.

Also, I don't even want to get into the implications of having Yang disappear in a cloud of glittering gold dust like Pyrrha did. That's a world building rabbit hole RWBY really doesn't need.

So Yang is gone but obviously not gone. Blake is the only one impacted by this enough to react emotionally. Penny hears her scream and comes running, showing the viewer that absolutely nothing had changed despite getting an entirely new body. 

Cinder weirdly throws her voice — has she done that before? — to distract Penny and the fight continues, with Neo going after Ruby and Blake going after Neo. There's a moment where Blake realizes that Weiss is in trouble too, looking between her two teammates, unsure of who to help. 

I'm calling it now: Blake will be the third semblance upgrade, splitting herself into multiple fighters capable of functioning independently, rather than just shadow clones to take hits.

It would make as much sense as anything else.

Cinder at least is fighting smart, attacking the civilians rather than Weiss directly, then blowing her glass up in Weiss' face. She then manages to catch herself in the air, but, you know, couldn't do the same for Yang.

At the very least don't have Weiss using these abilities seconds later, c'mon.

We thankfully leave this nonsense for, well... more nonsense. Vine and Harriet get into a fight about what Clover would have wanted, which means nothing to the viewer because we didn't know Clover long enough to develop that sense for ourselves. I'm sorry, but following an order to peacefully bring Qrow in for questioning is not proof that he would have seen things through in the sense of blowing up Mantle, yet that's what we're supposed to believe based on Harriet's assertions and Vine's take that "perhaps Clover was wrong." I really hate that RWBY has taken to bashing the guy before he had the chance to actually do anything. Everyone is criticizing Clover based on lies or assumptions about what he might have done if, you know, he hadn't been murdered. Qrow blames Clover for defending himself, not his own choice to team up with Tyrian. Robyn asserts that Qrow is a better huntsmen than Clover, even though the one scene they had together was Robyn deciding to attack Clover because she didn't like him doing his job. Now Vine is like, "Yeah, Clover might have tried to blow up a kingdom needlessly, but maybe he was wrong and a bad person, you know?" I don't even like Clover that much, but the story has really gone out of its way to criticize him when he's obviously not around to prove, disprove, or otherwise defend himself. That’s messed up. 

The one good part about this scene is Harriet losing it, all her firm beliefs crumbling to reveal just an aching grief for losing Clover. Hark, is this humanity for the other Ace Ops I see? Some development and characterization? Vine reaching out sympathetically to comfort her because they've always been a team, no matter what Ruby might say about it?

Oh wait, no. They're interrupted by Robyn screaming as she slams her ship into theirs.

I think Robyn is, officially, my least favorite character in the series. Which isn't to say there aren't objectively worse characters than her — we saw one get blown up this episode — but no one has this particular combination of horrible acts, self-righteous attitude, and an absolute dearth of other positive qualities to distract from that. Robyn has brought nothing to the last two volumes except frustration and I can only hope she goes off to do her own thing when our finale is done.

Qrow goes feral, turning into a bird and changing at the last second to slam through Harriet's window. He taunts her about getting the fight she wanted and we see Watts hacking her ship while they're distracted.

Watts, I'm really loving the evil schemes, but don't you want to, uh... leave? Atlas is falling and you're one of maybe three people left on it. Best get a move on, chop, chop.

Those other two people are Winter and Ironwood, both of whom have come to the vault looking for Team RWBY. Ironwood lands a hit with his new gun, giving a short speech about how though he was always on the lookout for betrayal, he never expected it from her. He tells Winter to stand aside as his final order, to which she replies, “I’ve never wavered in fighting the enemies of this kingdom," preparing to fight.

I've explained the problems with Ironwood's downfall ad nauseam. I don't think that's needed again here. However, there are two final points I'd like to make.

Winter's characterization took a hit along with Ironwood's. Why didn't he think she'd ever betray him? Because they clearly cared for one another. The fact that Winter so quickly and easily gave up on Ironwood is a disservice to both of them. Even in the throes of being an emotionless killer, we still understand Ironwood's devastation at this betrayal: his shock when Winter attacked, his request that she step aside now, the single tear. 

There's nothing like that on her end. No denial that the man she faithfully followed would do this. No insistence that the man who helped her escape her abusive upbringing be reasoned with. Nothing. Winter dismisses Ironwood with the same callousness the narrative has.

Which brings me to my second point: this isn't hopeful. I know the Emerald lovers don't want me making comparisons, but the story has already done that for us. You can't give us an all out villain — someone responsible for countless deaths across the series, attacks on kingdoms, lying to our heroes, willingly working for the enemy  — and say that it's good to forgive her instantly, but it's not acceptable to even consider forgiving the man who has also killed, also threatened to attack a kingdom, was honest with our heroes, and always fought against the enemy. You can't give us an entire story about hope and forgiveness — Ruby reaching out to Raven, Weiss wanting to rescue Jacques, Oscar putting all his trust in Hazel — while saying that this character isn't worth compromising with. This character needs to be denounced to the whole world so there's no possibility of forgiveness. This character will commit horrific acts and his allies will immediately jump ship, but others? Their horrific acts are forgiven the moment you give them a way out. I'm supposed to believe that Yang, who knew Emerald only as the woman who attacked her school and has helped make their lives a living hell since then, will laugh with her within an hour, but Qrow, after years of being an ally and friend to Ironwood, is suddenly ready to murder him over an arrest he had no context for? That Ruby will try to make peace with every enemy she comes across, but not the guy who was the ally she betrayed? That Winter would extend more compassion to her abusive father than the man who helped her escape that? Ironwood's downfall isn't just horribly written, it messes with RWBY's core themes. Everyone deserves a second chance, is worth crying over, is worth reaching out to no matter how many horrible things they've done... except this guy here.

And when that guy is the PTSD riddled military vet who crumpled in large part because the heroes continually lied to, betrayed, and took extreme action rather than working to find a compromise... that's a really bad take. That shows a lot of bias on the part of RT. They're trying to write a story about the evils of the institution, but think they can reduce that to the evils of a single man driven to the brink. That doesn't send a teachable message to the audience and it certainly doesn't send a hopeful one. All it does is reiterate that if you rip away someone's support network when they're already falling they will, shockingly, fall harder.

Which brings us back to characters like Emerald. Because no, no one has to help Ironwood. When someone is hurting you and committing the crimes he has this volume, no one is required to extend a hand at their own, personal peril. But when the narrative is so heavily pushing forgiveness for other mass-murderers? When child torturers are extended a hand during the torture? That reframes everyone abandoning Ironwood into something unpalatable. Having Ironwood’s allies, friends, and really, family, so quickly toss him aside while other, equally bad people are welcomed in says that everyone struggling like him isn’t worth the effort. From a genre perspective, this isn’t a tragedy because the characters don’t care. No one is striving to bring Ironwood back from the brink. No one is crying over the man they lost. Hazel gets a moment of silence as Emerald kneels, stricken in the aftermath of his death, but one of the heroes since Volume 2 gets nothing but hateful looks from his second. 

But we all knew we'd end up here. My current theory? The portal should still be open at the vault. Winter will fight Ironwood, escape through it, and it will close right before he escapes too. He'll fall with Atlas and everyone will act as if it's some beautiful, poetic justice for him to perish with the city. 

Here’s hoping I’m very wrong! 

Finishing with Oscar's group, Ren's aura breaks after trying to mask everyone coming through the portal. Oscar realizes that Penny should have come through by now and runs back to find her, only to discover that the portal is closed on this side. Why? Because Weiss wished for a "one way trip to Vacuo." Not only is this another example of our heroes being stupid — they come up with this complicated wish that doesn't actually makes sense, but don't bother to be careful with their words like Ruby was when helping Penny? — but it also just... doesn't add up? How does Oscar know what Weiss wished for? How does Ozpin? (His one line in the episode.) They recall this together, the flashback acting like a memory, but neither of them were there. Neither was Ren. Neither was Emerald. They haven't spoken to the Relic group since separating.

It looks like RT still needs to edit their scripts.

As Oscar realizes they're trapped, the emotions of the group summons a huge number of grimm to the area. At this point, my only thought was why none of them had used the time Ren was buying them to try and find Vacuo. I mean, they're not the only fighters with semblances here. They have the Happy Huntresses too and, I would think, the Atlas students (unless the army was abandoned like Pietro and Maria were. Where are Neon and Flynt?) There's no one in this huge crowed with an ability that might make scouting ahead a little safer? No one is even going to try and figure some plan out? Everyone on these teams is too passive. They encounter a problem — where's the city? — and instead of trying to solve it while they can, while they’re in a good position to, they wait around until the situation becomes unimaginably worse and they have to figure something out or risk dying. Now, the people are being carried off by grimm, they know something has gone wrong on the pathways, and Ren is about to enter another fight without his aura. Let's hope he doesn't take a hit like Yang.

Summary of "Worthy"? Excellent villains, terrible heroes. It's better than what we've gotten in a while, but choices like Yang's fall ensures it's still not good. Given the trajectory of the volume, it was inevitable that we would end up here: moments that look significant at first glance, but are (quite likely) no more than window dressing in the long run.

Finally, bingo is rather boring this week. Unsurprising, considering we're almost out of space. I'm keeping our "Army of grimm conveniently doesn't kill any civilians" square checked because the point there was for Salem to kill people, not for the group to lead the refuges into a grimm infested desert. We'll have to see how many people they lose though and whether Atlas "somehow survives." Here, like Robyn, I'm talking about the citizens, not the now clearly doomed hunk of land. At this point, Oscar doesn’t seem to at all care about his near death experience, but I'll hold off on that square until we're truly done, and there's still a near certain possibility that Ironwood will die, with a likely possibility that Qrow grabs a bottle when first given the chance. What RWBY has avoided though is a Jacques-Watts team up 2.0. Considering, you know, Jacques is dead.

Gold star for not doing the expected, iffy thing, RWBY.

That's the square I would have least minded seeing though 😬

Anyway, finale next Saturday, folks! What insanity will the end bring? Only time will tell. But I can't wait to see what state the fandom will be left in for hiatus!

Until then 💜

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY+‘s actions are indefensible, because the outcome of their decisions are BAD. Amity failed, no one showed up. They forgot about the knowledge relic and TOOK CREATION FOR NO REASON, ensuring Atlas will crush Mantle so the people can’t go back. Sending people to Vacuo was already bad because people dressed heavy to not freeze to death are sent to a DESERT, then Grimm start killing with only 3 to protect a crowd of MILLIONS. None of this matters, because Salem’s 2/4 away from killing everyone.

Personally, I don't think the problem is that the outcomes were bad — as RWBY has often shown us, you can be put into situations where there are no good outcomes — but rather because their choices were informed and, in making those choices, they continually chose what they knew was most likely to enact the most harm. It's like offering someone a mallet and a feather with the goal, "We want to bop someone on the head and do the least damage possible." Team RWBY keeps choosing the mallet.

Amity — Warning the world sounds great on paper, but RWBY's history (of which the characters are aware) shows that revealing the Salem secret has a very high chance of ending badly. The counter here — but we'll receive help — is very easily dismissed with the basic knowledge that there's no time for others to get to Atlas, combined with the fact that Atlas is the only one left with a stable fighting force. So not only did they choose the highest chance of panic (which equals death because grimm) against the lowest chance of help, but they implemented this plan through a hasty, unscripted message that neither clarified what was going on, nor presented that information in a way that would help to keep the people calm.

The Lamp — Ruby and co., unlike Ironwood, were well aware that the Relic still had a question left and thus should not be left out in the open. Their entire Volume 6 efforts were put towards getting this thing into a vault. Then, not only do they agree to keep it vulnerable, but they give it to the weakest member of their team. Yet they're surprised when it's eventually stolen?

The Staff — Same thing here. The group knows what the Staff is capable of, knows (as far as we're currently aware) that it has no limit on how many things it can create, and knows that Salem is trying to get the Relics for herself, bring them together to destroy the world if Oscar shared that very important bit of info off screen. They also know that the vaults exist to protect the Relics, that Penny is the only one able to open the Winter vault, that Penny is currently with them on her way to Vacuo... so they take the Staff out of the vault because...? They had the perfect recipe for keeping it safe and rejected that for unestablished "because plot" reasons.

The Destruction of Atlas and Mantle — This is a more complicated one because I agree with the logic in theory. Resources aside, a people will always be more important than the cities they're living in, so the concept of sacrificing a place to save the people is fine. The problem is, RWBY decides to do this when it's the least necessary. They know that Salem is currently out of commission. They know that her goons are scattered. They know that Ironwood has successfully been taken out. Depending on how we read the animation, they know huge swaths of her grimm were destroyed by Oscar. Yet they decide to evacuate everyone now? The flipside to this is refusing to take that course of action when it was far more justified, AKA, when Salem first arrived. Ozpin and Oscar always knew how the Staff worked, Penny has been with them since the beginning of Volume 8, Ironwood was not threatening to drop bombs until two days later, they know Salem is right outside and (they believe) poised to destroy them all, so why not implement this magical evacuation then? Obviously, from a meta perspective, because then we'd lose a filler volume, but in-world the characters come across as incredibly stupid. They insisted on fighting the immortal witch when they had no ideas how to beat her (that's inevitable death, as far as they knew) and then decided to escape when they'd succeeded in taking out her, her grimm, many of her followers, and an ally-turned enemy. Destroying a whole kingdom is no longer a tragic, but heroic sacrifice when you... no longer needed to do that... and had time to think up something else... or you could have done this from the get-go when it was actually necessary...

Vacuo — Exact same thing as above. Sending people to the very dangerous desert when it's the only way to escape the witch hell-bent on killing them is the best option out of two shitty options. Sending people to the very dangerous desert when the witch has been atomized, her forces scattered, and the cold apparently isn't killing anyone is just absurd. We could have easily had a "This is the best scenario we've got" if this evacuation had happened at the beginning of Volume 8. Instead, Team RWBY forced everyone to stay — forcibly kept them in danger — and then evacuated them to the hostile, grimm-invested desert when they were in the least danger since this whole crisis began. They know that Salem isn't after Mantle! She couldn't care less about the hole filled with people or the subway system! So why is evacuating them to the more hostile environment still a priority? It's all about what information the characters have at the time and whether they made smart, empathetic decisions based on that. They didn't.

Team RWBY knows everything at this point. They know about the war, Ironwood's plans, what happened inside the whale, they have a turned enemy in their group, they've got the Maiden, they had the Relic, they got another Relic... They are not ignorant heroes making decisions based on bad intel, or even heroes forced to make decisions with only bad options available to them (two roles that Ironwood fit instead). Sometimes shit just happens and it's no one's fault... but in this case, there are too many places we can't point to and go, "No, Team RWBY absolutely had a hand in that." They knew their options, they knew the risks, they had all the available resources, and they still chose to do the worst thing at the worst time, with the story trying to paint that as a victory rather than a failure. I've got no problem with a hero's decisions having a bad outcome (that's good writing!), but I do have a problem with that bad outcome occurring in large part because they rejected other options and then the story trying to convince me that this was the best plan, actually. If you give your audience all the information the characters have, don't be surprised if they go, "Hey, why are you having the characters ignore these very obvious options and make the worst possible decision here?"

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Vol. 5. Necessary Sacrifice

This is a re-posting from Nov. 11th, 2017 in an effort to get all my recaps fully on tumblr. Thanks!

This week’s lunch special is pure angst with a side of bittersweet hope. Though “Unforeseen Consequences” might have been an unexpectedly funny episode, things are really heading south when you’ve got a title like “Necessary Sacrifice.”

The fandom said that things would start getting darker by Episode 5 and here we are.

We begin with Blake, continuing the strategy of cycling through a main character each week while still leaving time for Ruby. She and Sun are attempting to recruit people to help defend Haven and it’s going about as well as you’d expect. From mothers pulling their sons back indoors to faunus straight up telling them to get lost, by the end of a long afternoon neither of them have anything to show for their efforts. Despite the faunus-specific situation here, I wonder if Qrow will encounter similar problems as he tries to recruit other huntsmen and huntresses. The residents of Menagerie can’t be the only ones who want to ignore this war (or straight up believe it doesn't exist) and it would be a convenient way of ensuring that the battles continue to rest on the shoulders of the kids. Similar to The Legend of Korra, RWBY raises questions as to why children continue to do the work of adults. Like Harry Potter, the show will need to keep coming up with decent excuses.

Blake raises an important consideration though: “Not everyone is like you and me.” We’ve been given a series focused on the soldiers of this world and thus it’s easy to forget that everyone else surrounding them isn’t going to happily charge into a fight like Team RWBY is. Most people—the faunus in particular—will do everything they can do avoid getting involved. The fact that it's Blake leading this charge, "cowardly" Blake with a semblance that literally lets her run away, does a lot to show her own character growth. More than that though, we’re reminded that RWBY/RNJR aren’t even like other huntsmen and huntresses. The Fall of Beacon changed them and taught an incredibly difficult lesson: that Salem doesn’t care if you think you’re a part of this war or not. Blake says that the people of Menagerie will be affected no matter what their decision is. Later Ruby reiterates that even innocents like Penny will be killed in this battle. You’re in danger whether you fight or whether you stay on the sidelines… so you might as well take up arms and do what you can.

Sun and Blake’s conversation was, at its core, another callback to the early volumes, notably their first café conversation. It’s a mellow scene with the talk broken up with slice-of-life looks around Menagerie, highlighting the diversity among the faunus race. I would have appreciated the aesthetics and mood of this scene a whole lot more if Sun hadn’t devolved into someone I’ve come to actively dislike. Blake expresses how appreciative she is that Sun was there for her even when she didn’t want him to be and says that she wants to help her friends, “The way you helped me.”

God no. I ranted about this briefly in my last recap, but Sun’s actions should not be romanticized like this. Being there for someone means remaining open and supportive, available (to the best of your ability) for when they decide they want your help. Granted, the exception to this is situations wherein someone needs intervention for their own or another's safety, but Blake is absolutely not in that position. Part of being supportive is providing someone with the space they ask for and Sun 100% did not do this. He stalked Blake without her permission. Did not leave when she told him to. Horned in on her private family life despite numerous signs—both overt and subtle—that he was not welcome there. The fact that Blake now does want him around doesn’t excuse his earlier, pushy arrogance. And the fact that she’s thanking him for it puts a real sour taste in my mouth. It’s far too reminiscent of all the men who continually demand a woman’s attention because they know “what’s best” for her, or they’re convinced she “secretly wants it.” Sun has had no respect for Blake’s boundaries these past few months and he does not deserve to be rewarded for that egotism now.

Regardless, that’s just one uncomfortable moment in an otherwise nice scene. I laughed at Blake's speech about personification, given that I’d just taught Citizen Kane to a bunch of intro film students. Can you sum up a person’s life and personality with just one word? Blake thinks you can. Ruby is purity, Weiss is defiance, Yang is strength…and Adam, after long consideration, is spite. It’s an assessment I think most can agree with. As Blake lays out, Adam has no desire for equality or justice. He’s out to hurt humanity as much as possible, regardless of how much of that vengeance they actually deserve.

Continuing Blake and Ruby’s parallels this episode, Ruby showcases her purity by having a candid (and long overdue) conversation with Oscar. Like Jaune, Oscar seems to be doing a lot of training on his own (numerous parallels between them too—I hope they interact more) and he admits that even though it’s only been a few weeks, he feels as if he’s been working with Ozpin's cane for a lifetime, maybe more. Beyond reminding us that Oscar and Ozpin are continuing to merge, this helps situate the viewer in Volume 5’s stupidly complex timeline. In all honesty I could continue to do without this non-linearity. It’s jarring to start an episode as if only a day or two has passed (first training last episode), only to learn through offhand comments that it’s been weeks instead. RWBY isn’t the sort of show that benefits from feelings of displacement and it would be better served using something like a more traditional training montage.

Then things get heavy. The conversation is mostly small talk until Ruby exclaims that Oscar will be combat ready soon. I’m so glad people have already GIFed this moment because Ruby’s expressions here are heart-wrenching.

Ruby: “Penny...” 

No one—viewers and characters alike—were expecting that punch to the gut. To say nothing of the fact that Ruby loved and listened to Penny enough to pick up on her favorite catchphrase. This moment starts a much more intimate conversation wherein Oscar expresses, through anger and fear, what most people have been thinking for four volumes now: how the hell can Ruby be so optimistic? People have tried to kill this girl, succeeded in murdering her friends, forced her out of her home, separated her from family, and dumped her in the middle of a war. Isn’t she scared?

Well of course she is. I’ve argued from the start the Ruby is wiser than most give her credit for and we get an excellent demonstration of this here. Beyond reiterating Blake’s views from earlier—that they’re in danger whether they keep moving forward or crawl into a panicky ball—she drops the bombshell that being recklessly brave isn’t going to save anyone. In fact, it actively got Pyrrha killed. I love that the show finally acknowledged this because as brave as Pyrrha was for standing up to Cinder, that bravery was stupid. She knew she couldn’t defeat a Maiden and fighting her achieved nothing overall. The only reason Pyrrha went up to that tower was because it was the “right” thing to do… but in fact, the better thing to do would have been to hold back, to survive and live to fight another day. 

Ruby gets that. For all her niceties and optimism, she understands Pyrrha’s fatal flaw: there’s a difference between playing the hero and being a strategic member of a team. It flies in the face of everyone who claims she hasn’t grown (remember the girl who tried to take on the deathstalker alone during initiation?) and it just solidifies my feelings regarding her decision to enter Qrow’s fight with Tyrian. That was also a stupid decision based on what we know now, but the point is Ruby didn’t have all that information--she was making a strategic choice on what she thought she knew. Ruby isn’t out to sacrifice herself for the sake of sacrifice. Does she make mistakes? Of course, but she’s a lot more self-aware than most would assume at first glance. She's out to win, not just turn herself into a martyr.

Ozpin says it himself, “She really is remarkable, isn’t she?” yet when Oscar agrees in this sort of awed voice, commenting that she must have been one of the best huntresses at Beacon, Ozpin is quick to clarify that Ruby has faults just like anyone else. What makes her special is that “spark,” her ability to inspire others even in the face of extraordinary odds. It's her optimism and leadership (among other traits) that make her great--but they certainly don't make her perfect.  

This comment of Ozpin’s was so reassuring. Yes, I’m also frustrated that no one is talking about Ruby’s silver eyes (I’d have demanded an explanation months ago??) but at least we have even more confirmation that Ozpin doesn’t just view Ruby as his secret weapon. This conversation could have easily ended with him making vague references to how powerful and important Ruby is. Instead Ozpin teaches Oscar that no one can be put up on a pedestal. Say what you want about Ozpin’s archetype and supposed manipulation. I firmly believe he was telling the truth when he told James ages back that he didn’t want his kids fighting a war. It’s just too bad that they have to.

Our last scene is the one everyone was waiting for. News has reached the fox brothers of Sienna’s assassination and when they refer to her as a “necessary sacrifice” everyone breathed a sigh of relief. That is, until the Belladonnas are also labeled a “necessary sacrifice” and everyone panicked. Our new winged faunus guy might have intercepted the messenger with news of Sienna’s death, but they can’t keep it a secret from Menagerie forever. When this gets out the tide might just turn in Ghira’s favor… so the whole family, with the exception of Blake, is to be killed. And Ilia is the perfect person to carry this out.

Frankly, I don’t think she’ll do it. The show has spent too much time framing her as a sympathetic character, someone really on the fence about her loyalties, and you can see the pure shock and hesitation on Illia’s face when she hears the news. The real question though is, if she does turn to Blake’s side, will her double-status be enough to save the Belladonnas? We dodged Qrow's death last Volume. Is it time then for another casualty?

The only real silver lining here is that if they do die it’ll probably happen off screen where we can ignore it. After all, it’s only the red-haired, green-eyed characters who get the gruesome deaths lol. Still waiting to see if that's just some morbid inside joke or if we'll ever get an in-universe explanation...

One final note regarding this episode: is anyone else highly suspicious of Oscar’s backpack? It’s not as if he’s wandered far to train—Ruby comes right downstairs to grab him for dinner. Yet here he is with his stuff all packed up. Oscar leans his cane with the other weapons, cries, and then packs it up as well, donning the backpack with his most precious possession inside, something that is entirely unnecessary if you’re just walking upstairs to dinner. The fact that this scene takes place with an open wall that leads outside, the fact that we cut with Oscar still standing in the middle of the room… it makes me nervous. Maybe Ozpin has a special mission for them. Maybe Oscar (despite Ruby’s comment that he’s braver than he thinks) is planning to leave….

…or maybe they just needed something for him to do while they had a long, intimate conversation. That’s always possible too.

Until next week!

Other Details of Note

Mermaid faunus confirmed.

Winged faunus CONFIRMED.

Oscar says that the only fighting he’s done is against small Grimm that, presumably, try and attack the farm. This raises a lot of questions regarding how strong a Remnant civilian is. Can everyone fight off one or two regular Grimm? Does Oscar’s farm work give him the kind of strength he needs to, I don’t know, stab something evil with a pitchfork? I remain supremely curious about what the average, non-fighter is capable of in this world.

Both Ruby and Oscar got to cry a bit during their conversation. Kudos. Keep letting the kids cry.

I also appreciate that it was a conversation between Oscar and Ruby. Ozpin may not literally be able to get away, but at least he has the tact to hang back and pretend that the conversation is private.

Adam is... definitely "unwell." Nice choice in language though. The fox brothers want to "silence" the Belladonnas whereas Adam straight up says to "slaughter" them. He's becoming more unhinged with each passing episode.