#i had an Idea. it is not executing well | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bestworstcase · 26 days ago

Note

Anything from Volumes 1-3 that is setup that you don't think is given enough attention or respect for good setup?

Sidenote to this:

Open seat with no person in it + Salem having someone looking for the Choice Relic was hinting at Summer Rose. Did we have anything hinting at her pre Beacon's Fall or just things that she fits given additional context?

regarding summer specifically, while i wouldn’t call them hints per se, there are a handful of beats in v1-3 that smell like foreshadowing to me:

the first is “she was right about you; such arrogance.” – cinder might well be referring to salem here, of course. however. what strikes me about this remark is that arrogance is not a characteristic that salem seems to perceive in ozma; rather she describes him, in her soliloquies and songs, as a self-destructive, deceitful, manipulative fool blinded and trapped by his faith in the old gods. cowardly. fallen from grace. think of what she says to oz in 8.9—look how you’ve diminished, how you’ve lessened yourself—she sees him groveling at the feet of tyrannical monsters and sees debasement.

does it follow for salem to characterize ozpin to cinder as, primarily, arrogant? i’m not convinced it does. but summer rose? well… hm. consider, also, that the full line is “this whole time, right beneath our feet… she was right about you; such arrogance…” <- i think it is more likely than not that “she” is someone inside the brackets of “our,” and in context “our” is either [cinder + ozpin] or [cinder + her associates physically present at beacon].

in the event that “she” is not part of “our” the more naturalistic phrasing is “beneath our feet… salem was right about you” – because “she” otherwise has no antecedent. of course, some allowance here for this to be a narrative choice not to name salem yet, but we’re one (1) episode off from revealing her face and by this point we’ve known for a while that cinder works for someone else, so the choice to drop the name here or in the volume credits is of fairly trivial importance. unless of course cinder isn’t talking about salem.

second: “Oh! We've also stopped some bad guys, too! I guess it's like they say: "like mother, like daughter"! I still wonder why Ozpin let me into the school early…” [laugh track] – obv this part of ruby’s address to summer’s memorial headstone foreshadows ozpin’s conspiracy and team strq’s involvement therein. but it also foreshadows this exchange:

RUBY: We don’t have to kill you to stop you, and we will stop you. SALEM: Your mother said those words to me… she was wrong, too.

and i think it bears pointing out that ruby is wrong here, and later in the volume qrow specifically calls attention to this and lays out why she’s wrong. team rwby didn’t stop the bad guys; they cut off one avenue of attack and cinder circled around from a new direction that took advantage of torchwick’s imprisonment, and this also resulted in the public break between ozpin and ironwood which eroded the cohesion of the inner circle. ergo, ruby thinks she stopped the bad guys but in the long run the consequences of the breach all benefited salem.

looks into the camera like im on the office.

like mother, like daughter!!!

further, that sequence of events ultimately leads to the final confrontation between her and torchwick – wherein he declares “if you can’t beat them, join ’em,” and shortly gets eaten by a grimm right after making it clear that he intends to kill her. torchwick’s death is thematically motivated – a narrative rejection of his cynical every-man-for-himself, dog-eats-dog outlook – but consider that:

summer rose, if she is indeed salem’s willing agent, is certainly at beacon tonight – because she’d be the one who stayed behind to hold the fort.

summer is thus the one salem instructs to “reinforce our numbers at beacon,” meaning the grimm; that instruction only makes sense if the person receiving it can communicate with or command grimm. ergo, summer must have some degree of control over grimm.

ruby is disarmed and on the ground getting beaten by a man who fully intends to kill her, and a grimm swoops down out of nowhere to eliminate him faster than he can blinks. and then… the grimm rears up, roaring at her, and comes down with a sweep of its wings that creates a blast of air that pushes her away. that isn’t aggression!! that’s a defensive threat display!! (the feilong in v4 does the exact same thing – trying to push the boat away). it’s ruby who charges the gryphon, and while it lunges forward in reaction to her charge, all that happens is she gets her feet on its head and pushes off to leap over it, and the grimm goes fucking flying so hard it crashes into the ship’s interior and never emerges. the point being,

math.

it’s plausible that the grimm was drawn to torchwick’s murderous rage. but the way it behaves immediately after it swallows him – that very clear “get away from me please” body language, and ruby -apparently- kicking a grimm the size of a goddamned clydesdale dozens of feet and then through the hull of a literal warship? ruby is strong, but she’s not… that strong. but if the grimm didn’t want to engage her and propelled itself under and past her at the same time as she vaulted off its head? that would explain what happens perfectly – ruby’s kick altered its launch trajectory just enough that it crashed.

minutes later, someone loyal to salem scraped a very badly injured cinder off the top of beacon tower and left ruby alive where qrow would find her. salem’s vested interest in keeping ruby alive is VISIBLE throughout the battle for beacon, and notably include a perfect opportunity to capture her while she’s in a coma atop beacon tower that isn’t taken – suggesting that salem makes her singular attempt to capture ruby solely to reassure cinder that Something is being Done.

and if summer rose has command over grimm and was at beacon that night… the gryphon’s behavior is exactly what i’d expect if all the grimm had marching orders to insure this one girl in particular – the spitting image of their commander – doesn’t come to serious harm. there’s a nonzero chance that gryphon did in fact save ruby On Purpose!

…and that happens in the context of a fight between ruby and the bad guy she thought she stopped (but she was wrong), who joined salem because “if you can’t beat em, join em.” (salem voice) she was wrong, too…

also

<- like mother like daughter. summer had a nevermore’s eye view of the battle for beacon, in this essay i will –

third: this one is something i didn’t really Think About until v9 and specifically the v9 ost dropping, but some of the things cinder says in v2-3 strike me as like – she got that from summer im sure of it. for example, in midnight, cinder’s view of huntsmen is that they’re free, they have power, they can go anywhere and do whatever they want, and rhodes never contradicts this. where did she get “huntsmen and huntresses should conduct themselves with honor and mercy”? who taught her the aspirational moral ideal?

summer rose, maybe.

but in the deeper sense,

where did cinder get the ‘destiny’ conceit? her underlying beliefs about how the world is are a product of her childhood, but the overt framing of fate/destiny isn’t present in midnight; nor has salem ever spoken of destiny and her philosophical views are in many ways a rejection of destiny – salem does not believe in fate, she is the woman who dedicated her life to toppling the gods.

and on close examination this looks like yet another suspiciously summer rose shaped hole!! “you’re special, ruby […] special the way your mom was special […] it was said that those born with silver eyes were destined to lead the life of a warrior.” – in after the fall, ozpin gives coco an entire pep talk whose central conceit is embracing and submitting to the turns of fate – sacrifice “show them gods and deities/blind and keep the people on their knees” & guide my way “you were born to hypnotize them all/they all said their prayers/can you hear me up there?”

cinder, of pyrrha: “people assume she’s fated for victory, when she's really taking fate into her own hands. interesting. add her to the list.” & “it’s not about overpowering the enemy; it’s about taking away what power they have.”

<- that second statement is salem’s strategic doctrine, through and through. but the ‘power’ cinder is talking about here is derived through manipulating the perception of destiny; the self-fulfilling prophecy. the invincible girl cannot be touched because she makes subtle adjustments to insure that no one is able to try. it is pyrrha’s belief in destiny that destroys her, as it destroys ozma. ozpin invokes fate to justify and explain his choices. those born with silver eyes are destined to lead the lives of warriors.

summer rose was destined to live and die fighting the grimm – so the world promised her. maybe she believed, maybe she felt like she had no choice but to accept her prescribed fate. until she met salem, and took fate into her own hands. made a choice. broke the chains. it’s about taking away what power they have, like salem did when she tore the scales from summer’s eyes, like summer did when she refused her destiny and joined hands with the grimm instead.

what does summer rose look like through cinder’s eyes? she was a huntress. she was literally destined to be one of the greatest huntresses in history, a hero, the shining pillar upholding the world order that chose the enslavement of children as a fair price for peace. fate dictated that she be the icon, the idol, the embodiment of the system that brutalized and subjugated cinder – she had every privilege cinder could ever dream of, freedom and security and a home, a loving family – and she chose to walk away.

and if they talked about that like, ever, and specifically if summer talked about that warrior’s destiny as a cage, a curse she had to escape – is it any wonder that cinder would adopt that framing to make sense of what happened to her? if summer rose was fated to stand at the pinnacle, then does it not follow that cinder fall was fated to be ground into the foundations? and likewise, if summer rose can shatter her pedestal and fall from grace, then cinder fall can shatter her chains and rise. summer proves that the idea of destiny is powerful but not inviolate. and it is hollow, it is a lie, a fiction, and that means it can be taken away. revealed as a deception. destroyed.

anyway

to the broader question

i think people really, really do not give the jaundice arc enough credit for the long-term set up it’s doing.

(or the very overt textual statement from THE HISTORY PROFESSOR! placing the blame for the violent radicalization of the white fang squarely on human bigotry and persecution of faunus in general; the white fang arc is clunky and hamstrung by the inadequacy of its vocabulary, but the fandom talking point that the narrative perspective on this subject has “evolved” or “improved” is just. not true. v1 is very emphatically clear that 1. terroristic violence is not activism, 2. ascribing the terroristic violence of a few to an entire minority group to rationalize bigotry is bigoted in and of itself and completely unacceptable, and 3. violent radicalization is created through relentless discrimination and hate, which creates a self-reinforcing circle wherein the justifiable outrage of the persecuted outgroup and the extreme violent reactions provoked by the persecution are distorted into a justification for further persecution by those of the in-group who materially benefit from perpetuating this cycle!!! all of this is explained in an almost afterschool special manner by the main character faunus rights activist and the history professor!!! in volume one!!! what changed is that the writers developed the skill and vocabulary necessary to weave these ideas into their storytelling in a more effective and more cogent way!!! literally begging the rwby fandom to start listening to the actual words the characters say)

ahem. the jaundice arc lays so much of the groundwork for jaune’s and ruby’s character arcs reaching all the way to v9 and undoubtedly beyond; it sets up the first pieces of the ozlem fractal; it foreshadows the white fang arc and sets up blake’s character arc of self-reclamation and figuring out how she wants to use her voice as an activist; it draws attention to the misogynistic cultural norms that define and are defined by the history between ozma and salem; it lays the foundation for the scene in v2 where ozpin questions blake, which hits the way it does because we have the context of anti-faunus harassment occurring openly at ozpin’s school and nobody doing anything about it, and by extension is the first stroke of the salem-faunus connection that is almost certainly the keystone holding the entire narrative together because it is her relation to the faunus that provides the key to decipher the lost fable.

the jaundice arc is a crucial load-bearing pillar that supports the entire narrative and people revile it because nobody in this fandom can be fucking normal about jaune. lmao

#in general i don’t think rwby gets enough credit for how much gets set up in the first two volumes #or how well the dominoes falling in v3 is executed #like the fandom gets properly excited when things from v1-2 come to fruition but like #i think there’s a really strong tendency across the board to kind of #mentally compartmentalizing the beacon arc as this sort of #experimental prelude to the actual story. the writers figuring out how to write by trial and error #and by extension to treat these long game narrative culminations as just. ''callbacks''#or post-hoc stitching together from the raw material of the early volumes #when really it’s just. the story was planned out from the start! lol!#''oh but the maidens didn’t even exist until v3'' salem and cinder are in the first goddamned episode.#their narrative arcs were planned in advance but probably had a hole (like ‘what is cinder hoping to get out of this specifically’)#that was being actively workshopped while they worked on the first couple volumes #until someone came up with the idea that the keys to the magic vaults salem needed to open #could be people whose magic you can steal and that’s what cinder wants #this is how planning a story works you block things out roughly and refine more and more as you go!!!#ahh!!!!!#there is too much foreshadowing and critical setup in v1-2 for it to be anything but on purpose and planned #nobody has any business being surprised at this point when seeds planted in v1-2 sprout. and yet

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d8tl55c · 2 months ago

Text

chosen watches the Cursor fly away. this time, it doesn't disappear at the top of... whatever must have happened during the fight. maybe from His perspective, the window was very small. that would explain the scale... and anyway, now, it must be fullscreen.

can ALAN see the whole world from out there?

the Cursor flies up, up, up, up, up and away to the little hole chosen poked in the IP address shell. hopefully ALAN won't be mad about that.

little colorful dots climb off of the Cursor, and hop back through the Wi-Fi tunnel.

then the Cursor starts to get bigger. whuh?

no, wait, it's getting closer.

shit. is He mad?????

chosen watches it fly back down, with that strange halting acceleration. going, going, GOING, and slow slow slowing. it takes only three swipes to return to sea level.

the Cursor hovers next to them. they feel themself being watched, but this time they can't watch back; only infer His perspective, from the angle of ALAN's sole limb in the digital world.

they can't help but turn to look where ALAN sees from anyway. empty air. creepy. but turning again, they see the Cursor wiggling gently. a little wave. disturbingly cute.

ALAN scoots the Cursor upward. brings it down. up, and down. up. up?

it takes a second to translate. of course, they can't hear each other, so they both have to infer from context clues.

"Do you want to come with?"

before they can think, they're already shaking their head. "no," i can't.

the Cursor scoots down, hiding much of itself below the cliff they're standing on, only the tip peeking over. somehow it still translates.

sheepishly, "please?"

it could mean several other things. "why not?" or, "okay," or, "im sorry." it could be another invitation to step on, and return to that sanctuary (PRISON PRISON PRISON PRISON PRISON PRISON) over the clouds. chosen doesn't know. they shake their head.

they shake their head, quick, several times.

they refuse it all.

they turn away from ALAN, and jump into the air, arms splayed in a maneuver they've done thousands of times before.

the fire doesn't catch right in their hands. it sputters, blasts too hard on one and not the other, and then shuts off completely.

they've been stupid, just now, and overestimated themself.

they're going to hit the water spinning out of control.

and then, they're not.

the Cursor has them by the back.

fear shoots through exhausted limbs. it flows, as it always does, from their core to their head to their fingers, and this time they...

...let it wash through them. excess stress chemicals stopper and fade. nothing is left behind.

the Cursor sets them so, so gently on their feet. they want to crumple and take a nap right now in the dirt, but they desperately don't want to offend His kindness.

still, their body is not cooperative at present, and it loses it for just enough time to trip their balance.

the Cursor is there again for them to lean on.

chosen is blindsided by anger.

why is He still here? shouldn't He be playing with His new pets??

chosen pushes off from the Cursor, hard, so they land a short distance away at the edge of the cliff ledge. they sit in the dirt, pull their knees in tight, and refuse to look at it any more.

waves sploosh against the rocks, one after the other.

the bay is a relatively calm offshoot of the local sea. too rough for normal swimmers; the perfect private spot for a pair of HI-PWR hollowheads.

green flashbangs fire in their memory. they squeeze their eyes shut, then open them, afraid of seeing something worse left alone with their imagination.

one after the other, waves sploosh against the rocks.

chosen peeks over their shoulder.

the Cursor is still there.

it doesn't fit into the landscape at all. it hovers with a distinct anxiety, too nervous to move a single pixel, yet aching to do something. as chosen looks back, it shifts a little closer- then quickly moves back to its original spot. the picture of, "nonthreatening." on another day, chosen would laugh at it.

they wave their hand in a repetitive motion. "shoo! go home."

the Cursor returns to peeking over the top of the ledge. it doesn't budge.

"GO HOME!" chosen gestures more sharply at the sky to the tunnel that leads to that place where no one would know where they'd gone and they might be (not not not not not not) safe. they feel nothing.

then He does something different. it's the same up, down, up, down gesture, but this time at an angle. chosen traces it along the cliffside, right to... the top. it's-

He's offering a ride to the top.

not all the way up to His domain.

just a lift to stable ground.

just to help.

a little nothing something.

just for them.

all thoughts leave their brain.

whatever this is, is

unfathomable.

they nod, once, outside of themself. why not?

the Cursor darts to attention- remembers itself- and moves in, slowly.

chosen gathers enough wits to stop it before it can click their back again.

to their relief, it complies.

they climb aboard its upper slope.

each movement is precisely calculated to hide signs of weakness.

it's warm to the touch on the black surfaces, like a rock under the sun. it's............

... nice.

when they're settled, ALAN moves the Cursor up the slightest bit - maybe ten pixels. "Ready?"

the way He treats them like such a fragile thing is starting to feel weird.

chosen grips the Cursor and spits a small burst of fire towards the loose rocks. "get a move on!"

and so, He does. He pilots the Cursor (smoothly, carefully) up over the cliff, then down, settling it as close to the grass as it can go without touching.

chosen slides off the slope.

the Cursor recoils back into the air. it hangs there, motionless, anxious again.

or maybe they're projecting.

whatever.

waves sploosh against the rocks, far below, quieter now. it's so quiet away from the trees. exposed. they should probably get out of here.

chosen stands on the cliffside.

the Cursor hovers in the air.

...

their peripheral vision detects it rapidly changing shape, and draws their head to follow the motion.

the Cursor is flipping between different Flash tools; Box, Hand, Line, Transform. it stops at, Text.

then ALAN types something into a floating text box.

[Im sorry]

so that is what he was trying to say earlier.

or maybe it wasn't, and this is only what he's trying to say, now.

or maybe

maybe chosen is far too tired for any of this.

they're tired, and they hurt, everywhere, and of course dark had to be late to lunch AGAIN for his stupid fucking secret surprise project, so chosen had to go fetch him, and now-

-is that-?

they reach up, and pluck ALAN's apology out of the sky.

the Cursor twitches, but doesn't intervene, as they tear it into its individual charset characters, piece by piece, and lay them in the grass.

when they're finished, they pick up the 's,' and stuff it in their mouth.

it's Times New fucking Roman.

a shot of savoury-sweet explodes on their tongue in singular taste, the way only charset can.

they eat both 'r's and the 'o' before slowing down.

the 'm' and 'I' are fine, but it's the 'y' that gives them pause.

they snap off its tail, and are left with a 'v.' TNR is nicely modular like that.

the 'v,' they hold up to ALAN (still lurking overhead).

the Cursor wiggles incomprehensibly.

chosen waves the 'v,' pointing at it for extra emphasis.

He scrolls back to the Text Tool, and chosen nods.

He summons a second 'v.'

chosen grabs it. now they have two 'v's: this is the moment of truth.

chosen holds up both of them, one next to the other, so they look like a-

ALAN types a 'w' into the text box.

chosen nods rapidly!

they toss the 'v's to the side.

then, they gesture at the 'w' - without taking it - and widen their hands, vertically.

it's quiet while ALAN thinks, in that unknown dimension outside of the screen.

He deletes the 'w,' and types a 'W' - and not just one, either. He summons a whole mess of them, overflowing onto several new lines of the text box!

chosen leaps at the wall of charset as though afraid it's a mirage. they crash through, landing in a pile of the things, and seize a 'W' from the air.

they bite from the left-hand leg where the ascender is thickest.

it's unspeakably delicious. it's been too long since they've had their favorite food. they've had a terrible morning, and a horrible afternoon, and it's all over and done with and noo- and ALAN brought them TNR again-

right now, He's copying ever more 'W's, pasting batches in the text box and chipping them off with the Cursor. it looks like manufacturing hard candy. chosen wants to laugh again.

they also want to cry, really, really hard.

later.

chosen chews their 'W' and hopes pathetic weeping isn't rendered on ALAN's screen.

and the Cursor works away, chipping, chipping, chipping, until a real pile forms in the clearing by the cliff over the bay.

...

eventually, the authorities will rise from their asses and come investigate the source of the explosion. the burnt trench leading directly from the brand new caldera to this cliffside, where a conspicuous amount charset is piled would be a dead giveaway of something going on. chosen will stash it somewhere under the trees or something, later. they don't care right now.

ALAN does.

[Will you be okay?]

it's odd.

chosen plucks out the extra 'W,' tosses it in their pile, and simply knocks down the rest so only, [okay] remains.

the Cursor sways gently. He deletes his message, then re-types, [okay.]

...

[If you need anything you can use The]- He halts, and carefully deletes the capital T.

[you can use the console again. To reach me.]

chosen nods, not knowing how.

[okay]

...

there's nothing left to say.