#and i mean grimm also do discriminate!

[bestworstcase]

+ the lady just wiped two kingdoms off the map in the space of, like, maybe a month?, with the second being a few weeks at most after oscar and ozma atomized her vast fleet of zillions of grimm. in atlas she ripped open the continent to draw up a literal river of grimm from the core of the planet without any apparent effort at all, and spent hours spawning hundreds of grimm per second again without any apparent effort.

ozma has successfully kept this woman's existence a secret for thousands of years.

i, uh, do not believe he could have accomplished that if salem was exerting even a FRACTION of the effort she is now to fuck with him, as opposed to letting him self-destruct over and over again out of paranoia and dishonesty. y'know, "and when it turns out to be yet another routine patrol, it'll be 'i always preferred discretion!'" & all.

leans out a window. it is not salem’s fault that oz uses child soldiers to guard his fortresses. it’s not her fault that he made a deliberate strategic choice to recruit children into a war they didn’t even know they’re fighting. (and it certainly isn’t her fault that he’s been getting kids killed in training for decades before she made her first move!)

he has been trying to destroy her for thousands of years while salem lived in exile, not fighting back, until one of those grown-up child soldiers found out the truth and gave her something to fight for. if your defenders are all children because you set up your fortresses to masquerade as schools, if you for decades continually made the choice to use children as unwitting human shields then you don’t get to blame the enemy when children die on the front lines. YOU PUT THEM THERE.

[the-path-to-redemption]

I'm the same one who wrote the Blake speech. So after further I realized something.....

The humans in remant don't care about Faunus rights or just down right bystanders.

We literally saw Velvet get harrased by Cardin and no one did anything including RWBY they just sat on their table and discuss the situation with Cardin. (Im assuming that there only a small fraction of Faunus in Beacon and they just let one of their own kind be harrased? Also assuming they have a no Faunus discrimination policy in Bracon and they just allow racist like Cardin in with no consequences)

From what we are given in lore FAUNUS ARE THE ONLY ONE FIGHTING AGAINST PREJUDICE. There other no human allies with them. No human allies are participating in their protestors or advocating Faunus rights.

The only "allies" we see who are with faunus right are the main cast or important characters that are associated with faunus characters.

Roman even says this during vol 2 episode 4

"But, before the claws come out, I'd like to mention the fact that you and I all have a common enemy: the ones in control, the people pulling the strings, the dirty, rotten humans that run our kingdoms! (As the crowd changes their tune and starts agreeing with him.) Government, military, even the schools: they're all to blame for your lot in life! (Lets the crowd cheer as the two heroes share a look.) And they're all pests that need to be dealt with! Fortunately, I'm the best exterminator around... No offense to any rodents in the room."

Now Roman is an unreliable narrator (I haven't read any of the novels so I ain't gonna bother if they change his personality or explain why is he like this) but when you think about it he's not wrong.

You are telling me that NO ON IN HIGHER AUTHORITY Remant help Faunus lives improve? No discrimination laws? No investigations of an exploitation of Faunus? No human politicians advocating and standing for Faunus right? They just let it all happen and call it a day?

Hell even Roman calls out the schools hypocrisy for not doing anything about it. Going back to vol 1 episode 12.

Oobleck: Yes! Yes, prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution--more popularly known as the Faunus War--humankind was quite, quite adamant about centralizing Faunus population in Menagerie. Now! While this must feel like ancient history to many of you, it is imperative to remember that these are relatively recent events! Why, the repercussions of the uprising can still be seen to this day! Now! Have any among you been subjugated or discriminated because of your Faunus heritage?

Some of the silhouetted students raise their hands. Velvet, after a moment, does the same.

Oobleck: Dreadful, simply dreadful! Remember, students, it is precisely this kind of ignorance that breeds violence! I mean, I mean, I mean just look at what happened to White Fang!

True Oobleck! Ignorance does breed violence.....IF YOU ARENT DOING ANYTHING TO STOP THAT FROM HAPPENING IN THE FIST PLACE!!!!!

Do humans believe White Fang jut started because they hate humans! They became violent after realizing what peacful actions wasn't getting them anywhere. Do you know Why?

Because humans were ignoring their need for help. They aren't helping them in any shape or form!

No advocating. No protesting. No standing up for Faunus. Nah dah.

It also doesn't hunter's and huntress are just another sub branch of their kingdom government as they are shown to work with the police. Instead of them working in law enforcement they just fight grimm.

Imagine being a faunus who also a hunter yet still gets discriminate even after killing grim for a majority of your life and this is the thank you get.

^^^^^

[pumpkincarriage3]

Malleus Draconia: Character Analysis

This is a character analysis of Malleus Draconia. Please keep in mind that I haven’t been apart of the fandom for a super long time, so I’ll probably get some things wrong. But I’m more than welling to have corrections, so if you see anything inherently incorrect on my analysis, please feel free to tell me.

Onto that character analysis --

Something I’ve noticed about Malleus is how inherently Fae he is. Which sounds weird, because he is a Fae, but I mean in the sense of how much Malleus was based around the old stories of Fae.

One thing being that he likes ice cream. Part of that reason, at least as far as the implication goes, is that he likes cold desserts in general. Which is true, probably because he is a dragon and can breathe fire, so he probably likes something cold going down his throat. At least, that seems to be the implication.

But another thing most people don’t know is that in older stories, Fae were known to like cream. In fact, Malleus himself when eating a melon, filled with ice cream, in the A Firelit Sky over the Sands, he remarks how creamy it is.

Malleus himself also has a bit of a playful streak. In-particular, I can think of is in Malleus’s gym uniform vignette and some of the events that happened in A Firelit Sky over the Sands, he messes with both Cater and Grimm, respectively. Cater in the way that he runs around when Cater tries to get a picture, and with Grimm how he moves so Grimm can’t get in his shadow. He even tells them the can both do the things they wish to, as long as they find a way to do it.

He also makes quite a few jokes here and there, but most people don’t realize he’s joking. This being because he constantly has to hold himself to a certain decorum because he is the first in line for the throne, and that typically carries over into when he’s playing a joke unless he’s being really playful.

Fae normalcy and Fae morals are also different from any other creature. Something Malleus inherited. Proof by the Halloween events and his actions. Even the other characters, human, beastmen, and mermen alike all say that Fae standards are skewed. Fae have such different moral standards that all the other creatures think its strange. Which, holds as far as folklore goes.

One could even category him allowing both Grimm and Yuu to call him Tsunotaro as his way of making a joke. He admits to Vil that part of the reason that he allows Yuu to do so is because he found it amusing, mainly because Vil calls him out on it for ���messing with his juniors”. Malleus accusing Vil of the same.

Another thing would be how he doesn’t give out his name right away. Which, this is because he doesn’t want Yuu to know who he is, but names are important to Fae. A name holds a lot of power over someone.

This might be part of the reason he allows Yuu to keep calling him as such even when they figure out who he is, because he told them they could call him whatever they want previously. Fae’s are trickster by nature, but they always keep their end of the bargain and keep their word. He told Yuu they could call him that previously, so allowing them to do so is him keeping his word. As an added benefit, it’s a name that he finds amusing.

It could also be why he has such a superiority complex. Fae are known to see themselves above humans and have a bit of an ego. Which explains Sebek’s discrimination towards humans, and Malleus’ superiority complex any time we do get to see it.

And he does have one. He thinks himself superior to most. Either this be because of his magic, being Fae, or even because he’s a prince -- who knows -- it might even be all three.

But even with his superiority complex, he gets lonely because most people run away in terror. Or when his own subjects talk about him as if he’s some god, putting him up on some pedestal that he can’t get down from. He unknowingly also puts himself up there, because he does have superiority complex. He unknowingly flaunts his greatest assets but gets annoyed when people put themselves at a distance from him. A self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. 

Especially if you consider he might be flaunting his assets to draw people to him, but ends up doing the exact opposite. But I can see it going both ways. To either scare people away or draw them closer.

It’s why he finds people with such a different reaction to him so amusing, because their reaction is so different. So he wants to keep them around for his own entertainment. Once again establishing that distance without realizing it.

It’s why he glorifies gargoyles and abandoned places so much. He feels lonely because everyone is at a distance, so he goes to the places that he relates to on some level. Abandoned buildings can be dangerous, and gargoyles are seen as things meant to scare things away, most people ignore them, so he relates to them. That’s why he likes them so much.

He also gets offended relatively easily, he does a good job of showing that he isn’t upset, more than likely because he is the next sovereign, but he does easily get offended. Another thing Fae do.

That’s not to he doesn’t care for people. He does. We see proof of this in Chapter Six in regards to Yuu. In regards to his retainers and guards in many other instances. But he doesn’t always realize he cares for them. For several different reasons. 

One being, that he is always at such a distance to people. Because people put him up on a pedestal. So, he’s never gotten to sit down and really interact. His guards and retainers don’t count because he knows they have to hang around him because that’s their jobs. Not to say that they don’t care for Malleus and he doesn’t care for them in turn, but no doubt the presence of the imbalance of the power dynamics in the relationship is always there. They can’t get away from it and have to act within how their duty calls for.

He was also very isolated. He’s never gone very far from his castle, except for when he’s sneaking out. And people typically know who he is, so he probably never really stuck around to chat until Yuu came along. He’s been surrounded by Fae who live a very long time.

Everything has always been static for him. Nothing major ever changes because he grew up around people who isolated him from the world and move at a slow pace. It’s his normal. Where nothing major ever changes.

And then Yuu comes along, being the first major change in a long time. Its why he doesn’t realize he cares for them. At first he likes them simply for the entertainment that they provide, until he actually learns to care for them as themselves. Something so rare and foreign and outside of the normal, he doesn’t realize it until they are already gone. And even then, he doesn’t actually realize it. He’s just beginning to contemplate the idea that he *might* care for them.

It’s probably why Chapter Seven more than likely will be him coming to the understanding that things actively change and rarely is the world forgiving.

This probably seems more like a ramble than an analysis, but its just my thoughts on the subject. I might do more character analysis or maybe not. Is there anyone people would be interested in seeing a character analysis on if that’s the case?

[kitkatopinions]

Do you ever look at a rwby character that's training to be or already is a badge carrying law enforcement officer in canon and think to yourself "damn, I wouldn't trust this person to be a waterpark attendant, I wouldn't trust this person to hold my place in a line so I could use the bathroom, if this person offered me a car ride home so I didn't have to walk I would turn them down because I don't trust them to do that."

Because I do. And somehow the fact that they might not make the best hunters is something that's not ever even really talked about in the show, at all.

Yang? Joined the Hunter academies for the thrills, had a wildly out of control temper and tbh still does, showed some anti-faunus discrimination leading Blake around with a laser pointer, and these days responds to conflicts by launching into fight mode and wanting to solve things through violence, plus doesn't seem interested in working if it's boring if her reaction to Jaune's to-do list and her exasperation through V9 is anything to go by. And she's completely rejecting any and all opportunity to recognize flaws and grow as a person atm, and seems to think admitting flaws or rethinking your past choices is villainous behavior based on her 'that's what Ironwood thought' shut down when Ruby started questioning herself and her treatment of Ren.

Weiss? Starts out as a raging anti-faunus bigot suggesting they call the police on Blake and comparing Faunus to trash cans, idolizes her 'hero' grandfather despite the fact that he was a capitalistic billionare who (iirc) tried to strip Vacuo of its resources and built the SDC into the fabric of society. Recently, she pointed what was essentially a loaded gun in the face of an underage auraless civilian because he didn't immediately spring out of the way and let her enter his house - and no, him being her brother doesn't mean that was okay. She also doesn't actually seem concerned with doing actual work if it isn't super big and important and flashy.

Jaune? He wasn't even sort of ready to enter Beacon when he did. He cheated his way in when he didn't even know what aura was, and the only reason he didn't die was because of Pyrrha saving his ass and trying to train him, and even then, he was leagues behind the others and the only reason Cinder didn't murder him at Haven was author-plot armor. But now that he's got twenty some years of work under his belt (which I still really resent) he's also doing things like calling clearly sentient people stupid and treating them like five year olds, and yelling in the face of a seventeen year old that she's responsible for plans he had just as much of a hand in as she did and victim blaming her for being attacked by an evil villain who was trying to murder her.

(To be clear, for the above three characters, I'm not saying 'they point blank should not ever have been hunters because of their traits and/or flaws and/or flawed motivations, I'm just saying that I would've wanted there to be more of themselves and others questioning it and them working on their flaws specifically and squaring away some of their more selfish motivations before becoming law enforcement officers with badges.)

COCO? She likes being feared, her friends lovingly describe her as sadistic, she thinks letting teammates have a say is a sign of a weak leader, she's judgmental towards people from Vacuo, she gives strong anti-Faunus vibes and it's treated like it's okay because she's friends with Velvet, she tells Velvet NOT to fight when Grimm are bursting into Vale in V2 and then leisurely takes her time fighting one Grimm because she apparently can't be bothered to care when civilian's lives are on the line, she makes snap judgements about people for no reason, and also she's a big old hypocrite, and defies authority carelessly.

CARDIN?!?! You would think they would've at least addressed CARDIN properly, as a real actual significant problem, since he was a future badge carrying law enforcement officer who also targeted minorities, and tried to blackmail people, and gave off strong misogynist vibes, and liked knocking around his own teammates when they got in his way. Like???? The only thing we know changed in Cardin's behavior was that he was leaving Jaune and Jaune's friends alone because Jaune had 'stood up to him.' The writers didn't think that it was important that we as an audience got to see him either get hardcore checked and start being not that way, or get expelled and restricted from continuing on as a Hunter due to his behavior? We're just supposed to be like 'oh well, there's Cardin the anti-faunus power play loving blackmailer training to be a hunter, but that doesn't matter because the writers only cared about him to bully Jaune so who cares about him now?'

I'd like to actually engage with this story! I'd like to actually have the story of rwby discuss what being a hunter means and how some of these characters aren't well suited currently to be hunters. The writers have no interest in actually making their characters good Hunters or figuring out what being a 'good hunter' even means (case in point, V9,) and instead just expect everyone to be on board with absolutely no reflection. Why should I think Weiss deserves her hunter badge again? Why should I think Jaune deserves his hunter badge? I don't currently think they should be hunters because I feel like they haven't even thought about if they really want it or would be good at it. Because ever since V2, it's just been a foregone conclusion to the writers that the mains (all dropouts in their first year) are Hunters and deserve it and will be great at it, but they've never actually bothered to convince me of it with some of these characters. They expected their audience to just think it too, and shrug and accept it, and they now refuse to engage with the flaws their characters have either or whether or not their traits are well suited to the task of being a badge carrying law enforcement officer, so... Yeah. I wish that the show challenged the 'of course they're all destined to be hunters' thing.

[adarkrainbow]

Did you know that, after World War II, the Grimm fairytales could have been banned forever?

I am asking this question because I wanted to do some sort of closing post on the "Hansel and Gretel is antisemitic" question, while also bringing a point that I haven't seen brought up too often.

I saw a lot of people repeat around Tumblr, reblog across accounts and sheeply rewrite again and again that "Hansel and Gretel" was an antisemitic tale - sometimes they couldn't even bring an explanation as to why, and just said "X person said it, so that must be true". If you ask me, my answer is "No, Hansel and Gretel is not an antisemitic story", and I made several posts trying to explain why there's no antisemitism in there, just folkloric motifs and fears born of the witch-hunts. No, Hansel and Gretel is not antisemitic. But it isn't because my answer is "No" and because the fairytale isn't antisemitic that it can't be MADE antisemitic. And this is a very important point that I think can't be stressed enough.

You already saw how easily people could be convinced that the story is antisemitic given the wave on Tumblr of people who decried tit as such - notably by assimilating the witch trying to eat the children with the "blood label" antisemitic beliefs. A look at the text, at fairytales of the same nature, at the origins of such a story, can easily disprove such a reading. The witch fattens up children and eat them - there is no mention of blood, or of using said blood for occult or religious rituals. It's just good ol' cannibalism and a Sweeney Todd-flavored story. (That's actually the reverse, since the Sweeney Todd legend ended up influenced by the Hansel and Gretel fairytale, thanks to the musical, but I digress). And similarly people point out that the witch is a "Jewish caricature", invoking common witch traits in popular folklore such as a hooked nose - but the witch in the story doesn't have a hooked nose or any trait usually used to caricature Jews. She is just an old woman with red eyes walking on crutches, and that's it, nothing about any other particularity. Old + red eyes + crutches and that's it. So no, Hansel and Gretel is not antisemitic in itself, didn't start as an antisemitic tale, was not formulated as such when the brothers Grimm noted it down.

However, as I said, it doesn't mean the story cannot be "infested" by antisemitic elements a posteriori. Two points:

Point 1. There is a legitimate doubt to have when it comes to antisemitism in the Grimm fairytales, as in, it is legitimate to start wonderng "Maybe it isn't an innocent tale and maybe there's antisemitic elements in there". Because the Brothers Grimm did collect antisemitic stories among their numerous traditional fairytales - such as the infamous "The Jew in the Thorns" story. Not only were these stories collected in the 19th century, a time where racism and discriminations of all kinds were much more widespread and accepted than today, but antisemitism was a particularly strong German tradition for a long time. You could say it was the dark side of Jewish culture - and while it was everywhere in Europe, it was especially present in Germany. The fact the ones who orchestrated the greatest Jewish genocide in history were German is no coincidence.

However there is a difference between having a legitimate suspicion and just forcing onto a story a reading that is clearly grasping at the last straw, so to speak. For example, while it is understandable some people would think of Hansel and Gretel as antisemitic, it doesn't mean one shouldn't look at the text and the story and realize that it isn't antisemitic at all. It is especially important because by focusing on stories wrongly accused of antisemitism, one could pass by or hide the ACTUAL antisemitic tales of the Grimm that must be recognized and identified as such (again, The Jew among the Thorns is the most famous example).

But here is my point 2, which is the most important one and the entire reason this post was made. It is also important to recognize when someone is enforcing antisemitism in a story that wasn't antisemitic to begin with - it is important to know when someone warps a tale to fit their own ideologies or hatred. And I am not speaking about the Tumblr-folks here - but about the Nazis.

Yes the freacking Nazis. They're really to blame for everything. You see, this is the root of my original question, the opening line. Why did people consider maybe banning forever the Grimm fairytales after World War II? Because of the Nazis! One of the numerous scars the Nazis left on Germany was one upon German culture, since Hitler and his minions worked intensely on taking part some of the greatest pieces of German culture and twisted, reused them for their own sick purposes. Wagner's operas, for example, were forever soiled by the fact that it was Hitler's favorite pieces of music.

And the brothers Grimm fairytales did not escape the Nazi filfth. The Grimm fairytales were the emblematic folktales of Germany, collected by German nationalists, in their effort to rebuild a purely German culture after the foreign invasions of Napoleonian France. Of coursemad and fanatic fascists like the Nazis would reuse them! And they did, oh yes. They did some despicable use of the Grimm fairytales in their propaganda, and teaching programs. And no doubt, not only did they resurrect actual antisemitic tales in the brothers' book, but they certainly also added numerous antisemitic meanings which weren't there before.

If you ask me "Is Hansel and Gretel an inherently antisemitic fairytale, or was conceived as such?" I would answer you: no. If you ask me, "Did Hansel and Gretel become antisemitic during World War II", I would answer you: "Probably, yes". There is little doubt that the Nazis wouldn't have used the tale as anti-Jewish propaganda and depicted the wicked witch (and the wicked stepmother) as Jewish. The only reason I do not say a full and firm yes is because I do not have textual evidence of them using THIS specific fairytales - but it is attested they used the brothers Grimm work as a whole in their insane war crimes.

Which led to the serious question of what to do with these stories, once the war was over. Should Germany stop using them as childhood literature, remove them from their list of great cultural works? Or should they be kept, but by removing all the Nazis had done to them and trying to focus on the most non-antisemitic-parts? You can tell today the solution taken was the second.

And so this would be my last important message about this subject. Why is it important to know that Hansel and Gretel isn't antisemitic? To be able to denounce and decry those that want to make it antisemitic. To prevent antisemites from using it as some sort of cultural weapon. And this is true for ALL fairytales.

Fairytales are unfortunately all inherently racist or discriminatory at one point or another, because they come from a much older and different time. The Pentamerone is filled with racist stories. Madame d'Aulnoy's stories have some casual racism. Some Grimm stories are antisemitic. These are facts that cannot be ignored and have to be dealt with. But it is important to recognize the parts of these tales that DID NOT have racist elements to them, and to also recognize the racist parts for what they were, so that we can move forward by protecting them from any misuse or to prevent their use by the wrong people. Sometimes it isn't about "cancelling" stories - sometimes it is about making sure they cannot end up in the hands of those we fight, or denouncing how they read a tale that does not actually exist except in their mind.

[ruthlesslistener]

Spare Grimm headcanons? Funky goth bastard has been on my mind lately

Sure! These are just scraps lying around me old noggin

-Started off as a twin to the Radiance, who then slowly grew more and more distant as each accumulated new differences between them. This works mainly because the majority of their power sits in the Dream Realm, so they do not obey the same rules of biology as those born in the physical realm (like PK, who mimics a biological being quite well despite basically being composed of soul pretending to be flesh). Grimm now views his sister as a pitiful thing almost entirely apart from himself, and while he does wish things did not turn out the way they did, he wouldn't shed a tear at her death

-Created the butterfly tribe soon after Radiance created the moths (or was it before...?) Both argue that they had their own idea first. Grimm doesn't tie himself to them, however, because the Radiance's obsession with being the mother of the moths/be accepted and loved by them all disturbed him. Also, being tied to them brings discrimination from those terrified of him, so if you ask his relationship to them, he'll never give you a straight answer

-The butterflies, in turn, either do not worship him directly; they are often traveling preformers, much like their creator, but they dance and sing and turn to the arts to remind people to value life when it is rich and beautiful, not to herald Grimm's arrival (as is often misunderstood by those who know of him). They also never speak his name, so many who are estranged from their tribe just straight-up don't know him

-Split himself into three (Nightmare Heart, Nightmare King, Troupe Master Grimm) partially because he disliked the all-eggs-in-one-basket means the other gods did, and partially because he was curious about death. The Troupe Master form will literally 'burn out' without the full might of its componant parts to constantly regenerate it in the physical world, which is why he has that phoenix-like lifestyle. If one part is killed, the others survive, but he cannot live a continuous, constantly immortal existance like the rest of his kin

-Infertile; can only reproduce asexually, which bothers him sometimes. Actually a great dad though fuck y'all who says otherwise. Tends to adopt kids he finds in warzones/runaways, which gives him a legend of being a grubnapper and cradlerobber despite him not going out of his way to steal children

-Opportunist to the core: is he as dangerous as other gods? Probably not. He holds no territory of his own apart from his troupe, and he's a scavenger to boot. But he's less of a mild-mannered vulture, and more of a crow; he'll wait patiently for his turn at the carcass of old civilizations, but if he finds an easy way to hurry along the process, he will. And while he does feel pity for unfortunate souls, he will also devour their fear and dread just as hungrily, because that's kind of his entire job. He's the cleanup crew. It's nothing personal

-Does he have bones? Organs? A face? Don't ask

-Much like wyrms are legends brought to life of now-extinct vertebrates like snakes, Grimm has batlike/mammilian features because legends are still whispered about those ancient enemies of the night, even though it has been many millenia since they went extinct, and bugs were small enough to be hunted by them. Their memory lives on in legend and the deepest instinctual fears of bugs, and manifests itself in Grimm

-Somewhere above 13,000 years old, if we count continuous rebirth cycles as a single life. Yes, the Radiance was this old as well. I place their creation somewhere around the time bugs became able to conceptualize/tell stories of their hopes and fears, which brought them into being

-Gender? Whatever feels like the most fun preformance for him right now. Gender doesn't exist when you're a dream coaxed into reality, with all the temporal bindings that posesses (almost none). He usually uses he/him bc Radi feels very strongly positively about she/her, and bc its dapper, but that's not set in stone by far. More set in smoke, and just as whimsical and easy to change

-Somewhat of a narrative foil to the Pale King, but in self-sacrifice, responsibility, and fatherhood, unlike the direct foil of the Radiance. Bit incoherent rn bc I'm sleepy, but despite his fairytrap deal of joining the Troupe still being, well, a fairytrap, he doesn't hold anyone to strict loyalty like PK. Yeah he's a nightmare god who lives on the entrails of civilizations felled by death and ruin, yeah he's exactly what he sounds like he is, but he's also not cruel. That would be a waste of precious time and energy, and he hasn't got much to lose, either, so why bother? He's just genuinely a laid-back dude when it comes to the other gods. Best to let them tear each other apart, he'll always profit when the warmongering is over no matter what

[ashcoveredtraveler]

I have been thirsty for any content related to Markoth, Xero, Grimm or any of the moths that I decided to make some headcannons for them.

- Moths have huge eyelashes. Might as well make them look fluffier.

-Moths don't have a set blood color. Their blood is based if they are more in tuned with The Radiance or Nightmare King Grimm. If they are in tuned with The Radiance, they will have pale gold blood. If they are more in tuned NKG then they will have bronze color blood. Of course it can be a mix of the two colors.(this is partly explained in my blood headcannon post lol)

-Moths could sense when void beings are around. I guess this is more of an actual theory then anything as there is some evidence of that. Markoth says: "You are the darkness... come to consume me," when you defeat him so it seems like he is aware of the Knights nature. I can't find any dialogue from the seer that explicitly shows she is aware of the knights nature. But the Radiance says the phrases: "...ANCIENT ENEMY..." And " ...THE LIGHT CANNOT BE CONSUMED..." Which refers to voids tendency to eat everything away or the Shade Lord.

-Singing and dancing are ingrained into their culture. They sing when doing menial task and the moths that do take up a weapon almost fight when they dance(thanks to Grimm of course)

-Speaking of Grimm, his body was way more fluffier at one point. But when testing out bodies, he realized it would be better if his wings were fluffy while the rest of his body wasn't as it is extremely hard to upkeep that much fluff and not many bugs know to care for it, leaving Grimmchilds fluff dirty and sometimes matted. However NKG's wings are the same.

-When The Radiance came into existence, she didn't have any legs at all. That's why she legs look metallic as they are prosthetics(even though she doesn't walk at all, it's all for show).

-Another Grimm headcannon, all of the Grimm's aren't the same. It is difficult to differentiate all of the Grimm's if they are exactly the same so every Grimm is slightly different. That could be that the chitin is more red than black, the Grimm can be a girl every once in a while, the Grimm could be completely missing its tail.

-As slightly mentioned in my fic in one of the chapters, The Radiance and Grimm has any access to any of the moths. That means they can access their memories, look into their dreams and nightmares and control them.

-also mentioned in my fic, moths were discriminated against. They kinda stood out as they mostly stayed in their tribe doing their own thing. But when the infection began, bugs dreamt of a moth. It didn't help that most of the infection started with bugs that were close to moths, so everyone started blaming moths for everything. That is part of the reason why the Moth tribe diminished.

-in my headcannon dump, I wrote that both Lurien and Xero were moths. Lurien because it would be ironic that one of the Pale Kings most devoted servants would be a moth. Xero because his helmet shape is similar to Markoths helmet shape, and cause I said so.

[bestworstcase]

i actually think a lot about the possibility that salem got to him first.

for one thing, i’m not convinced ozpin has any actual authority vis-a-vis the other academies; even at beacon, he was subject to the elected council and they had the standing to boot him out if they didn’t approve of his performance. the independence of the mistral council from haven academy is also a plot point in V5 (though leo may have been exaggerating his political impotence to some degree). does ozpin appoint the headmasters? can he?

like qrow tells ironwood “you’re here because ozpin wanted you here” but that just means ozpin brought him into the conspiracy—which came first, ozpin’s trust or the headmastership? oz has loyalists in place at beacon and vale’s combat schools, but the heads of the other three academies don’t… have that. how much do the foreign councils take his recommendations into account?

and. well

the faunus revolution happened at Some Point in the last 80 years. it ended no later than about 15-20 years prior to V1 (the white fang was founded after the war + blake grew up in the movement). if lionheart’s 40-50s there is a… pretty decent chance that it happened in his lifetime.

and if it did—well, he’s a huntsman, and cowardly though he is, ozpin talks about his “lifetime of service” and all the good he did before, as ozpin sees it, salem got her claws into him. not to mention, he’s the only faunus professor we’ve met so far, and he was made headmaster in the kingdom notorious for being the worst in how faunus are treated.

if the revolution did happen at a point in his life where he was old enough to fight in it, he probably did?—and even if it happened earlier than that, lionheart will have been on the frontlines of the ongoing struggle for faunus equality simply by virtue of the career he chose to pursue, as a faunus living in mistral.

which means it was probably big news when the mistral council appointed him as headmaster, especially if he was The First faunus to reach that position. (<- extremely probable given that the academies have only been around eighty years) which means, in turn, that it might have gotten salem’s attention.

so, like.

consider the tea set. it’s green, black, and silver—ozpin’s colors. it sticks out like a sore thumb. it clashes wildly with lionheart’s aesthetic. that’s the kind of gift you get for a new acquaintance, right? mmmaybe as a gesture of goodwill and welcome to a well-known, respected huntsman-activist who’s just made history by being the first faunus ever appointed headmaster, but whom you don’t know except by reputation?

being headmaster isn’t an automatic “in” necessarily (“you’re here because ozpin wanted you here” etc). but ozpin can’t afford not to trust the other headmasters either; eventually he’ll have to bring them into the loop on at least the basics. it’s a matter of when and how much.

now!! imagine that you are newly the headmaster of haven academy, you’re the first faunus ever to hold this position, and you’ve spent your entire career—possibly your whole life—pushing forward through intense discrimination to get to where you are today. you know the other headmasters a little, but none of them well; your (mostly, possibly all human) colleagues—now subordinates—run the gamut from friendly supporters to openly hostile bigots, and the political and social reality of your situation may limit what you can feasibly do to clean house without losing your job. mistral’s track record on faunus equality is infamously bad. you cannot afford to be less than perfect.

aaand then a grimm lady strolls into your office one night to inform you that 1. the other three headmasters are part of a conspiracy to which you have not yet been invited; 2. their leader is beacon’s headmaster, and he will do everything he can to force you out of your position if you fail to earn his trust; 3. she has complete faith in your ability to win and keep ozpin’s trust; and 4. she can’t die but she can glue you to the ceiling with an idle flick of her fingers or summon grimm from nothing.

she’ll be in touch.

right? if ozpin didn’t maneuver him into this position, lionheart’s appointment would have been a golden opportunity for salem to insert a spy into the inner circle. moving quickly eliminates the risk that lionheart might be brave enough to refuse—he’s isolated and not at all secure in his position yet.

if this happened well before summer vanished, then salem might not even be planning to go for the relics yet and certainly wouldn’t be anywhere near ready to move. but having someone in place to keep an eye on what ozpin was doing, and whom she could perhaps use to covertly sabotage his operations here and there? like… oh, i don’t know, maybe by letting slip a few worries or unsettling hints to one of ozpin’s protégées when she starts asking too many questions? or perhaps try to subtly sow doubt in the young spring maiden’s mind as an opening-move-that-worked-too-well in flipping her to salem’s side?

there’s also… like. at the top of V5, lionheart has been out of contact for a while and he’s done some things contrary to ozpin’s in-case-i-die plan. specifically, he’s “left the relic unguarded” because mistral lost a lot of huntsmen in the aftermath of beacon and haven’s huntsmen faculty have been dispatched across the kingdom’s territory to do what huntsmen do. according to lionheart, he is not even the one responsible for making that call; the council is.

(this is such an ironclad excuse that would be so easy to expose as a lie if it were false that i’m inclined to think he didn’t lie about it, and that this is a situation where the council made a decision that happened to be convenient for him so he went along without a fuss.)

and from an objective standpoint, that is completely reasonable. “i’ve not checked in because there was no news before beacon fell, and now i’m slammed. the faculty’s out dealing with the grimm on the council’s orders. so sorry things aren’t going exactly according to plan, my hands are tied but i’m doing my best.” <- it’s not like he’s lying about things being a mess.

ozpin immediately—immediately!!—jumps to the suspicion that lionheart is a traitor and implies as much to the kids. “i don’t want to jump to conclusions, but i don’t want to rule out any possibilities, either.” he’s so funny

meanwhile, in the same period, ironwood… drops out of communication, recalls all his troops to atlas, enacts a dust embargo, and closes the atlesian borders; all of which actively causes political headaches and major security concerns for mistral at a time when the inner circle believes that haven is salem’s next target.

and ozpin doesn’t just not suspect ironwood of treachery; he specifically tells qrow to take the lamp to atlas so they can regroup with ironwood. never, at any point between V5 and V7, do ozpin or qrow entertain the notion that ironwood might also be a traitor. qrow is alarmed once they get to atlas, sure, but everyone takes it for granted that ironwood isn’t acting on salem’s orders, that he’s just doing what he thinks best in a shitty situation.

that’s really a shocking disparity in how ozpin treats these two, because if you look strictly at the behavior, ironwood is the one who ought to be raising red flags, not lionheart. and yet ozpin absolutely trusts ironwood’s loyalty, and goes right from “school is empty because lionheart got overruled by the council (because ironwood triggered a security crisis by pulling his troops out of mistral)” to “i don’t want to alarm anyone but lionheart might be a traitor and we’re going to keep him in the dark out of an abundance of caution.”

so it’s like. was lionheart ever truly part of the inner circle? ozpin suggests in 6.2 that they had at least one confrontation on the subject of why he didn’t trust lionheart. that also squares with lionheart being someone ozpin didn’t handpick for haven and perhaps never quite warmed to. and of course if salem got there first, lionheart would have had a compelling reason to be, perhaps, more aloof than ozpin would like.

also it would be hysterical. “you may have met professor lionheart, but you never met the man he was before salem found him”—did ozpin ever meet that man?

lionheart's inclusion in salem's plans genuinely interests me. like, he wasn't just a nobody, he was, presumably, ozpin's friend, someone ozpin trusted enough not just to include in his inner circle, but to appoint as the headmaster of haven.

that's not someone you just walk to with threats and hoping it works. salem would have had to been absolutely certain that lionheart wouldn't stand his ground, wouldn't take the first chance—or find his courage at any point—to inform ozpin of what was going on. it's not like they could have kept him under surveillance at all times, either; that's a lot of faith put into someone who could very easily step out of line, alert ozpin, and ruin everything they had worked towards at beacon.

we don't know how long lionheart had been working for salem—"leonardo's been sending salem all sorts of information for a very, very long time." says cinder—but to take that risk in the first place... salem would have had to be 99.9% certain that threatening leo would work. that leo valued his own life so much so that threatening just him and him alone would be enough.

how to know that, beforehand, if you haven't met the man before? to know that, you'd have to spent at least some amount of time with them to get a good read on them, to know what buttons to push.

"very, very long time" doesn't exactly say much, but considering that leo immediately informed salem of the spring maiden's whereabouts once he learned it from qrow, most likely leo met salem after spring had already ran, who disappeared over a decade ago.

which—did summer have something to do with it? did she make a list of "most likely headmaster to threaten into working for us"? raven did say she never thought leo would have the guts to betray ozpin, so leo not being the bravest of the bunch likely was a well known fact amongst the group.

[whitleyschn33]

Welp. As if people needed another reason to hate Weiss and Whitley’s first interaction in Volume 8, the commentary outright says that they thought Weiss was 100% in the right for treating Whitley like trash because it was some kind of epic character moment for her to "stand up" to someone who "represents what the Schnee name used to be.” Also they call Whitley a spoiled rich kid who deserved it.

https://files.catbox.moe/pcp69f.webm

I take a week or so off for Thanksgiving break and to work on my finals and this... this is what I come back to.

This commentary really said Whitley, left to fend for himself all alone as the fucking apocalypse starts banging on his door, neglected by his mother, abandoned by all the staff of the Manor and party guests, deserves to be physically threatened with a deadly weapon by his sister who’s currently on the run from the military for reasons unknown and carrying an unconscious girl with them, deserves to have his home invaded by people that have never given a damn about him and forced to commit what probably borders on treason, and then when he relents and asks what he can do to help, since he’s now a part of whatever the girls have dragged him into, is sent away to sit alone. He’s forced to risk his life and freedom now that he’s been forcibly made a conspirator by harboring RWBN, and then he doesn’t get to have any say in how they go forward or even insight into just what is going on. They didn’t bother to tell him what the fuck was going on when they barged in, but sure, Whitley being snippy and irritated with them is a sign that he’s just “upholding up the Schnee name” and needs to be put in his place by the rebel.

And ah yes, Whitley totally represents what the Schnee name used to be - a 14-16 year old defenseless civilian who has been left completely and utterly abandoned by every single person that was meant to care about him. The mostly powerless minor with no allies, no ability to fight, absolutely no power in this situation, represents the Schnee name, and Weiss, the woman given clothes, Dust, training, resources, standing in the doorway with 3 allies also armed to the teeth, using her power and resources to bully and push around her younger brother that she knows is no real threat to her to get what she wants, is fighting against what the Schnee name means. 

Jacques would be proud; she has learned something from him.

Okay, that might be a bit harsh... but dear Lord, how do you look at this scenario and say that this is something to cheer for? Whitley isn’t Jacques. If Weiss had marched into the manor and threatened Jacques, declared she was trying to save the city that he had ruined, to make something of the name he’s made synonymous with discrimination, oppression, and death, that would be her fighting against what the Schnee name represents, because Jacques is the one that’s made the Schnee name into what it is. Not the minor that’s been heir to the company for a grand total of - well, however long it’s been since V4, I refuse to believe it’s actually been a full year - and left in charge of the name for about a day, who in the rest of the volume has shown more kindness and willingness to help those he can than the majority of our mains. 

Whitley’s the one that sought medical help for Nora, he’s the one that came up with the evacuation plan for the rest of Mantle, he’s the one that looked the most powerful Grimm we’ve seen in the eyes and, despite being utterly powerless, still went back to make sure that those ships got out, he’s the one that fought back against the Hound while the trained “huntresses” just stood in horror, he’s the one that gathered the plans and blueprints for the portal plan to get people out of the city - compare that to what Weiss has accomplished in this crisis. She helped trap Atlas and the Mantle refugees in the path of an immortal witch, broke into a military base to hijack a communications tower, fought against Ironwood’s top forces, drawing those resources away from the oncoming Grimm, retreated back to her cushy manor after threatening the civilian minor inside it, and then sat on her ass for hours doing absolutely nothing until the Hound showed up, at which point she did attempt to kill it and acted like stopping it from murdering Whitley and Willow counted as “not forgetting him”, before just standing there as the Hound approached and letting her civilian family take it out, and then sat right back down until it was time to implement the portal plan, and as far as I remember, only contributed the “one way ticket” line that kept anyone from coming back, since all the plans she showed Ambrosius came from Whitley. 

Who’s really the one working to reform the Schnee name? Weiss is supposed to be “fighting against what the Schnee name represents”, but looking at V8, she’s not the one that’s doing anything worth applauding. Whitley is the one that looks at the resources of the Schnee name and finds ways to use them to help, who puts his life on the line to help, while Weiss is using the resources of the Schnee name to aid herself and “take a break” from the crisis she actively helped make worse. Someone is representing what the Schnee name has become, and it’s not Whitley - or rather, if Whitley is representing the Schnee name, then I think the name is in the best possible hands of the family.

[waheelawhisperer]

Another interesting bit about Raven: despite having no direct connections with Adam whatsoever (belying some V5-vintage theories), they sport *unnervingly* similar aesthetics, weapons & disregard for expendable subordinates. I mean, Raven actually cared a little about Vernal but still put her in a red herring position expressly intended as Maiden-hunter bait, while Adam didn't even fucking twitch at news of mass WF casualties *or* Yang blasting one of his dudes right outside the cafeteria.

Yeah, there are a lot of parallels between them, so much so that a lot of people thought that they were supposed to be associated somehow and get mad that they weren't, but I actually think those similarities aren't meant to imply an in-universe connection and are actually supposed to tie them together in the minds of the viewers as shitty, abusive, yet nonetheless deeply important figures to Yang and Blake who serve as mentors and protectors in some (limited) capacity and ultimately reveal that they aren't the people that Yang and Blake hope, want, believe, and desperately need them to be. They both shatter the pedestals they stand upon, one by losing sight of what they're fighting for (in Blake's mind, we all know Adam stopped giving a shit about anything resembling true Faunus equality in favor of making everything about forcing the world to hurt the way he did long before Blake figured it out) and the other by failing her family repeatedly and failing her daughter in particular by doing the exact opposite of what a mother should at every opportunity.

This is a really interesting contrast to me because it highlights a big difference between Blake and Yang. Blake has always been presented as a big picture person - she wants to stop discrimination against all Faunus, everywhere. She wants to make the whole world better for everyone. Yang, on the other hand is all about the immediate - who can I help right here, who can I help right now? She's the only member of the main four who didn't have some grand reason for becoming a Huntress, the only one of the four who wanted to help evacuate Mantle instead of launch Amity. Yang wants to help the people in front of her. She wants to solve the problem in front of her and worry about the bigger picture later. Her connection to the big, sweeping plotline isn't some goal like restoring her family's legacy or making things better for marginalized people across the world, it's protecting her friends and family. It's because the people she loves are also involved, and she'll be damned if she'll let them fight alone. That's why it's so painful for her when she realizes Raven will leave her to fight alone, that Raven will let Yang paint a target on her own back because she's too scared and weak and pathetic to protect her own daughter.

Didn't talk about this enough in my initial Raven post, but she is really... not a good person. While my coomer brain will forgive her for anything because she's a hot samurai goth MILF in thigh-highs, the fact that she regularly raids and plunders villages and then leaves them for the Grimm really shouldn't be overlooked (Qrow does not overlook this at all and it's a source of major conflict between them, shoutouts to Qrow), nor should the fact that she does so using powers that Ozpin originally gave to the Maidens in order to protect the world and the innocent, as a direct response to the kindness and wisdom of the original Maidens. In terms of everything but power, Raven is the exact opposite of what Ozpin wanted the Maidens to be and represent.

Gotta say I love the way Adam and Raven are both so... selfish. They just view their respective organizations and the people in them as things, tools they can use to protect themselves or accomplish their own goals. The difference between them, really, is that Raven cares. She expresses regret and remorse. She just lacks the strength of character to place someone else above herself. Adam, on the other hand, couldn't care less. His men die serving Cinder's goals? Oh well, they're acceptable casualties because it lets him hurt the humans. Adam writes off every loss without a care in order to get closer to his big goal of lashing out at the world and wiping out humanity, Raven regrets the things she does and tries so hard to justify them to herself and others.

I cannot wait to see Raven's return to the series. I want to see what made her leave Team STRQ and why. I want to see how and why Taiyang fell in love with her, and what made her love him enough to marry and have a child with him. I want to see the person Taiyang talks up to his daughter even after all these years. I want to see how she becomes that person again, and I have faith that she will. One of RWBY's big themes is the idea that even if you've failed in the past, even if you've made mistakes, you can still start making the right choices now. Not every character takes that opportunity (see: Adam's refusal to let go of Blake, Ironwood's insistence on bombing Mantle and raising Atlas no matter how little sense it makes, etc.), but enough do that I feel comfortable considering it a theme, and I think Raven is primed to add to it at some point.

Honestly, I'm just hoping she shows up at some point and then someone just clotheslines her for being a shithead.

[bestworstcase]

I think what strikes me about the razing of Vale is how it directly parallels what Ironwood and Atlas did, but also what VALE did to Mountain Glenn.

After all, Vale also was the reason that Mountain Glenn was doomed in the first place. They abandoned the people of MG to their death under the pretense that they couldn't do anything for them. And it's even worse when you consider the fact that Mountain Glenn had a fully functional underground TRAIN NETWORK that reaches directly under Vale, in parallel to Atlas having cargo ships.

If anything, it proves that Vale DID have the means to save the people of Mountain Glenn by using the trains to take citizens to safety while Huntsmen or soldiers probably could have held the line and stopped the Grimm from following. But they, like Ironwood, chose to abandon them to their fate to save themselves.

After all, the set up of the situation is something like this according to Oobleck:

Mountain Glenn is built. People transferred from Vale to MG. Mountain Glenn has no natural protection, and thus was besieged. MG people go underground.

But here's the thing though: If they went underground, why didn't they just get back onto the underground trains to escape?

It didn't say that the tunnels were swarmed, only that an explosion opened a different cavern that exposed an underground Grimm nest. If anything, it didn't say that this happened immediately either. There's definitely a noticeable gap between when they went underground, vs when the explosion is implied to have happened. They more or less outright stated that "it was a safe haven", and from looking at the background, there were plenty of half-finished underground buildings there that strongly implied that they were able to keep things going for a period of time until they found the Grimm nest.

What it seems like to me is that Vale didn't even attempt to help them evacuate via the underground, and just sealed them up to die.

They were foreshadowing Atlas as early as Volume 2.

So in a dark sense, Salem's destruction of Vale is karma finally coming after the Kingdom of Vale for willingly leaving their former citizens to die in such a horrible fashion.

yeah this is pretty much where my thinking is, especially in light of how important the mountain glenn arc’s character development was in v9 and how—& i was saying this last year while the volume was airing!—in the ever after the girls answered the herbalist’s question (“what are you?”) but didn’t answer oobleck’s (“no, that is what you do; i want to know why you do it”). so there’s this driving sense that the answers are unfinished and that intersects with oobleck’s entry into the narrative at this moment of personal crisis for him in his failure to prevent another mountain glenn. and then a key theme with the mountain glenn arc is that history is important.

“if you can’t learn from it, you’re destined to repeat it.” and “i see lives that could have been saved, but i also see an opportunity—an opportunity to study these ruins and learn from this tragedy.” on its face, it’s easy to take oobleck’s perspective to mean that he strives to better understand how to fend off the grimm, but oobleck is not the grimm studies professor nor does he express any particular interest or concern on the matter of killing grimm (to the point that the girls get irate with him for not fighting, and he’s the one who tells ruby not to provoke the goliaths).

he teaches HISTORY.

in jaundice we get oobleck talking about the faunus revolution like: this may seem like ancient history to all of you, but it isn’t, it still matters, there isn’t a faunus in this classroom who hasn’t been subjected to discrimination, this kind of hatred and cruelty breeds violence, just look at what happened to the white fang. and then he hits his two most disinterested students with “history is important, if you can’t learn from it, you’re destined to repeat it!”—like. oobleck tries SO HARD to get his students to grasp that the historical faunus revolution and the modern-day white fang are the same. that this is history repeating itself because humankind refuses to learn.

and that sets the stage for mountain glenn. what does it mean that oobleck sees in this wasteland a “dark reminder” of vale’s “greatest failure” and lives that could have been saved and a chance to learn from it to ensure that it won’t ever happen again, and this is what motivates him to BECOME A HISTORY TEACHER, and specifically the kind of history teacher who teaches the faunus revolution by confronting his students with the truth that persecution at human hands is what drove the white fang to violence? what does that say about him? about the failure he sees when he looks at mountain glenn?

more to the point:

the theme of the mountain glenn arc is that we must learn from history to avoid repeating the failures of the past. this is a throughline that runs through the rest of the story: the girls hear what oobleck is trying to teach them, and when the wolves are howling at the door and the general orders them to abandon the people of mantle to save atlas, they refuse. and they stand their ground, and they try, and they save EVERYBODY. the failure to save mountain glenn is not repeated, because oobleck taught them that.

now vale has fallen, and oobleck sits on that refugee ship in abject despair because he feels the weight of his failure crushing down on him—and, narratively, the most important question is, “is he right?”

like, did he fail? is the destruction of vale something that constitutes a failure?

not a defeat—that’s not the same thing. vale suffered a catastrophic defeat. but were there lives that COULD HAVE been saved if the ones who made the decisions had chosen differently? is oobleck standing in team rwby’s shoes, someone who did the very best he could and saved absolutely everyone it was possible to save, or is that ship full of refugees atlas leaving mantle behind to die?

THAT is the crucial question, because the failure of mountain glenn is not that the city fell but rather that there were lives that could have been saved. and that distinction has to be made, because otherwise the lesson that was not learned, the failure in vale’s destruction, is… what? that nowhere is safe? that no amount of geographical advantage or aggressive border defenses can save you from an inexhaustible onslaught? that mountain glenn was doomed from the start and it was naive to think vale could be different?

is rwby that kind of story? no.

mountain glenn was doomed from the start. its eventual destruction by the grimm was inevitable, oobleck says, because the city was established in grimm territory. but there were lives that could have been saved.

atlas and mantle were doomed from the moment ozpin used the staff to raise atlas; it was inevitable that the staff would be used again, by someone, for some reason, and as soon as that happened both cities would be destroyed. but there were no lives that could have been saved, because they saved EVERYONE.

vale, too, was doomed from the moment salem set herself to razing it; by sheer force of inexhaustible numbers and the ability to outlast anything done to her, her destruction of the city was inevitable. but were there lives that could have been saved?

and even more importantly, are there still lives that can be saved?

here’s what oobleck says of mountain glenn:

WEISS: What does history have to do with this? OOBLECK: Why, what a preposterous question, you silly girl! Why, history is the backbone of our very society! …And the liver! And probably the kidneys, if I were to wager. WEISS: And that means...? OOBLECK: The southeast quadrant outside of Vale is home to wild forests and deep caves, but it is also the location to one of the kingdom's greatest failures! RUBY: Mountain Glenn. YANG: That's right! It was an expansion of Vale... But in the end it was overrun by grimm and fenced off from the rest of the city. OOBLECK: Correct! And now it stands abandoned as a dark reminder.

and:

OOBLECK: Mountain Glenn! Yes, an expansion of Vale that was inevitably destroyed by creatures of grimm! Previously home to thousands of people, working people commuting to the city, the main city! Developed a subway system to the inner city! Grimm attacks increased! Population in danger, now desperately searching for shelter! City evacuates into the metro tunnels and what do they find? The southeast quadrant of Vale is known for wild forests and deep caves! […] OOBLECK: No, no, Mountain Glenn was Vale's first serious attempt at expansion. It worked for a short period of time, thanks to an aggressive perimeter defense and unique transportation; the city developed an elaborate subway system to carry citizens safely from the new territory into the main kingdom! Sadly, without the many natural barriers Vale had to protect its borders, Mountain Glenn was doomed from the start! As the end drew near, the citizens of the territory made one last attempt at survival: they took up shelter beneath the city, in massive caves that they had cleared out for the subway, and they cut themselves off from the surface! YANG: An underground village? OOBLECK: In a matter of speaking, yes. A safe haven. Until... an explosion opened the mouth of another cavern, filled with subterranean grimm. After that, the Kingdom officially sealed off the tunnels, creating the world's largest tomb.

and the undercity looks like this:

not even half-finished buildings, at least some of these look like completed structures that are now falling into ruin—and this isn’t some haphazard shantytown cobbled together out of scrap, these are huge high-rise apartment buildings! the mountain glenn undercity lasted a long time, months or perhaps even years given the scale and complexity of construction that was completed before the explosion punched a hole through the cavern walls into a nest of grimm.

the thing that most interests me about oobleck’s account of mountain glenn’s demise, is… like, the sequence of events seems to imply that vale cut the territory off when the upper city was overrun. the people living in mountain glenn “made one last attempt at survival” by retreating into the subway tunnels… which they did not use to evacuate to vale. instead they built an underground city in the cavern surrounding the subway system, and lived for what seems to be quite some time with grimm quite literally nesting on top of them.

think about the nevermore perching on the hard-light dome over amity coliseum. now imagine building a town in the arena and living there, under that nevermore, for a year. that’s what the people of mountain glenn did, instead of using the existing subway system to evacuate to vale. why?

why, in a world where human civilization is so defined by existential terror of the grimm, would they do that, unless they had no other choice? vale “officially” sealed off the tunnels when the undercity was overrun, but…

i mean, we see what happens when you bring thousands of people who’ve just survived the destruction of their homes to a new place: a days-long onslaught of grimm drawn by the refugees. vale isn’t walled. it doesn’t maintain a standing army. if thousands of refugees had flooded into vale after mountain glenn collapsed, the grimm would have been right behind them.

and… mountain glenn was a working-class suburb of vale. the people living there commuted to vale every day to work. they were probably quite poor compared to the average person living in vale—which is another parallel with mantle—could they afford to relocate to vale, if vale refused to provide housing for the mountain glenn refugees? was it a choice between having an apartment and enough food to eat in mountain glenn or being homeless and hungry in vale where everything was astronomically more expensive? were they, like mantle, just “a few city blocks” if vale’s leadership thought of them at all?

history is important. if you can’t learn from it, you’re destined to repeat it.

mountain glenn is vale’s history. did vale learn from that history? i think—narratively, for the purpose of contrast with the fall of atlas—the answer is probably no. and that means salem’s destruction of vale is less dark karmic justice than the wheel of history repeating itself; the city has been overrun.

but—mountain glenn’s people outlived mountain glenn itself, by retreating into caverns and building the undercity. so i think the big question with regard to salem razing vale is whether this is the “as the end drew near” part or the “creating the world’s largest tomb” part of the story. is everyone who didn’t make it onto that ship dead, or are they making one last attempt at survival by retreating into the same tunnels where mountain glenn’s people carved out a safe haven for themselves?

there’s a constant repetition throughout this story of the idea of “beacons of hope” and “safe havens” and this is something i find quite interesting because, obviously, there’s a beacon academy and a haven academy. atlas and shade don’t get rhetorically name-dropped like this, but atlas was a beacon of hope (the city in the sky, promise of a better future!) and the kids are fighting to make shade a safe haven. beacon fell, atlas fell, but haven was saved. it’s closed right now, but it’s still standing and mistral is—as far as we know—weathering the storm. menagerie offers safe haven to the faunus who don’t want to fight, and salem has no plans to attack it.

the mountain glenn undercity was a safe haven, kind of. only no one came to help when help was needed—haven survived because menagerie stood to defend it. shade will survive because mistral and menagerie stand with it. if there are people hiding from salem in the undercity, they’ll survive because shade and mistral and menagerie come to their aid. you see how it gains momentum with every arc of the story? the beacons collapse alone and the havens stand together.

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

okay no but this just gave me such an Idea™.

i dont know how many people know about fordlândia but you could 100% do something exactly like that with menagerie and the og explanation of grimm.

short summary of forlândia:

henry ford, who had revolutionised the automobile industry, was getting older and was concerned with his legacy. his idea to create one was very similar to epcot (walt disneys version) where he bought nearly 4000 square miles of land in the amazon rainforest in order to build a town, a sawmill and a rubber tree farm. he had a second motive for this because at the time, england controlled like 90% of the rubber market so you had to pay their prices. but if ford could develop his own, he wouldnt have to.

anyway by town, i mean he created like an american midwest town. there was a hospital, a school, a library and a hotel. there was a square dancing hall because thats how he met his wife. he wanted it to be america but his version of it .

and in his version, alcohol, tobacco, and football/soccer were banned; you needed approval to being a new woman to town; your houses were regularly searched; you worked 9 til 5 even though that didnt at all fit the climate; you had to use a punch in punch out card; you could only eat a vegetarian diet as that was what ford ate. further, the farmers themselves were brazillians workers but all their manages were americans.

for various reasons, including the fact that ford did basically no research whatsoever on any of it, fordlândia failed. their trees were plagued with blight and insects. workers regularly passed out around noon hours due to heat and exhaustion. american workers were not adequately prepared for living in the amazon rainforest. the houses they built were not suitable for the amazon rainforest and more than once, a jaguar got in and carried away a baby. the brazillian workers hated it all because they were both treated as second class citizens, and their culture was being suppressed and they were forced to take part in americas.

AND CAN YOU IMAGINE IF THIS WAS MENAGERIE'S HISTORY????

like menagerie is the only country/colony/island/whatever where the majority population are faunus. there is also a specific plant there that some rich guy wants control over because we'll say vacuo currently has 95% control of the market.

in real life, an english guy took rubber tree seeds and they planted them in plantations in british colonies with similar climates. so we'll say that some non-faunus from vacuo did the same.

and this rich guy? maybe hes a schnee, and the schnees want market control and to not have to pay the price they currently pay. this schnee is also worried about his legacy because maybe he never did anything, he just took over and ran it after, not making any changes at all. we'll call him henrich schnee.

so henrich strikes a deal with the leader of menagerie who do desperately want market control back because they are struggling and they face systematic discrimination.

perhaps theyll do what the brazillian government did and essentially swindle ford who overpaid so much.

but anyway, work begins in menagerie to start building the town. in real life, ford never actually saw fordlândia so idk if henrich does, but work begins. and its slow work and its difficult work and the desert in menagerie is actually as dangerous as blake says. and they cant even start yet because the area theyre in (its a desert forest area) is only accessible by boat if youre transporting stuff like building materials and its the dry season.

and during this, theres all these different grimm and a lot of them look like bugs. like you put your arm down and hundreds of bug grimm cover it. theyre adapted to the area and the atlesian workers are not. luckily, its mostly menagerie folks, but unluckily, they dont work 9 til 5. they have a siesta because of heat but henrich wont have that. so people are passing out constantly.

(also like adding stuff like siestas is such an easy way to make your world seen so much bigger than it is btw)

and essentially what happened with fordlândia happens in schneeland or whatever he calls it (schneeria? schneencia? schneeville? schneeford?).

the first plantation fails because in the wild, these plants grow far away from each other. this means if they get infected by blights or bugs, they wont infect every other plant. but the atlesian managers told them to plant them the way theyre planted in vacuo, which doesnt have the same predators. they have to start again and theyll have to wait years for it.

the faunus citizens hate these new rules that serve to suppress their culture. they hide contraband in fruit and eventually, an island known as the "island of innocence" is set up upstream with butchers and bars and brothels.

the atlesian citizens and hunters are not prepared for the new grimm they face in menagerie; ones that have evolved to survive panther claws and wolven fangs. workers are passing out constantly and the hospital is constantly full.

the houses are not suited to their environment and at least once a month, a mother comes screaming out of their home because a grimm has taken their baby. they wake up with a grimm on their bed about to pounce. they can fit through the smallest gaps or come up through the floorboards. the death toll rises every day.

then the faunus workers riot. the first riot is quelled by mistral soldiers coming to help "calm the situation". its a bit calmer then with a less strict mayor, but eventually they revolt again and it was abandoned by henrich.

and blake tells this story to sun in season 4 and turns out no one knows it because its embarrassing to the humans and to the schnee family. weiss hasnt even heard of it. and she explains how they still occasionally get humans who travel to menagerie to find it and how often they never come back.

and ahh im rambling and i dont really have a cohesive conclusion but even outside of my rwby fordlândia au, im so obsessed with the idea of grimm evolving and adapting to their environments and hunters having to learn how to deal with these new grimm.

What I totally forgot about was how Professor Oobleck brought up Grimm evolving and understanding humans very well, so much that they learned how to adapt. Current RWBY had since tossed that interesting concept out the window, but I wanna reel it back in.

I've wondered "what if Grimm began evolving to become much more predatory? Such as, they would begin making creatures that look human but it's just a hunting mechanism to lure in victims?"

So, what if Grimm began creating their own versions of the fairytale villains? I'm still annoyed that there's no Dullahan, no Big Bad Wolf, no Giant stomping around going fee fi fo fum, no Rumpelstiltskin, no talking untrustworthy fish in the water that grants finicky wishes, and no killer mother from the Juniper Tree story. Grimm could make their own versions of the villains, but we don't have them.

It appears that Salem is their all-god, only she can create new Grimm. But Grimm have existed for years, according to Oobleck. Even existed way before Salem jumped into the Grimm pool. I think even wild Grimm would evolve without Salem's will. Undiscovered Grimm could be out there that nobody knows about. Even Grimm that live among the humans and Faunus.

Brb making an OC lol

[bluemoondust]

I think over the many lives he’s been through, Ozpin has definitely had some moments of giving up on his duties. An example of this would be his reincarnation to a drunkard where he might’ve started reconsidering the tasks assigned to him.

I’d like to think him becoming the Headmaster of Beacon Academy is to reassure himself that humanity can be reunited, starting with the bonds they can forge during their time at the academy. His faith in humanity dwindles with every word of violence he hears, such as the dust robberies, the ever increasing military of Ironwood’s, the discrimination the faunus have to go through, etc. Not to mention that no matter what he does, he can never seem to find a single weakness for Salem. All of his attempts against her so far seem to be useless, which can lead to him giving up fully as nothing ever seems to work.

Once Ozpin gives up on both of his missions, humanity is practically doomed. So what if all of humanity is wiped? That’s not his problem anymore—in fact, he’d be relieved as his cycle of death and rebirth would finally end.

Him giving up leads to your safety being his top priority now. He doesn’t care about what happens to him if it means that you’re safe. After all, he can reincarnate and come back to you again and again. What’s stopping him from hiding the two of you away into a place unheard of, where no one has ever been to? It’s not like you’d object to that kind of life either, as he’s already manipulated you against everyone you’ve ever trusted. He’s the only person you can rely on after Salem recognises how close you are to Ozpin.

A quiet life with you would put him at peace. Humanity and Salem be damned, you’re all he has left (and vice versa). He still has some outside sources, which mainly consists of Qrow and Team RWBY, to feed back info on Salem’s forces and their locations. If they ever come close to where the two of you are, he’d quickly rush you out and find a different spot to stay at. That won’t happen however, since he’s already insured that your current location will never be found. Living several millenniums has led to a few hidden yet scenic discoveries (whether they were on purpose or not), so at least there’s one pro to his curse.

There’s a lingering thought in the back of his head. What would he do once you eventually die of old age? It gnaws at him constantly, but he shakes it away every time. He’ll cross that bridge at some point but for now, all of his attention is on you and you alone.

(Also can I be known as Oz anon please? I’ll answer the question in the tags and the question of the day later ^^)

(Definitely! I'll add you to the anon list!)

Yeah, humanity is in deep trouble when Oz finally just pushes aside his mission. It's a near impossible feat to pull off (especially for just one person). They can all wallow in their inner turmoil and conflicts, but Ozpin just wants to rest and spend his time with you. It's the only thing in life that gives him peace of mind.

Hiding you away, is of course extremely easy. Remnant is full of places that people have yet to discover and/or settled in. He could hide you anywhere and no one would be the wiser and with the connections he has, it'll stay that way. But Salem is a very hellbent being, so Ozpin tales precautions in case of the scenario where she finds your location. Though that is a big IF.

But overall, life with him in seclusion is very domestic even if there are cautions to be considered. Yes, there are the question of how'd you get resources like food and such, but there is no worry for that since Oz will take care of it. You don't have to concern yourself with anything in life anymore now. Keeping this peace means no Grimm can come around. No lingering presence of her anywhere. Just you and him.

On the subject of you growing old,,, I have a worrying thought and I have no idea if Ozpin would do this or how likely he'd go through with it. So, the God of Darkness' domain is still around in Remnant, seeing as how Salem resided in it (it's different but still functions the way it did before everyone was wiped from existence), which makes me believe that the God of Light's domain is still around someone. I bring this up because that means there's a chance the Fountain of Life is still around since the Pools of Grimm is. And,,, ya know, given how Salem received (forcefully) immortality through that fountain,,, there's that option open in the air.

[rwbybutincorrect]

there’s a really brief moment in “Dark” that i dont think is that deep but i can’t stop thinking about it so im going to make everyone else think about it.

whitley is bent on getting those sdc ships to mantle. to the point where he is flat out ignoring and anyone who distracts him - especially his neglectful mother who let him suffer the abuse of jacques for years without stepping to protect him.

when willow calls him? he immediately hangs up. when someone opens the door? he fucking growls like the rabid dog he is, idk. but the point is, not even weiss was this bent on helping people, especially those who are a majority faunus. and whitley sees this as one of the first things he can actually participate in. one of the first grand ideas he’s had that could help people. 

his sisters are huntresses or in the military. his mom clearly had a history with huntsmen in the past, considering her semblance is unlocked. whitley has the company, his father’s computer, and access to these ships.  

then the hound comes in. we can safely assume whitley doesn’t have access to his aura or semblance. he’s never had to. he can’t protect himself and he’s been cornered by the very thing that he heard two of his sister’s teammates - fully licensed huntresses - struggle to deal with. and the only thing between him and the hound is a desk and computer that almost gives him away.

worst yet. the hound literally admits that he knows whitley’s hiding. that’s fucking terrifying! that’s the closest this boy has ever come to DEATH. we’re so conditioned to our protagonists being put against life threatening grimm, but at least they have the assistance of specially made weapons, aura, semblances, and at least a little bit of training. if the hound got his hands on whitley here, god damn! probably wouldn’t have been very good :) at all!

and out of nowhere? willow saves him. for the first time, that we’ve seen, she has actively put herself in harms way to protect him. using a semblance that we didn’t know she could use to incapacitate the hound, something she’s clearly terrified of and doesn’t know how to deal with. she tried to call him, seeing the hound on the cameras, and instead of buckling down powerlessly that he ignored her. instead, she explicitly went to rescue him, not knowing whether or not weiss would get to the two of them in time. 

BUT HERE’S THE MOMENT I REALLY WANNA TALK ABOUT

he made a SPRINT to get out of this office. 

this is the first grimm he’s ever been near to, LET ALONE IN HIS OWN HOME. he has 3 active huntresses in his house, 4 if you count whatever the fuck willow has going on, and they could protect him. maybe take care of the hound and he can go back and launch the ships later.

but he stops. he does that cute little turn to launch the ships, and THEN runs from the clear and present danger of the grimm that was looking for him at that moment. 

whitley opted to save everyone in the crater before preserving himself. whether he wasn’t sure if he’d have another chance, whether or not he didn’t put all that much thought into it, he consciously decided that, instead of running to his mother, who just protected him for the first time in the most dangerous of situations, he would protect the rest of mantle. 

it was the least he could do as a schnee. but he was running for his life at the moment too! AND I CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. he was never protected, for all of his life. he was abandoned by winter, by weiss, by willow. but he sure as hell wasnt going to abandon mantle. 

we always gave whitley a hard time. an entitled youngest son and shoehorned heir to the schnee dust company. while his sisters fought to save the world, he was lodged up in his mansion. a mansion full of abuse and neglect, but from the monsters of grimm, safe enough.

but when faced with a talking grimm, his mother using her semblance for the first time in supposed years, and the opportunity to protect an entire city of people, he opted to protect mantle. he didn’t even think twice. he just had to click the screen for the ships to be sent the orders. 

and this all takes place in less than a minute!

AND THEN. WHEN THE SCHNEE DUST COMPANY SHIPS DO ARRIVE. WHO ARE THE ACCREDITED TO?

all of his life he has been overlooked, ignored, and forgotten. even when he was appointed heir to the schnee dust company after weiss was dragged home, no one acknowledged. IRONWOOD ESPECIALLY didn’t see whitley as a schnee, the way whitley followed every order from his father like a servant to avoid his scrutiny. 

and i mean- i’d rather not have whitley forced to deal with james ironwood painting a target on his back. but it’s devastating to think, after living in the shadows, for all of his life? he doesn’t even get credited for having the idea that COULD HAVE saved all of mantle. not that heroism comes down to who thought of what. but whitley never wanted to be the schnee that discriminated, cheated, and abused rules and expectations to force his way to the top. 

all we know is he’s lost without jacques to look up to and he’s never really had any idea what to do as standing owner of the schnee dust company. but he was given an opportunity to help everyone. and he certainly tried. that’s more than ironwood can say. 

also, unrelated to the post, but the way that whitley’s picture is the only one of jacques’ children that he has on his desk 

the way he acts like he cares about him and believes in him, and still treats him like shit.... 

this has been a whitley appreciation thread

[apieceofsushi]

My RWBY PSA (because I’m bored)

Are you looking for a new anime to watch because you have way too much time and you’ve already watched all the shows you can think of like the total couch potato you are?

Do you want to get into a fandom that has lots of ways to keep you entertained?

How about hundreds of thousands of people you can talk to about a show and theorize all day about it?

Well, look no further!

I present to you, RWBY!

If you’ve been watching anime for a while, you’ve probably seen RWBY here and there. After all, the concept of the show has been around for nearly a decade! But for those of you who are put off by how old that sounds, don’t be! Every show gets better as they continue on, and plus, that just means there’s a buttload of ways you can immerse yourself into the RWBY verse. If you or your friend needs convincing to get into the show, this is the place for you!

Now, let’s begin!

The Basics

RWBY is, at it’s core, a show about four teenage girls who have hopes to become Huntresses; warriors who slay monsters, put simply. The reason why it is titled RWBY is because that is their team name. This may be confusing, as it is still pronounced “ruby” but it only takes a short while to get used to.

One of the most important concepts of RWBY is that every character is named after a color, or something that can easily remind viewers of a color. An obvious example is Ruby Rose, the protagonist of the show. Clearly, her color is red, as not only is ruby a gem and color, but her initials also lead fans to notice the similarities. Basically, it becomes an overload on all things “r”.

Another concept to note is that the characters are also based on fairytales. This becomes a little harder for fans to figure out, but let’s use Ruby as another example. She always dons a red, hooded cape, which resembles Little Red Riding Hood. The first fight scene she is ever in actually has her fighting wolves, so the creators of the show really want you to see the similarities!

The four main characters are named Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long. Their first names put together create a team name (like any team of four hoping to become Huntsmen), which is Team RWBY, hence the title of the show.

These four girls are enrolled as students at a school called Beacon Academy, one of the four boarding schools in their world. There, viewers are introduced to multiple other students and professors. Another team that the main four are friends with is Team JNPR (juniper), comprised of Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos, and Lie Ren.

There are two races in the world of RWBY: human and Faunus. Faunus look almost exactly like humans, save for one (and ONLY one) animal trait. For example, a Faunus might have dog ears or a monkey tail or the wings of a bat. However, Faunus are sometimes discriminated against by humans because of their features, called “animals” and what not.

And obviously, there are the villains, the bad guys, the evil doers, whatever. Early on the show, the villains are mainly the Grimm, which are dark and monstrous creatures that have no souls. Their only instinct is to sense fear from those with aura (so humans and Faunus)(I’ll explain this later) and those they attack. Hypothetically, if you were to spot a Grimm but didn’t let fear become one of your emotions, it’d ignore you unless you’re in its line of sight.

This may make it sound like the Grimm are easy to defeat, and in the earlier volumes of the show, this what the cast usually sees. But every once in a while, they come across much more difficult Grimm to defeat, and taking one down requires one highly skilled huntsmen or a team of them, hence why students are placed in teams. Doing so helps them become accustomed to teamwork, because being highly skilled won’t always defeat a Grimm.

There are also villains who aren’t beasts, and they are more prominent as the show goes on. These villains come from all different branches, but in the end the protagonists must eventually fight them. But during Volume 1, that isn’t of too much concern.

From episode one, the show introduces many other memorable characters that support the storyline of RWBY, and the journey is unique and filled with action and revelations that fans had been waiting for since the show first started.

Remnant

This is the world of RWBY, where the story is, and where the beloved characters live. You may ask, “how was this map created? was it computer generated or something the creators had in mind..?”

The truth?

It was created by two things: ketchup and a napkin.

Anyways there are four main locations in Remnant: the kingdoms where all characters live and will eventually journey to. These kingdoms are the best way Huntsman can keep citizens protected against the Grimm; living outside of the kingdoms is highly discouraged and quite dangerous.

The main land masses are as follows: Vale, Mistral, Atlas, and Vacuo. Each of these kingdoms also have huntsmen academy’s, which are (respectfully): Beacon Academy, Haven Academy, Atlas Academy, and Shade Academy. Of course, there are other schools that teach other things, as well as the smaller training academies that huntsmen in training must attend to before going to the academies above, but the show doesn’t pay much mind to that.

While this may sound like a lot to keep track of, the varying environment of each one makes it much easier to remember. For example, Vacuo is basically a really large desert, while Atlas is ice cold.

Like in almost any fictional world, you must have a form of currency to buy things, ranging from weapons to food. This currency is referred to as Lien in RWBY, and while the show obviously isn’t orientated around it, it’s always good to know what certain things are worth.

But what is perhaps the most important object (while it is not a currency) is called Dust. No, not the stuff under your couch, Dust, as in expensive and multi-purposeful gems that is very fundamental to RWBY. What is this, you may ask? Well, just take a look below:

(I told you they were crystals)

There are many types of dust, like pictured above. These different types are most effective for combat, but I’ll get into that later. They act as gas for mobiles and machinery, electricity, and more. It can even be infused into people and their clothing, which can give off expensive taste.

As dust is very important, you’ll find people from all crowds trying to get their hands on it. Take Episode 1, for example, where one of the villains is trying to steal it, which leads to one of the earliest combat scenes in the show!

One of the main protagonists, Weiss Schnee, is actually the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company (SDC), which becomes prominent early on in the show. The company is based in Atlas, and was created after the Great War.

Dust also played a role in the Great War, which ended around eighty years before the main characters of RWBY come into play. Basically, Vale and Vacuo were against Atlas (formerly Mantle) and Mistral, who tried to take control of Vacuo’s dust mines later on in the War. It lasted a brutal ten years before the kingdoms made amends, which leads to the Vytal Festival.

The Vytal Festival happens every two years and rotates between the four kingdoms. In Volume 3 of RWBY, this is the main focus of that season, as that years festival was set in Vale, but it had been mentioned a lot in the previous Volumes.

The event is a tournament where each kingdom sends their teams from the huntsmen academies to fight against each other in an arena which is referred to as Amity Coliseum. The combat is friendly, but is supposed to remind the kingdoms of their diversities and differences.

Combat

RWBY is a combat oriented show, as I’ve mentioned above. So are many other great anime’s! But seriously, even when the animation is the first few volumes was meh, the fight scenes were ALWAYS brilliant. The show’s creator, Monty Oum, was a genius with martial arts, which explains why the show got so popular!

Every single volume has combat in it, and they’re always action packed and super fun to watch! But, you should know about a few key concepts to help understand each battle in RWBY.

The first one is what is called aura. I mentioned this above as it’s important, and having aura is what makes you the ideal huntsman. Aura is basically a characters health, put simply. You run outta health, you’re as good as gone. But aura was created so that viewers could enjoy fights that last longer than two bullets exchanged, and so that the characters live longer.

Anyone in the entire show has aura, but only those with practice can actually become well rounded huntsmen. Basically, practice=aura. The only ones without aura are Grimm, which I also mentioned above. As well as having a nice health bar, people who train eventually unlock a special part of their aura called a semblance. A semblance is what makes each character’s fighting style unique.

Let’s go back to our example of Ruby. Her semblance is called Petal Burst, which allows her to travel at crazy fast speeds when she fights. But, using a semblance for a long amount of time can drain one’s aura, so huntsmen can’t always rely on their unique ability.

However, lots of semblances aren’t combat oriented. For example, one of the characters who appears later in the story has the semblance of good luck, so whatever they do, they have good fortune with them. It doesn’t always mean their life is easy, but it’s pretty close.

I also mentioned that Dust is pretty handy when it comes to combat. While there is regular ammunition, this substance acts as a way for fighters to use it to their advantage, which creates for interesting fight scenes (if used).

And obviously, every fighter has their weapons! This allows for various advantages/disadvantages when it comes to different fight scenes, and there’s rarely the same matchup in the whole show, which can lead to many different outcomes of that fight!

The nice thing about RWBY is that there’s a mix of fighting both people and the Grimm, so you never get bored of watching combat scenes as they’re all pretty unique.

Growth

Now, you’re probably looking at that GIF think “eh? why does that look so different?!” This is because of one of the most noticeable changes in RWBY, which would be the animation style.

Basically, for the first three Volumes, RWBY’s animation modeling was done through Poser, which is an animation software. However, as of Volume 4, the crew switched over to Autodesk Maya to give the show more immersive scenery and other perks that made RWBY look more polished.

Of course, this is one of the most debated over things in the fandom, as a lot of people preferred the Poser animation style. But eventually the Maya animation got to the point were it actually looked pretty decent, so the debating over that matter has died down a bit.

But it’s not just the show’s animation that has grown has grown over the years, it’s also the show’s animators and anyone who has been working on RWBY. If you’re reading this as someone who is interested in getting into the show, this is important as saying the wrong thing can be reaaaaaaaally bad.

You know how I mentioned that the show’s creator, Monty Oum, was a genius? You may have noticed that this is in last tense, as unfortunately he passed away after the release of Volume 2.

Sometimes, in other fandoms, fans may joke around and say something along the lines of “eh?! Why the hell did the creator of this show put this in there?! It makes my eyes bleed!”. But in RWBY, saying that will get you a lot of scorn from others in the fandom.

But I’m not mentioning this to be downer, but just for the sake of awareness. If people have their opinions about shows, then fine! But if you see someone who says something rude that links to Monty, that’s just downright disrespectful.

Anyways, as RWBY has been around for a while, it has definitely grown in multiple ways, and people who have been watching it since the beginning likely feel as if they have grown with it, so it becomes almost sentimental!

Fandom

The last thing for people looking to get into RWBY is that like every other franchise, there is a fandom. And again, as the show has been around for such a long time, the fandom is pretty big!

However, because of this, the fandom has...many different type of people in it. There has been a lot of claims that the RWBY fandom is toxic, but most of the time I find that’s not entirely true, there a lot of really nice people who promote the show a ton!

But yes, there are a select few who are mainly in the fandom to cause more harm than good. They may have harsh opinions about the show and will only focus on those opinions, which can affect others joy in watching the show negatively.

And a fair warning: a lot of people are willing to get into fights about whether RWBY is an anime, as it has a 3D animation style. Honestly, I consider it an anime, but if someone has a different opinion than you then respect that, it’ll save time and any hurt feelings.

My best advice is as follows: no matter what your opinion is on the show, try to remain neutral about topics that are controversial if it saves an unneeded argument. Obviously, there are critics, but that’s just what they do, they don’t mean any harm. People sometimes take their takes on RWBY the wrong way, so it’s important to respect other people’s views on the show.

That aside, there are a lot of people in a lot of different places you can talk about RWBY with! If you find that you’re really enjoying the show, you may come up with a few theories that you can share with others who are just as into the show as you are.

And as the show is so popular, there are tons of cons and events you can attend, and cosplay as your favorite characters with other fans if you like!

Watching the show

This part is probably the most helpful for people who are just looking for the length of the show, or maybe a parent looking to see if it’s worth their kid watching. Allow me to assist!

There are 8 Volumes of RWBY, which equals about 24 hours of watch time. However, it can be argued you can skip through Volume 5 and maybe even Volume 6, if you want to get to the better Volumes (in my opinion) which also have better animation too. But before you watch any of the Volumes, be sure to watch the four trailers for each of the four main characters. They’re set before Volume 1, and can help you decide whether RWBY is the show you’d like. They’re easy to find on YouTube, and they’re important for the lore of the show.

As for what to look out for in the show, there is really nothing other than language and violence. I know a lot of people say that about shows that end up having more adult-y stuff, but I’m serious. The language isn’t actually that bad, the occasional “pain in the ass”, and half the time a bunch of curses get cut off to spare profanity. The only time I can think of that a dirty word is used is after a character slices a Faunus’s tail off, which is understandable.

And for violence, there is the obliteration of the Grimm, but that’s expected. As for actual on screen deaths, there are a few, which can get more distressing as the Volume’s go on, but if you can handle it then it should be fine. Just be aware that protagonists can and will become deceased.

But there is a bunch of humor and things that make RWBY a great show, so I’d say if you’re eleven or twelve you should be fine watching it.

You can watch RWBY on the RoosterTeeth site, which is the company that made the show. They have tons of other shows too, although they’re not as kid friendly. You can watch the RWBY Completes on YouTube or Prime Video, if you prefer a more movie-type experience.

Rabbit Hole

When you finish watching the show itself, don’t fret! There are still tons of ways to be an active member of the fandom. Here are some below:

Music - Yes! The stuff you can listen to all day! RWBY happens to have eight full soundtracks, one for each volume, and each one has a mix of scores and actual songs that are featured in the show! There’re easy to access, trust me! When I first heard about RWBY, I went to my Apple Music and listened to “This Will Be The Day”, one of my personal favorites, and since that day I’ve stayed an active member in the fandom.

Games - This show has tons. Whether you’re playing on mobile or a game console, there are ones for you! There’s a new one to be released this year on console, which is exciting for those of us in the fandom who love both RWBY and gaming! The image above is actually from the sneak peak of it, and the characters are brand new which doesn’t happen as often as it used to in the earlier Volumes.

Books - There are tons to choose from, and in different varieties! There’s an manga anthology that has five books, another manga trilogy, a YA trilogy, and more! There’s also a book that pretty much explains what I have here in greater detail, so that’s great for people getting into the show as well.

Merch - You can absolutely represent your interest for RWBY with a shirt or coffee mug! Be warned, you might find your money going down the drain due to some expensive figurines :,)

YouTube - There’s a variety of different types of content for RWBY on there, including podcasts, AMV’s, speedpaints, breakdowns, and more! There are dozens and dozens of different people who make content and put it on there, so you’ll have even more to watch!

Fanart - I think there might be close to a million for RWBY. Just google your favorite character with the term and bam! You’ve got hundreds of great pieces of art to admire. It goes to show how many people like the show, and you can bet they’re everywhere considering how long it’s been around.

Events - Like I mentioned before, there are tons of events that will have RWBY panels to enjoy. (And whether you consider RWBY an anime or a cartoon, you’ll find it at places that hold both! It’s a win-win!)

Conclusion

So yeah, there you have it! Everything you need to get a friend or yourself into RWBY. Hopefully I managed to keep a pretty neutral perspective on the show, but I will say I love it with all my heart. I believe I covered everything that is important yet basic to get into RWBY, so if I got anyone into it just by reading this, then hooray!

[rwbyconversations]

I'd like to elaborate on why I didn't like Ultimatium beyond just what's happening with Ironwood's character. This isn't just a case of "Well the episode did this one thing bad so 2/10." There's still other content here that just doesn't work when you look at it.

Monstra getting taken out by Oscar is a huge anticlimax. All the time and effort to make this beast, to have it breach Atlas, all the work to get inside and plant a bomb to destroy it... and it just dies because Oscar pokes it really hard. It's narratively unsatisfying for Monstra's death to just be "Oscar took it out," with what seems to be such a clean result in favor of the heroes, and it has yet another Grimm job. I'm not Ruby had to SEW it with her eyes, but it feels like another case of "Oscar doing something a member of Team RWBY probably should have done instead" like being the liaison between Ironwood and the heroes in Volume 7. As-is, the usage of the cane feels like a Deus Ex Machina similar to Willow handing Weiss the evidence to arrest Jacques- it's just here to erase a villain so we can narrow focus for the final third.

Oscar's spell also has inconsistent power since it seems to be like a SEW blast in that it only targeted Grimm. No building damage, no one in the blast radius besides maybe Hazel was hurt? Jaune even found time to regain some Aura so he could boost Oscar back up. If it's kinetic energy then it shouldn't discriminate, but... everyone's just fine. If the blast could specifically avoid structural damage or innocent casualties, why didn't Ozpin use it to stop Cinder and the Wyvern at Beacon?

Can we talk about how weaksauce the Atlas Invasion arc in general was? We got like four minutes of content out of it and none of it was exactly the Battle of Helms Deep. It didn't have any real stakes to it and what little we saw wasn't executed efficiently.

I'm pretty sure they retconned Ozpin's cane here. Back in Volume 3's commentary it was expressly said that the cane "Stored time," but here Oscar phrases it as stockpiling kinetic energy. Which means that Ozma's biggest trump card is just... effectively an epilepsy warning version of Yang and Adam's Semblances.

So the episode after Oscar makes a big deal out of how every time he uses magic it amplifies the merge with Ozpin, Oscar unleashes all of the energy in the Long Memory, a massive spell with enough power to erase Salem temporarily... and he's exactly the same. Maybe a bit more empathic? Not getting the sense yet that the merge moved along after Oscar cast that spell.

Ruby, Weiss and Blake sat out the entire invasion of Atlas. They were in the Manor before Salem landed, they had tea while the fight went on and they only left for a few minutes when the Hound went after Penny. It wasn't even going after them because Ruby was a Silver Eyed Warrior, she was just in the way and had Penny's blood on her. Had Penny not landed outside the house, RWB would have had nothing to do between arriving at the Manor and JORY's arrival besides helping Whitley send out the drone ships. Weiss at least got some character stuff with Whitley and her mom, but Ruby and Blake got nothing to do all season as a consequence. It's the Haven House all over again in regards to how it utterly stifles half our protagonists- and this is coming off a year where RWBY already had very little to do. This combined with Oscar taking out Monstra is painting an unflattering picture that Oscar is slowly subsuming RWBY out of the protagonist role. He's inarguably one of the MC's of the entire story now, whereas RWBY themselves feel like... supporting mains. They feel like the JNPR to his RWBY.

Why is Blake so hesitant to meet with Yang? Was there an argument between the two that got cut and her awkwardness at the start of the reunion is a leftover from that?

I won't make a sweeping claim like this episode is fundamentally broken, but Ultimatium proves to be a big piece of evidence for my core theory that Volume 8 is looking like a retread of V7 in regards to being a flawed season, but while 7 had genuinely good content to soften the impact, 8 has none of 7′s redeeming qualities. It’s my new least favorite season since 5.