#but more kind of like Yang in V5

[majoringinsarcasm]

The fact that Blake Yang and Weiss are all walking forwards / moving up in the intro from V1 to V9, but Ruby in V1 STARTS closest to the front / the viewer and regresses backwards. Thinking about her being there for Jaune, hyping up her team in volume two and their second semester of school. Comforting Penny and being her first friend. She’s there for Oscar always the first in his corner, she helps give Qrow his huge wake up call and her “I’m not leaving without the lamp!” which I loved in V6.

She started out on an 11 in terms of that upbeat / determined protagonist but she’s not Unaware. She’s never been Unaware. After V3 we do see her somber expressions and looking worried but it’s usually if not always when nobody can see her face. Again V4 when she and Jaune are carrying Qrow and she says that Ren and Nora will be fine after they split up. Jaune expresses doubts and it’s only when she turns her head forward again that worry fills her face. She has always put on that brave face even as she grew from naive clumsy new leader of RWBY to kings leading RNJR, friends who are putting their faith in her and Jaune who was meant to be the leader letting her take center stage. Her mother was the leader of STRQ, she has silver eyes and was trusted with so much. She learned so much. Lies unraveled and she had to make up plans and they failed but she kept going. She kept trying.

And then V8 happened. She saw the Hound. We don’t know for certain that Summer was / is now a Hound but if she went off to fight Salem and never came back then that’s what happened to her right? If the best of the best couldn’t do it when she was the proper age to enter Beacon and not some kid who cheated her way in then what makes her think She can do it. She can’t even fight without her weapon and that has gotten her and others into trouble time and time again.

With each big transition (and outfit change for the visuals) the girls have gotten stronger. They have found some part of themselves they have grown in some way. They had lost some insecurity or fear. And while of course this is not the end of their journey, and Yang I am looking at specifically because poor girl thought she was Dead and was pushed into leaving Patch maybe sooner than she was truly ready for, Ruby’s V4–6 self being behind her V1-3 self is so. That’s when she was making the most leader like decisions. Outside of the school setting with adults and vulnerable citizens now needing to be saved or convinced she and her other band of teenagers can save the day. And then the most recent version who Does have a legal huntress license and Did go on actual missions with other trained huntsmen, is the one farthest back and the most lost and scared and miserable.

Up until now Ruby has had the least amount of big character moments compared to her team, but I do not see her as stagnant so much as…. Her cheerful optimism and drive to keep moving forward was once her sincere true ideology and has now become a mask. She has growth as a fighter and a leader but she was not prepared for the gods and Salem. And in a perfect world she would not have to fight this. But she does, and she has not allowed herself to be seen how she truly feels because there’s no room for a little girl to cry and fret and prove those old hurtful true. She cannot Change from the cheerful go getter she started as because the people around her Need that now.

But that hasn’t been who she really was since the fall of Beacon and it’s catching up to her fast. She pushes the bolder up the hill farther than anyone but now it’s fast in its race to flatten her and she is Tired

[anthurak]

So I’ve been thinking more about one of the more subtle but striking questions brought up by Ruby’s tree vision:

Namely; to where or rather to who were Raven and Summer portaling to? After all, it’s been established that Raven’s semblance, Kindred Link, allows her to create portals specifically to people she has established a certain bond and connection with.

And this is particularly interesting, because of the people we thus far know have Raven’s ‘Link’, only ONE was otherwise not present in the flashback; Qrow.

And wouldn’t you know it; Qrow also happens to be one of the people we can definitively say DOESN’T know what happened to Summer, going off his talk with Ruby in Volume 7 where he mentions having no idea where Summer went or what she was doing on her mysterious last mission.

Now, as I’m sure some people will bring up, it IS possible that Qrow was actually present and is simply keeping quiet about it to Ruby. However, personally I seriously doubt that. As I simply don’t see the writers cheapening such a personal and important scene between Ruby and Qrow by later revealing that Qrow was actually outright lying to Ruby at the time.

So that seemingly leaves us with seemingly only one other option: That Summer and Raven portaled to someone else.

As to who that someone might be? Well personally, I think it would have to be someone we likely haven’t met yet. I know some people have suggested it could have been Ozpin, but frankly I don’t buy that one bit. Whatever happened to Summer is clearly meant to have MASSIVE implications, impact and general status-quo shattering revelations, all things it would make much more sense that Oz has NO idea to. Not to mention it’s kind of hard to imagine Raven forming a link, clearly a very close connection, with someone she seems to have always distrusted like Ozpin. Meaning that we’re left with a character that we simply haven’t be introduced to yet.

However, after giving it some more thought, I think there may be a THIRD option:

Raven and Summer DIDN’T actually portal to a person.

Remember just how we learned the mechanics of Raven’s semblance?

It was via Yang explaining it, via information she was told by TAI.

Here’s the thing though; Tai certainly knew how Raven’s semblance worked back when they were a team with Summer and Qrow. But it’s also been a LONG time since then. And wouldn’t you know it, these last couple volumes have ALSO introduced us to the concept of SEMBLANCE EVOLUTION.

So what if in the near-twenty-odd years since leaving her team, Raven’s semblance ALSO ‘evolved’? To the point where she can form her ‘Links’ with more than JUST people?

Perhaps now Raven can form a link with objects that have particular significance to her? Or, and this one I find the most compelling, LOCATIONS that are particularly important to her?

It’s funny that we’ve never actually known for sure where or to who Raven has been portalling to all the times we’ve seen her. Sure, in hindsight I think we’ve all been assuming it was Vernal in Volumes 2, 3, and 4, and to Taiyang at the end of Volume 5. But the funny thing is, we DON’T actually hear the characteristic sound of Raven’s portal opening in the V5 post-credits scene with Tai, only the flapping of wings. Implying that Raven may not have actually portalled to Tai directly…

Meaning that throughout the show, perhaps Raven wasn’t actually portalling to Vernal, but rather to the camp, the home which now has great significance and meaning to her. And at the end of Volume 5, she portalled not to Tai, but rather to the home she once had on Patch. Or, for the REAL spicy alternative, to Summer’s grave.

So what if at the start of their world-most-homoerotic-suicide-mission together, Raven and Summer portalled not to a person, but rather to a LOCATION that Raven was able to set up a link to?

(shoutout to @mikey-polo420 for the ask that got me thinking about this :D)

[strqyr]

bandit yang has taken over my and i can't help but to think of all the differences to the story it could make, like

first and foremost yang would have a distinct background and, depending on how much raven has told her, it could make a huge difference and give her something that's very much hers in a way that all her teammates have—i.e. ruby has silver eyes, weiss the SDC, blake the white fang—bc right now she's kind of... there

she could get the same warning about the fall of beacon from raven that qrow apparently got (and didn't listen to), which yang could either believe or not

post-fall she would recover on patch, spending more time with her sister she has just recently learned about and meeting the father she never knew about for the first time

training with tai would make a bigger difference to her fighting style bc it's completely new to her

and if she grew up alongside vernal and they'd be insufferable together? what then???

just the emphasis on family when after V5 yang would choose to fight by the side of her team, and family she has only known for less than a year

the parallels with qrow y'all, do you understand the vision

also going through a "my mom isn't the person i thought she was" journey along with ruby

the damage it would cause me if afterwards, when someone asks for her name, she'd start using 'xiao long' instead???

this isn't even all my head is just so full of ideas atm but. it's a start. positively obsessed with her ✌

[bestworstcase]

So, regarding your Tai post,

https://www.tumblr.com/bestworstcase/748954216598470656/the-perennial-tai-discourse-is-really-interesting?source=share

I had some thoughts: I technically cover it in a separate post

https://www.tumblr.com/tumblingxelian/749060919422861312/really-solid-addition-here-much-like-with-qrows

But I'm unsure if the links will work so here is a slightly edited & expanded version:

Now, the idea that Ruby & Yang had very different childhoods is not an idea I strictly disagree with. But, I also think it is a bit inaccurate to treat it as outlined in your post.

What I mean is that while Yang is definitely more overt in the fact she feels Tai and the other adults failed them and defaults to centering family moments on Ruby. (For instance she frames the Zwei package as something to cheer Ruby up, its not for her & Ruby's the one really excited, Yang's just kind of there about it)

Despite that, Ruby herself doesn't have a simple relationship with Tai, or in fact she just might but that's not a good thing.

See, Ruby does not think about Tai very often, he's largely an afterthought in her letters for one. But more to the point he is not someone Ruby goes to for advice or guidance or even comfort.

Post Beacon, she mostly gets an update from him and is not bothered to see him go. She is OK being a bit more vulnerable around Qrow.

But the person she actually seeks out and seems utterly shocked at not receiving comfort from is Yang. It was also Yang who she questions for what to do next and Yang whom she confided her plans in before leaving.

Again she is shocked when Yang cannot supply these things to her.

Tai is her dad, but its a superficial relationship, he's nice, he can be fun, she does love him. She does not however, seem to perceive him as a reliable or responsible adult from whom she seeks protection or guidance.

The person she always defaulted to for that was Yang until she could no longer fill the role post V3 which likely fed into her issues with showing vulnerability in V9.

I tend to think she might have been more open to it in V5 given the breakdown tears & hug, but then Yang demonstrated she was still very much not all right & Ruby had no clue what to do. So she just sort of locked into her head that Yang needed 'her' protection now, not the other way around.

I would also just straight up note that even Ruby said it was Yang who raised her. Like, that wasn't even subtle, she knows who the parent was in that house and it wasn't Tai or Qrow. I don't think she'd say that if their childhoods were 'so' different that Tai was a functional parent to her but not Yang.

She definitely has a less... frosty relationship with the two grown men who she grew up around, Largely because they project the saintly Summer onto her and the Wretched Raven onto Yang.

Again, let's not forget Qrow's entirely willing to accept Yang brutalized a kid for shits and giggles or is "crazy". Or that Tai outright sees a lot of Raven in Yang, despite most of the traits he described not meshing with Yang's demonstrated or self described persona.

But even with that more positive relationship being projected onto and still raised by a sister two years your senior isn't exactly ideal. Both sisters had a shitty childhood, both were deeply neglected and failed and suffered because of that fact.

all true! but the nature of parentification is that the children experience the neglect in very different ways; the elder child is forced into an adult role, parenting the younger child, who is harmed in more invisible ways because they do have a caretaker—their sibling. anecdotally nearly every account of a childhood i’ve read by an adult who was raised as a child by older siblings has either alluded to or outright described 1. a much better childhood than their caretaking sibling(s) got, 2. because their sibling(s) shielded them from the worst neglect or abuse.

with that in mind and taking into consideration things like the different reactions to the package from tai (this will cheer ruby up vs ooh, something from home!) and yang staying behind at beacon when tai takes ruby to visit the memorial stone, and now these clear differences in how the girls feel about the boba shop (yang: unsure, downplaying the surprise, maybe it’s dumb / ruby: boba!!!) which probably reflect their emotional experience of the outings with dad (yang: fun, happy that ruby is so excited, not that special otherwise / ruby: magical)…

well, let’s put it this way:

yang did not have a real caretaker starting from age five, when she became the de facto main parent to her three-year-old sister with at best sporadic breaks when qrow wasn’t too blackout drunk / tai was having a good day.

ruby had a primary caretaker who struggled but was always there (yang) and a dad who had to work a lot but made time to do special things like the boba trips so that he could spend quality time with his family (tai). plus an uncle she sometimes needed to help her sister deal with.

yang being parentified has the effect of insulating ruby from the severity of tai’s neglect; in a functional single-income household where one parent stays home and the other works to support the family and both parents are adults who chose this dynamic and enjoy their respective roles, the working parent is not bad or neglectful simply because they aren’t around during the day to take care of the kids, and they can foster close, loving relationships with their children by making the most of the time they have at home. the childhood ruby had was a dysfunctional imitation of that dynamic.

and then factoring in the summer-vs-raven projection, when tai was around he focused on bonding time with ruby moreso than yang.

the net result is that the harm to ruby is much more invisible (yang by virtue of being a child herself could not provide ruby with healthy parent-child boundaries or the emotional stability children need from their parents to feel secure and develop good emotional regulation; tai’s favoritism of ruby being intertwined with idealizing of summer fucked ruby’s sense of self really badly; in the first few volumes ruby feels hurt and bewildered every time yang acts like her sister instead of her parent).

ruby sees clearly and states in volume nine that yang raised her; i don’t think she would have been able to articulate that so plainly in volume one, and this is something she’s come to realize after leaving home / living independently. in v1 it’s “yang used to read to me when we were little” and i’d bet that’s how ruby would phrase everything yang did—as discrete habits, not the combined pattern of “yang raised me.”

whereas yang like. the first thing she does at beacon is try to step away from ruby: encouraging her to meet new people then ditching her to catch up with friends, not wanting to partner up with her for initiation… much as yang loves her sister and enthusiastically supports her, it’s also pretty obvious that yang saw beacon as an opportunity to focus on herself for once. which says to me that she’d already grasped that their home life was messed up and that she needed to break those patterns once she left.

[misstrashchan]

2, 3, 7, 20, 27, 28, 29, for the rwby ask game? If you don't mind!

2. Rank the soundtracks

From favourite to least:

V1

Not a single track I don't love. Forever iconic, each and every one.

V5

Ignite is my favorite Yang song, as is Path to Isolation for Weiss. Smile is such a tragic song of showing Ilia's parents telling her to cope by smiling, by hiding, to the present where it's twisted into an angry mantra and she's still hiding who she is in a different way. The Triumph feels like such a comeback song with how high energy it is, all our girls heading back to each other, jumping back into the fray. All that Matters is PEAK bumbleby pining angst song. All Things Must Die is glorious, and tbh I think even This Time is pretty underrated as a song for Blake/the White Fang.

V7

I find myself relistening to this one a lot. Trust Love is my favorite OP (and yes that is in part the refrences to the Little Prince I can draw). I also like Touch the Sky and Brand New Day as these kind of recovery songs for all the characters that had been at their lowest or feeling lost finding their hope and confidence, happy in themselves. Let's get Real is a song that DID get me into Renora a little, it's a bop. Was over the moon to have an Oscar song in Fear that encapsulated the theme of the volume and complimented Ozpin's fear speech. Hero makes my brain go AAAAHHHH at how it captures the hubris of Ironwood. Such a great tragic downfall song for his character. Until the End is a great listen and such a lovely surprise to have a Ruby song after so long. War is a certified banger and a great song for the RWBY vs Ace Ops fight.

V9

In fairness I don't think I've listened to this one enough, but the more I do it definitely grows on me. Inside feels like the most unique OP, Checkmate is catchy as hell, Trapdoor makes me INSANE as a Ruby spiralling song. Pleasantly surprised to have a Jaune song in Quiet that's very moving. Worthy is beautiful as a Bumbleby confession/kiss song, truly magical. As a whole I feel the songs lean into being more gentle and introspective as to the usual hardcore rock ballads we know RWBY for, even Checkmate with it's jazziness feels fresh and new. I haven't actually listened to the Edge or Guide my Way enough to have an opinion on them, but I remember liking them, Guide my Way is a nice continuation and evolution of the Red like Roses song trilogy.

V3

When it Falls is SO HARDCORE. Bleeding edge and tragedy for the death and destruction to come. I'm the One is fantastic at laying out Emerald and Mercury's trauma's and subsequently coping mechanisms. Neon is one I like to listen to a lot, it's so fun and upbeat. Divide is brutal and chilling as the song to introduce us to our main villain after seeing her for the first time in all her dark glory at the end of V3. Not Fall in Love with You is... eh. It's my Turn is a good Weiss song, but it's not one if my favorites.

V6

I really like Rising as an OP, it feels the most... magical? fantastical? idk. I like the vibes. Indomitable is what I feel like singing all the time in wake of the recent RWBY news! We really are indomitable! Nevermore as a true triumph over Blake and Yang's trauma at Adam's hands, while acknowledging the tragedy of Adam's own situation. And Big Metal Shoe is a certified banger, love all the fairytale references crammed in there. Miracle is... fine. One Thing is a great song for Neo's return and revenge quest, but I never bought into the Neo hype so I'm kinda mid on it too.

V2. SACRIFICE I LOVE YOU FOREVER AND EVER PLEASE REPRISE IN THE SHOW LATER WITH CINDER PRETTY PLEASE. Now it's Time to Say Goodbye is an incredible banger of an OP, but it felt a little misleading considering it's a song all about losing innocence and leaving behind childhood, which feels more appropriate for V3 and the FoB than V2. Shine, Dream Come True and Boop are all fun and cute but I'm not hugely into Arkos or Renora so I'm kinda neutral on them. I'm also kind of mid on Time to Die as a song.

V8. Honestly this is just the soundtrack I find myself listening to or remembering the least, even though I really like Friend as the perfect Penny song that had me tearing up, and Truth, while short was a great bittersweet song for Cinder. And it was nice to get a Nora song too. The opening for this volume never really grew on me like all the others did (aside from the "some ROSES WILL NEVER BLOOM, SOME HEROES CHOOSE THE WRONG SIDE"). I also just associate this soundtrack with fandom arguing a lot about what song applied to who and it felt exhausting.

3. Favorite Ruby ship?

ROSEGARDEN ALL THE WAY BABY!

7. Favorite lines I already answered for @hoepunkausta

20. What are you looking forward to seeing in Vacuo?

*vibrating at a frequency unknown to man* idk I think a reunion hug between Ruby and Oscar would be neat maybe. Like @aspoonofsugar has pointed out all the set up at the end of the extended epilogue points to these two having a second alchemical wedding and so their relationship having a certain amount of focus/development in Vacuo seems apparent. After so long of not seeing them onscreen together I'm excited for any interactions honestly. I miss my kids.

Wanting to see WBY all trying to support Ruby more and her actively trying but still struggling to open about how she's feeling. More of what see saw with Ruby/Yang in the Boba episode. I'd especially like Ruby and Weiss to have a heart to heart.

Very curious about what Theodore is gonna be like and whoever the hell the Summer maiden. With the Dorothy allusions and those who've lost their homes trying to make one in Vacuo, I'm expecting an exploration of "there's no place like home" to be leant into.

RAVEN. TELL US WHAT HAPPENED ON THAT MISSION WITH YOU AND SUMMER. RUBY AND YANG DESERVE TO KNOW. For real though I'm hoping we see what lead Raven to rejoin the fray too, and how she'll interact with Yang and Qrow and even Ruby, what tension might be there. Delicious family drama....

Speaking of delicious family drama, the Schnees! all reunited! I want Winter and Whitley to tackle hug Weiss to the ground! Also the Schnees appear to be being confronted with all the harm their family and company has done in a kingdom like Vacuo, so I'm curious to see how Weiss handles that. Also Winter is clearly Not Doing Good, so something I'd really like is if Weiss (as her sister) and Ruby (as a friend of Penny and someone she also offered the maiden powers too) and maybe Jaune (who was there with Penny in her final moments) offer comfort to her and they all grieve together.

Emerald. Honestly suprised we didn't get much of a sense of how she was doing in the extended epilogue, not even briefly like Mercury. But I'm super excited for what her arc holds. Seeing her integrate with the group, if Ren, Nora and Oscar are already on friendly terms with her but RWBY are all still a bit wary of her because they've spent less time together. Seeing more of her friendship with Oscar develop (gimme that Little Prince/Fox allusion with their friendship in taming each other pretty please) and like. Mercury. Emerald KNEW Mercury and Tyrian were being sent to Vacuo, she saw him off in the ship, but Ren seems suprised to see him and Tyrian on the cameras in the epilogue. Did Emerald... not tell them? Even though that's incredibly important information that could help her new allies? Because... she wanted to protect Mercury? Because she still feels conflicted? It's incredibly juicy and I can't wait to see how Emerald and Mercury's relationship comes into conflict during the Vacuo arc. Gimme that Emercury angst pretty please.

Vacuo in general. By virtue of the books I think they have the most interesting world building, the food, the culture, the different words for weather phenomenon, the fauna, the nomadic tribes, the history of being a once incredibly beautiful oasis full of everything they needed, then exploited time and again and left with nothing and yet still surviving and carving a home and life for themselves. The world building of Vacuo is one that is inevitably tied to the story because of their fraught history leading to tensions between them and all the refugees from Atlas, Mantle and Vale seeking their aid and shelter in their kingdom, not to mention the Crown seeking to restore the monarchy, it'd be easy for them to be divided and conquered by Salem, and so our heroes have to find a way to overcome that and bring everyone together. So just getting to see the kingdom animated and learn more about its history and culture would be cool. I also like desert punk aesthetic, so I'm hoping whatever new outfits our girls get will have a little of that. (part of me hopes for maybe some Trigun inspiration... we've had Gurren Laggan inspiration in Yang's outfits before!)

I would also say I'm looking forward to seeing my darling cringefail wife Cinder but I don't know if she'll be in Vacuo or with Salem in Vale wrecking shit.

27. Favorite voice performance?

AARON DISMUKE AS OSCAR HANDS DOWN. Him being the VA for Oscar meant I was destined to like him, I usually do with characters he voices. The fact he has to also voice Oscar when controlled by Ozpin, and sometimes Oscar pretending to be Ozpin, and completely nails the subtle differences in all of them is phenomenal. And as the merge progresses he's literally having to mix and merge their voices together too!!! It's crazy!!! The awkward and shy intonation becoming a more sincere and quiet confident voice as Oscar develops, and gaining Oz's mannerisms in speech with a deeper and more serious tone. That is some crazy talent this man has.

Always impressed with how well Linsay Jones and Miles Luna hold up in earlier volumes, they've consistently been the best voice performances from start to present. Also Cherami Leigh as Ilia is absolutely fantastic, it's rare I've heard her get to flex her emotional range like that in her voice work for such a complex character.

28. Fairytale character you'd want to see RWBYfied?

With how character songs are a big thing in the show and semblances that can hypnotize and mind control exist, and instruments sometimes being weapons (gestures to Flynt), I'd love an allusion to The Pied Piper or the Lorelai Siren as a villain of some kind. Bonus if you had a Little Mermaid/Lorelai Siren allusion for that victim/monster/hero duality RWBY likes to play with.

Not technically a traditional fairytale but also very much one, the Last Unicorn, one of my alltime favorite books would be beyond amazing to be alluded to, even a tiny bit. Amalthea the unicorn being the last of her kind, the rest hunted down by a wicked beast at the order of a tyrant. She is associated with silver, the moon, hope and purity constantly. A story that is both a love letter and deconstruction of fairytales, an exploration of the nature of humanity and mortality. Tell me that wouldn't be perfect as an allusion to a Silver Eyed Warrior (also thought to be a myth) trying to find out what happened to the rest of her kind.

29. Favorite opening to sing along too?

TRUST LOOOOOVVVVVEEEE AND OPEN UP YOUR EYESEESSSSS TRUST LOOOOVVVVVEEEE THE TRUTH IS THERE BUT SOMETIMES IN DISGUISE

[hadesisqueer]

Thinking about Weiss after The Fall of Beacon. Thinking about how her three teammates were hurt when she was taken to Atlas. Thinking about how guilty she must have felt because maybe if she hadn't let Blake go after that Grimm on her own, maybe she wouldn't have had to face Adam alone at first. Thinking about how if she'd gone with Yang to help her find Blake, maybe she could have helped and Yang wouldn't have been hurt that way. Thinking about how sad she must have been when she realized that Ruby and her didn't make it on time to save Pyrrha, and how worried she must have been seeing Ruby unconscious like that. About how then, immediately, she was taken against her will before she could say goodbye and how she was forced to go back to her childhood house, with her younger brother who she didn't get along with at the time, her depressed, alcoholic mother and her abusive father, away from her friends, and her older sister, with only her sweet, loving butler who is more of a father to her than her own. Thinking about how trapped she must have felt, back in her abusive household, back in a kingdom she no longer liked, forced to spend time with those elites at the stupid after party of a recital she was also forced to perform in, having to spend time with the kind of people she couldn't stand anymore. Thinking about how she really thought she probably would never see her friends again.

Then her hugging Yang and then her and Ruby—while crying—, and then Blake back in v5 hits harder.

[kitkatopinions]

Out of curiosity since we know that hunters are basically a sub group of law enforcement. Is there possible any way the show could've avoid the copagenda?

If not how would you rewrite hunters without being associated with cops?

Fantasy law enforcement is a little bit like fantasy royalty. There's a certain suspension of disbelief when it comes to fantasy worlds that they're not just going to operate with the exact same rules that our world does. This is different than things set in our actual world, like say NCIS or Brooklyn 99, that are actually portraying members of our real world police system. You can root for a fictional king without losing your good people points, and that doesn't mean that you're on board with the irl monarchy. You can root for fictional law enforcement without actually supporting real life police.

However, I'm of the opinion that especially with law enforcement, people have to be very careful if they're going to make fantasy equivalents because it very easily can get into copaganda territory if the law enforcement is too close to ours, used in the same ways, is proven to be corrupt and yet still celebrated, things like that. In RWBY "Hunters" (or, "huntsman and huntresses" cause I guess in universe they don't have inclusive terms for things,) are kind of used without much explanation for what they're supposed to actually do until season seven when the kids actually become hunters. At first it seems like Hunters are really just monster hunters, but we also see the kids training to fight humans (Pyrrha Vs CRDL, Vytal Tournament.) And no one acts like it's different or not what hunters do when Ruby fights bad guys like Roman or Cinder in the first couple seasons. But at that point, I didn't have (much) of a problem with the concept still. Then in V4 and V5, we started to get this picture of Hunters as essentially hired hands, protecting small towns outside the kingdoms from Grimm on top of their jobs within the cities protecting people from Grimm. There was still the knowledge that Hunters fought people too (Qrow tries to recruit hunters to help fight Salem's faction in Mistral,) but the job still seemed at that point to be more focused on the monster-hunting aspect, with the rest of it being special circumstances. Cool. It was easy to assume that Hunters were very different from the 'cops' we had seen in Vale chasing Sun. (Side note but even then, RWBY was still already in copaganda territory in V5 when Blake and Sun called the cops on the White Fang in V5 and I don't care about the in-universe necessity, I care about the fact that the writers chose to make up everything to get the characters there.)

But then in V7, the first we really see of Hunters at work and getting assignments and our main characters on the field officially, and they're pulling out their badges and arresting people and acting like authorities to the citizens and demanding entry into houses by pointing weapons at peoples faces and are basically just extreme versions of police except they believed they shouldn't have accountability. And I know that people are going to say that Atlas just does things differently because Ironwood is the headmaster and the head of the military, but A. it's very hard to say that definitively when we've gotten so little info on how licensed Hunters actually operate in canon, and B. It doesn't even matter, because the end result is that our main characters were licensed Hunters in Atlas, within that system and saw no problem. This on top of the fact that we've seen both corruption (Dee and Dudley, Leo, Ironwood, Qrow's mysterious Hunter friends,) and bigotry (Cardin, Weiss, Yang and Coco if we're being honest,) in the ranks of Hunters... It doesn't paint a flattering picture at all. Even then, I wouldn't be upset if this kind of thing was challenged and deconstructed within the show. But instead, the Hunters are looked at as superior to Atlas military (despite, you know, the fact that they're essentially the same thing,) the mains confidently flash their badges and proclaim themselves as Hunters with pride, and in V9, they essentially define what a Huntsman and Huntress IS by saying that they're good people who help others who can't help themselves or something, and then profess that their job is their identity and therefore they're good people. I mean, come on! We literally see Cardin harassing Faunus classmates and blackmailing others and he was on track to get licensed as a badge-carrying law enforcement officer that presumably can arrest people and muscle their ways into peoples houses, and the mains knowing that still define the job itself as something inherently good that good people do? Blake defines it as something good that good people do?!?! On top of all that, there's this general idea in the show (and from the fifteen or so chapters of Before the Dawn I read, the books too) that what actually makes Hunters good is the lack of accountability, which is a very bad messaging to give to your 'basically cops' that arrest people and point their weapons in peoples faces, especially in the 2020s.

So yeah, the show itself had a chance to make the Hunters distinctly other from cops and not full on corrupt, which in a fantasy world I would say is good enough. If the Hunters were just monster hunters with Ozpin's shadow war fighting Salem's people behind the scenes, I think that would be a good way around it. But even if they wanted to lean more on politics and takedowns of people like Jacques in the Atlas arc, they could've had our mains either just be adjacent to that as part of the shadow war, but not as licensed badge-carrying law enforcement officers themselves arresting people. Along with some other changes like not having Sun and Blake call the cops on the White Fang and not have the White Fang this big bad terrorist group either, that would make it so that I'm fine with it.

Personally, I would've gone the route of making the Hunters just monster hunters while Oz also has this shadow war going on, and the Hunter Academies are regulated by the government. And instead of having the Atlas hunters just basically cops under the military, I would've had the Atlas military and the Hunters be much more separate, with (not evil) James running both, but in different ways, and eventually have him fired from his position with the military and have somebody else more corrupt come in or something. I haven't made many plans to the Atlas arc for my own personal rewrite ideas yet, but I think that could work.

I would go the route of trying to make the Hunter Academies less corrupt and more separated from police, but I know other people are going the route of leaning into the problems and then having them acknowledged and dealt with instead, and that's a good option too. But yeah, the way the RWBY writers decided to go is just cops and copaganda by a different name. They might as well have just had the mains become cops in V7 and then profess that their identity is being cops and cops are perfect, because it's basically the same result imo.

[peterneptune16]

⚠️Warning, Major RWBY Volume 9 Spoilers⚠️

WhiteKnight - A ship I did not appreciate fully until the past few volumes

As I have probably proven with my posts in the past, My ideals on Weiss and Jaune ships are a bit odd. I’ve shown expressions of support for Arkos, Iceberg, and White Knight. And these are all ships that I love and always will love. But I wanted to make a post talking about how I feel about White Knight. Because really the more time and volumes have gone on, the more and more I really really love this ship and hope it becomes canon. As I have seen a lot of evidence for it someday being a canon ship, not quite as much as RG, but still a very substantial amount.

To start things off- I want to talk about Jaune’s relationship with Weiss, cause this is overall a far less complex part but still very worth talking about. As we all know, Jaune started off with a crush on Weiss. But then that slowly faded with time, instead his crush being on Pyrrha, especially in Volume 3. But ever since then, Jaune has shown signs of truly appreciating and liking Weiss’ friendship. And for most of the recent volumes, he has at first seemed to keep things mostly on a platonic level from my point of view. But, the more I look into it, there is legit evidence he could still have some serious feelings for her. Especially in Volume 8, he was devastated whenever Weiss didn’t come back with Winter. And it could be argued that he even felt this way in V5, with his devastated reaction to her being impaled by Cinder.

Next thing- Weiss’ feelings towards Jaune. This is a bit more of a complex and fun part. Weiss of course started off thinking Jaune was unqualified and not worth her time, even finding him annoying. Although, she did start to feel differently about him towards Volume 3, seeming to overall appear more friendly towards Jaune in the few interactions they had. Then, there was Volume 5, where it was shown it seemed she did truly miss Jaune and his antics, and she was grateful for his help at Haven. Clearly she was happy to see Jaune again and to be reunited with all of her former classmates. Then in Volume 6, She was even quick to try and defuse Jaune’s anger towards Oscar. Whereas around the time of Volume 1, she likely would have just made fun of him or done something else to make him even more mad. Then there was Volume 7, where she was quick to actually want to go see a movie with him and Oscar, a parallel to her rejecting his offer to see a movie together in the earlier volumes. Showing that she had grown more comfortable around Jaune in all this time. Then it became even more complex in Volume 8- to start things off- all of the characters seemed to be divided via people they were closest with/in a relationship with. Ruby/Oscar, Blake/Yang, and Nora/Ren. This would leave Weiss and Jaune as the last pair. That may not be actually concrete evidence but I do find it kind of fun and think that there was a choice there for symbolism, CRWBY loves the smaller details. Then we have the ending episodes of RWBY Volume 8, and in those Weiss showed more worry for Jaune it would seem. Even looking worried as he stopped boosting her aura and ran towards Penny. Then ofc, they sat together and she seemed to wanna keep her eyes on Jaune. Then finally, in the finale of that Volume, Jaune and Weiss were there for each other the whole fight. Weiss showing remorse for Jaune due to him having to kill Penny and actively wanted to help him out, physically helping him stand again after he fell to his knees. Finally- Volume 9. Of course we had Weiss saying Jaune was more “Mature~” and blushing profusely afterwards. But more than that, Weiss also showed genuine concern for Jaune’s mental state and also was the first one to try and ease Jaune’s mind over him feeling like a failure, like he wasn’t a good enough hero, and subsequently being the first one to hug him. She then also showed the most expressive response to Jaune being his old self again, giggling at his reaction to being back to his old self. It may not be the most concrete evidence to say she has feelings for him, but there seems to be a lot of stuff pointing to there being something there that wasn’t there before.

So while there may be less solid evidence for it than with RoseGarden, I really really like this ship and would not be mad if it became canon. It would make me happy to see these two get a happy ending together, they both deserve a happy ending after all.

[notmaplemable]

Hot Buttons issue: Do you think Cinder should have died at the end of V5?

Hmm, good question.

Well, thinking about it simply from a power scaling point of view. Cinder to that point has killed the main mentor of RWBY in Ozpin, and the strongest of the protagonists in Pyrrha. Not to mention she's a fully fledged maiden, so we can assume she's pretty much the strongest of the antagonists outside of Salem.

Of course, she still was recovering somewhat from getting silver eyed at Beacon, so she's probably not at full strength at Haven.

So who could beat Cinder and not break the power scaling? Raven can since she did in canon. And that makes sense, as she's a maiden herself with more experience.

Qrow? He was having a hard time with Tyrian, and did technically lose that fight, but that was with Ruby kind of getting in the way. And I'm not going to bring up the Atlas rematch, since that's kind of ex post facto.

If we assume that Qrow is close or as strong as a aura user can get without magic, than you could have him win a 1v1 without it feeling like he pulled a win out of nowhere.

I don't think any of RWBY or JNOR could beat her 1 on 1. And with how things were going up in the... courtyard? Whatever you want to call it, I doubt they would be able to get more than one or two people to go down and actually do anything there. And I still don't think they would beat her 2 on 1.

And if Raven's still down there, it would basically still just be her win with some assistance.

And I guess Ruby could technically beat Cinder with her silver eyes, but seeing as she hadn't used them once after Beacon, and hadn't been trying to train with the either, that would feel a bit anticlimactic for me.

------

So, Raven and Qrow are probably the only ones who I would think could beat Cinder without it feeling like an ass pull.

But there is a problem there.

Neither Raven or Qrow really have much of a personal vendetta against Cinder. Raven kind of does when Cinder killed Vernal, but Vernal is kind of a nothing character, so that doesn't really work for me.

Qrow has absolutely no connection to Cinder outside of the fall of beacon and everything that happened around it.

Blake is busy dealing with her personal antagonist in Adam and Yang was doing much the same with Mercury. They don't have any sort of personal vendetta against her more so than they have with any of the other characters involved in the fall, besides Adam and Mercury. And it's the same with Weiss. Since none of them really had much of a personal connection with Pyrrha outside of being in the same friend group.

That we see at least.

Ruby's had a few run ins with Cinder, and watched her kill Pyrrha. And Cinder has a thing against Ruby. So Ruby killing her off would work from a narrative perspective.

Jaune, Ren, and Nora all of course have the personal connection in Cinder killing their teammate, good friend, and partner in Jaune's case. So any of them killing her off would work too.

And having team RNJR come together one last time before disbanding to beat Cinder would be a good send off for the team. But I don't really think they could beat her, seeing as they couldn't beat Tyrian and Cinder should be stronger than him. Not to mention that they all probably wouldn't be in a position to fight Cinder alone as it is.

------

And of course, you run into the problem that you'd be killing off your most dangerous antagonist who isn't Salem in the middle of the second act.

That would be like killing off Darth Vader during the asteroid scene in Empire. It just doesn't quite work. Not that Cinder is anywhere close to Vader's level as a character, but I digress.

And you also have to go looking for the new fall maiden if you kill her off by having Raven beat her in the same way. Cause I doubt Cinder would be thinking about anyone else than Raven in that moment.

------

So in summary, despite the fact that I don't really like Cinder as a character. I don't think it any of the characters who could kill Cinder would be very satisfying to have do so. And any of the characters that would be satisfying to have beat Cinder could beat her without pulling out the eye lasers.

And if those two things did or could happen, it would be too early in the story to kill off the most threating villain who isn't the big bad.

[citadelofmythoughts]

Different anon here, and not to keep talking about BS lol but over the years and seeing lots of Feelings about them, they way I’ve come to see the purpose of Sun in Blake’s story is that he was a Safe Crush.

You are Blake, recently leaving your mentor partner unhealthy relationship of four to five years. Assuming she had run around the forest during their initiation she didn’t find anyone she wanted to partner with until she saw Yang fighting. And as they grow closer, well, ID be pretty scared if I found myself developing feelings for ANOTHER partner after the last one turned out the way it did. They are different ppl yes but the brain will make connections out of anything. Last partner bad, in order to keep new partner as a normal person in my life I must stay just friends.

In comes Sun, who is a Faunus like Adam with physical features he can’t easily hide (the horns and then the tail) who is so unserious and goofy. Blake is stronger now and that’s not to say ppl who act kind also can’t manipulate you, but Sun was so shallow and surface level that he was an open book. He thought she was cute and knew she was a Faunus and that’s why he was drawn to her. Not bc she was the WF leaders daughter or bc of her semblance or use to him. Just a cute girl.

And I think she needed that. She needed normal teenage crush feelings. A goofy guy who asks her to the dance and winks at her after winning a match. Something simple and something safe.

Adam Yang and Sun do not have A Lot in common, but you can make connections that have enough similarities that show why Blake was drawn to them, why she would be nervous about them, and ultimately who her feelings ran deeper for. Because while she was having normal crush feelings for Sun, Yang as her friend and partner was getting to the root of things. Burning the Candle is iconic bc Yang opens up to Blake, compares their situations with versing about a certain thing without making it all about her or dismissing Blake’s concerns. She wants her to rest, not give up.

Where Sun, in a situation that on the surface is similar, misses the mark is bc he doesn’t give Blake space. He assumes she’s going to stop the WF and comes along in secret to help her. While his intentions are good he doesn’t understand Blake and didn’t ask her. He’s a good friend but he’s messy with it. He’s still seeing things in a shallow way. And while I do think he shows greater depth after his injury when he compares his situation to Yang’s, his purpose is to be the stand-in.

When Yang got hurt Blake left to keep her safe. She can’t run away from Sun. I know a lot of ppl don’t like him or his presence in the arc and that’s totally valid. He oversteps a lot. But for his purpose of being the Friend who wants to help who will stick up for her even if they get hurt, bc the point is to fight together, I enjoy him there for that. Some say she didn’t need him there to learn that but I think with Ilia’s arc being white gang centric and not “friend / love interest I’m afraid of hurting” focused, she would’ve needed something else to show HER that not only was she worth staying for, but getting hurt by standing beside her wasn’t a punishment.

And then we have volume 6, where Sun says his goodbyes and removes himself from Blake’s story for now. The safe crush saw the writing on the wall and even in V5 he was like “LOOK WHOS HERE”. Sun in canon has no claim over Blake and he never thought he did. He liked her yes, but at the end of the day he saw that her feelings were for Yang and he was more than fine with it.

Sun was a safe counterpart to Adam and training wheels for the V6 fight with Yang Blake and Adam. His purpose is to be the literal blueprint for “Your friends and loved ones fight with you, and would rather be hurt helping you than protected by you leaving. Which hurts much more”.

That is how I view the BS elements in the show, a crush that helps Blake get more comfortable until she stands on her own and makes that deliberate choice with Yang in V6 to face Adam head on. Just like in real life other ppl and our relationships with them shape us and help us learn about ourselves and grow. Sun was a growing element for her, not her permanent destination, which is why I enjoy their relationship and hate so much his mischaracterization as someone owed love. SUN does think he’s owed anything so why do other ppl place that on him. He knows his role in Blake’s life and he’s happy about it

That's honestly a nice way of looking at it all.

My general attitude toward him to the contrary, I don't hate Sun, he was there as a friend when Blake needed him and knew that it wasn't gonna work out between them romantically and backed the fuck off which was the right thing to do.

[gorgynei]

Summer and Raven used Relic of Knowledge's first question (theory)

The fact that Jinn is already one question short before RWBY even finds it has always bugged me. In the past 100 years, someone who knew about the relics, was close enough to Ozpin to learn Jinn's name, had access to the Spring Maiden, and wasn't interested in the relic outside of one question had to have been in Haven and used the lamp. The only people who I can possibly think of that match this bill are Oz's (at the time) inner circle: Ironwood, Lionheart, Qrow, Glynda, and Raven.

Raven Branwen, with fresh spring maiden powers, and Summer Rose used the Relic of Knowledge together, causing Raven to completely lose hope in the battle against Salem and Summer to go on a solo-mission that she never returned from.

Raven knows about Ozpin's true past and that Salem is unkillable.

This is very easy to see just based on how Raven holds herself and how she treats Ozpin. In V5, viewers never had a real reason to distrust Oz, but Raven is laying it on thick. She talks about Oz about the same way that team RWBY does later on in V6, after using the lamp. She dances around telling Yang and Weiss everything she knows during their conversation in V5, but outright tells them that she knows more than she's telling them and to not trust anyone.

Raven describes herself learning Oz's secret (the existence of Salem), and then seeking more information beyond that. Raven calls Salem "unstoppable" and "impossible to defeat" repeatedly; she strongly believes that Salem is impossible to kill.

Learning via Jinn that she is impossible to defeat would certainly explain why she so strongly believes this.

Raven says that she knows about Ozpin's past. Qrow and the rest of Oz's group all know that he reincarnates, but Raven quite easily offers that up (or at least implies it) to Yang and Weiss, which makes it seem like she knows more beyond that. It's difficult to prove just how much Raven knows about Oz and Salem's past because the viewer isn't supposed to know about it at this point in the story, but Raven seemingly has a lot more information to offer to try and get Yang to stay, so it's likely that she knows at least the broad strokes.

Raven was the Spring Maiden that opened the Haven vault

This requires a bit of a breakdown of the pre-show timeline.

Over a decade prior to the events of RWBY V5, the previous spring maiden ran away. Raven met her soon after and killed her, taking the powers for herself. "Over a decade" is up to interpretation, but assuming that it means somewhere around 13-16 years, it would put Yang at anywhere from 2 to 5 years old. That perfectly lines up with when Summer left.

So, over a decade ago, Raven gained spring maiden powers, and right about the same time, Summer disappeared. It's unclear when exactly Raven cut ties with Oz in relation to this point, but we can safely assume that it was before, because Raven was with her tribe when the previous maiden arrived and she only returned to her tribe after leaving Oz's group.

At this point, Raven might have informed Summer of her powers. It's unclear what kind of relationship they had, but Summer is the only member of team STRQ that Raven has not outright insulted, so it's possible she trusted Summer slightly more than her brother and Tai.

Using those powers, Raven easily could have gotten down to the Haven vault, as she was a trusted members of Oz's group and knew Lionhart, and used the relic.

Mystery surrounding Summer's disappearance

The scene in V7 where Qrow talks about Summer with Ruby has always struck me as odd in a few ways. Ruby poses the question of "What if Summer knew about Salem being unkillable" and Qrow reveals that even Oz wasn't sure why Summer left.

Specific wording is everything in RWBY. Qrow says that Tai and himself were both in the dark about Summer's disappearance, but makes no mention of Raven at all. If your teammate went missing, you'd obviously reach out to your other teammates, even if you were estranged. The choice to not mention Raven here is important because it means theres room for Raven to have not been in the dark. Qrow also points out that theres a lot that Ozpin may have been hiding from them in the same breath as he says they were in the dark, seeding suspicion into the truth of even that statement.

It's obvious that Ruby is using Summer as a way to ask Qrow for advice and follow in her mother's footsteps, but I think the choice to have Ruby ask this immediately after Qrow says that Summer leaving was a mystery is significant. Linking the concepts of "what might Summer have done" and "Summer ran away" by having them in the same conversation is intentional.

Summer knew Salem could not be killed

Raven and Salem both directly compare Ruby to Summer when she talks about being able to defeat Salem.

RUBY: We've seen what you're capable of. The lamp showed us. It showed us everything. We've seen that you cant be killed, but we've also seen you fail. We don't have to kill you to stop you. And we will stop you. SALEM: Your mother said those words to me.

The only logical explanation for Summer saying any of that is for her to have used the lamp. Even just "we don't have to kill you to stop you, and we will stop you" wouldn't make sense if Summer was unaware that Salem is unkillable.

RAVEN: There is no "beating Salem". RUBY: You're wrong. We've done things that most people would call impossible and I know the only reason we were able to do it is because we didn't do it alone. We had people to teach us. People to help us. We had each other. Work with us. At least I know we'll have abetter chance if we try together. Please. RAVEN: You sound just like your mother.

Raven's comment also makes little sense if Summer didn't know about Salem being unkillable. However, Summer specifically telling Raven that they should work together to defeat Salem is important because it lends further proof to the idea that Summer and Raven used the lamp together.

However, I can't really explain the leap that Summer made from "work together to defeat Salem" to "leave everyone behind on a solo mission". Summer's motivations are intentionally unclear and I'd bet that these contradicting ideas are going to be important when we eventually learn what happened to Summer.

TLDR;

Raven gained the spring maiden powers over a decade ago and she and Summer used them to open the Haven vault without telling Oz and ask the lamp "What is Ozpin hiding from us", or something similiar. After learning that Salem is unkillable, Raven completely loses faith of Oz and in the fight against Salem and cuts off all ties with their group and her brother. Summer urges Raven to work together to stop Salem before eventually leaving to go confront her and never coming back.

[enchantra35]

Reflections on V4 & V5 of RWBY by a first time watcher

(Lengthy post ahead)

Hi, it's be again, back on my bullshit. First of all, I'd like to say that I didn’t expect my first post to get that much attention LOL. I'd like to clarify (again) two points:

First, I agree with most people's explanations. I didn't mean to sound like I was accusing fans for not thinking that bumbleby would become canon. My intention was to point out to some earlier hints, and I realize now that I could have used some better phrasing. As I explained elsewhere, when rwby aired, I was too young to know anything about the state of queer representation in media at the time. Now of course I know better, although I never got to experience that kind of anxiety - at least, not to that extent. My second point is that I was mostly referring towards homophobes and incels who were trying to persuade shippers that bumbleby wasn't happening, and not to fans who couldn't be certain due to the overall circumstances.

With that said, the aim of this post is mainly to discuss some things I've noticed while watching volumes 4 & 5. There wasn't much I wished to comment on after finishing v4 as I found it very transitional, so I decided to do one unified post for both volumes, especially since someone suggested to watch these volumes as one. Let me now get to the main points I'd like to mention.

-Edit: I forgot one of the most important motifs imo; the moon. I noticed how each volume it looks bit by bit more ruined, showing how the world below is also falling it chaos and society as it is known is destroyed. Also, it's eventual (potential) complete destruction will make the nights darker, symbolizing the triumph of evil. I love subtle details like that.

- Ozpin's and Crow's dynamic really reminds me of Dumbledore and Snape. Ozpin in particular reminds me very much of Dumbledore - and I definitely don't mean that as a good thing. Although he clearly has good intentions and he's a "good guy" per se, sometimes it feels like he's using his students as sacrificial lamps for the greater good. Personally, I'm not exactly font of the idea of pushing the fate of the world onto the shoulders of a bunch of teenagers. Oscar is still a KID and all he's ever known is how to be a farmer and suddenly he's sharing a body with one of the smartest and most powerful people to ever walk the earth and their fates are suddenly intertwined. That's so insane. And on top of everything, Ozpin isn't 100% honest with him. I'm glad that Yang confronts him about keeping secrets. I will give it to him however that he's honest enough to admit his mistakes.

-Raven is probably one of the most fascinating characters. Can't say whether I like her or hate her, but there are so many layers to touch upon. It's interesting how she's constantly trying to prove to others - and essentially to the viewers as well - that she's cruel, smart and calculating (and she definitely is all those things) and that she doesn't care about trifle things, but ultimately she fails, as it is evident by the end of volume 5. She does care about Yang (although she has a very strange way of showing it) and her tribe most of all. She's also smart enough to see Ozpin's shortcomings.

- I liked how they explored Yang's trauma from loosing her arm and how she copes with the loss. "A part of me is lost" is such a powerful statement and it points to how everything has changed, but Yang accepts it.

-At the same time, that girl has no chill with that prosthetic arm. She straight up dismantles it off her shoulder just to win the wrestling against Nora (and later on to elude Mercury. I bet that if anyone asked her to give them a hand, she would just toss it on their feet then laugh her ass out. She's so silly, I love her.

-With that said, I wish they could have explored a little bit more of Jaune's trauma, but still I think we see well enough how Pyrrha's death has affected him. But why the FUCK did they have to give him more trauma in order to unlock his semblance? Another of his friends almost dies before his eyes, give that boy a break, good Lord.

- Ren and Nora 👀. I love me some good childhood bestdriends to potential lovers. Their background is so tragic but there's something about then growing up together that makes me feel things. I love their dynamic and I think it's pretty hilarious (collected, quiet guy and loud, silly, powerful girl). It was nice how they gained some catharsis when they finally killed that monster. And the symbolism when they hid under similar building where Nora tried to calm Ren down? Literal tears.

-"I was struck by a lighting and I lived. What a Wednesday" GIRL WHAT, LMAO

- I really enjoyed Blake's and Sun's dynamic, whether someone sees them romantically or platonically (for me personally it's the latter, but that's besides the point). Sun has always been a great friend, and although he can be really annoying sometimes, he is there for Blake and he's able to make her see things clearly and persuade her that isolating herself isn't a good thing. I feel like without him around, things for the Belladonnas would have been very different. He's a bit of a himbo, but I love him.

-The angsty Bees got me really well this season. Yang's anger is definitely justifiable and she has every right to be upset.

-"What if I wanted her to be here for me?" BITCH-

-Weiss pulling the "what's that supposed to mean?" every time the Bees are being angsty will forever be funny to me. The OG Beekeeper.

-That said, I think that she explains Blake's point of view really well and I liked how she reached out to Yang although "they aren't that close" (her words, not mine) and seeks to comfort her.

-Did I say that I hate Weiss's family? (Except maybe Winter, but the rest can go burn in hell). I'm GLAD Weiss realizes that ream RWBY is her true family. You love to see a good found family trope.

-Genuinely CANNOT stand the Bees this season /j. Blake seeing her team again and the only person she calls out for is Yang? And Yang's puppy eyes when she sees Blake again? WHY ARE YOU GAY?

-One of the funniest lines was when Crow was like "How can six children make so many noise while having dinner?", like BUDDY, you just answered your question. Tired uncle Crow for the win.

[invested-in-your-future]

Just because I got few similar asks asking about that

The issue with "Fixing" a writing of a show is that you are naturally assuming you are only fixing specific "season" and that there will be a point in the show when the writing "goes back" to being coherent and proper.

So for example, if you are trying to fix Volume 4 as Volume 5 is airing, you might, consciously or subconsciously, hope that V5 ending is where everything once again "clicks" and thus you just need to alter what doesn't work in V4 and what doesn't in V5.

So you think up of which parts should be changed. And sure that might mean entirety of Menagerie location needs to go (because real world implications of that whole arc are just...NO and you can probably think up a better WF storyline in half a hour with how bad that was) and Port needs to disappear off the face of this fictional story and pointless empty scenes of Ruby and Co walking through exact same forest textures need to be changed, but the structure might still work right? They are still traveling towards a specific goal right? So you just have to change HOW they get to that goal, because there is a goal right??? And then You just need to tweak the elements that don't work in V5 up to the ending where you hope things might get shaken up a bit more and go back on track.

But then V5 ends and the writing's still a mess. And before you manage to quite think through what to do, V6 starts and the writing is STILL a mess and what's more, it has a whole new set of problems and by this point you realize that for example, the entire structure of Kingdom of Mistral doesn't quite make sense, as if "someone" just plopped bunch of town locations in a straight line and then used Google's translation feature to just make up bunch of names for them, because entire continent is ultimately just an irrelevant detour.

Whoops, now you have to review what you did with fixing earlier parts and see if new problems arose, change up the geography of the story a bit, etc. You just realized that there's not really "a point" to the adventure of traveling through Mistral anymore so you need to think something up as you realize that the main character of the entire story has absolutely zero character growth from V3. The show is back to status quo yet again and its like V4 through V5 are completely pointless.

You realize, that Ruby Rose, the character that went through some of the most lifechanging events ever, just spent two seasons just ambiguously walking through bunch of forest areas and towns.

What's more, the team is back together but literally nothing that happened has been addressed in anyway and there's no actual growth of the characters at all. That can't be right. Right? Surely at least Yang and Blake w-... Oh no...

Resigned, you go back to your thoughts about what would need to change in V4 and a lot has to change once again to make Mistral anything but one huge pointless detour.

But its okay you th-...wait what's that sound? Its as if, somewhere just outside, a train just went off the rails as it was crossing a bridge and then somehow managed to jump over a shark and then exploded as it hit the ground...Whoopsie daisy.

In this exact moment, the writing throws you the infamous "Salem Flashback Episode", "The Lost Fable", and accidentally entire lore is now broken completely and it might be one of the worst written things in the entire show till that point, that kind of trivializes multiple mysteries people were waiting for and makes the writing for lead villain extremely tropey and honestly (yet again, as you start to notice a pattern in how the show writes women) misogynistic and if you want to make things work you might as well redo that too. Wait..."that" as in what??? As in the entire core of why the show is happening in the first place? THAT's broken? Well F-...

So now you barely started sorting out the mess of V5 (because its entire volume of basically literally nothing happening and whatever interesting happens always gets off-screened) and the show-proper just basically NUKED almost all of it's set-up and more than half of it's mysteries.

You realize you are staring at an episode that honestly can compete with worst seasons of Voltron in how bad it is. You actually start to think it might compete with the second genLOCK season in awfulness, but end up not thinking it can be THAT bad. I mean the show will never go bad as genLOCK S2, riiight?

Its okay, its okay - you have been theorycrafting RWBY stuff since the first trailers hit. You've read all the song lyrics which are filled with all these immaculate hints at the intent behind the show, thoughts of various characters and where things are going, you can maybe piece together something other than another "disgruntled manipulative woman" storyline. The songs having actual lore is great. I mean they wouldn't just suddenly throw that away, right? As that thought hits you, a sense of dread starts to overcome you.

And thus as another disaster closes in. at this point, little does your past self know that in the future, few years latter, the show will deliver a whole season of nothing but train crashes, but this time the sharks being jumped will talk like humans do.

So yeah... you can't really "Fix RWBY". Sure parts like Ren and Nora's backstory episode are nice and there are moments that felt good otherwise, but at that point, pretty much majority of post-V3 stuff is outright unusable. At this point to Fix RWBY means to redo literal core reasons on why the story is happening, how the world and it's lore works, motivations of the characters and, well, everything...

And that's how you end up with a file over hundred pages long that quietly has chronicled both your efforts to make sense of what the show even wants to be, as well as the show's descent into just complete randomness...

After all, when a writing team writes EVERY volume as one huge pointless detour that in no way actually enhances the characterization or story, at some point the whole train is bound to derail and crash...over and over again.

[strqyr]

In relation to the whole what on earth is Tai doing rn situation, am I the only one who thinks it could be related to Summer? Don't get me wrong, I think there's a good chance he has some involvement in guarding the vault/relic somehow but. My first thought when Yang said what could be more important than being there in Vacuo (with them, his daughters) was just. Summer.

Hear me out, his two daughters whom he loves and he probably assumed were dead are alive and well in Vacuo, Qrow is doing better than he has been in a long while and is in Vacuo, even Raven has rejoined the fray for good and is in Vacuo. Even if he's on a super important mission guarding the relic or something else, there's a personal edge being asked by Yang "what could be more important to Tai than his family?" And a mission guarding/securing the relic, while important for the big picture, feels like it somewhat lacks that personal edge for Tai as a character (but in fairness, like Ruby says, we might not have the full picture). Everyone Tai cares about and would consider family is in Vacuo. Except for Summer. Who he believed would one day come back when she left on her last mission. In v4 we hear Qrow, in a lucid state, saying to Tai "she's not coming back" and since Ruby is the one present when this scene occurs, and judging from her reaction, it's safe to say this concerned Summer's last mission and her not coming back, and Tai's belief she would, and not being able to move on.

If the theory of it being a Grimm!Summer that Salem contacted in V4 about finding the relic in Beacon via the Seer Grimm (as she only uses the Seer Grimm to communicate with other people), and with Vale now being destroyed by Salem and her implied to be looking for the relic there more actively with less and less pretense for secrecy, I wouldn't be surprised if Tai got wind of information that Summer might be in Vale and is now on a mission to find her. Ruby also states in V3 to her mother's grave that Tai misses going out on missions with Summer. And now he's out on a mission. Possibly to find Summer. Especially if Raven had some kind of talk with Tai in between the end of v5 and the v9 epilogue and confided in him what really happened on Summer's last mission.

I also kind of think it'd be really funny if Tai, knowing all his family, Ruby, Yang, Qrow and Raven, are in Vacuo, somehow finds out that Summer is in Vale and is like. Well. If we're going to do a family reunion in Vacuo, then we're going to have EVERYONE for a godamn proper family reunion. In summary he cannot leave for Vacuo to be with his family unless he's done everything he can to find and bring Summer along too, so all of their family, STRQYR, can be together again.

I think this also could be more interesting from a character perspective too. Tai not being able to let go of Summer and his grief for her in the past is why he wasn't as emotionally present in Ruby and Yang's childhood (though he definitely tried his best given the circumstances). It would fit as a parallel that he is now not physically present with Ruby and Yang because he's pursuing Summer and can't let her go.

But also, it could be both! Tai is out there trying to, idk, secure the relic and make sure it's safe, and Summer is actively trying to find it for Salem. So Tai has to guard the relic from Summer. Which would be so deliciously angsty. Especially if Summer has not been able to find the relic, and all she needed to do to find it was go back home. (whether that's Patch or Tai or both, take your pick). After all, there's no place like home.

you're not the only one in a sense that for a while now i've been thinking that at least part of the reason why tai hasn't left anywhere from patch is because he's still waiting for summer to return. it took me embarrassingly long time to realize how well "summer is looking for the relic" and "tai is guarding the relic" click together, especially if summer's memorial is somehow involved, bc then it's not just that summer needs to come home to find what she's been looking for, she also needs to come back to the books of living.

but the idea that it's why tai isn't currently in vacuo is new to me, and now i'm OBSESSED with it.

the only point of hesitation for me is that, like. writing-wise, would they make that 'reveal' off-screen, now that ruby has information that others might not have? would it 'undermine' it in a way if ruby asked raven about it, only for her to have already told tai (and possibly even qrow)? of course if tai didn't believe her that changes things a bit, but. . .

if tai caught wind of it on his own, that would 'fix' that issues—and there's a non-zero chance of that happening; like you said, vale has been destroyed, and if summer has been looking for the relic at beacon for salem, having her be present in vale isn't out of the question. and i'm not even talking about her taking part of the destruction, quite the opposite in fact (tho much of this depends on what state summer is in; i'm personally leaving towards any option where she still has free will to do what she wants):

she could have been doing her job as a huntress, thinking that destroying the whole kingdom crossed the line for her, trying her best to minimize the damage and save as many people as she can. and at that point, all it takes is one person summer saved to evacuate to patch first and to start talking about this figure in a white cloak wielding an axe, saving people from the grimm but never staying long enough for them to see her face, for others to join in sharing their own experiences, and the word keeps spreading and spreading and spreading—

until it reaches tai. and at that point, he knows. or at least, there's a renewed hope that he might have lost a while ago, and before he can even think of leaving, he must be absolutely certain that it's not summer people saw.

anyway, thank you for the delicious food!! i'll be thinking about this for the rest of the month at least, if not for longer :D

[penny-weiss]

RWBY Parallels V5, V8, and V9

Ruby’s hand-to-hand combat.

V5E3: Ozpin, “Getting you four in fighting shape… (points to Ruby) You can only fight so long as you have Crescent Rose, but you’re still lacking in hand-to-hand combat.”

V8E14: Ruby loses Crescent Rose. While she had some coaching from Ozpin in volume 5 and tries to engage in hand-to-hand combat against Neo in volume 8, it’s clear she heavily relied upon her weapon. I expect in volume 9, we will start to see her branch out of her comfort zone to other styles of combat. I hope Yang is going to coach her a bit more in the art of hand-to-hand.

Ruby is purity.

V5E5: Blake, “Have you ever met someone and thought to yourself, ‘They are the personification of this word’? …I remember getting to know Ruby and thinking, ‘This girl is the embodiment of purity.’ After a while, I saw Weiss was defiance. And Yang was strength.”

V9: The quote from season 5 about Ruby being purity reminded me of the poem Child of the pure unclouded brow from Alice in Wonderland that speaks of losing one’s sunny face and silver laughter. Ruby's purity and silver eyes may be why she is tied to the weather in this version of Wonderland. The last stanza of the poem especially stood out to me. 

And though the shadow of a sigh May tremble through the story, For ‘happy summer days’ gone by, And vanish’d summer glory – It shall not touch with breath of bale The pleasance of our fairy-tale.

How do you handle all of this?

V5E5: 

Oscar to Ruby, “How do you handle all of this? …How can you be so confident? People have tried to kill you. The world’s about to go to war all over again. How are you okay with any of this?”

Ruby to Oscar, “When Beacon fell, I lost two of my friends: Penny Pollendina and Pyrrha Nickos. I didn’t know them for very long but that doesn’t change the fact they were two of the most kind-hearted people I’d ever met. But that didn’t save them. Pyrrha thought if there was even the smallest chance of helping someone that it was a chance worth taking, and because of that, she died fighting a battle she knew she couldn’t win. And Penny was killed just to make a statement… I am scared but not just for me. What happened at Beacon shows Salem doesn’t care if you’re standing against her or not. She’ll kill anybody, and that scares me most of all. Pyrrha, Penny, I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t hurt, that I didn’t think about them every day since I lost them, that I didn’t wish I had spent more time with them. If it had been me instead, I know they would have kept fighting too, no matter how dangerous it was. So that’s what I choose to do: to keep moving forward."

V8E14: Penny is still fighting even after Ruby and Blake fell. 

V9 Intro: While Ruby could still keep a positive outlook in Volume 5 after the initial loss of Penny, I can't imagine Ruby keeping the same outlook in Volume 9 after round 2 of losing Penny.

Think back to Beacon

V5E7: Ren, “That desire to go back and tell yourself not to be so stupid. That just proves you’re not the person you used to be. You’re smarter or kinder or stronger, and you’re not done growing yet.”

V9 Trailer: “What are you going to be?”

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice says, "Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be no use they're putting their heads down and saying ‘Come up again, dear!’ I shall only look up and say ‘Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down here till I’m somebody else’—but, oh dear!” cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, “I do wish they would put their heads down! I am so very tired of being all alone here!”

I think Ruby's younger self speaking to her older self is meant to mirror the conversations Alice has about who she is and who she will become.

If Ruby sticks around…

V5E7: Yang, “If Ruby sticks around, then I will too. If there’s one thing I know about her, it’s that she somehow always knows the right thing to do.”

V9 Trailer: Unknown voice (though it sounded similar to Salem to me), “You never were the hero... You seem to be carrying a rather large burden with you. What if you could leave Ruby Rose behind, shed like an old coat? What might happen if you don’t?"

Will the team have to face this question? What growth will Ruby have to go through to keep fighting and to continue being a leader?

I'm still rewatching the other seasons, but I found some of these moments interesting to compare, and I am excited to see Ruby's growth especially!

[armed-and-rwby]

So, and I know this is kind of bad timing in June, but I can't deny any longer than Yang's character was seriously compromised after V5

This isn't really a scripted thing and I've not written analysis in a while, so forgive the loose formatting here, just something I needed to get out.

I think the overall issues can apply to more of the MCs than Yang, which I'll bring up later, but RWBY has an unfortunate tendency of resolving character arcs without much overlap with the plot, and Yang definitely gets it worse than most (and she's my favourite).

Back in V5, Yang was exploding with directions for her character and I think the writers worked hard to touch on all of them, from her recovery, to her growing mistrust of authority, to her issues with her mom, to her reconnecting with her team (and of course the deeper angst with Blake in that), but resolution for all of these largely fell short IMO. The last time she's even talked about the scheming of Oz was in V6 when she called him a bastard, Raven has never been mentioned or some up since V5, and I don't think she's even spoken to Weiss since their heart to heart in V5 outside of plot functional dialogue. The same can be said on her relationship with her sister, which, beyond her sacrifice in V8 and an unresolved conversation earlier in the volume about Salem and their mom, also haven't actually interacted with each other. The only thing really addressed was her lost arm, which was an extension of Bumblebey and closed off when they killed Adam in V6, a great fight with very little to do with the actual plot.

In V7 and 8, she's a complete third wheel, she talks with Robyn and fights the Ops in 7, and doesn't even get a fight in V8. Weiss certainly got it almost as bad, she was a bit more involved, but still not much given how this is her kingdom and her family that was so central to the plot. It's a condition of a bloated cast, which they've addressed a couple times, such as the start of V6 and all of V9 (though with their various guides, the girls don't make a lot of relevant decisions on the flow of that story either). It really did suck that we got to see Ruby's suicide through Yang's eyes, only for us to not see any of their reactions, and even when they see her it's all pretty surface level stuff (Yang even just repeats what Weiss tells her about Ruby).

My favourite scene in the whole show was her confronting her mom, I thought that was such a perfect direction for her character, tying together both her conviction to her family with her backstory of her mom to drive her arc forward in some unique ways, only to be sidelined in following chapters as her ship left port. And while this post isn't here to bash Bumblebey, I guess there's a bit of a warning that, since that was almost all of her drama and driving force for the last 4 volumes, with it canonized, I worry she'll only drift further away from the plot and her own unique character moments.

Wish I had some gifs or something to break up these paragraphs, but I'm just kind of vomiting out all these nagging issues that've been building up these last few years. Really does hurt to love a character like that and not see them utilized in the show