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kaesaaurelia · 5 months ago

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Hustler's Blood editing accountability, chapter 1

I really need some kind of accountability to progress with WIPs, and since this one is mostly written I'm going to try and make myself accountable for the editing. And since it is very very long, I'm going to be at this a while. I'll be posting some facts and figures, summaries, and little quotes I like from the fic, just to keep me honest.

Please block "hustler's blood nattering" if you don't want to see these posts!

If you are curious about what this fic is, it is an epic-length Good Omens (TV) fic, written over one million several years mostly after Season 1, set in Chicago in 1926. It's basically half whump (the Crowley part) and half casefic (the Aziraphale part) and very self-indulgent. The summary I'm planning to go with is:

Heaven tasks Aziraphale with tracking down the nefarious demon Crowley in Prohibition-era Chicago. The city is on the brink of a gang war, in the midst of a violent turf war between taxi companies, and many there are still suffering from the lingering trauma of the Great War. But there are good times to be had, so while Aziraphale figures out what he's going to tell Heaven, he and Crowley indulge in some Roaring Twenties decadence. But when Crowley vanishes, Aziraphale must find him without tipping off the city's own assigned angel, Vehuel. She's determined not to let things in her city get any worse, but Aziraphale just wants his demon back. Meanwhile, Crowley must contend with the cruelty of Hymie Weiss, Al Capone's rival on the North Side. Weiss is determined to kill Capone and avenge the murder of his best friend, and he's not above using a captured demon to do it.

It is not posted yet and will not be posted until I'm happy with it, but it is almost all written (I think I'm going to add 2 more specific scenes) and I'll be talking (with a lot of fic spoilers) about it here.

Anyway. Went through on a first formal editing pass on the first chapter of the fic, should auld acquaintance be forgot.

Wordcount: 6,945 words as of the end of this editing pass.

Song of the chapter: "The Joint is Jumpin'" by Fats Waller

What happens in this chapter?

Aziraphale comes to Chicago on Heaven's orders.

Aziraphale finds Crowley on New Year's Eve.

They make up, and get very drunk.

Aziraphale kisses Crowley at midnight. Like friends do!

Aziraphale then realizes that he is much, much drunker than he thought he was, and that he can't miraculously sober up because of the poor quality of the alcohol.

Crowley offers to let Aziraphale stay with him, brings Aziraphale to his giant lakeside mansion in the suburbs, and fucks up a perfectly good Only One Bed scenario.

My favorite historical reference: The bit where Crowley tells Aziraphale about his friend in Cincinnati who hired people to hijack his own liquor trucks.

My favorite quote:

"In New York they have this... ball."

"Oh! Like with masks?" Aziraphale asked. He'd rather enjoyed those. All the costumes were so much fun, and sometimes the menus were extraordinary.

"No, no, like... big round bastard," said Crowley, with an evocative gesture. "Falls down at the stroke of midnight."

"Oh," said Aziraphale, frowning. He tried to picture this, but it still didn't quite make sense. Not that he was drunk. As an ethereal being, he could put away a fair amount of alcohol, and he could barely taste anything but sugar in these drinks, so they couldn't be very strong.

"You know, like a circle, but more," Crowley added. His evocative gestures were getting more and more patronizing, and Aziraphale wasn't having it.

"Yes, I know what a sphere is, thank you very much," he said.

#kaesa op #hustler's blood nattering #good omens #aziraphale #anthony j crowley #ineffable husbands

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sneezehq · 4 years ago

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Revenge is Too Sweet

Tyrian Callows still hasn't forgotten who was responsible for the loss of his tail.

And just because he's been ordered not to kill Ruby Rose doesn't mean that he can't make her suffer. And oh, he can make her suffer.

Standing behind the counter of a tiny coffee stand in an apron and serving up espressos, Tyrian smirks to himself. It’s almost too easy.

Tracking down which area of Mantle the little silver-eyed brat would be doing missions in was child’s play, given that they’d been monitoring her and her little friends’ movements since the moment they had arrived in Atlas. Taking the place of the hapless barista that usually worked here was laughably easy. Poor man had bled out quietly in a back alley from a slit throat. And tempting two young huntresses over for a hot drink on a chilly Mantle morning? Piece of cake.

They rattle off their drink orders with annoyingly bright smiles and gratingly cheerful voices, and Tyrian has to repress an eye roll at the vile concoction that the dark-haired menace prefers. Of course the little monster would enjoy such an abomination of cream and sugar disguised as coffee. But he dutifully shoves down his irritation and jots down their orders, assuring them that everything will be ready soon. Tyrian has had a lot of practice ignoring annoying little girls thanks to a certain fall maiden and her bratty follower.

The two brats chatter idly while he mixes their drinks, gossiping about training and friends and spending time with their sisters. It’s all useless drivel, of course, but he keeps one ear open in case they happen to mention something useful. Little red is clueless as always. He doubts that she’d recognize him even if she got a good look at his face. Fortunately, the bitter chill of morning gives him the perfect excuse for a disguise. With his hat pulled down low over his eyes and a scarf wrapped around his mouth, he doubts that the girls would remember him standing out among the citizens of Mantle.

Yes, Tyrian Callows was a very fortunate man, in so many ways. As he should be, as a loyal servant of their divine savior. And he was here to rectify one of the few misfortunes that had befallen him.

Well, partially at least. Unlike some of his less devoted colleagues, Tyrian would never dream of disobeying an order, even if it was one as nonsensical as taking Ruby Rose alive. But just because he’s not allowed to kill the little girl doesn’t mean that he can’t hurt her. And oh, can he hurt her.

Pouring the now-finished drinks into the paper to-go cups, Tyrian fishes a tiny vial of his “secret ingredient” and adds it to the cup with Ruby Rose written on the side. The blasphemous amounts of cream and sugar would easily hide the bitter taste. Tyrian considers himself to be a bit of an expert on poisons, practically a natural at the subject since birth, so it was easy to pick out a blend that would make her suffer greatly, but would not kill her. Probably. Poisons are a bit like people, unpredictable in the way they interact with others. It’s tempting to dump a larger amount in the second drink, but as tempting as killing the little Schnee brat sounds, it’s not worth the risk. Both girls getting sick would be far too suspicious.

“Here’s your coffees, girls!” he calls cheerfully, handing out the cups. “My apologies for the wait. I hope that you enjoy your drinks!”

They fall all over themselves to assure him that it’s no trouble, they weren’t waiting long, before eagerly taking sips of their drinks and assuring him that they’re delicious. He smirks to himself. Too easy.

Ruby Rose gives him a friendly wave and a smile. Horrible child. “I hope that you have a good day, sir! Take care!”

“And you as well, miss!” I hope you enjoy your coffee, bitch.

“I’m so glad we could do this today,” Weiss says with a smile.

“Me too! Nothing like a successful mission and some delicious coffee first thing in the morning.” Ruby slurps her drink, feeling strangely jittery. Oh well, it was probably the caffeine. She always felt a little weird when they forgot to give her decaf.

“If you can call helping street vendors set up their wares a proper mission,” Weiss replies.

“Whatever you say, Ice Queen.” Ruby teases her partner, before checking the time on her scroll. Her cheeky grin turns into a frown. “How is it already 11:30?”

“Oh, you should hurry back so you’re not late meeting up with your sister!” Weiss exclaims. “I can check in at the mission boards for both of us.”

“Great, thanks Weiss! For both the coffee and for this.” She gives her partner a quick hug, before dashing off in a cloud of rose petals. “Catch you later!”

“It was my treat!” Weiss calls after her, blushing a little at Ruby’s enthusiasm. “And you forgot your coffee, you dolt!”

Ruby skids to a halt in front of the entrance to the Atlas Academy training room right at 11:59, narrowly avoiding a collision with her sister.

Yang steadies her with an easy grin. “Right on time, sis.”

“I know, I know, it’s hilarious how my semblance is speed and yet I’m always running late.”

“Hey, you said it, not me,” Yang smacks her shoulder playfully. “You ready to get your butt kicked?”

“Bring it on!” Ruby shrieks playfully, ignoring the growing ache in her stomach. She’s probably just hungry. It is lunchtime. “I’m just surprised that you want to train when you’d usually be eating lunch.”

“Lunchtime is the best time to work out, little sis. The training rooms will be empty, and plus food tastes way better when you’re worked up a sweat first.” Yang strikes a dramatic pose.

Ruby pretends to stare at her in awe. “Ah yes, the famous Yang Xiao Long wisdom.”

“Remind me to beat up the person who taught you how to use sarcasm.”

“You want me to remind you to beat yourself up?”

“Anyway! Enough stalling.” Yang grabs Ruby in a headlock. “Time to show me what you got!”

There’s something wonderfully soothing about sparring with Yang. Like coming home after a long day and taking a hot bath, except with a lot more bruises. They’ve been each other’s sparring partners for as long as Ruby can remember. It’s hard to believe that they haven’t fought since before the battle at Haven.

“It’s been too long since we’ve done this,” Ruby says, panting and resisting the urge to just flop down in the middle of the training floor. Yang always knows how to push her to her limits, and she in turn hasn’t been holding back. She can’t remember the last time she used her semblance this much.

“Agreed.” Yang smiles back at her. She’s breathing hard as well, her blonde hair a tangled, sweaty mess. “One more round before we hit the showers?”

“Sure,” Ruby agrees, although her chest is starting to ache, and she can’t quite seem to catch her breath. She allows Yang to haul her to her feet with one hand. “But after this, I’m totally napping until dinner time.”

Straining to use her semblance to its full extent, Ruby has a massive speed advantage over Yang, and actually manages to land a couple of hits early in the fight. Unfortunately, her sister is all too familiar with this tactic and simply waits for Ruby to wear herself out a bit before landing a couple of hits with her charged-up semblance. She pins Ruby and counts to five before releasing her.

“Not bad, little sis,” Yang says, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “You’re still a bit predictable, but you definitely hit a lot harder!” She turns away to pull her shirt back on. “Did I ever tell how awesome you are for punching Mercury in the face? It was definitely one of my proudest big sister moments.”

“All in a day’s work,” Ruby says proudly. She stands up slowly, feeling the pull in every one of her aching muscles. “And he deserved it, after what he did to you.”

“That’s my little sis. Now come on, I hear the showers calling our names.”

“Hey, Ruby, you asleep in there or what?” Yang calls out, banging on the door to the shower stall. She’s already showered, dressed, and ready to devour some lunch. “There’s this place that Marrow told me about that’s got some dishes from Vacuo that I need to try. Ruby?” There’s the sound of the shower running, but no response from her little sister. A knot tightens in the pit of her stomach. “Okay, you’d better not be messing with me. I’m coming in.” She shoves the door open, surprised to find it unlocked. “Ruby?”

Whatever she was expecting to find, it certainly wasn’t her little sister, still fully clothed, collapsed on the floor with blood trickling from her mouth forming a dark puddle. “Oh my gosh, Ruby!”

One minute, Ruby is sore and tired and struggling to catch her breath, but otherwise okay—and the next she’s trying not to collapse in agony, coughing up blood and gasping for air. She loses track of time, sprawled on the floor and clutching at her chest. The metallic tang of blood in her mouth is nauseating.

The next thing she knows, Yang is tapping her face and calling her name in increasingly frantic tones. “Ruby, please wake up!” She blinks her eyes open and gazes blurrily up at her older sister. Yang is here. Everything is going to be okay.

“Ruby, what happened?” Ruby manages to twitch her shoulders towards her ears in a pathetic attempt at a shrug. “Okay, well, stay calm. I’m going to go run for help.”

Fear seizes her at the thought of being left alone like this, and she manages to feebly grab Yang by the wrist. “Don’ go,” she slurs out. Talking triggers another round of coughing, and her sister helps her sit up as she struggles to breathe. Blood trickles down her chin and onto Yang’s clean clothes, but her sister doesn’t seem to notice.

“Okay, not going anywhere,” she soothes, running a hand up and down Ruby’s back as the coughs subside. “I’ll call someone for help.” Ruby can barely hear her over the roaring in her ears, but the tone sounds reassuring.

Despite the steam in the air from the shower, the bathroom suddenly feels freezing. Ruby shivers violently, instinctively pressing closer to her sister. She seems to have finished her call, only glancing occasionally at her scroll and running her fingers through Ruby’s hair in a soothing gesture. “I called Ironwood, and he’s got a medical team on the way. You’re going to be okay.” She pulls Ruby closer when she notices her shivering. “Oh Ruby, you’re burning up.”

“’m cold,” she mumbles, closing her eyes. Yang pinches her cheek until she cracks them open again and glares feebly.

“I know you’re tired and feel like crap, but I need you to stay awake until the medics look you over. It’ll only be a few minutes.”

It feels like hours, but eventually the medical team is at the door. Ruby shuts her eyes as they poke and prod at her and spit rapid-fire questions at Yang.

Eventually all of the voices fade out and Ruby drifts off into warm darkness.

When she wakes up, Ruby finds herself in a hospital bed in what looks a private hospital wing. Sitting up, she feels the tug of an IV in her right wrist. Her body still aches all over, but the tightness in her chest is gone and she can breathe easily again.

Casting her gaze to the right, she spies her sister, Blake, and Weiss all slumped over in their respective uncomfortable looking waiting-room chairs. Blake’s head is resting on Weiss’ shoulder, Weiss’ head is resting on Yang’s lap, and Yang’s head is resting on the hospital bed next to her thigh, hands clenched in the blankets. Ruby smiles fondly at her team. She fumbles for her scroll, conveniently placed on the bedside table to her right. This is too sweet not to snap a picture of.

Before she can take a picture, though, her hand brushes against Yang’s, causing her sister to stir. Yang raises her head blearily, scrubbing at her eyes. “Ruby?” she asks softly, eyes wide.

“Aw, that was going to be such a cute picture,” Ruby complains.

“You scared me half to death!” Yang cries, lunging forwards and wrapping Ruby in a hug.

“Ow,” Ruby mutters. Blake perks her head up, cat ears swiveling in their direction. Next to her, Weiss snorts loudly before shaking herself awake. Their eyes go wide when they see that she’s awake.

“Hey guys,” Ruby says awkwardly, fighting the urge to giggle.

“Ruby!” Blake exclaims.

“We were so worried!” Weiss sniffles loudly.

“What happened?” Ruby asks.

The three girls look at each other for a long moment. “What do you remember?” Yang asks.

“Honestly, not much.” Ruby admits, staring down at her blanket-covered lap. “I remember sparring with Yang, and I remember trying to get ready to shower but then my chest started hurting really bad, and then it’s all pretty hazy.”

Blake, Weiss, and Yang look at each other again, which is really annoying, and as their leader Ruby would like them to stop doing that. Finally, Weiss speaks.

“Ruby, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but—” she trails off.

“You were poisoned.” Blake says bluntly. “They tested your coffee from this morning, and apparently found traces of a poison someone slipped in there.”

“Oh.” Ruby really doesn’t know what to say.

“Good thing I held onto your cup, huh?” Weiss jokes, but the levity falls flat.

In the awkward silence that follows, Blake decides to continue her explanation. “Since you didn’t drink all of the coffee, and they don’t think that there was a high enough dose in there the doctor is pretty sure that you would have been okay, but they’re glad that Yang called them so fast.”

Yang folds her arms across her chest. “And I still say that they’re full of crap. You guys didn’t see before her before they got there—” she trails off, swallowing hard.

Ruby pats her sister’s arm. “Well I’m feeling better now,” she reassures them. “Do they—” she clears her throat. “Do they know anything about who might have tried to poison me?”

“They found the guy who usually works that coffee stand you and Weiss went to,” Blake says hesitantly. “He was murdered. So I’m afraid that’s a dead end.”

“Oh,” Ruby says again, suddenly feeling very small and cold.

“Ironwood did recommend that we try to stick to only eating at trustworthy establishments, until they know more about what happened, if that helps any,” Blake says, rolling her eyes.

“Where are Jaune, Nora, Ren, and Oscar?” Ruby asks, desperate for a change of subject.

“Probably back in the dorms, waiting to hear about you,” Yang says, before wincing and picking up her scroll. “They’ve been texting us all afternoon asking for updates. They would’ve been waiting here too, but the nurse would only allow a few visitors at a time.”

“Afternoon?” Ruby asks. “What time is it now?”

“About 10:30.” Blake stretches her arms over her head.

Oh wow. That’s so much time lost. “It’s that late already? You guys should go back to the dorms, get some rest.”

Blake, Weiss, and Yang all look at her incredulously. “Yeah, no. We’re not leaving you here by yourself after what happened today.” Yang shakes her head.

“Ironwood also said that none of us should go anywhere alone,” Weiss adds.

“And in case you didn’t notice, we were just resting until a few minutes ago,” Blake points out.

“And someone has to keep an eye on you to make sure that you’re actually resting, little sis.”

Ruby bites her lip. She’s grateful to not be alone, but they shouldn’t have to be staying in uncomfortable chairs when they could be sleeping comfortably back at the dorms. “Don’t they have some extra beds or pillows somewhere for you guys?”

“I’ll go ask and see if they have any spare bedding for us,” Weiss says, heading towards the door.

“Good idea,” Yang says, slipping out of her chair. “Blake, go with her.”

As their partners slip out of the room, Yang clambers up on the bed next to Ruby. “Yang, I don’t think that you’re supposed to be up here.”

“Eh, there’s enough room for both of us, isn’t there?’ It takes some shuffling, and they have to be careful with Ruby’s IV, but eventually they settle in, Ruby tucked into Yang’s side.

“You should get some more sleep,” Yang says, brushing Ruby’s hair away from her forehead and humming softly under her breath.

“I’m really not that tired,” Ruby complains. She yawns immediately afterwards.

Yang laughs softly. “Sure, sis. C’mon, sleep, we’ll all be here when you wake up.” She’s just about to drift off when she hears her sister mutter something else.

“We will find the person who did this to you. And I’m going to make them pay.”

#rwby #ruby rose #yang xiao long #tyrian callows #weiss schnee #team rwby #blake belladonna #hospital cw #blood cw #poison cw #murder cw #my writing

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hawkeyedflame · 5 years ago

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You know what RWBY really needed? Productive filler episodes and informative side-interactions. Hear me out.

Weiss Schnee, the heiress to the largest dust production company in all of Remnant, whose family is reasonably all over the news both for their clashes with the White Fang and their PR/charity efforts and whose own face is certainly known since she sings at public concerts, walks onto the campus of Beacon Academy -- and nobody except Blake knows who she is. It probably made the news when the Schnee heiress decided to go to Vale for schooling, spurning the academy run by one of her father’s closest political affiliates. Her family emblem is printed on the back of every magazine, etched into the glass of every dust bottle and emblazoned on the cartridge of every dust bullet. Would Ruby, a huntress who we had already seen using gravity dust in her trailer and who was in a dust shop reading a magazine with an SDC ad on the back cover, really not recognize her? I can see her perhaps not recognizing Weiss herself (even though later it is implied that Jaune knows who she is because of her singing performances), but the emblem printed on her outfit? How could she not know immediately who she was dealing with?

But okay, assuming Ruby doesn’t recognize her... what about everyone else at Beacon? This is a place where her family business is extremely relevant since dust is consistently shown to be a vital tool against the Grimm. Based on all the details we’ve been told about Weiss and the importance of her family’s business in the world of hunting monsters, she ought to have celebrity status. She approaches Pyrrha before initiation with confidence we can only assume she draws from her social standing. She has a very clear attitude that says, “I am important and everyone around me knows it.” But...do they? We don’t actually see it. We see almost no indication at all that Weiss benefits from her family’s power and influence. Nobody after Blake even acknowledges her relation to her family, aside from a White Fang goon, until Flynt Coal, in Volume Three, calls her out for Schnee Dust running his father’s business into the ground.

We needed more groundwork laid out. More conversations with or about her, from her teammates or her friends or even Joe Schmoe who never makes another appearance again because his only purpose was to add context to her character. More random characters interacting with Weiss or even just people in the background staring at her in awe and whispering excitedly (or disgustedly) when she walked by. And, most importantly, Weiss’s reactions to these things. A facial expression here, a sigh or disgruntled comment there. Anything to show us that there is existential turmoil inside of her, that she feels like she’s being torn between being her own person and being inseparable from her family legacy. That people’s judgment of her based on her family name, whether good or bad, hurts her. There are so many ways CRWBY could have backed up the facts we have about Weiss and the Schnee name by showing us subtle details. But instead they gave us no reason to believe that Weiss actually holds the status they’ve told us she holds, or that it affects her negatively. She comes to Beacon and gets treated like she’s just another student, which coming from the professors is absolutely praiseworthy, but from the other students it simply does not make sense. No normal person could train alongside a freaking celebrity and not have something to say about it at least once.

Also, why don’t we see her and Blake butt heads until Weiss says something racist? Blake knows who she is and has every reason to hate her. Yet she has absolutely no reaction to being put on a team with Weiss. She even cheers her on when she fights the boarbatusk in Professor Port’s class. She doesn’t act hostile towards her even once after their initial meeting until Weiss shit talks the White Fang and the Faunus. Where was the conflict? There should have been tension boiling under the surface well before the argument they had. We should have seen Yang prodding Blake about why she’s acting so rude towards Weiss, and having Blake avoid the questions. It could have served as foreshadowing to the “Blake is a Faunus and ex-White Fang” reveal. It could have cemented that Blake still holds the SDC accountable for their treatment of the Faunus despite her decision to separate herself from the White Fang and their ideology. It would have added depth and complexity to Weiss and to Blake and to the world they live in. It would have increased the strife within team RWBY itself and given a compelling springboard for the team to pull together and learn to work as a cohesive unit. Given the tension we already have between Weiss and Ruby, and Yang as Ruby’s protective older sister, we have every reason to believe team RWBY should have been doomed to conflict and inability to work together, problems that would plague their training until they learned to communicate and set aside their differences so they could perform better in the field. But we didn’t get any of that. We got a half-baked conflict between Ruby and Weiss that dissipated nearly as fast as it formed, and RWBY never suffered any communication or teamwork issues from there on out aside from the spat between Weiss and Blake that was, again, resolved almost as quickly as it occurred, with no far-reaching or long-lasting impact on the relationships between the characters.

The exact same complaints can be made for Pyrrha’s characterization except here it’s even worse because we are pretty much told outright that Pyrrha Nikos is a household name. Weiss goes out of her way to chastise Jaune for not knowing who she is (yet he somehow knows about Weiss being a singer?), and yet we never again see anyone treat Pyrrha like she’s on a pedestal. Later, Pyrrha essentially confesses to Jaune that she has a crush on him because he treats her like she’s a normal person. But we’ve never seen anyone treat her any other way. Weiss is the first and last person to comment on her celebrity status, and after that, everyone - including Weiss - treats her like they’d treat anyone else. Nobody from team RWBY acts like they’re in the presence of a famous person when they’re around her. Ren and Nora never treated her different either and we have every backstory reason to believe neither of them would have known who she was either. Yet she doesn’t get a crush on either of them. Or anyone else for that matter. Just Jaune, and just because the writers said so but did nothing to back it up.

Here again, we should have seen Pyrrha being treated like a celebrity. We could have even had a moment where Weiss and Pyrrha have a conversation about how difficult it is to be held separate from the rest. We know they both feel this way -- the theme of Weiss’s songs has always been loneliness and isolation, and Pyrrha straight up tells Jaune that it’s lonely up on that pedestal. Why did they never talk about it? Why did we never see these things happening and the toll it takes on these two characters’ emotional well-being? There were so many opportunities to show depth and complexity to these characters via “filler” content and interactions with others, but we got almost exactly none of that, yet were expected to believe the things they told us about these characters.

I know RWBY was limited by budget but I strongly believe they could have done much better if only they’d slowed down. The first three volumes are about seven hours of content, which is less than two seasons’ worth of a standard anime. They jammed so much plot into it that they tripped over their own story and forgot to flesh out their characters and their world, and then tried to make up for their lack of proper world building with the World of Remnant videos. And then they wasted their budget on the non-canon RWBY Chibi instead of maybe spending that money to add more to the canon show.

I guess the only thing I can hope for is that the new writers they brought on board actually know how to show instead of telling.

#rwby #long post #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #pyrrha nikos #rwby critical #i guess?#i just want what's best for these amazing characters #sigh

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periodicreviews · 7 years ago

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RWBY Volume 4 Episode 11

Almost every scene in episode 11 felt like it made sense and was well constructed. There were a few annoyances but overall I want to say it's the best episode of the season, which has been a mess so far. Is this the crew “getting the hang of it” or just a coincidence?

Cinder and the evil crew

From episode 1, I was interested in seeing more of Cinder’s struggle so it’s interesting that she is still not fully recovered unlike some other characters in this show who arguably lost more. It made me wonder as to whether Ruby’s attack was just hard to recover from or if she was just tired from a lot training. Maybe the writer’s just forgot about her too.

The viewer isn’t given any context as to how much effort has been expended, like “we’ve been at this for hours” or Yang’s “we’ve been at this for weeks” in episode 9. Not that it’s necessary to give that context, but it helps the viewer understand if Cinder is stronger because of the maiden’s power, still struggling to master it, or actually weaker because of Ruby’s ultimate attach and some weird inability to heal from it.

As small as it is, I’m really glad to see Cinder breathing heavily and struggling in the midst of a fight. Compare this scene with Team RNJR in Vol 4 Ep 6 when they fight Tyrian. We were supposed to believe RNJR was at their limits before Qrow came to save the day, but none of them showed any cosmetic damage or signs of exhaustion except for Ruby.

Cinder seemed to be creeped out by Tyrian’s bloodlust or desire for torture. On the surface, this seems to be at odds with her past behavior in helping release Grimm on civilians. Maybe she just doesn’t like the torture part of it and prefers just to make the kill quick. But hasn’t she been dealing with these people for some time now? Tyrian can’t be the only one crazy in the group.

What would cause that kind of change in someone? Besides her defeat at the hands of Ruby, we haven’t seen Cinder in any kind of traumatic situation or any kind of questioning of her past actions. The defeat could’ve been traumatic and have triggered this existential crisis in her, but the viewer hasn’t seen any of those dots connected on screen.

I saw a comment theorize that in taking Amber's power, Cinder took part of her soul and that's become mixed with hers. I guess that's possible at this point but I hope there's some decent on-screen explanation if she does switch sides.

Even though I’m interested in where this leads, I’m okay with the lack of “evil” screen time this season. I think the other characters would’ve suffered even more if they had less screen time. After season 3 I was more immediately concerned with Team RWBY’s state despite the desire to know what Salem’s true plans are.

Normal conversations with Yang and Tai

The conversation in this episode feels normal. Normal in the sense that I can imagine this as a conversation between a daughter and her father in their situations. I’m glad this trend continued from episode 9. When Tai asks “Where are you going?” it feels like the most intimate question that has been asked all season. Blake’s dad does ask “What’s wrong? What did I say?” in Ep 8 and that similarly leads to a great moment. But it’s still unfortunately rare this volume.

My point being that I don’t think the question “How are you doing?” has been asked enough in this volume, the one where it needs to be asked of every character. Not in the casual greeting sense, but in “How are you grappling with the death of two friends and the general chaotic state of world affairs?”

Does it need to be asked when it’s clear these characters are either depressed or not dealing with their emotions in a positive manner? Yes, to show that these characters care about each other as friends. When Tai asks Yang to try the prosthetic arm on in episode 3, her response is “I’m not feeling too great right now.” Her father doesn’t take that opportunity to show any compassion or empathy to his daughter who has been moping around the house for 6 months. When I first saw that scene, I was convinced that Tai didn’t care at all and that seems to be the opposite of what the writers were aiming for.

Similarly, no one on Team RNJR has asked each other how they are doing despite them being friends and it being clear they are still suffering inside.

Back in Volume 3, after Yang’s incident with Mercury and her disqualification, there’s a pretty good scene between the members of Team RWBY.

Immediately after that, Jaune asks the others if she’s doing okay. There’s at least some acknowledgement that they recognize she’s in pain and that that pain is a concern amongst those who know her. It doesn’t even matter that Jaune specifically hasn’t even had an extended onscreen conversation with Yang. But it’s a question that normal people ask each other when they see others hurting.

I kept hoping that they would address this issue and although there have been some improvements, it needs to be applied to all the characters.

Weiss

Ironwood and Weiss’s dad’s conversation was solid as well. This discussion adds more tension to the story and gives us some perspective on the state of chaos the world is really in. The small villages that RNJR passes through and the remote islands like Menagerie don’t do as good of a job at this, so the conversation was a nice way around that.

Weiss is probably the worst teammate when it comes to stealth, but it’s also Weiss, someone who has never had to “hide” in life so it fits with the character. I guess there was no stealth class at Beacon. I’m still not sure about the whole running away without ever speaking to her mother on screen. I guess it’s okay because Oscar, the farm boy, ran away without talking to his mother/aunt. Maybe Weiss hates her mother as much as her father-in-law. We’ll just never know.

Blake

I enjoyed Blake’s scenes as well. As sick as it sounds, I’m glad someone in this show isn’t fully recovered. It’s hard to tell if this one conversation has solved all her problems, which I’m hoping it hasn’t.

During the conversation, Sun complains about Blake pushing her friends out, but if you ask me, Sun needs to be pushed out sometimes. However, I’ll make an exception for him this time because for once the writers didn’t have him make any stupid jokes or patronizing lines, he just listened for once this volume.

I did of course hate that they reused the same door joke from episode 9 for the same exact purpose of transitioning to another scene. It also served again to interrupt an emotional scene, this time between Sun and Blake, which ended up ruining the moment for me.

Last time they did this, I tried to be reasonable. I tried to understand their logic that maybe Sun “ran” into the door and that knocked it down. But it seems my reasoning was in vain. Why would Blake’s mother run into a door in her own house when she’s fully aware of how the doors function?

Why is this house so poorly built in the first place?

Maybe I shouldn’t even try to critique these jokes since there have been times in the past such as the Vol 2 opening food fight, Zwei in the mail, Ruby using taunting Zwei with a giant turkey on her scythe, etc., when physics/logic are played with to result in a punch line.

I think my main complaint is not that the joke is illogical but that it just comes at the wrong time, especially when solid emotional scenes have been sorely missing from this volume.

RN and JR quickly reunited

I understand the team broke up in the first place to “raise the stakes” and ramp up the tension. But after all of Ren’s protesting that there was no time and that it would take too long, the team met back up quite easily. Were Ren and Nora running just that fast? Was it only because Ruby and Jaune stayed in one place for such a long time? Maybe Ren was just making up excuses so he wouldn’t have to go through Kuroyuri and the two locations really weren’t that far apart.

I also wondered to myself how the Kuroyuri episode would’ve turned out if Ren and Nora faced their fears together and walked through the town with the rest of the team. People seemed to enjoy the episode as it was, so I’m not sure there’s a need for that. Maybe it would’ve made the episode even more emotional or it might’ve just not worked out.

With one episode left, I expect the finale fight to be tough until Yang, Weiss, or someone else pops in from out of nowhere.

#rwby #rwby4

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