#not censoring RWBY anymore because I am thus polluting the shades of Tumblr

[onewomancitadel]

I have a ton of drafts and that is one of them, I went down a rabbit hole of comparing Rilke translations, it was a whole thing. I'm not really sure when/how to post some of my V10 speculation but I still think it's worth thinking about no matter what.

I was having thoughts in bed last night as well about how much was riding on V9 and how much of its failure to renew is partly to do with pandemic reasons/length between volumes/length of the volume itself (anecdotally I remember serious excitement around the stretch of the latter half of episodes of the show, for most volumes). I can sense the compromise with cutting episodes in V9, and I can understand why they made certain pacing decisions with E1-4, but on the other hand, it's very obvious that the denouement suffers because of it, and I think that could've been the best part of the volume. So I'm not sure they gambled correctly.

If I were to make any wager about audience reception of V8, what they needed was something to tonally balance it with V9, and I don't think that tonal balance was running away from the narrative stakes of that volume. I don't necessarily mean doing a Shade storyline at the same time (honestly, this would be ideal, but not from a budget perspective - double the assets, double the writing, double everything) but I don't think trying to lean into a twee, whimsical tone helped either. The emotional epochs of the volume for me was a) Ruby's disillusionment/Summer Rose and Raven reveal (YIPPEE) and b) the Jaune reveal, though the resolution was dissatisfying.

So at the very least I hope it's proof - and I fucking said this when the volume was airing, and I'll fucking say it again - that you can't win an audience over who doesn't care with halfmeasures. Commit, commit, and if V8 seemed too bleak, then you needed to swoop in with the balm (Raven's redemption, answer to the call). There is a very spoilery comparison I could make here with Dark - because it shares a lot in common with RWBY structurally, sorry, it's probably my greatest point of comparison monomythically/Jungian-wise - and Dark does this very, very successfully. Its pacing is genius and its method of handling the mix of despair and hope is too.

Obviously the fissures before V9 were there, and I really don't know what the answer is funding-wise because I am a silly little Tumblr user - the capacity in which I can comment is related to my assumptions about certain narrative decisions they seemingly made for the sake of appeal, and what I would've personally done to draw people back in. One may even argue this needed to happen sooner with V8; I think this is a real possibility, if only impossible because of the nature of how the show is paced, and its budget. The guarantee of the next volume is what made me so self-assured - in fact I would say that this is probably true of most of RWBY aspersions I have historically cast.

I tend to not really like speculation about this sort of topic - there are things we'll never know behind a production, and I am only good at judging the product - but I do find it interesting from a writing perspective because I am so vehement about what I think makes the show successful versus what doesn't. I don't think narrative success is 1:1 with commercial success, but sometimes it is, and identifying where it does crossover - when you can make the money and the cultural resonance - but not where you necessarily have to compromise (I absolutely hate people who give writing advice which is about pandering to an audience).