#it’s kind of a penny was killed/pyrrha died fighting a battle she knew she couldn’t win situation

[bestworstcase]

I don't understand why it's an absence of critical thought to say Jaune killed Penny, it isn't tantamount to saying he did it maliciously or anything. His hand was forced by circumstance and Cinder had already dealt a deadly blow but Jaune drove his blade through Penny to bring her a speedier death and it was the right move but yes, that means he killed her. Mercy kill, whatever you wanna add to contextualize it, but he killed her. It's not a condemnation. It's explicitly in the text that he needed to kill her quicker than she could bleed out so she could make the maiden transfer to Winter.

in the technical sense he ended her life a minute or two earlier than she would have died had he done nothing, yeah.

(cinder punched a hole in her chest riiiight around where the aorta emerges from the heart, so, like. she was dead. even under ideal circumstances, it took jaune like fifteen minutes of continual boosting of weiss’s aura to heal the—much less immediately dire—impalement wound in weiss’s side. penny would have bled out faster than even her amped aura could heal her.)

but that’s not. what a lot of “jaune killed penny” discourse is about; there is a large slice of this fandom that legitimately reads jaune’s decision here as murder, blames him for penny’s death, theorycrafts about how he’s going to learn that killing isn’t the answer… etc. in the same way that a large slice of penny fans read her death as a suicide and talk about how it was selfish of her to throw her life away (often as a justification for why she “needs” to come back, to learn that what she did was bad.)

and that’s um. not what happened. and it is genuinely EXTREMELY weird that a major portion of the fandom completely ignores the crucial context that cinder rammed her entire hand through penny’s chest in order to reframe penny’s death as a pointless suicide that jaune facilitated because he lacks moral backbone or doesn’t know how to do battlefield triage, or whatever. and that myopia gets projected onto the other characters too (e.g. the handful of weird takes i’ve seen on why weiss said “jaune tried to help”, including one that explicitly framed that statement as a borderline lie).

as an example my favorite variant of this phenomenon is the bonkers take that cinder “bullied penny into suicide” fbwndhfk

[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!

[aspoonofsugar]

The Maidens: The Cycle of Life and Death

This post is inspired by @hamliet’s alchemy metas... I know nothing about alchemy, but after discussing it with her, this idea came up and I am sharing it on her behalf too.

In short, in alchemical stories (which RWBY apparently is) there are 3/4 phases. Each phase is linked to a specific color:

1) Nigredo (black)

2) Albedo (white)

3) Citrinitas (yellow)

4) Rubedo (red)

That said, often the yellow phase ends up being fused with the red one, so in most alchemical stories there are only three phases. Now, for each phase there is a major death, so there are usually 3/4 key deaths, each one linked to a specific phase.

For example, in Harry Potter there is

a) Sirius BLACK dying

b) ALBUS Dumbledore dying

c) Harry dying and being carried by RUBEUS Hagrid

Let’s highlight that each one of these deaths is especially resonant and important for the story. Sirius dies when Harry discovers about the prophecy. Dumbledore’s death leads to Harry leaving Hogwarts to look for the Horcruxes and finally Harry’s own death leads to Voldemort’s defeat.

What I mean is that the deaths linked to each phase must be resonant and meaningful either in terms of plot or in terms of themes. They must have weight and be felt both by the audience and by the characters.

So far, in RWBY we have had two such deaths:

Pyrrha’s death is linked to Nigredo, while Penny’s to Albedo. Interestingly, both deaths happened to two (supposed to be) Maidens.

This is interesting on multiple levels.

First of all, I have been asked about the Maidens in RWBY here and here. However, Penny’s death helped me gain a new perspective of their overall meaning.

In the first meta I have written this:

In a sense, the story keeps repeating. Salem kills Ozpin, he is reborn and his daughters are victims of the conflict between them.

Because of this, the four Maidens have become one of the many symbols of this endless cycle, which is clealry breaking its protagonists more and more.

This is well conveyed by the Maidens having a season theme. Seasons are in fact linked to the repetition of time aka one of Ozpin’s motifs.

I still think it is a part of the truth, but as for now I think the framing of the series over the cycle is more nuanced. It is a cycle of death and rebirth:

Goodwitch: The Maidens have existed for thousands of years. But much like in nature, the seasons change. No two summers are alike. When a Maiden dies, her power leaves her body and seeks out a new host, ensuring that the seasons are never lost, and that no individual can hold on to that power forever.

Seasons live and die, but new ones are born. It is a death that leads to a new life and that protects life itself since the Seasons are supposed to be Guardians.

This fits with the actual cycle of seasons where “no two summers are alike”, but that also accompanies humans’ lives and makes many human activities possible.

Secondly, both Pyrrha and Penny’s deaths have to do with the theme of choice, which is central to the series:

Ozpin: Maidens choose themselves.

In particular, Pyrrha and Penny’s final choices are two different declination of this idea. At the same time, they are linked to the theme explored by their respective relic as well (in Pyrrha’s case it means that her link to choice is twofold).

1) As the (supposed to be) Maiden of Choice, Pyrrha is given a choice in the Vault of Choice:

Ozpin: You, Miss Nikos... have a choice to make.

(...)

Ozpin: Are you ready? I... I need to hear you say it.

Pyrrha: Yes.

Ozpin: Thank you, Miss Nikos.

She is given some time to think about it and in the end she chooses to accept her new duty. Still, the power is stolen from her and the choice she was given is negated to her:

Pyrrha: But I can help.

Ozpin: You'll only get in the way.

However, this does not stop her:

Red-Haired Woman: She understood that she had a responsibility... to try. I don't think she would regret her choice, because a Huntress would understand that there really wasn't a choice to make. And a Huntress is what she always wanted to be.

Pyrrha’s death is about doing the right thing even if it comes with a high personal cost. She is able to make the choice to keep fighting against an enemy impossible to defeat an arc before our protagonists are strong enough to make it.

This is why... even if she never receives the powers.. Pyrrha is the true Maiden of Choice of the Vale arc. She does not need the powers because deep down being a Maiden is something deeper than that.

Pyrrha embodies the idea that Maidens choose themselves because she chooses to be a Maiden at Heart and dies true to her choice:

Pyrrha: Do you believe in destiny?

2) As the Maiden of Creation, Penny is created anew in the Vault of Creation:

As I have stated in previous metas Creation as a concept is linked to free will. Creations are free to develop and to change independently from their “creators”. This fits Penny’s transformation, who ultimately gives her back the free will that the virus had stolen:

Penny: I...I must...open the Vault. I, I do not want...Ah!

And in the end she uses her free will to make a specific choice:

Penny: Let me choose this one thing.

I have actually a lot more to say about Penny’s death and final choice, but I will write a longer meta about it, so for now let’s just say it has to do with self-actualization.

Penny embodies the idea that Maidens choose themselves because she chooses who she wants to be and how she wants to live.

What is more, her choice has to do with Creation because she saves Winter’s life and also (symbolically) makes her a whole person as well:

Winter: No, Penny, you were always the real Maiden at heart. I was just a machine. Just... following orders.

Penny: You’re my friend.

Winter: Perhaps, but I’m choosing it now. I’ve made it my own. And I take great pride in it.

Winter: You chose nothing. This was a gift.

At the same time, Penny’s sacrifice also saves the people of Atlas and Mantle who are stranded in Vacuo. If Cinder had stolen the power, they would have all died.

As a final note, we are directly told the themes linked to both Pyrrha and Penny’s death back in volume 5:

Ruby: When Beacon fell, I lost two of my friends: Penny Polendina and Pyrrha Nikos. I didn't know them for very long, but that doesn't change the fact that they were two of the most kind-hearted people I have ever met. But that didn't save them. Pyrrha thought that if there was even the smallest chance of helping someone, then 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.

Pyrrha died to make the right thing.

Penny died the first time as a result of her being objectified, so the second time she herself chose how to end her life in a way she found meaningful.

In short, Pyrrha and Penny’s deaths can be read as the two deaths linked respectively to Nigredo and Albedo. What is sure is that they are meant to be compared and foiled.

All this leads to a question... will we have other two (or one) major death(s) that will be linked to (the yellow and) red phase(s)? Will they be other Maidens?

As for now, I think it is possible, even if not sure obviously.

First of all, I do not know if we are gonna have a death for Citrinitas since from what I understood usually the yellow phase gets conveyed as a part of the Rubedo one. Moreover, if we have it, it might not be linked to a Maiden. After all, another pattern one could find is that both Pyrrha and Penny died at Beacon and so did Ozpin, so maybe he will be the one to die (once and for all?) in the yellow/red phase. However, as for now, I don’t think so and I am gonna theorize that the yellow and red deaths, if they happen, will have to do with the Maidens and will be other declinations of the themes explored above.

As for now, we know nothing of the Maiden of Destruction, so I am not considering her.

Still, there is another Maiden whose arc was left unsolved and who needs to come back in the story:

3) As the Maiden of Knowledge, Raven is told the truth about herself in the Vault of Knowledge:

Yang: Oh, shut up!! You don't know the first thing about strength! You turn your back on people, you run away when things get too hard, you put others in harm's way instead of yourself!! You might be powerful, but that doesn't make you strong.

And it is possible that this self-knowledge will eventually lead her to make a choice, which is what she has failed to do up until now.

If she chooses to sacrifice herself, her death will be a redemptive one and it might come to embody that Maidens choose themselves because they can always change and become true Maidens.

Finally, there is the Rubedo phase, which is the last phase. If we are gonna have a red death, it should be a key one for the whole series and one which leads to its resolution. As for now, I think there is only one character who can pull it off:

4) Cinder is a key character for the whole story. Personally, I think this volume was a turning point for her, but she failed to learn the lessons she needed to learn. What she did was to take these lessons and to twist them in a hypocritical way:

Cinder: I suppose I have only you to thank for one last lesson… Sometimes, if you want to win…you simply can’t do it alone.

And this has made her even more similar to Salem:

Salem: Why....do...you...keep...coming...back?!

Yang: Why do you?!

Penny: Why did you come back?! Why couldn’t you just learn your lesson?!

I would also like to highlight that so far Cinder has failed to learn the lesson of each relic.

In the Vale Arc, it is implied her concept of Destiny and Choice is different from Pyrrha’s. She wants to be “worthy” and to be chosen. Moreover, her idea of agency is linked to stealing others’, just like she stole the Maiden’s power and Pyrrha’s destiny.

In the Mistral Arc, she receives a warning about her Shadow Hand:

Raven: Aura can't protect your arm, it's Grimm. You turned yourself into a monster just for power.

But she chooses to ignore it.

Finally, in the Atlas Arc she manages to make herself anew. She recreates herself, but fails to truly change.

I am expecting all these failures to come back at her with the Vacuo Arc, which is about Destruction and will probably lead to everything coming together to crush Cinder (the people she used, the Shadow Hand, Salem’s true plan).

Once this happens, I think Ruby will save her with her eyes and will offer her that pity she was never shown as a child. This will lead to Cinder’s final choice which might be a synthesis of all the choices made by the Maidens she killed.

It will be a selfless choice, like Pyrrha’s, in contrast to the selfishness she displayed throughout the series.

It will be a self-actualizing choice, like Penny’s, which will free her from Salem’s shadow and influence

It will also be a redemptive choice, where Cinder finally lives up to her name and becomes the true Fall Maiden.

I am also expecting this choice to somehow solve the conflict or to be a part of the reason why the conflict is solved.

It would also be interesting if the Maidens’ sacrifices become progressively more effective in solving the conflict.

Pyrrha’s death is the most pyrric (obviously). She did not manage to stop Cinder, but barely gained enough time for Ruby to arrive and wound the villain. Still, it is a choice who clearly inspired her friends and I think that in the end it will inspire Cinder as well:

Cinder: You know, Neo, someone once asked me if I believed in destiny. And I'm happy to say I still do.

Penny’s death is framed as a sad, but powerful conclusion to her arc and saved both Winter and the people of Atlas and Mantel. It still did not prevent Salem from taking the relics and did not save the Kingdom.

So, maybe Cinder’s death, if it happens, will be key in saving the world.

This would also fit with the idea that we are going through a journey where we are getting to know the four gifts the Gods gave humanity.

Pyrrha sacrificed herself even before our protagonists received Knowledge, Penny did so after both Knowledge and Creation, while Cinder perhaps will do so after the characters have aquired all the four gifts.

[ezmodo]

Volume 7 Shorts - Friendship v2.0 (V7E1)

(Gonna try doing shorts alongside the new volume like I did for V6. Spoilers abound, so if you haven’t seen the episode in the title then I’d say steer clear. Hope you enjoy!)

Penny’s heart soared as she danced through the air above the streets of Mantle.

Ruby was here.

She unleashed a beam that tore through two Sabretooths that were preparing to pounce on a man cowering behind a car. She saluted the civilian as she flew past, continuing her sweep of the city.

Ruby was here!

Ruby, her best friend in the whole wide world, was here in Mantle!

Penny thought she’d never see her again. After the Fall, Penny woke in the safety of her father’s workshop. He told her that she’d “died,” killed by Pyrrha Nikos during their tournament fight. Penny didn’t remember that at all. She had been fighting blow-for-blow against Ms. Nikos and having such a grand time of it. No one had ever been able to match her in a spar before and Penny found the whole experience delightful.

When Penny pulled back to unleash her special move, everything went black. Moments later she was rebooting and her father was smiling down at her. He must have deleted that last moment from her memory to spare her the pain. He was such a kind man. Penny was just a little bit disappointed though - she thought it would have been a rather unique experience to have.

Penny wanted nothing more than to leave and go find Ruby. There were villains out there and she just knew that her best friend would be out there fighting them. Mr. Ironwood asked her to join the military officially and protect Atlas. He’d said that they could be attacked at anytime and that the people of Atlas needed her help. Her father argued a lot with Mr. Ironwood about that but they eventually found a middle ground. Penny would be the unofficial protector of Mantle and be there to respond to any attacks the military weren’t able to stop in time.

It was frustrating at first. Ruby was a huntress and a hero but she’d need all the help she could get, but the people of Mantle really did need Penny. The Grimm were getting into the city at least once a week and they were often stronger than the AK-200s that patrolled the streets could handle. She knew Ruby would never abandon people in need and she wasn’t about to either. Penny had even made new friends, though none as close as Ruby.

One such friend was calling to her now. Penny turned at the next intersection, using a streetlight to swing herself around and gain momentum. The traffic over the military network indicated that the attack was over but a sole distress signal was coming in from two blocks away. She didn’t need to rush - there were no hostiles in the area, after all - but the sooner she helped her friend, the sooner she could get back home to see Ruby.

---

The street had seen fighting. Scanning the road, Penny was happy to see that none of the local residents had been caught up in the attack. The only “casualties” to be found were the remains of the AK-200s that fell victim to the Grimm. It was under one such crumpled robot that she found her friend.

“Salutations, Lemon! Are you in need of assistance?”

She received no response, though the distress signal continued to broadcast. Crouching down, she came face-to-camera with the surveillance drone. The poor thing was on its side, crushed under the weight of the combat robot.

“Are you well?” she asked. The only response was the whir of the bot’s camera as it scanned Penny’s face. 

She lifted the heavier robot off the little drone and dumped the mangled remains off to the side. Penny dusted her friend off and patted the lemon sticker on its chassis affectionately. She had given each of her drone friends one and each neighborhood had its own theme. This neighborhood was fruit, to the east was vegetables, to the west was birds, and so on. Whenever the little girl who lived across the street gave her a new sheet of stickers Penny would range further from home to give her friends names.

“I’m glad to see you’re unharmed,” Penny said happily.

The little droid hovered in place for a time, internal devices whirring as it did a self diagnostic. Then, without so much as even a glance, it continued down the road on its preprogrammed route. Penny waved after him until he disappeared around the corner. They weren’t like her, she knew. They didn’t have aura, or a personality, and they never responded when she chatted with them, but she loved them all the same. She was glad Lemon was okay.

Lifting off, Penny decided to make one last lap around the neighborhood to make sure no one else needed assistance. There were no hostiles reported in the area, but casualties among the local residents often went unreported. As excited as she was to hang out with Ruby, she wouldn’t abandon the people she swore to protect.

Penny couldn’t help feeling giddy. She wanted to hear all about Ruby’s adventures. They hadn’t seen each other in so long, after all, and no news ever came in about the outside world. Penny even had stories of her own to share. And when was the best time to share stories? At a sleepover, of course!

Nails! Clothes! Cute boys! Penny would finally get that sleepover she had been planning since she first met Ruby. She’d invite the rest of Ruby’s team, naturally, and Team JNPR as well. The more the merrier, after all. Team JNPR was 50% cute boys though. Could you talk about cute boys while said cute boys were in the room? She’d have to ask Ruby.

Penny didn’t recall seeing Pyrrha Nikos with the group earlier. She’d have to ask about that as well. She really wanted to tell Ms. Nikos that there were no hard feelings for what happened during the tournament. After all, they’d cross blades in the heat of battle and, according to that cartoon Ruby told her to watch, that built the strongest friendships.

Her sweep of the city complete, Penny turned towards home. She just knew her father would let her have a sleepover. Tonight would be the birth of v2.0 of the unstoppable Ruby/Penny friendship!

---

Maria sat heavily on the curb outside of Pietro’s house, back complaining about her choice of seat. Not half an hour in Mantle and the brats had already gotten themselves arrested. She shouldn’t be surprised, honestly. Not since they all so readily jumped at the blond doofus’ plan to steal a bullhead to get here in the first place. Pietro paced nervously in the street, robotic legs taking him to and fro. His daughter was on her way back and he didn’t look prepared to deliver the bad news.

In a flash of green, said daughter rocketed down onto the street, going down to one knee dramatically as dust whirled around her landing zone.

“Father!” the girl exclaimed, approaching her father. “I was hoping Ruby and her friends could stay over tonight for a sleepover…” Penny started, hands gesticulating excitedly.

“Penny,” Pietro said patiently as he wrung his hands.

“And her boy friends, too. Not boyfriends, though maybe one of them is her boyfriend. Do you think so? Anyway, it would be rude to leave them out, and I know it’s unorthodox…”

“Sweetie…”

“They can sleep in the other room! Oh, we can watch movies, and play games, and...”

“Darling.”

“Oh! We’ll also need to feed them. Do you think they’d like pizza? I’ve read that pizza is the sleepover cuisine of choice. But I don’t have any allowance...do you mind if-”

“Enough!” Maria snapped, slamming her cane onto the curb for effect. She thought Ruby and that Nora girl were bad, but Pietro’s daughter was a whole new level of spastic.

“My apologies, Ruby’s Grandma,” Penny said quickly before turning back to her father. “Where is Ruby, Father?”

Maria nearly choked. “Who are you calling grandma?”

“My apologies,” Penny repeated, bowing. “Granny.”

“Granny?!”

“Listen,” Pietro blurted before Maria could start in. “Your friends were...well…”

“They were tied up and thrown into the back of a bullhead bound for Atlas,” Maria said, grumbling at the robotic whippersnapper’s sass as she climbed to her feet.

“They were KIDNAPPED?” Maria didn’t see where the blades came from, but now Penny was surrounded by the things, each glinting dangerously in the low light. “Don’t you worry, I’ll go and rescue them! You should alert the military!”

Pietro rushed to stop her. “They were arrested, Penny. By the military.”

“That’s silly. Ruby’s a good girl! Her friends are too!” Penny asserted.

Maria rolled her robotic eyes. “They stole the bullhead they flew here in.”

That gave Penny pause. Her swords lowered and folded in towards her, disappearing behind her back. Pietro reached a hand towards her in concern. “Now honey, I’m sure it’s all one big misunderstandi-”

“Ruby’s in her rebellious phase?!” Penny shouted excitedly. Maria nearly stumbled back from the girl’s explosive excitement. Her eyes were shining as she looked between the two adults. “Puberty! It must be puberty!”

This is it. This insanity will be what finally puts me in the ground, Maria realized. I should have never gotten off that train.

The blades sprung out again, circling quietly behind the robot girl’s back. Penny’s grin was wide and just a little manic. It reminded her of Ruby’s back in Argus, when they were in the thick of planning their “heist”.

“I should be able to catch up with their transport in no time at all,” Penny stated matter-of-factly. “Then I’ll-”

“No breaking the law, sweetie.” Pietro begged. “Please.”

The blades retracted in a flash and a more innocent smile graced her face. “I’ll go speak with Mr. Ironwood. Farewell Father!”

Resigned, the older man’s shoulders sagged. “Be safe, darling!” Pietro called after her.

Penny shot into the air and waved back over her shoulder as she streaked away. “I will! And it was nice meeting you, Nana!”

Maria thought she might need dentures after how hard she ground her teeth. She was just starting to get used to the normal level of wackiness Ruby and her friends got up to and now it looked like things were about to get zanier.

“That girl is an angel,” Pietro said with a heavy sigh. “The one that will see me to heaven, at this rate.”

Maria only grunted. She was too old for this ten years ago.

“I suppose we should get out of the cold and have a look at your eyes,” he said, turning back towards his home. “I’m sure we’ll be hearing from the General in no time at all.”

[boundariestcbreak]

Tagging: If you see this on your dash, steal it from me.

TELL US YOUR FAVORITE QUOTES FROM YOUR CHARACTER. GIVE US AN IDEA OF WHO THEY ARE BY 5+ THINGS THEY’VE SAID. REPOST – DON’T REBLOG!

“I don't care what you say! We WILL stop them, and I WILL stop you! BET ON THAT!”

“As a girl, I wanted to be just like those heroes in the books... Someone who fought for what was right, and protected people who couldn't protect themselves! Well, that's why we're here! To make it better.”

“We've never backed down before, and we're not going to start now.”

“When Beacon fell, I lost two of my friends: Penny Polendina and Pyrrha Nikos. I didn't know them for very long, but that doesn't change the fact that they were two of the most kind-hearted people I have ever met. But that didn't save them. Pyrrha thought that if there was even the smallest chance of helping someone, then 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 that 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.“

“Just because you don't have an idea, doesn't mean we're out of options! Oz hasn't been here to tell us what to do, but we still managed to get this far anyway. We've been in bad situations before, and we don't need an adult to come save us or tell us what to do. We just did it our way! And I say we do it our way. And if you think you can keep up with us "kids"... we'd be happy to have you.”

Tagged By: Stole it from myself

[itsclydebitches]

Oz sent them to fight an enemy they couldn't beat and had no way of beating. Salem killed them because Oz convinced them to sacrifice themselves for a false cause instead of running away and living to fight another day or do you not remember how Pyrrah died? That blood is on Oz's hands more than cinder because Oz lied to her being able to make a difference and told her the fate if the world was in her hands. He's a manipulator that's not my opinion that's what happened. (add to long ask)

I don’t have the time or the energy right now to write back to everything you sent in, particularly since much of what you’ve written me is either a) flat out ignoring large chunks of the meta you’re supposedly engaging with or b) is too extreme a disagreement for us to find any common ground on (such as the idea that Ozpin is “not a hero, he’s a cult leader who’s running a snowjob so bad that people don’t even know they’re joining a cult.” Or that he’s more responsible for a girl’s murder than the woman who happily shot the arrow through her chest…) 

I’ve already laid out just some of the many reasons that a man would choose to keep a secret like that for others’/his own safety and how lack of transparency doesn’t automatically equal horrific, manipulative intentions. It is, depending on your view, potentially still a mistake to keep it secret, but as we know, Ozpin isn’t allowed to make any mistakes. I’ve already touched briefly (here and here) on how Pyrrha made her own choices, though I love how in this case you’re turning that back on itself to further blame Ozpin. The fandom loves to ignore that he told Pyrrha to not fight Cinder… but now he’s evil because he’s not telling them to abstain from the fight against Salem as well, two wildly different scenarios? 

“Living to fight another day” only works if you actually do fight at that later date. Ignoring a fight with Cinder in that moment, at that time, is in no way comparable to letting a genocidal, god-like being wreak havoc over all of humanity unopposed. Someone has to fight, whether Salem is beatable or not, because yes, she is exactly like the grimm. Both in motives and in origin now - a creature of destruction that will never, ever stop. You claim in another ask that fighting the grimm is justified because “They fight grim for survival because grim always attack“ and the exact same is true of Salem. I’ll let Ruby lay it out again from her speech in Vol. 5 Episode 5. Emphasis mine: 

“When Beacon fell, I lost two of my friends: Penny Polendina and Pyrrha Nikos. I didn’t know them for very long, but that doesn’t change the fact that they were two of the most kind-hearted people I have ever met. But that didn’t save them. Pyrrha thought that if there was even the smallest chance of helping someone, then it was a chance worth taking. And because of that, she died fighting in 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 that 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.”

[vulkiin666]

“ When Beacon fell , I lost two of my friends : Penny Polendina and Pyrrha Nikos. I didn’t know them for very long , but that didn’t change the fact that they were two of the most kind-hearted people I’ve ever met…but that didn’t save them. Pyrrha thought that if there was even the smallest chance of helping someone , 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 .  ”   

- Ruby Rose