#ozma screaming at himself: the song

[bestworstcase]

Any thoughts on "The Sky is Falling"? I happened to be listening to it the other day and went "wow, this seems like something BestWorstCase would have Thoughts about", but searching your blog didn't turn anything up on it. If Tumblr search has failed me (probably not for the last time), I'd be interested to see what you've written before; otherwise, I'd be interested to hear now :)

ough i do have thoughts. many thoughts. idk if i’ve ever posted them, partly because i argue with myself a lot about whether it’s a hound song or an ozma song brfghks. much as i’d like it to be the hound for rotating him reasons, though, i do think ozma is a stronger textual reading.

unhinged about songs hours ->

the motif of the sky falling obviously calls to mind the chicken little folktale, of which there are numerous variations but in all of them the kerfuffle over the sky falling is hysterical: the danger is not real. in some versions of the tale, a sly fox incites the panic on purpose at the beginning and then eats the frightened birds who turn to him for help at the end.

the song’s narrative placement also connects it to atlas, and thence to atlas telamon, the titan who holds up the sky on his shoulders. (not the world—that’s a common misconception; classical images of atlas shouldering a globe depict the celestial sphere. it’s the sky.)

so we have on one hand the apocalyptic motif of the sky falling, and on the other the very real danger to atlas, conflated together: if atlas falls, so too must the sky… except that ‘the sky is falling’ is idiomatically an irrational fear. atlas may fall—that danger is real—but the world will not end if it does. the song’s central motif implies paranoid hysteria.

there is also the latin maxim fiat justitia ruat caelum, let justice be done though the skies fall. i go back and forth on whether i think the writers specifically have that in mind, in relation to this motif, but: “it’s important not to lose sight of what drives us—love, justice, reverence” and “in pursuit of a new world, no cost is too great.” fiat justitia, ruat caelum. that’s the salem perspective.

and i bring that up because of sacrifice:

Born an angel, heaven-sent Falls from grace are never elegant Stars will drop out of the sky, The moon will sadly watch the roses die In vain, Lost, no gain But you’re not taking me.

and

Show them gods and deities, Blind and keep the people on their knees. Pierce the sky, escape your fate, The more you try, the more you’ll just breed hate And lies. Truth will rise, Revealed by mirrored eyes.

with its similarly apocalyptic imagery (‘stars will drop out of the sky’/‘pierce the sky, escape your fate’) in relation to ozma and his task, and salem positioning herself in opposition (‘but you're not taking me’/‘truth will rise’)—fiat justitia, ruat caelum.

hence, ozma song.

‘the sky is falling’ is directly a dark mirror to ‘touch the sky’ but it’s also—i think more interestingly—a sardonic reflection on ‘until the end’ if one reads both songs as articulations of ozma’s perspective.

emotionally, ‘until the end’ leaves off here:

Love brings us dreams, But grief makes the heart burst at the seams. As light fills my eyes, I’ll picture me beside her, And pray that I’ll inspire, I promise I’ll be here until… …our story has been told. Til our bodies break down every door. Til we find what we’ve been looking for.

it’s a dream—a fantasy—ozma finding hope in this imagined scenario where he can be with salem again. i’ll picture me beside her.

and then she, uh. captures him:

Here comes another nightmare, Another fever dream. The horror just won’t stop, An endless scream, But this is not subconscious; We’re not imagining. We’re wide awake, This is reality.

lol.

‘until the end’ is very lovelorn and idealistic, and also fundamentally passive: though “desperate to make amends,” the promise ozma makes is to… wait. to do nothing. to hope for salem to make the first move.

and well. she does. this is what ‘the sky is falling’ is about, the collision of ozma’s romantic fantasies with the harsh reality of the situation.

Our world’s Lost without a soul. We’re losing all control, Not getting closer. Every day is just another dose of torture. Now we pay the cost. The race is lost, This nightmare’s Our real life.

points.

OSCAR: It should not be this hard getting people to just cooperate. OZ: And yet, it’s something I’m becoming increasingly concerned about.

this is what oz is worrying about all morning while the hound stalks oscar across mantle, how difficult it is to get anyone to “just cooperate.” because—contrary to the popular fanon—he is in fact still committed to his task and he does still, on some level, believe that remnant is damned and its people are missing something fundamental; his secrecy and manipulation, his guiding interest in silver-eyes and maidens and elevated ‘guardians’ and ‘symbols of hope,’ his all speak to his lack of true faith in humanity. and that traces back to what the god of light told him.

(since people love to cite ozpin’s commentary on ‘the story of the seasons’ as “evidence” that he’s abandoned his task by misinterpreting “I fear that if unrestricted magic use were possible, the results would be chaotic and catastrophic” to mean that ozpin thinks people are better off without magic rather than ozpin justifying his efforts to control the maidens; here’s part of his commentary on ‘the two brothers.’

Whether or not you believe in the Brothers, or in this story in particular, the underlying message still holds value: We are burdened with responsibility for our world, and we share a common destiny. Like the twin gods, we are intricately connected with one another, and if we can learn to work and live together, we can create things greater than the sum of their parts. Remnant survived the Great War, but while the four kingdoms now cooperate and coexist, our bond seems tenuous. We have a fragile peace, and in some ways, we are more divided than ever. Even if the gods aren’t real, even if they don’t return to judge us for our deeds, we should act each day as though they are arriving tomorrow. In the end, we will be the arbiters of our fates. We will either create a beautiful, peaceful world and live in harmony together or destroy ourselves and our planet, and the gods will judge what we have chosen.

in which he not only states his belief in his mandate and the inevitability of divine judgment outright, in plain terms, but also repeats the same fear he confided in salem thousands of years ago, that despite finding happiness or achieving peace, he worries that people are “more divided than ever.”)

thus: “our world’s/lost without a soul/we’re losing all control/not getting closer.” oz has become “increasingly concerned” about how hard it is to “get people to just cooperate.” and so “every day is just another dose of torture,” because, well…

To live free or die, it’s all the same. The enemy was right, there’s no reclaiming. In waves of shame, We’re desperate to make amends

…he knows salem is right. his task is impossible; things can never go back to the way they were. the old world, the world of the brothers, is gone and trying to reclaim it will achieve nothing but destroying remnant.

and yet he cannot bring himself to believe it, because to him this would amount to condemning the world, to admitting that remnant is broken and irredeemable and must be destroyed because it cannot be saved. to him, salem’s rejection of the mandate is horrifying—tantamount to a a declaration that nothing in the world is worth trying to save.

in her mind, rejecting the mandate is an act of defiance: remnant does not need to be saved because there is nothing wrong with it, and where he sees damnation, salem finds freedom. and that’s what ripped them apart.

‘sacrifice’ makes this point also:

Did the things you thought you should, All the things they said were good. All your faith in ancient ways Leaves you trapped inside a maze. […] Even with the lives you stole, Still no closer to your… goal.

that ozma’s faith in the god of light imprisons him in a futile, impossible quest because he can’t escape his belief that the world is broken, that salem’s freedom is really damnation. he achieves so much—he united the four human kingdoms after the great war and ushered in an era of unprecedented worldwide peace—and still, in ozpin’s own words, he sees only that people are “more divided than ever.”

the chorus of ‘the sky is falling’:

Better cover up your eyes, my friend, The sky is falling, Can’t outrun the ruin of our lives. Be prepared, we’re near the end, The final days are calling. Hold on now, The sky is falling down.

similarly echoes the motif of blindness that appears in ‘sacrifice’ (“close your eyes now, time for dreams/death is never what it seems” and “show them gods and deities/blind and keep the people on their knees”) and, more obliquely, in ‘until the end’ (“love brings us dreams/but grief makes the heart burst at the seams/as light fills my eyes/i’ll picture me beside her” -> the light is death, the light is love, love brings us dreams and death is never what it seems).

the first two lines of the chorus are also a direct inversion of ‘trust love’: “better cover up your eyes, my friend/the sky is falling” vs “trust love/and open up your eyes.” which is salient because ‘trust love’ is chiefly about ozlem; it’s in conversation with ‘sacrifice’ and ‘until the end’ and on top of the central motif of love restoring sight there is also, “if you could only open up a door/spread your wings and fly away from here/write yourself into a fairytale/all your problems would just disappear.” the you is ozma.

and that makes ‘trust love’ + ‘until the end’ + ‘the sky is falling’ really um, pointed foreshadowing:

All you have to be Is here in reality Leave your fantasy You’ll find the key  To victory I know the dark’s returning And the fires of hate are burning But the lies can’t hide what’s true When love’s alive

in one sense ‘until the end’ is the fantasy and reality ensues in ‘the sky is falling’, but in another—deeper, more important—‘until the end’ is also the truth which ozma keeps hidden from himself, and ‘the sky is falling’ is the act of self-deception; better cover up your eyes, my friend, the sky is falling.

so all of this—all of it—this is the false narrative oz has constructed about himself and salem, his blindness:

A curse that’s Never-ending This path with No escape No sudden death We’re trapped In slow decay These words are Not symbolic The torment’s All too real Eternal enemy Our fate is sealed We slide Further down the hole The damage takes its toll Helpless and broken Failed to stem the Tide of pain The floodgates open Now it’s one more sin As evil wins And misery steals Our lives

notice too how this section of the song reflects darkly on the hope and longing expressed in ‘until the end.’

ozma let himself imagine a reprieve (“time falls away/but pain always finds a way to stay/the tears that you’ve shed/will find a tree to water/but only when you’re stronger”), which he now scathingly reminds himself is impossible: his curse is never-ending, there is no escape even in death, he’s trapped in slow decay, his fate as her eternal enemy is sealed.

he admitted to himself that he wished to make amends and for just a moment he let himself believe that he could (“and stare with pride into the face of fear/in our finest hour, i’ll be standing here/and should we fall to darkness/this power i will harness/i promise i’ll be here until the end”), and now he mocks himself for it: he has done nothing but decay, corrupted more and more with every lifetime as he becomes unrecognizable to himself; the damage takes its toll. helpless. broken. he can’t make the pain stop, he can’t fix anything, he can’t save either of them.

oz found enough courage and hope to crawl back out of his darkness and try, once more, to do the right thing—to make amends—and what happened when he tried? “i’m not upset that you left. i’m upset you came back.”

that conversation, oz trying to apologize and being told that he’d done wrong again, made a mistake again, happened at most an hour or two before the hound caught them. one more sin as evil wins, cue the chorus.

and then the song turns inside out. (pour one out for the terrible rap 😔)

Lost all my hopes And dreams Watch my life flash By in scenes And it seems there’s No soul on the  Video screen But I’m green tryin’ To figure out what All of it means Staring at the casket Hoping to move past it Knowing things will Never be the same And that’s it Cold soaked as I stand in the rain Feeling nothing but pain Until I see you again

clears throat. not a metaphor. this is about the lost fable—ozma very literally watched his life flash by in scenes, narrated by jinn in ozpin’s own words, and then he retreated into isolation to think about it. not to brood or sulk but to reflect; he comes back with a very clear idea of what he did wrong and how he wants to change because he used that time to, well, try to figure out what all of it meant, knowing things will never be the same.

and that’s it?

this part of the song is an emotional echo of the regret and longing expressed in ‘until the end’; “love brings us dreams/but grief makes the heart burst at the seams/as light fills my eyes/i’ll picture me beside her/and pray that i’ll inspire” -> “cold soaked as/i stand in the rain/feeling nothing but pain/until i see you again” it’s the same idea.

that salem is his hope, his comfort. deep down in his heart of hearts ozma… wants to see her again. ‘until the end’ hints that it isn’t a coincidence that oz makes his hopeful return in the same hour that salem reaches atlas. here, too, “nothing but pain/until i see you again.” a flicker of hope. because the hound is taking them to her.

and then:

Feel the waves crash Loud and hard Oh God Lost control I think I’m gonna lose it All my sanity’s slipping away Oh Lord Press record I’d die without the music Each breath is closer To my death Except that which is, This life There’s none left Let my demons live on Through my legacy Study my pedigree I need therapy

he catches himself feeling that small glimmer of hope and freaks out. lost control, sanity’s slipping away. every breath is bringing him closer to death, oscar will die, his demons will live on in his next host, he needs therapy. why did he even think that?

where you seek comfort, you will only find pain. his heart knows that isn’t true, but ozma is still fighting tooth and nail to force himself to believe it; cue the chorus. better cover up your eyes, my friend, the sky is falling.

[silvokrent]

So since Tyrian's arrest screen didn't list everything he was wanted for, what else do you think he did? My brother thinks arson, I think more along the lines of torture.

It’d probably be easier to ask, “What crimes didn’t he commit?”

I think you’re both right. Arson and torture seem like equally valid possibilities, but they’d have to be the result of context and circumstance. On one hand, Tyrian always struck me as someone that’s adaptive, flexible, and capable of improvisation, which is why I doubt he’d be averse to either. On the other hand, Tyrian appears to have a modus operandi—speed and stealth. Like most Faunus, seeing in the dark (presumably with tapeta lucida, the eyeshine a lot of nocturnal and crepuscular animals have) affords him an advantage many of his victims lack. That, coupled with his stinger, sets him up by default for a very specific tactic: hit-and-run assassinations. Catch your target off-guard, deliver the killing blow, then melt back into the shadows before anyone’s the wiser. Fire lacks discretion, and torture involves prolonged interaction with the victim (which increases the odds of him getting caught, as time/duration would be proportionate to the risk of being discovered).

If a situation called for it (like setting a car on fire in order to distract pursuers), or he was contracted to complete a specific job (like torturing someone for information), then I could definitely see him committing arson and torture. But if he’s recreationally killing, then I think it’s more likely that he’d indulge in his preferred repertoire, envenomation and stabbing.

The nice thing about his criminal record being truncated (with a “see attachment for more details” appended to the file) with multiple redacted sections is that it leaves a lot of room for speculation. Bear in mind that much of this is either conjectural with little supporting evidence, or my personal headcanons.

One of the things that I found interesting about Tyrian’s character was his reverence of Salem. “Goddess” isn’t just an affectionate title or a term of endearment—he literally apotheosizes her. Compare that to how his teammates interact with her. While they treat her with respect, none of them use the same venerating language as Tyrian (“Your Grace,” “my lady,” “our divine savior,” “our goddess”). This tells us that his worship of her isn’t the norm amongst her followers, which also means that he has a reason for doing it.

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of labelling people who commit heinous crimes as crazy or insane—not only because it implicates nonviolent mentally ill and neurodivergent people, and scapegoats them for the actions of others—but because in this instance, it robs Tyrian of the complexity that comes with rationalizing one’s choices. Tyrian’s decision to deify Salem shouldn’t stem from some sort of psychopathology, but rather a logical, personal, or historical precedent.

Let’s reverse-engineer this thought process:

Tyrian worships Salem.

Salem (in Tyrian’s eyes) is the extreme embodiment, manifestation, or expression of cathartic violence.

Tyrian worships this form of violence.

And what else in RWBY’s universe embodies those traits?

The Creatures of Grimm.

So, with that in mind, let’s talk about all the illegal things Tyrian’s done over the course of his life, and more specifically, why.

Archotherolatry: This is a term I coined for my RWBY worldbuilding blog. If you break down the etymology, archotherian (Greek - ruling beast, the scientific term for Grimm) + -latry (Late Latin - worship of), it translates to “the worship of Grimm.” The practice was outlawed by the King of Vale (King Ozark) after the Great War. While the decision was rooted in common sense—like, you really don’t want people to see the Grimm as gods for fairly obvious reasons—Ozark had ulterior motives for outlawing it. You see, Ozark was one of Ozma’s incarnations, and the immediate predecessor of Ozpin. While archotherolatry had been falling out of favor over the last few centuries, it was still a religion with a presence in certain corners of Remnant. Salem used to recruit these cultists directly into her ranks. By making the practice illegal, Ozma was hoping to cut off a potential source of followers.

Prior to meeting Salem, Tyrian was one of the surviving few practitioners of the faith. Not only that, but he had a particular mania about it. Grimm worship in Remnant changed depending on where in the world you went, but one of the recurring practices involved human sacrifice. Now, while Tyrian didn’t subscribe to any specific holy doctrine and wasn’t a member of any secret groups, he did adhere to certain rites and ceremonies. He savored the taking of lives, but even more than that, he enjoyed offering up his victims to the Grimm. During the months that Pickerel spent hunting him down, his trails would often lead him to secluded areas outside cities or towns. There he’d often find a large ornately-detailed circle on the ground painted with blood, with the tattered corpse of the victim lying in the center. The surrounding trees and rocks would sport eye-like patterns drawn in blood, similar to the patterns seen on the bony white protrusions on a Grimm’s body.

When selecting potential victims, Tyrian didn’t discriminate. Gender, age, nationality, race, economic background—they all bleed red, so it didn’t matter. Not technically, anyway. That wasn’t to say he didn’t enjoy abducting business owners that were prejudiced against Faunus, or that he didn’t find ironic humor in sacrificing Huntsmen to the Grimm. He just wasn’t particularly choosy about who he sacrificed.

In a similar vein, I think this is how Salem first learned about Tyrian’s existence. Whenever her scouts or sentries returned to Evernight and reported in, they’d inform her about a man that would drag people into the woods and invite the Grimm to feast upon them. This possibility excited Salem for several reasons: not only was he predisposed to loyalty to her, but the fact that he’d clearly been doing these sacrifices for some time meant he was talented. It took a lot of skill to kill so many people without being caught by the authorities. She needed an assassin, and he would do perfectly.

When Tyrian wasn’t feeding people to the Grimm, he probably murdered for sport. He thrilled in the hunt, in the dizzying slick of blood beneath his fingers, the intoxicating coppery smell, the beautiful song of his victims as they cried, begged, and screamed. Acts of violence honor the Grimm, but in addition to that, he simply relished in the joy of killing. And he was good at it.

Of course, sacrificial manslaughter doesn’t pay the bills, so Tyrian had a day job. Well, I say “day job,” but it was more along the lines of contract killer/thief/kidnapper/smuggler. Tyrian operated largely out of Mistral’s criminal underworld, particularly in the capital (though depending on the work he was doing, he’d travel to Wind Path or Kuchinashi). Potential clients sought him out and hired him for any number of jobs: collect the debt that this person owes me and kill them if they refuse to pay; abduct the member of this rival syndicate and bring them to these coordinates; assassinate someone for me, and bring back proof that they’re dead; transport this contraband (weapons, drugs, Dust) and ensure the shipment arrives safely; kill these people and destroy the evidence; capture this person and extract information from them by whatever means necessary; follow this person without being detected, and collect information about their routine. Although Tyrian preferred jobs that involved bloodshed, he’d still accept contracts for more mundane work (even if he found it somewhat boring). Tyrian didn’t have a ton of dealbreakers in terms of jobs, though he refused to do anything that involved sexual assault. (Even serial killers have standards.)

Destruction of public and private property was likely an unintended or indirect consequence of his work. As much as Tyrian enjoyed wanton carnage, he prided himself on being stealthy and thus had to exercise some level of restraint, so as to not leave behind damning evidence in the form of collateral damage. Breaking a window or kicking in a door is a liability. Accidentally setting off a Dust explosion is a good way for the authorities to track you. That being said, there were a few memorable occasions where Tyrian absolutely wrecked shit up. Perhaps the most noteworthy of these was the day that he was finally captured by Atlesian and Mistrali law enforcement. On the day of his arrest, Tyrian caused nearly 50,000 lien’s worth of property damage, including the destruction of three Paladins.

Tyrian’s name, while spoken among the criminal element, was unknown to the public. Even so, he garnered a reputation as Anima’s most infamous serial killer. People often referred to him by his title: The Ghost in the Mist. (Years later, a documentary by the same name was released. It was an hour-long production that detailed his activity in Mistral, all of his victims, an analysis of his signature, and other relevant or interesting trivia. It even featured an interview with Pickerel, prior to his death. Tyrian absolutely loves this documentary and has re-watched it several times.)

I’m sure there’s more that he’s done that I can’t think of presently, but hopefully this gives you a general idea of all the criminal activity I think he’s committed.

[psyga315]

Fixing RWBY Volume 6

So, I decided to try my hand at rewriting RWBY. Though, I’m not gonna do the whole “rebuild it from the ground up” angle, but rather tackle one volume to try and have it tie its plot together a little better. In this case: Volume 6. As such, this isn’t “fixing” RWBY so much as tweaking it. So, for the most part, Volume 6 is mostly intact save for the scenes that were changed up.

The first thing we need to establish is the underlying theme. What is this Volume about? From the titles, it seems to imply that the story is about RWBY/JNR breaking away from Ozpin’s path and doing things their way, as most of their titles relate to this subplot. That said, the ending song, character short, and huge part of the climax have the theme of cutting out abuse from your life. Namely Adam.

So, we need to restructure the Volume based off a central theme of both subplots: how to grow past the teachings of your mentor. This can even tie in to the villains’ subplot. Now, it is worth noting that the increased focus on Adam throughout this tweak isn’t to “adambate”, but rather to add prominence to him in the same way Pyrrha was given prominence in Volume 3.

Let’s begin with…

Episode 1

This should pick up right where Volume 5 left off, with a brief montage of the fallout of the Fall of Haven (named such because despite the heroes’ best efforts, without the Headmaster, the Academy fell into disarray for a bit) followed by Mistralians welcoming the Menagerian Faunus with open arms. This is also where Qrow’s exposition comes in, though for a nice jab at the heart, when he mentions how Lionheart died a hero, it cuts to the little girl from Volume 5 (the one who asked “does he know where mommy is”) visiting her mother’s grave to show that something isn’t right with that story.

To further compound this, Sun brings up Lionheart’s betrayal before Blake cuts him off and reminds him of the consequences to the Faunus relationships should the truth of him conspiring with the villains slip out.

So we get the departure scene unedited, though with a scene where Blake tells Sun that, while she thanks him for his efforts, she realized in her separation from Yang that she has feelings for her rather than Sun. Sun, being Sun, is 110% cool with it and encourages her to go after Yang, though Blake mentions how it would be easier said than done given how she believes that she burned that bridge down when she ran.

Most of this episode remains unaltered save for the lamp exposition being done in this episode. The reason for all this exposition is to get them out of the way and to also mentally prepare people for what they expect to be another chat-heavy Volume, only to pull the rug from under them when the train suddenly gets attacked by Grimm. I feel like this might be a better way to poke fun at last Volume than have the characters lampshade it.

Obviously, Ozpin brings up that the Relic attracts Grimm, as that’s the very inciting incident that creates the lack of faith in Ozpin subplot, but Ozpin also brings up that the Relic’s attraction is faint. Jaune combines his Semblance with Ren and is about to cover the train when they hear screaming and a familiar laugh. JNR run to see what’s the matter. When the sound of fighting ensues, Blake is the first to investigate.

Blake goes out to see what’s going on and sees Adam tossing a civilian off the train and laughing about it. Naturally, she freaks out and cuts the connection of the train. She soon realizes what she had done (left JNR alone with Adam) and her fear and paranoia kick up into high gear, causing the Grimm to focus on RWBY’s train rather than JNR’s train.

This is where we see how, despite RWBY coming back together, they hardly are coordinated, especially with a panicking Blake and a twitchy Yang. We get to see this in contrast to JNR’s fight with Adam, where the group is in sync in handling Adam. I’m not gonna sugar-coat Adam’s power level. He’s weak sauce, plain and simple. The only reason he’s “strong” is his ability to gas-light people and trick them into getting angry. Given how Ren and Jaune both went through that ordeal, though, they handle Adam, though his Semblance does throw them off.

The only way they manage to get Adam off their back is Jaune realizing what his Semblance does and, in a scene that demonstrates his strategic mind, overpowers Adam’s Semblance to where his Moonslice pushes him away from the group and out of their sight for the time being, with the obvious note that, because he has a buffed Aura, he’d be able to survive. Just as JNR realize they’re stuck, they hear someone:

“Don’t fret, passengers. The glory of Atlas shall guide you to Argus!”

And we don’t see JNR until after the “Ozpin gets BTFO” Arc and the Apathy Arc.

The fight with the Sphinx and Manticore is the same with the aforementioned bumbling around, and we even see Weiss try to summon again before a Manticore pummels her, with Weiss just saying “screw it!” and using another of her Glyphs to pwn the Manticore.

Episode ends like usual.

Oh, and Ruby’s gift for Yang is explicitly shown to be the magazine she reads in the train because why show the bag if you’re not gonna reveal it.

Episode 2

This is kept the same, except the Cinder scenes are moved to its own episode.

Episode 3

This is kept the same, However, I will add in a detail that makes the God of Light much more benevolent (and nicer) than in the show. Namely, worshippers of the God of Light are the ones to try to talk to Salem about how death is natural and Salem only visits the God of Darkness. The God of Darkness agrees to revive Ozma, but she must do his version of bending the knee: take a dip into his pool. Doesn’t destroy her but instead make her an immortal lord of the Grimm.

God of Light comes in and goes “WTF!?” as the God of Darkness revives Ozma. This time, the battle between the two ends up destroying humanity (and broke the moon) save for Ozma and Salem. Ozma has no idea what happened and Salem kept mum on what happened. They settle down and have kids, but eventually Salem feels compelled to tell Ozma about what happened… and Ozma is devastated. And thus, he does the thing that causes Salem to forever despise him for the rest of his days:

He calmly walked to the pool of Light, left behind in the battle, and takes a swan dive into it, presumably killing him.

It doesn’t though, and instead makes him one with the God of Light, just as Salem became part of the God of Darkness. The God of Light laments in how the world he and his brother created was destroyed simply because humanity relied on them too much. And so, he asks Ozma to unify the world’s remnants, but he also gives him a stipulation: he must also gather the Relics and call upon the Gods when humanity is ready to be judged. If the humans learn to live with each other and not demand anything of the Gods, he will walk among them once again. If not, however aaaaand the world goes boom.

Ozma has his whole reincarnation thing where he finds out that Salem, in her grief, killed their kids and used the Grimm to attack Humanity 2.0, which are basically the Light Brother’s attempt to remake humanity, just that Aura and Semblance are his half-assed means to replicate his brother’s magic, with Dust being the remnants of the Dark Brother’s magic. There’s an implication she had a hand in making Faunus, but not in that “she made them” sort of way. Rather she caused some of them to have more violent features like fangs and stingers that caused humanity to fear them. This causes Blake to react with horror and anger at Salem.

While I was tempted to add a scene where Ozma has more to do with Salem’s fall from grace or give her a reason to hate him, like how the Maidens he gave magic to were Salem’s daughters, but I decided to keep his overall role the same and give the basic gist that he hates people finding out the truth behind his lies because it reminds him of what he did when he found out about what happened to his world. However, there is heavier emphasis on how he had led people to their demise against Salem. Namely how, when Ruby sees Ozpin’s many forms falling before Salem, she sees a flurry of Huntsmen… and a certain white-cloaked figure before it too scatters like a rose.

That and Oscar sees Pyrrha’s death and the whole Maiden thing that Ozpin did to her.

The other thing is that Ozma discovers Salem’s immortality because at one point he does kill her but she doesn’t die. Not because Jinn goes “lol, you can’t.” since I kinda want to make Jinn more benevolent like the God that made her and not somehow sowing the seeds of discord.

Episode 4

Same episode, but now Ruby’s pissed at Ozpin as well. Not enough to punch Oscar or even berate him, but enough to say “good riddance” or “coward” when Ozpin retreats.

The bit with Salem is still kept in but we actually get that scene where Salem wanted to have a word with Tyrian back in Volume 5 (remember that, V5?!). She explains to Tyrian that Qrow is still alive despite his efforts and he breaks down, apologizing to her and even offering to kill himself for her approval and how the only reason she didn’t let him is because he’s still of use to him. This is contrasted with Emerald’s fear of Salem when she talks with her about Cinder’s failure. This basically serves to show the full extent of just what Ozpin could have been but also show how Ozpin isn’t like Salem.

Episode 5

So, this is where a little bit of a change comes in. As the group stay at the Brunswick Farm and they settle for the night, every one of the characters gets an introspective of their developing apathy. In order:

Oscar is worried about being regarded as Ozpin and is even worried about how Jaune would react.

Qrow is depressed over Ozpin’s machinations and, as the episode ends, finds a stash of liquor.

Blake begins to berate herself about Adam and explains the reason of why she let Adam run (namely because of his whole “get inside your head” tactic she mentioned in the finale) to Yang.

Yang, much to Blake’s dismay, doesn’t blame her, but she doesn’t also forgive her either. Instead, she’s caught up in the thought of calling Ozpin out for omitting information about the Relic, only for herself to have omitted information about the Maiden. In short, she also feels guilty about what happened.

Weiss is upset about having to return to Atlas and is visibly shook over her near-death experience and how she was ultimately the one to blame for putting her guard down. Incidentally, she’s the only one who doesn’t feel tired, but that’s only because she’s mindlessly practicing the same fencing moves over and over until her body tires out for her.

Ruby’s the only person who is outright concerned about Salem’s immortality and how no one can beat her. Not just because Yang’s edgelord of a mom was correct, but how her own mother died and proved that statement. She talks to the only person who isn’t affected by the Apathy, Maria, that she just wants to bring the lamp to Atlas, go back home, and never go out again.

Maria eavesdrop to every bit of this, but gives Ruby the advice she needs to move on: “What do you think your mother would do if she knew the truth?” and we end with Maria asking Ruby: “My glasses are no good, but… what color are your eyes?”

Episode 6

Episode mostly remains the same, though with the explicit notion that the Apathy only fed on the negative emotions the group felt and didn’t amplify the doubts they had, thus they don’t go “lol, it was all the Apathy’s fault we were like that”. Probably also either drop hints about this being Adam’s place from when he was a slave there (even have Weiss notice a branding iron with the SDC logo on it and frowning to show foreshadowing) or it being Roman’s home (and it’s Ruby who feels upset with this revelation).

It’s also in this episode that we get a little exposition on the Silver Eyes (the whole “they only work on Grimm” thing and the fact that the Light Brother made them) and this causes Ruby to quickly utilize it when the Apathy attack them. Blake decides to try and sacrifice herself to atone for what she did to Yang, but Ruby’s eyes go off and you know the rest.

Episode 7

This is entirely Cinder’s episode, where she gets out of the Vault and gets the help of the Spiders. However, there’s a heavier emphasis that it’s Adam that was trailing RWBY the whole time and not misleading us by implying it was Hazel.

This also leads to the whole Neo fight and the whole “I was ordered by Salem not to kill Ruby” thing, but Neo gives a jab by implying “why didn’t you kill Ruby when you had the chance?”, as she had heard about the Fall of Haven and Cinder’s role in it, to which Cinder just meekly answers with “well I was going to.”

Basically, rather than sprinkle the Cinder scenes across the volume, condense them into one. We end on Adam recovering from his fall and tracking down RWBY, finding the house and scornfully growling before he kills a stray Apathy.

Episode 7

Basically the same, but heavier emphasis that Tock’s employer was Salem and that she has a connection to Tyrian.

Episode 8 & 9

Keep this relatively the same, but have Cordovin explain why she doesn’t let Weiss’s friends through. “Let’s see, we have an angry girl who attacked someone without their aura on live television, a drunken waste of energy who attacked an Atleasian general in front of a crowd, the team whose member utterly destroyed our masterpiece Huntress-in-training (cue a frown from Ruby and a scornful look from Jaune), and, of course, the Faunus.” She doesn’t even add any details, she just says “the faunus” for Blake. Weiss gets upset and that’s when she goes “we’re done here.”

Now, here’s where this gets the most change, because in all honesty, that whole “Oscar’s missing” thing was stupid cliff-hanger baiting. So, here’s how the change begins.

Jaune calls out Oscar like he did, but adds in one final hook: “Did Pyrrha know about this before you killed her!?” in the same venom that Hazel had. Ruby stops Jaune and tells her that Cinder killed Pyrrha. Jaune tosses Oscar aside and leaves in a huff. Ren and Nora are understandably pissed as well (please let them have more dialogue to address that Pyrrha was also their loss, RT) and it’s agreed that everyone needs to have some space, especially with what had happened at the farm.

And so, slowly and surely, we have our group split up to comfort each other. In order:

Oscar approaches Weiss and tells her about how he wants to help the team and atone for how Ozpin inadvertently hurt JNPR, feeling as though, if he is to become him, he might as well lay the groundwork for a better Ozpin. This naturally gets Weiss inspired to go clothes shopping with him, especially since they’re going to Atlas and if it was cold back there, it’s gonna get colder where they’re going.

Blake talks with Ren and Nora and talks about her experience with Adam. Ren is annoyed when she starts wallowing about him and asks her to get to the point. She mentions how Adam mentored her much like how Ozpin mentored them, but the difference was that Ozpin genuinely cared for them whereas Adam manipulated her. She comes clean about her past at the White Fang to them and expresses a small bit of regret in not letting Ozpin know about them, but that they need to keep moving forward for Pyrrha’s sake. It’d be a bit too cynical for Ren to go “we haven’t heard that one before”, but if we’re going in the tradition of lampshading Volume 5… I dunno, maybe a lighter version of that where it doesn’t sound condescending?

Yang goes out drinking with Qrow to confirm she’s old enough to drink. She hardly is able to talk to Qrow though because every time she does, she worries about slipping up and talking about how she hid the fact that Raven was the Maiden, only for Qrow to mumble out nonsense that ends up implying that he does know about that and knows Yang kept it a secret, but that in the grand scheme of things, there was nothing they could have done now that she’s who knows where. Though this further guilt trips Yang because she believes now that, had she not yelled at Raven and convinced her to leave the Relic back in the vault and closed it, they wouldn’t be in this mess.

Lastly, Ruby talks with Jaune in a scene that mirrors the whole Weiss/Yang scene in Volume 5 with a heavy dose of the Oscar/Ruby scene from the same Volume. Though now, with this line:

“I saw my mom die when Jinn told us the truth. She died the same way Pyrrha did. But she didn’t throw her life away. She fought and despite knowing she couldn’t win, she did it to protect the ones she loves. And I’m certain Pyrrha did the exact same thing.”

Jaune is moved by this and instantly thinks of how to get into Atlas.

Smash cut to a sobered up Qrow (with Yang there, she was able to get him sober before they returned) telling him it’s a stupid plan. Jaune explains the plan in the briefest detail he can and Ruby vouches for him. Basically, what happened at the end, but instead of “we didn’t need an adult to save us” it’s more “we tried the adult way back at Haven and all that did was make us fish in a barrel for Salem. Now, we try it our way.”, hinting to the finale’s title.

Emerald and Mercury have their thing, but at the end, they sneak out with Tyrian and Watts after the former tells them to do what makes them happy (they lampshade how odd it is coming from the crazy man), but the stinger of this volume shows they, on route, saw the Grimm be made with wings.

The Final Quarter

So, the heist goes like before, but with Cinder and Neo getting involved. Not by much, but they mostly just sneak in their airship by using Cordovin’s fight with Ruby as a distraction for them to slip by. We can even have the guys at Argus warn Cordovin about it only for her to brush it off.

The fight doesn’t change by much, but one should change it so that Ruby and the group are reluctant to destroy the mech because of Jaune bringing up how it’s used to protect Argus from big Grimm.

The big scene that changes, though, is Adam’s fight with Blake. It begins with Blake telling Yang that she’ll go to the tower alone, but Yang knows better. They both know Adam is following them and that Blake is aware that Adam is waiting for the right moment for him to strike. Now, this can go one of two ways. The Bumblebee route where they plan out the entire fight (right down to Yang feigning a panic attack in “Seeing Red”) or the Feels Route where the following happens:

Blake wants to atone for her misdeeds and she sees this as the best way to do it, telling Yang to go with Ruby and the others. Yang doesn’t have any of it, but as she grabs her, she notices it’s a shadow.

Blake confronts Adam without being scared. They both know that only one person will come out of this alive. And so, they fight.

As they do, flashbacks of Adam’s past comes to light, emphasising who he was prior to the character short: a scared slave who was purchased by Brunswick from shady Schnee Dust Corporation members whose pain (remember, they had the branding iron) attracted Grimm and prompted Brunswick to bring in the Apathy. From there, he joined the White Fang and made it his mission to oppose humanity for their crimes and we see his slow and gradual fall from grace to the madman that we know him today.

Adam’s reason for hating Blake is simple. She ruined everything. As soon as she ran during the train heist back in the Black Trailer, Adam was caught by the police (as Blake stole the part of the train that kept going) and were it not for Banesaw, he would have been arrested. At first, he wanted to leave Blake for dead, but as soon as he saw her being friends with not just humans, but a Schnee, he was furious and Cinder enabled him to want to destroy everything Blake loved.

Let me repeat this for clarity: Adam was always a manipulative gas-lighter. It’s that Cinder encouraged him to do the whole “I will destroy everything you love” thing.

Yang comes in and… Okay, I’m gonna address an elephant in the room.

Yang’s PTSD is a subject of controversy. You have Unicorn of War showing a person’s thoughts on how Yang’s PTSD is properly portrayed and then you have MuffinManDan making fun at how it wasn’t portrayed. Really, her scene can go either way, but in the spirit of what Adam’s true strength is, here’s how I imagine the rematch.

Yang fights Adam like how it happens, but you can see that Yang is acting purely on adrenaline. Adam notices this and starts to take advantage of it, taunting her about the events at Beacon. Yang begins to panic and Adam’s true strength, his gas-lighting, shines. For a good chunk of the fight, it looks like Adam has the upper hand, continually guilt tripping Yang and Blake and mocking their determination to protect each other.

“You humans are all the same! Nothing but squabbling idiots who are quick and easy to anger!” Adam lands the final blow on Yang…

CLANG!

“Yeah…” Yang used her hand to catch his sword. “Like you.” And her eyes flash red.

It turns out Yang had seen Adam for who he truly is and had no reason to fear him. Her freaking out was her fighting fire with fire and pretending to be afraid. She then lays into Adam and blows his every statement back with each hit. So basically, this is where that whole “she promised to stay by my side, too” “you mean the person she thought she promised?” “WHAT DOES SHE SEE IN YOU!?” exchange come in.

And then Adam is killed. He gets a bit of a better send off than what he got, but not by much. Basically, as he dies, we get a flashback to Adam and Blake working together for the first time and having a genuine scene where Blake bonds with him, as though to illustrate that, had Adam let go of his spite for humanity, he would have had a better life. Adam falls on the ground and dies. Blake breaks down, but Yang reassures her that it’s over and we get Bumblebee confirmed. No, they don’t kiss because kissing over a corpse is goddamned creepy and Bumblebee deserves better than reminding the audience about the Lannisters.

The Leviathan comes, along with the Grimm, but this time we get a bigger emphasis of Ruby realizing she fucked up as we see the Grimm attack civilians and even the Cotta-Arcs getting menaced by a Grimm (though not killed), though Jaune takes part of the blame as he’s the one who suggested it and even strategized how to disable the mech.

However, Ruby, in her culmination of her character arc, decides to do something about it rather than wait for someone else to help her. She has Weiss summon the Queen Lancer and fly off to confront the Leviathan. There, she tries to use Silver Eyes, but the doubts in her head cause the Grimm to nearly eat her had it not been for Jinn stopping time. Remember, in this rewrite, she’s pretty nice and not tearing the team apart with two words.

So Ruby gathers the courage to Silver Eyes the Grimm, Cordovin saves Ruby and the heroes head to Atlas, Bees buzzing with delight as we hype up Weiss’s inevitable reunion with her father and we get a scene where Tyrian rallys some Faunus who are in Mantle, telling them that “our Queen has proclaimed change. Atlas will fall!”

DVD Exclusive Episode Because $$$

This is basically expanding on the stinger that last Volume had, where Raven laments about the past life choices and we finally have that STRQ flashback episode we’ve been wanting, though it’s mostly Raven’s POV so we don’t get any juicy stuff aside from how she left Ozpin and became the Spring Maiden. This is probably the only wish fulfilment I would want out of this entire rewrite. Think of it as the “beach episode” of RWBY.

It ends with Taiyang asking Raven what she’ll do now that she’s realized what a coward she is. Cut to black, see you next Volume.

And that’s how I would tweak Volume 6. Not much except by the end, and even then, I tried to keep most of the scenes intact but reworked the context and made it more worthwhile. Unfortunately I doubt I was able to work in the theme I wanted to do at the beginning, but that’s basically the rough sketch I have for this tweak.

[tikitm]

tiki being a music nerd for 13 minutes straight

uhhHh so oscar and ozpin’s theme are mixing more ?? i hear little bits and pieces of ozpin’s theme , then oscar’s in ‘trouble on the argus limited’

in the same track , ‘trouble on the argus limited’ , ozpin’s theme begins to play , but then takes a ,,, darker, more sinister sounding note instead of that higher , more hopeful note in his theme that he usually has

the main theme , rising can be heard when ruby is telling the plan in ‘trouble on the argus limited’ and it’s soft , but it’s there , which carries on the theme that they’re trusting ‘in the light’ and ‘rising like the moon’

the playful theme in ‘mistral central station’ that captures the character’s excitements ?? amazing

then it goes into dee and dudley’s theme that sound Annoying as Heck , and then it blends into qrow’s theme ?? beautiful stunning amazing bird dad

then you hear ozpin’s theme again , which slowly gets taken over by oscar’s theme again , and they they seem to blend together again , like they have been doing

the piano part of smile in ‘mistral central station’ gave me goosebumps !! ilia has come such a long way as a character and it makes me happy that she funny has a straight path she Wants to go on

and there it is - ‘like morning follows night’ - a perfect , slow , version of it that really enraptures sun’s ,,, softness for blake and how he came to support her and after all , he did support her and help her and that makes me soo happy

but then it trails off into a lighter tune when the camera pans to yang and her friends and hhhHhh im soft

wow then it takes a dramatic tone shift to a dark and sinister theme for ‘spider’s web’ because cinder is starting to get into some Shady Shit™️ because she’s desperate for any kind of information on anyone

and then it pans right into that cue music that neo is Right There™️ , ready to attack , and then it goes into softer , more sinister and mischievous music that shows that wow they’re actually up to something , and it’s going to be big and bad and it’s going to put someone to shame

AND THEN THE THEME OF ALL THINGS MUST DIE PLAYING SOFTLY AND SLOWLY ??? amazing. im so excited akdhsks

all things must die slowly transitions into one thing and that makes me happy because it’s their two themes blending into one another , showing that they’re working together - but the sinister undertones show that they don’t fully trust each other and there Are secrets and undertones being kept

‘say her name’ starts out soft and slow and relaxing , but then gets more mysterious and faster as it goes , showing the severity of the situation

ozpin is being really shady and not that trustful right now , and oscar’s trying to Fight It to give them the information they need and stuff , which shows through the undertones of his theme playing throughout the track , then his theme slowly taking over , showing that he is fighting against ozpin’s control - he wants to be his own person , which is way it’s even more upsetting when qrow says that he isn’t

and then the music picks up and up and up faster and faster and louder and louder , showing ruby’s decision to say jinn’s name -

and then it goes silent. it stops

and whOOsh jinn !! genie in a bottle !! genie in a lamp !! her upcoming theme has a few familiar notes that form a familiar melody , but they’re hard to place

and then the music picks up , showing ozpin’s desperation to keep things ‘close to the chest’ and BOOM the music stops

im literally going to do an entirely different thing for ‘a delicate balance’ because there’s so much to say about this track - and it’s e i g h t m i n u t e s

‘our creation’ - im guessing it’s for the god of light’s moment with ozma

it’s soft , slow , and with the choir in the background , it makes the music seem ,,, important and urgent - like something Needs to be done and that something needs to be done quickly

and oof ozma’s theme soft in the background , showing that after all , he is still human and he wants a normal life and all that and hhhh i feel so bad

im skipping around im sorry

‘brunswick farms’ has that sinister , dangerous vibe , but we’re not sure what it is yet - dangerous , mysterious - we don’t know.

and it’s slow - it slows down at certain points to really emphasize on the scariness

the slow piano at a certain point gives it a certain softness that it shouldn’t have - a false sense of security , if you will . but then it turns into more mysterious , with hints of qrow’s theme (which im guessing is for the part of his drinking™️) that is slow

AND OH SHIT THERES THE PART WITH THE DROPPING OF THE BOTTLE

and ruby YANKS herself up and woAh that’s kinda scary

‘the apathy’ is probably the scariest track in the ost. it’s slow , sinister , and it’s literally telling you something is about to happen

AND THEN THE MUSIC PICKS UP !! ITS THE SLEEP PARALYSIS DEMON BAY BEE

they’re running they’re running they’re running they’re running uh oh sisters

every time the music slows down it stops the melody slightly , that’s the part where the apathy SCREAMS , slowly zapping the motivation out of them

and each time it gets louder and louder and bigger because their influence is getting more and more overwhelming

and then the music slows down slightly because they’re giving up , and the sinister , scary theme is getting louder and louder - and then the silver eyes stops the music for a split second

and maria is over there , trying to coach ruby into using her eyes and then - BAM

and now they’re running out of the house , yelling for oscar to GET THE DAMN TIRE

and weiss sets the HOUSE ON FIRE and wow she’s committed arson

and they have to get the HECK out of there as quick as they possibly can

im doing something completely different for the grimm reaper skjsk

‘welcome to argus’ gave me goosebumps. the soft ,, piano of ‘rising’ gives them hope - gives us hope - because they made it. after all that shit , they made it. finally.

and then it gets into a more cheerful , nice theme of argus , with little notes of oscar’s theme in the beginning because ‘CUTE BOY OZ’ and then they’re touring around argus , looking at all the sights and stuff

ruby’s surprise in jaune’s sister is shown through the ‘ooh !!’ moment in the music that interrupts the melody of the entire track

‘cashews’ is amazing. it’s shows the literal stupidity of the entire interaction - from maria and cordoven’s banter , to a more serious match music , then slower , sadder music because ‘oop racism’ , but then it picks up again lmao

there isn’t much to say about the track ‘silver eyes’ but it shows the softness - the emotion - that goes into using silver eyes

‘jaune’s arc’ gives me whiplash. because it’s slow in the beginning - then it picks up speed to show jaune’s anger as he shoves oscar against the wall and Yells because his love died for ‘nothing’ , and he lets oscar go with sadness and regret , but he doesn’t say anything. and then as they’re looking for him , jaune has time to think things over. you hear the melody of ‘forever fall’ towards the middle , then the melody - the song itself - takes over as something to signify that jaune really Misses her , but gets closure

AND THEN OSCAR’S THEME !! HAPPY , HAPPY BOY !! its so happy !! he feels good about his new clothes - and despite what he says , he gave himself closure for now , but im sure itll be touched upon later because of the cut off of his theme , interrupted by qrow’s theme to show qrow’s grumpiness and all that

and then ruby’s speech !! she had a little bit too many speeches , but the theme ‘rising’ plays again , to show her - their - determination to get to atlas and figure it out because they WILL rise like the moon - like the sun - no matter what. they won’t give up.

‘the heist’ !! a theme that gives everyone Anxiety because no one thought it would work , and the moment it did work , it didn’t . weiss and maria sneak onto the airship and take them out , with the others standing around waiting , and yang and blake off on their own

a small version of oscar’s theme plays as he comforts ruby , showing how much he’s grown into his own character

and then the music picks up and oof it turns suspenseful because oh Shit where’s blake

‘into the canon’ is not only scary on screen , but also scary music wise. it’s suspenseful , it mixes both blake and yang’s fights and the other fight together. the music is fast and urgent , showing that they have to get away and fast and if it doesn’t work , bad things will happen. bad things are going to happen.

but first !! the battle music for cordoven’s fight. fast , playful , serious at the same time. it shows both perspectives of the fight - absolute absurdity , which cordoven feels , and the urgency that the team feels. cordoven thinks this is childish - disgraceful. the team thinks this is important - something that Has to happen or else they can’t complete their mission.

and ruby goes DOWN THE CANON

i have to do an entirely different thing for ‘protecting each other’ too

OH NO HERE COMES THE GRIMM

the music gets dangerous , crazy , fast - they have to do something quick or bad things will happen and that won’t be okay. huntsman and huntresses are supposed to protect - if they can’t do that , then what are they good for ?

jinn’s theme , then the hopeful theme of indomitable is just 👌👌

-‘flight to atlas’ gives closure - peace that they couldn’t find for a while. it’s slow , soft , showing that they made it - it was a long , stressful process , but they made it. with a lighter version of qrow’s theme , small undertones of ozpin’s and oscar’s theme , and then how the music SWELLS when they see atlas because it’s beautiful - it’s grand , it’s amazing - and they made it. there’s a sense of triumph in there , a sense of urgency and a sense of pride. they rose , and they’re going to try and stay there

uhhHHh thanks for sticking around to hear my literal Ramblings about the ost and me being a music nerd - this ost is just so good ?? and if you haven’t listened to it go give it a listen ! the vocal tracks are Amazing , and so are the instrumental ones.

[littlemisssquiggles]

Ok I know ur a big fan of pure Oscar, right? So.. what if Oscar manages to talk Neo into joining their group? Oscar with his pure heart, trying to help her by saying stuff like "it's ok to grieve, but you've probably been alone all this time, huh?" And eventually because of him, Neo becomes a good guy and one of Oscar's friends? idk they are both smol beans that I love and it'd be interesting to see sorry i'm annoying

Nah it’s fine anon-chan.

Y’know what? I can neither agree nor disagree with this concept because at the moment I don’t have the slightest clue on what the CRWBY Writers plans are for Neopolitan going forward. From what I understand, Neo was a fan favourite villain that the CRWBY had promised to bring back since her disappearance in V3. Now that she’s officially back, this squiggle meister is all kinds of excited but mostly confused because I have no idea what her story is going to be so at this point I’m open to any possibility for Neo’s arc.

Apart from her now working with Cinder Fall presumably to kill Ruby Rose and her new character theme featured in V6 C5, the only thing I picked up about Neo’s character and story is that she wants retribution for Roman’s death because he was someone very special to Neo. Maybe she was in love with him even. I mean, that’s the vibe I got from this song and their dynamic in RWBY Chibi anyways.

It’s funny. One fan once told me that Neo’s character is supposed to allude to Mary Poppins. However this never felt correct to me. I mean apart from the obvious umbrella similarity, nothing about Neo screamed Mary Poppins to me. On the contrary, Neo’s character more reminds me of Tinkerbell from Peter Pan.

Now that I think about, I know it’s been two seasons since his character death but was Roman Torchwick supposed to allude to Peter Pan? I mean, there is a bit of a parallel between the two with their red hair. Not to mention that the description of Peter’s personality, taken from his wikipage, makes me think of Roman.

‘…Peter is an exaggerated stereotype of a boastful and careless boy. He claims greatness, even when such claims are questionable (such as congratulating himself when Wendy re-attaches his shadow). In the play and book, Peter symbolises the selfishness of childhood, and is portrayed as being forgetful and self-centred.

Peter has a nonchalant, devil-may-care attitude, and is fearlessly cocky when it comes to putting himself in danger…’

That being said, in Peter Pan, Tinkerbell was the fairy side kick to Peter Pan and from what I remember, although Tink was given a voice in her prequel spin off movies, in the original classic film by Disney, Tink didn’t have a voice and the only person who understood her was Peter Pan.

Tinkerbell also cared deeply for Peter and got extremely jealous of any other female relationship Peter had.

Huh. Was a sidekick who was very close to her male companion? Lacked her own voice but was only understood by her closest male companion? Got very jealous of any other relationship her male companion had, especially if it’s female? Why does that sound familiar?

Interesting. I never thought of Neo being the Tinkerbell of RWBY and now that I’ve seen the parallels between them, I quite like it. Not to mention that Neo is also very short in stature so this adds to her having this fairy-like appearance about her. Cute.

As for your theory about Neo growing close to Oscar, my dear anon-ninja. Hmm, well to be fair, in the Wizard of Oz, Princess Ozma was the daughter of the Fairy Queen who created all of Oz. So…if Tinkerbell was used as inspiration for Neopolitan then perhaps Oscar will have some liaison with her and two will become friends.

Maybe Neo will kidnap Oscar to get to Ruby and in the midst of it all, Neo takes a liking to the precious freckled farm boy somehow and Oscar even helps the little ice-cream fairy to see the error of her ways and understand her in ways even Torchwick didn’t. That doesn’t sound bad at all.

Y’know what? Add her to the pile. My dream is to see everyone basically adopt Oscar in some shape or form before the end of RWBY so add Neo to the list too. Why not.

#EverybodyAdoptsOscar

~LittleMissSquiggles (2018)

[dietaku]

Amazing Quest 1: Chapter 2

The second chapter. I hope you all enjoy!

Chapter 2: We’re in Toruble Now! The scene reopens in sepia with Lil’ Hiro and his sister, who retains the same sprite for this scene, talking in a field. Emilia: Alright, little brother, today, I will teach you the basics of sword fighting! Lil’ Hiro: Um. … Must I? Emilia: Yes. You’re the product of the Pudding Eugenics Program. Generations of selective breeding and dedication to the cause of finding the Pudding Savior have come down to just the two of us! Lil’ Hiro: I had no say in that, though! And it hurts when you hit me with the stick. Emilia: It’s not a stick. It’s a training sword. Lil’ Hiro: You’re missing the point. Emilia: Exactly, that’s what it’s a training sword. Lil’ Hiro: D’oh! Emilia winds up and bonks Lil’ Hiro, putting him on his back. Lil’ Hiro: Oooww… mommy! Emilia: *Sigh*. Maybe that’s enough for one day… The scene fades out and then back again as Hiro opens his eyes, lying on a bed somewhere in a small room. Hiro: Ow? A door opens and the huge woman we saw previously walks in. We get prompted to name her but I tend to stick with the defaults – this is Ozma. She’s the biggest party sprite in the game, towering over Hiro by a good head and a half (and several more in the front if you get my drift), her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. The catchy song playing during this scene is her theme, Merciful Heart. She walks over to the bed. Ozma: How are you feeling? Hiro: Like I just was blown up and hurled several miles through the air. Ozma: … Err… Hiro turns to face Ozma. Hiro: ! M-m’lady! Sweet Angel of Lul Invictus himself, I implore you, tell me your name or my life will surely come to its end! Ozma: Ah?! Ozma’s sprite lights up red here. Ozma: I-I… I’m Princess Ozma Zorus Toruble, good sir! I was the one who found you in the smoldering crater and brought you here to the hospital. Hiro: Ah. The Princess herself. Tales of your power and beauty spread far, even to my remote hamlet, but I see they do you no justice. Ozma: Kyaaa! You~! Ozma blushes, puts one hand to her beaming face, then socks Hiro a good one with the other. The sound clip that emits is much like a chicken squawking in mortal terror, leading to the bizarre, oft-repeated nonsense meme of “Chicken Hiro Sub”. Hiro falls back, doing his best impression of The Scream. Ozma: O-oh! I overdid it again! Shoot! At this point, we take control of Princess Ozma herself. If we inspect Hiro she says… Ozma: It was just a playful little bump to the shoulder, but there he lies, near death. I better find a doctor… We can then inspect our inventory. Ozma has no spells to start and begins at level 1. Not like she needs them, as even at level 1, her physical stats nearly eclipse Hiro’s. Ozma’s real weakness is her low magical offense… big effing whoop for the character who barely gets any. Early JRPGs and their sense of “balance” was always an odd relationship. Anyways, we head up to the throne room where we can speak with the king. King: My dear, where are you going? Ozma: I might have sort-of crippled a man just now. I’m going to get the doctor. He’s still at his house on the end of the lane? King: Erm… y-yes, that sounds about right. Ozma: … About right? You can then leave into the town, which is comprised of small, narrow roads and the open-air market. We have Hiro’s money and items, so we can upgrade right away to the Glass Knkls and Regal Gown for a small sum. However, we can’t leave town as the guards block the way. Guard: Yes, ma’am, Lady Ozma! We cannot lower the drawbridge right now! Ozma: Why? Because it’s before daybreak? You realize as the Princess of Toruble, I AM the embodiment of the law? Guard: No ma’am, it’s not that. We actually cannot. The only one who knows how to operate them is currently on the other side of the canal. Apparently we locked him outside last night. Ozma: … Guard: I swear we’ll have this straightened out in just a moment, m’lady! Please, just another event flag or two, I swear! Ozma: *SIGH*. We then go to the doctor’s house. Ozma will knock. Ozma: Doctor? Doctor! I already put the lime in the coconut and it didn’t help! … Doctor? Ozma knocks again. Ozma: Doctor?! … What the hell? Why isn’t he answering? This confounded American gamers. In the Japanese script, it’s made plainly clear no one is home, but in the English, Ozma makes it sound like he’s merely ignoring the door. The answer is to return to the throne room and speak to the King again. Ozma: Father, the Doctor is missing. King: Oooooh yeeeah. About THAT… I might sort-of kind-of banished his ass from the kingdom. Ozma: Father! Why would you DO THAT?! King: Have you SEEN his rates?! Ozma: FATHER!!! King: It’s okay! I totally know where he went. He went to live in the Mountain of Outcasts. Ozma: … I’m not aware of any such place. King: It’s on the mountain behind the kingdom. It’s where everyone I’ve banished lives! Ozma: FATHEEEEEEEEEEER!!! You can then leave the castle, whereupon two castle guards go to Ozma. Guard 1: M’lady! We insist we accompany you! Guard 2: The denizens of the mountain will not be welcoming to a member of the Toruble House! Ozma: You’re the ones without faces, names, or legitimate backstories. Your funeral. Guards 1 and 2 join. Though I can’t fathom why, as Ozma grossly outclasses them both. You’re now free to leave the town and go to the world map, but a wild stampede of migratory sea sponges prevents Ozma from revisiting earlier cities Hiro was at prior, so for now, we can only venture to the mountain range behind Toruble City. We enter the foot of the mountain and begin up the winding trail. You’ll soon find Ozma leveling up while the guards are locked at level 5 permanently, meaning they’ll be the ones holding YOU back. On the bright side, you can equip the Earth Talisman on Ozma which will bolster her overall defense. About midway up, you’ll enter a cave with an eerie mist. Guard 1: Hm. This must be the dreaded Mountain Maze! Ozma: What’s so dreaded about it? It’s just a cave. Guard 1: Guard 2, why don’t you explain it? You always explain it so well. Guard 2: Thank you, Guard 1. The Dreaded Mountain Maze— Ozma: Wait, is that a part of its name or an adjective?! Guard 2: -- As I was saying, the dreaded Mountain Maze is a, well, a maze within the mountain. Ozma: Is it also dreaded? Guard 2: Sometimes! Ozma: I give up. The maze itself is hardly anything dangerous. The enemies are merely things like Blind Bats (which are strong but constantly suffering 50% hit rates), Mounted Munchkins (munchkins who ride atop mules for added stamina) or Portly Pigs, orc-like monsters who Ozma dismisses with a single punch. When you reach the end, the team fans out and looks around. Ozma: The maze comes to a dead end at every path! What do I need to do to get out here?! Ozma punches the wall in frustration which shakes the map. After a moment, there’s another, smaller shake as a boulder falls from the ceiling, taking Guard 2 down through the floor). Ozma: … Guard 1: NOOOOOOO! Not Guard 2! He was the finest mind of his generation! And two days from retirement! Ozma: Oops? Down one helper, we can leap down the hole the boulder made and walk out of the small cave there to the other side of the mountain road. You head around the long, curved strip which eventually goes up to a town nestled amidst the rocks. Ozma: Is this it? Guard 1: It appears so, m’lady! The Mountain of Outcasts! Ozma: Yeah. Try announcing that a little louder. I’m sure they’d all love the reminder! The camera pans down the road as several doors pop open and civilian sprites, dressed in their Sunday poorest, come out, various farming implements in tow. Guard 1: … This is about to turn ugly. Ozma: *Cracks knuckles* The people approach. Man: Whaddya want? We’re then given a prompt. 1) Hello, sir, have you heard the good word of Lul? 2) Pizza delivery! 3) OZMA SMASH!!! If you pick prompt 3, you just fight some weak mooks, which even the Guard 1 in our party could best. The others get varying responses. -Prompt 1- Man: We don’t take kindly to THAT kind ‘round these parts. You ain’t a Toruble, are you?! Ozma: Uh. No. I’m the OTHER giantess with the royal seal emblazoned on my armor that lives in the same city. Man: Well GOOD then! We got nothing to worry about. The villagers put their weapons away. Ozma: … Um. Right then… -Prompt 2- Man: About time! We ordered that thing like a month ago! Ozma: Uh. Yeah. It took me so long to get here I had to eat it to survive. So, no charge. Man: Awww… okay. Well, since you’re here, you might as well come in… Once you clear up who you are, you get to move around the town freely, with some slightly different flavor text through some NPCs. Head to the furthest back building to find the missing doctor. Ozma knocks. Ozma: OPEN THE DOOR OR LOSE IT! A click is heard and then the door pops open as a tall, skinny gentleman in a lab coat is there. Doctor: P-Princess Ozma?! What are you… I told that crowned buffoon that it wasn’t right OR possible but he wouldn’t listen!!! Ozma: Explanations can wait. I want you to help a guy who’s totally into me. So I hope you can understand why I’d prioritize that over your previous banishment. Doctor: I… what happened to him? Ozma: I might have kinda put his lights out. Doctor: … And he SURVIVED? Ozma: DOC! Doctor: Okay, okay! Here. Give him this. Ozma gets the Heal Herb key item! Ozma: Thanks! And I’ll see if I can’t get daddy – the King – to overturn your sentence! Doctor: I’d rather you not, frankly. If anyone asks, you didn’t get that from me! Ozma: Huh? … Well, if you insist! Doctor: Good. Now, kindly leave, if you’d be so good. Take the road here next to my house and you’ll find the shortcut. Good day, little Princess. We can then access the road (as the fence there moves out of the way) and allows us to return back and forth freely, now that the road through the mountain is one-way. We return to Toruble City and suddenly find it slightly darker and overrun by punks on skateboards. Ozma: What in the world?! Guard 1: The city is under attack by ruffians!!! HOLD THE FORT, MY LIEGE! I AM ON MY WAY! Ozma: No, wait! The Guard runs off screen, only to get kicked back onto it, on his back. Guard 1: N-no! I… I was… just… ONE… day… from… retirement… ugh. Two skateboard punks walk on screen. Skateboard Punk 1: The Dark Puddings gave us run of this drab city and now we run it the way we want! Skateboard Punk 2: Like a giant SKATE PARK! Ozma: Punching you is going to feel a little TOO good. We then deal with some Skate Punks to clear out the path. We can hurry back into the castle and go straight to Hiro now. Ozma: Let’s see… what does the label say? “Warning: may cause underwritten romance”? Well, this is a JeffCom game, that ship has sailed. Ozma gives Hiro the Heal Herb which, in the western release claims “Ozma nursed Hiro to health”. In the Japanese, it said “Crammed it in his mouth”. The scene fades then reopens with Hiro on his feet again. Hiro: My lady, you have saved my life. Uh, again. I’ll ignore you were the one who endangered it, really. Ozma: Right, but unfortunately we have more pressing matters at hand. Hiro: Then allow me to help you. It’s the least I, Hiro, can do! Ozma: Then let’s go, Hiro! Hiro and Ozma reformed the party! Next, we’ll want to leave the castle and head out. On top of random encounters, there’s also set ones, with Skate Punks terrorizing the locals. This not only nets us some nice items from the populace (including a Skateboard Hiro uses as a shield), it also helps make up any difference in level the two may have had. Once we’ve done everything, we can go to the castle throne room, where the King is cowering in a corner. The skate punks zoom around the room as one in particular is perched on the throne. Skate Punk: Man, 90s skater culture will NEVER DIE! Ozma: Yeah, it will certainly never replaced by… hell, NASCAR, beanie babies, or some other cultural flotsam. Skaters: *GASP!!* King Skater: Aha! The prodigal daughter of the recently-dethroned Toruble! While you were out, I have claimed this kingdom for our OWN amusement! The Dark Puddings will reign forever and SKATING WILL NEVER DIE! Ozma: Bastard! Hiro: Now, now, Ozma, maybe we should give them the chance to explain their policies. King Skater: Huh? Hiro: Yeah. As king, surely you must have a bold new vision. After all, you don’t overthrow a monarchy purely for the pursuit of trivial temporary athletic competition. King Skater: … Hiro: Oh God, you really did. Ozma: Can we start punching him until he stops living now? Hiro: Sounds good to me. -Boss Fight!- King Skater x1 LP: 2300 MP: 120 Skate Punks x 5 LP: 750 MP: 0 This fight opens with the message “Haha! You can’t reach me!” and is, unfortunately, true, as so long as even a single Skate Punk remains in the way, Hiro and Ozma cannot target the King Skater. Using Rice Pudding is completely useless, by the way, as the Skate Punks and King Skater keep letting into him, which takes its toll when you’re the punching bag. After a few rounds of impotently killing Skate Punks, Hiro kneels. Hiro: Nnngh! It’s no use. Every time I try to act, they strike as one. Ozma: Hiro! Are you alright?! Hiro: (Pudding Eugenics program… looks like selective breeding lost the bet on that gamble. I will be bested not by the Dark Puddings themselves, but mere children…) Hiro falls flat. Hiro: Nnngh! Ozma: No! Hiro! Don’t tell me your wounds are flaring up again?! Hiro: (Sister… Ozma… forgive me. But so long as I hold the Earth Talisman… the Dark Pudding’s ignoble ambition will still end…) A flash of a huge, red monster eye staring right at the player, followed by a black screen. A moment passes and then a text box appears on screen, with the faint silhouette of a strange, tiny creature appears on-screen. ?: Do you want to live? To experience life to its maximum potential? 1) Yes 2) No -If No- ?: Think REALLY hard about this decision one more time. Because if you say no, you kind of die. -If you select No 128 times- ?: I… really? Seriously? Well… okay. Be that way. Jerk. You then get the game over and “The Era of War never ended…” message for this too. -If Yes- ?: Ask yourself this – why DOES Pudding conform to the shape of its container? Is Pudding solid or liquid? Or is it BOTH?! Hiro: Uh…? ?: You must be as malleable as the Pudding from which you derive your name! You must be both sweet and tangy; both filling and light! Do you understand? Hiro: Not a word. ?: EXCELLENT! Then let me say it another way: when one flavor fails to satisfy, what then must the Pudding do? Hiro: Uh. Open another snack cup? ?: PRECISELY! You understand your own base nature! When two flavors become as one, a new powerful flavor is born! As such, you must discover which flavor best complements your own! Embrace this change and evolve eternally upward! HIRO! Hiro! Hiro?! Hiro: Wha--? The screen goes white, as Hiro gets up, back in the fight. Ozma: Hiro! Are you alright?! Hiro: I felt… something awaken just now. Ozma, do you trust me? Ozma: The script says I do, completely! Without an iota of hesitation! Hiro: Then let’s go! Under Hiro’s skill list is a new Pudding morph: Swirl. Swirl is a catch-all that, when you meet specific requirements, lets Hiro fuse with one other party member. Ozma’s fusion is given to us as of this battle, giving us Chocolate-Raspberry Swirl. Hiro and Ozma become an entirely new entity, carrying an enormous, stone axe and has physical stats so high the Skate Punks will struggle to deal 1 damage to it. One blow will send each Skate Punk packing. Once you take out two or three, you get the new message “Skate Punks are terrified!” and they’ll flee, in turn, until nothing stands between you and the Skate King. Skate King: I-I-I’M N-N-N-NOT A-A-AFRAID OF Y-Y-YOU!!! At this point it becomes a slam-bang contest to the finish. Chocolate-Raspberry Pudding has no skills to its name, but it’s still a little game-breaking-ish… but then again, so are ALL the Swirl (and eventual triple and party swirl morphs) modes. Just send this guy packing. -Boss Fight!- Ozma: Wh-what WAS that power?! Hiro: I don’t know. But when I activated it, my P-Centage begin skyrocketing… I have no idea… Ozma: Daddy! Ozma rushes to her cowering father, who immediately rushes back to the throne and reclaims his crown. King: *AHEM* Yes, indeed. That was a difficult trial, but I was so confident you had it all under control, I simply stood in the corner and awaited the obvious outcome! Hiro & Ozma: … King: YES. So… this is a trying time for us all. I must thereby request you, Leroy— Hiro: Hiro. King: Hiro, to go west from here and crush the Dark Pudding’s stranglehold on the drawbridge which links my fair nation to the next! Hiro: Alright. I can’t think of anything better to do. King: EXCELLENT! Ozma: … (I want to ask all about what Doctor was saying but… I get the feeling I’ll just get stonewalled, as usual.) Father, I will accompany Hiro. In order to ensure that his mission succeeds and the welfare of Toruble is maintained, of course. King: Good. Great. Perfect! I await news of your success! Ozma: Come, Hiro. Let us depart now. We then return through the town one last time, as the citizenry thanks us profusely for our efforts, then we head a short trek west. With the sea sponges safely in their new homes, we can go to the drawbridge encampment. When we enter, the rules change a bit. We have three ways of going about this – sneaking by everyone patiently, killing them all hastily, or sneaking up behind them and systematically knocking them out. That last one is only available here and pretty much nowhere else in the franchise, so the fact it’s even an option is a surprise to most until they deliberately TRY to get into a fight, then realize stealth kills yield no exp. The real prize is when we find their storage tent and load up from their losses. Next to it is their prison tent, where a curvaceous ninja girl is holed up in a cardboard box, animated with a “HELP!” balloon over it. Hiro: Um. Are you alright? Voice: No! Please, get me out of this prison! It’s hell! I can’t see! Hiro shrugs, then cuts the tape. Voice: *GASP* The girl climbs out quickly, panting with surprisingly well-rendered jiggle physics. Hiro: Who are you?! Girl: I’m Kimyawa. Enemy to the Dark Pudding’s evil ambition! And you are— Hiro: I’m Hiro. This is Ozma. Kimyawa: Hiro-nii-chan! We must escape immediately! Across the bridge and some ways in, we’ll find Loyroll! Hiro: Who is… Kimyawa: My nii-san! Hiro: Sure, whatever. That totally makes sense to me with all my English speaking and all. Kimyawa: Let’s hurry! We then get to stealth our way through the camp’s remainder to the drawbridge. If you came here without Kimyawa, Hiro would stop and mention he felt like they needed to look around first. Now that the gang’s all here, Ozma runs to the chain and shatters them with her hand, dropping the bridge like a lead weight into place. Ozma: C’mon! Hiro: W-wow! Such brute strength! Such primal beauty! Kimyawa: Later, nii-chan! Let’s go!

[psyga315]

Tweaking Volume 6

So, I decided to try my hand at rewriting RWBY. Though, I’m not gonna do the whole “rebuild it from the ground up” angle, but rather tackle one volume to try and have it tie its plot together a little better. In this case: Volume 6. As such, this isn’t “fixing” RWBY so much as tweaking it. So, for the most part, Volume 6 is mostly intact save for the scenes that were changed up.

The first thing we need to establish is the underlying theme. What is this Volume about? From the titles, it seems to imply that the story is about RWBY/JNR breaking away from Ozpin’s path and doing things their way, as most of their titles relate to this subplot. That said, the ending song, character short, and huge part of the climax have the theme of cutting out abuse from your life. Namely Adam.

So, we need to restructure the Volume based off a central theme of both subplots: how to grow past the teachings of your mentor. This can even tie in to the villains’ subplot. Now, it is worth noting that the increased focus on Adam throughout this tweak isn’t to “adambate”, but rather to add prominence to him in the same way Pyrrha was given prominence in Volume 3.

Let’s begin with…

Episode 1

This should pick up right where Volume 5 left off, with a brief montage of the fallout of the Fall of Haven (named such because despite the heroes’ best efforts, without the Headmaster, the Academy fell into disarray for a bit) followed by Mistralians welcoming the Menagerian Faunus with open arms. This is also where Qrow’s exposition comes in, though for a nice jab at the heart, when he mentions how Lionheart died a hero, it cuts to the little girl from Volume 5 (the one who asked “does he know where mommy is”) visiting her mother’s grave to show that something isn’t right with that story.

To further compound this, Sun brings up Lionheart’s betrayal before Blake cuts him off and reminds him of the consequences to the Faunus relationships should the truth of him conspiring with the villains slip out.

So we get the departure scene unedited, though with a scene where Blake tells Sun that, while she thanks him for his efforts, she realized in her separation from Yang that she has feelings for her rather than Sun. Sun, being Sun, is 110% cool with it and encourages her to go after Yang, though Blake mentions how it would be easier said than done given how she believes that she burned that bridge down when she ran.

Most of this episode remains unaltered save for the lamp exposition being done in this episode. The reason for all this exposition is to get them out of the way and to also mentally prepare people for what they expect to be another chat-heavy Volume, only to pull the rug from under them when the train suddenly gets attacked by Grimm. I feel like this might be a better way to poke fun at last Volume than have the characters lampshade it.

Obviously, Ozpin brings up that the Relic attracts Grimm, as that’s the very inciting incident that creates the lack of faith in Ozpin subplot, but Ozpin also brings up that the Relic’s attraction is faint. Jaune combines his Semblance with Ren and is about to cover the train when they hear screaming and a familiar laugh. JNR run to see what’s the matter. When the sound of fighting ensues, Blake is the first to investigate.

Blake goes out to see what’s going on and sees Adam tossing a civilian off the train and laughing about it. Naturally, she freaks out and cuts the connection of the train. She soon realizes what she had done (left JNR alone with Adam) and her fear and paranoia kick up into high gear, causing the Grimm to focus on RWBY’s train rather than JNR’s train.

This is where we see how, despite RWBY coming back together, they hardly are coordinated, especially with a panicking Blake and a twitchy Yang. We get to see this in contrast to JNR’s fight with Adam, where the group is in sync in handling Adam. I’m not gonna sugar-coat Adam’s power level. He’s weak sauce, plain and simple. The only reason he’s “strong” is his ability to gas-light people and trick them into getting angry. Given how Ren and Jaune both went through that ordeal, though, they handle Adam, though his Semblance does throw them off.

The only way they manage to get Adam off their back is Jaune realizing what his Semblance does and, in a scene that demonstrates his strategic mind, overpowers Adam’s Semblance to where his Moonslice pushes him away from the group and out of their sight for the time being, with the obvious note that, because he has a buffed Aura, he’d be able to survive. Just as JNR realize they’re stuck, they hear someone:

“Don’t fret, passengers. The glory of Atlas shall guide you to Argus!”

And we don’t see JNR until after the “Ozpin gets BTFO” Arc and the Apathy Arc.

The fight with the Sphinx and Manticore is the same with the aforementioned bumbling around, and we even see Weiss try to summon again before a Manticore pummels her, with Weiss just saying “screw it!” and using another of her Glyphs to pwn the Manticore.

Episode ends like usual.

Oh, and Ruby’s gift for Yang is explicitly shown to be the magazine she reads in the train because why show the bag if you’re not gonna reveal it.

Episode 2

This is kept the same, except the Cinder scenes are moved to its own episode.

Episode 3

This is kept the same, However, I will add in a detail that makes the God of Light much more benevolent (and nicer) than in the show. Namely, worshippers of the God of Light are the ones to try to talk to Salem about how death is natural and Salem only visits the God of Darkness. The God of Darkness agrees to revive Ozma, but she must do his version of bending the knee: take a dip into his pool. Doesn’t destroy her but instead make her an immortal lord of the Grimm.

God of Light comes in and goes “WTF!?” as the God of Darkness revives Ozma. This time, the battle between the two ends up destroying humanity (and broke the moon) save for Ozma and Salem. Ozma has no idea what happened and Salem kept mum on what happened. They settle down and have kids, but eventually Salem feels compelled to tell Ozma about what happened… and Ozma is devastated. And thus, he does the thing that causes Salem to forever despise him for the rest of his days:

He calmly walked to the pool of Light, left behind in the battle, and takes a swan dive into it, presumably killing him.

It doesn’t though, and instead makes him one with the God of Light, just as Salem became part of the God of Darkness. The God of Light laments in how the world he and his brother created was destroyed simply because humanity relied on them too much. And so, he asks Ozma to unify the world’s remnants, but he also gives him a stipulation: he must also gather the Relics and call upon the Gods when humanity is ready to be judged. If the humans learn to live with each other and not demand anything of the Gods, he will walk among them once again. If not, however aaaaand the world goes boom.

Ozma has his whole reincarnation thing where he finds out that Salem, in her grief, killed their kids and used the Grimm to attack Humanity 2.0, which are basically the Light Brother’s attempt to remake humanity, just that Aura and Semblance are his half-assed means to replicate his brother’s magic, with Dust being the remnants of the Dark Brother’s magic. There’s an implication she had a hand in making Faunus, but not in that “she made them” sort of way. Rather she caused some of them to have more violent features like fangs and stingers that caused humanity to fear them. This causes Blake to react with horror and anger at Salem.

While I was tempted to add a scene where Ozma has more to do with Salem’s fall from grace or give her a reason to hate him, like how the Maidens he gave magic to were Salem’s daughters, but I decided to keep his overall role the same and give the basic gist that he hates people finding out the truth behind his lies because it reminds him of what he did when he found out about what happened to his world. However, there is heavier emphasis on how he had led people to their demise against Salem. Namely how, when Ruby sees Ozpin’s many forms falling before Salem, she sees a flurry of Huntsmen… and a certain white-cloaked figure before it too scatters like a rose.

That and Oscar sees Pyrrha’s death and the whole Maiden thing that Ozpin did to her.

The other thing is that Ozma discovers Salem’s immortality because at one point he does kill her but she doesn’t die. Not because Jinn goes “lol, you can’t.” since I kinda want to make Jinn more benevolent like the God that made her and not somehow sowing the seeds of discord.

Episode 4

Same episode, but now Ruby’s pissed at Ozpin as well. Not enough to punch Oscar or even berate him, but enough to say “good riddance” or “coward” when Ozpin retreats.

The bit with Salem is still kept in but we actually get that scene where Salem wanted to have a word with Tyrian back in Volume 5 (remember that, V5?!). She explains to Tyrian that Qrow is still alive despite his efforts and he breaks down, apologizing to her and even offering to kill himself for her approval and how the only reason she didn’t let him is because he’s still of use to him. This is contrasted with Emerald’s fear of Salem when she talks with her about Cinder’s failure. This basically serves to show the full extent of just what Ozpin could have been but also show how Ozpin isn’t like Salem.

Episode 5

So, this is where a little bit of a change comes in. As the group stay at the Brunswick Farm and they settle for the night, every one of the characters gets an introspective of their developing apathy. In order:

Oscar is worried about being regarded as Ozpin and is even worried about how Jaune would react.

Qrow is depressed over Ozpin’s machinations and, as the episode ends, finds a stash of liquor.

Blake begins to berate herself about Adam and explains the reason of why she let Adam run (namely because of his whole “get inside your head” tactic she mentioned in the finale) to Yang.

Yang, much to Blake’s dismay, doesn’t blame her, but she doesn’t also forgive her either. Instead, she’s caught up in the thought of calling Ozpin out for omitting information about the Relic, only for herself to have omitted information about the Maiden. In short, she also feels guilty about what happened.

Weiss is upset about having to return to Atlas and is visibly shook over her near-death experience and how she was ultimately the one to blame for putting her guard down. Incidentally, she’s the only one who doesn’t feel tired, but that’s only because she’s mindlessly practicing the same fencing moves over and over until her body tires out for her.

Ruby’s the only person who is outright concerned about Salem’s immortality and how no one can beat her. Not just because Yang’s edgelord of a mom was correct, but how her own mother died and proved that statement. She talks to the only person who isn’t affected by the Apathy, Maria, that she just wants to bring the lamp to Atlas, go back home, and never go out again.

Maria eavesdrop to every bit of this, but gives Ruby the advice she needs to move on: “What do you think your mother would do if she knew the truth?” and we end with Maria asking Ruby: “My glasses are no good, but… what color are your eyes?”

Episode 6

Episode mostly remains the same, though with the explicit notion that the Apathy only fed on the negative emotions the group felt and didn’t amplify the doubts they had, thus they don’t go “lol, it was all the Apathy’s fault we were like that”. Probably also either drop hints about this being Adam’s place from when he was a slave there (even have Weiss notice a branding iron with the SDC logo on it and frowning to show foreshadowing) or it being Roman’s home (and it’s Ruby who feels upset with this revelation).

It’s also in this episode that we get a little exposition on the Silver Eyes (the whole “they only work on Grimm” thing and the fact that the Light Brother made them) and this causes Ruby to quickly utilize it when the Apathy attack them. Blake decides to try and sacrifice herself to atone for what she did to Yang, but Ruby’s eyes go off and you know the rest.

Episode 7

This is entirely Cinder’s episode, where she gets out of the Vault and gets the help of the Spiders. However, there’s a heavier emphasis that it’s Adam that was trailing RWBY the whole time and not misleading us by implying it was Hazel.

This also leads to the whole Neo fight and the whole “I was ordered by Salem not to kill Ruby” thing, but Neo gives a jab by implying “why didn’t you kill Ruby when you had the chance?”, as she had heard about the Fall of Haven and Cinder’s role in it, to which Cinder just meekly answers with “well I was going to.”

Basically, rather than sprinkle the Cinder scenes across the volume, condense them into one. We end on Adam recovering from his fall and tracking down RWBY, finding the house and scornfully growling before he kills a stray Apathy.

Episode 7

Basically the same, but heavier emphasis that Tock’s employer was Salem and that she has a connection to Tyrian.

Episode 8 & 9

Keep this relatively the same, but have Cordovin explain why she doesn’t let Weiss’s friends through. “Let’s see, we have an angry girl who attacked someone without their aura on live television, a drunken waste of energy who attacked an Atleasian general in front of a crowd, the team whose member utterly destroyed our masterpiece Huntress-in-training (cue a frown from Ruby and a scornful look from Jaune), and, of course, the Faunus.” She doesn’t even add any details, she just says “the faunus” for Blake. Weiss gets upset and that’s when she goes “we’re done here.”

Now, here’s where this gets the most change, because in all honesty, that whole “Oscar’s missing” thing was stupid cliff-hanger baiting. So, here’s how the change begins.

Jaune calls out Oscar like he did, but adds in one final hook: “Did Pyrrha know about this before you killed her!?” in the same venom that Hazel had. Ruby stops Jaune and tells her that Cinder killed Pyrrha. Jaune tosses Oscar aside and leaves in a huff. Ren and Nora are understandably pissed as well (please let them have more dialogue to address that Pyrrha was also their loss, RT) and it’s agreed that everyone needs to have some space, especially with what had happened at the farm.

And so, slowly and surely, we have our group split up to comfort each other. In order:

Oscar approaches Weiss and tells her about how he wants to help the team and atone for how Ozpin inadvertently hurt JNPR, feeling as though, if he is to become him, he might as well lay the groundwork for a better Ozpin. This naturally gets Weiss inspired to go clothes shopping with him, especially since they’re going to Atlas and if it was cold back there, it’s gonna get colder where they’re going.

Blake talks with Ren and Nora and talks about her experience with Adam. Ren is annoyed when she starts wallowing about him and asks her to get to the point. She mentions how Adam mentored her much like how Ozpin mentored them, but the difference was that Ozpin genuinely cared for them whereas Adam manipulated her. She comes clean about her past at the White Fang to them and expresses a small bit of regret in not letting Ozpin know about them, but that they need to keep moving forward for Pyrrha’s sake. It’d be a bit too cynical for Ren to go “we haven’t heard that one before”, but if we’re going in the tradition of lampshading Volume 5… I dunno, maybe a lighter version of that where it doesn’t sound condescending?

Yang goes out drinking with Qrow to confirm she’s old enough to drink. She hardly is able to talk to Qrow though because every time she does, she worries about slipping up and talking about how she hid the fact that Raven was the Maiden, only for Qrow to mumble out nonsense that ends up implying that he does know about that and knows Yang kept it a secret, but that in the grand scheme of things, there was nothing they could have done now that she’s who knows where. Though this further guilt trips Yang because she believes now that, had she not yelled at Raven and convinced her to leave the Relic back in the vault and closed it, they wouldn’t be in this mess.

Lastly, Ruby talks with Jaune in a scene that mirrors the whole Weiss/Yang scene in Volume 5 with a heavy dose of the Oscar/Ruby scene from the same Volume. Though now, with this line:

“I saw my mom die when Jinn told us the truth. She died the same way Pyrrha did. But she didn’t throw her life away. She fought and despite knowing she couldn’t win, she did it to protect the ones she loves. And I’m certain Pyrrha did the exact same thing.”

Jaune is moved by this and instantly thinks of how to get into Atlas.

Smash cut to a sobered up Qrow (with Yang there, she was able to get him sober before they returned) telling him it’s a stupid plan. Jaune explains the plan in the briefest detail he can and Ruby vouches for him. Basically, what happened at the end, but instead of “we didn’t need an adult to save us” it’s more “we tried the adult way back at Haven and all that did was make us fish in a barrel for Salem. Now, we try it our way.”, hinting to the finale’s title.

Emerald and Mercury have their thing, but at the end, they sneak out with Tyrian and Watts after the former tells them to do what makes them happy (they lampshade how odd it is coming from the crazy man), but the stinger of this volume shows they, on route, saw the Grimm be made with wings.

The Final Quarter

So, the heist goes like before, but with Cinder and Neo getting involved. Not by much, but they mostly just sneak in their airship by using Cordovin’s fight with Ruby as a distraction for them to slip by. We can even have the guys at Argus warn Cordovin about it only for her to brush it off.

The fight doesn’t change by much, but one should change it so that Ruby and the group are reluctant to destroy the mech because of Jaune bringing up how it’s used to protect Argus from big Grimm.

The big scene that changes, though, is Adam’s fight with Blake. It begins with Blake telling Yang that she’ll go to the tower alone, but Yang knows better. They both know Adam is following them and that Blake is aware that Adam is waiting for the right moment for him to strike. Now, this can go one of two ways. The Bumblebee route where they plan out the entire fight (right down to Yang feigning a panic attack in “Seeing Red”) or the Feels Route where the following happens:

Blake wants to atone for her misdeeds and she sees this as the best way to do it, telling Yang to go with Ruby and the others. Yang doesn’t have any of it, but as she grabs her, she notices it’s a shadow.

Blake confronts Adam without being scared. They both know that only one person will come out of this alive. And so, they fight.

As they do, flashbacks of Adam’s past comes to light, emphasising who he was prior to the character short: a scared slave who was purchased by Brunswick from shady Schnee Dust Corporation members whose pain (remember, they had the branding iron) attracted Grimm and prompted Brunswick to bring in the Apathy. From there, he joined the White Fang and made it his mission to oppose humanity for their crimes and we see his slow and gradual fall from grace to the madman that we know him today.

Adam’s reason for hating Blake is simple. She ruined everything. As soon as she ran during the train heist back in the Black Trailer, Adam was caught by the police (as Blake stole the part of the train that kept going) and were it not for Banesaw, he would have been arrested. At first, he wanted to leave Blake for dead, but as soon as he saw her being friends with not just humans, but a Schnee, he was furious and Cinder enabled him to want to destroy everything Blake loved.

Let me repeat this for clarity: Adam was always a manipulative gas-lighter. It’s that Cinder encouraged him to do the whole “I will destroy everything you love” thing.

Yang comes in and… Okay, I’m gonna address an elephant in the room.

Yang’s PTSD is a subject of controversy. You have Unicorn of War showing a person’s thoughts on how Yang’s PTSD is properly portrayed and then you have MuffinManDan making fun at how it wasn’t portrayed. Really, her scene can go either way, but in the spirit of what Adam’s true strength is, here’s how I imagine the rematch.

Yang fights Adam like how it happens, but you can see that Yang is acting purely on adrenaline. Adam notices this and starts to take advantage of it, taunting her about the events at Beacon. Yang begins to panic and Adam’s true strength, his gas-lighting, shines. For a good chunk of the fight, it looks like Adam has the upper hand, continually guilt tripping Yang and Blake and mocking their determination to protect each other.

“You humans are all the same! Nothing but squabbling idiots who are quick and easy to anger!” Adam lands the final blow on Yang…

CLANG!

“Yeah…” Yang used her hand to catch his sword. “Like you.” And her eyes flash red.

It turns out Yang had seen Adam for who he truly is and had no reason to fear him. Her freaking out was her fighting fire with fire and pretending to be afraid. She then lays into Adam and blows his every statement back with each hit. So basically, this is where that whole “she promised to stay by my side, too” “you mean the person she thought she promised?” “WHAT DOES SHE SEE IN YOU!?” exchange come in.

And then Adam is killed. He gets a bit of a better send off than what he got, but not by much. Basically, as he dies, we get a flashback to Adam and Blake working together for the first time and having a genuine scene where Blake bonds with him, as though to illustrate that, had Adam let go of his spite for humanity, he would have had a better life. Adam falls on the ground and dies. Blake breaks down, but Yang reassures her that it’s over and we get Bumblebee confirmed. No, they don’t kiss because kissing over a corpse is goddamned creepy and Bumblebee deserves better than reminding the audience about the Lannisters.

The Leviathan comes, along with the Grimm, but this time we get a bigger emphasis of Ruby realizing she fucked up as we see the Grimm attack civilians and even the Cotta-Arcs getting menaced by a Grimm (though not killed), though Jaune takes part of the blame as he’s the one who suggested it and even strategized how to disable the mech.

However, Ruby, in her culmination of her character arc, decides to do something about it rather than wait for someone else to help her. She has Weiss summon the Queen Lancer and fly off to confront the Leviathan. There, she tries to use Silver Eyes, but the doubts in her head cause the Grimm to nearly eat her had it not been for Jinn stopping time. Remember, in this rewrite, she’s pretty nice and not tearing the team apart with two words.

So Ruby gathers the courage to Silver Eyes the Grimm, Cordovin saves Ruby and the heroes head to Atlas, Bees buzzing with delight as we hype up Weiss’s inevitable reunion with her father and we get a scene where Tyrian rallys some Faunus who are in Mantle, telling them that “our Queen has proclaimed change. Atlas will fall!”

DVD Exclusive Episode Because $$$

This is basically expanding on the stinger that last Volume had, where Raven laments about the past life choices and we finally have that STRQ flashback episode we’ve been wanting, though it’s mostly Raven’s POV so we don’t get any juicy stuff aside from how she left Ozpin and became the Spring Maiden. This is probably the only wish fulfilment I would want out of this entire rewrite. Think of it as the “beach episode” of RWBY.

It ends with Taiyang asking Raven what she’ll do now that she’s realized what a coward she is. Cut to black, see you next Volume.

And that’s how I would tweak Volume 6. Not much except by the end, and even then, I tried to keep most of the scenes intact but reworked the context and made it more worthwhile. Unfortunately I doubt I was able to work in the theme I wanted to do at the beginning, but that’s basically the rough sketch I have for this tweak.

[bestworstcase]

@sigruned:

unhinged about songs hours are the best hours. This one is particularly interesting, since from what i've seen the general consensus is that it's an oscar song given where it's used in the show and the fears it references. curious to know if you think that interpretation holds water at all?

oscar?! OSCAR!?

do people think the song is about the merge? i… can’t think of any other interpretation of the lyrics that even kind of wrestles the song’s narrative into an oscar-shaped… shape, and reading the song that way is difficult given the broader narrative context (the antagonist in this scene is indisputably salem) and the later implication that oz regained consciousness well before oscar did (oscar wakes up to oz going “oscar? oscar, don’t panic—we’re going to be okay”).

so oscar is out cold during the chase scene when ‘the sky is falling’ plays (“we’re wide awake” ❌), but we’ve seen before (7.13) that when oscar is unconscious, ozma 1. retains some degree of awareness and 2. apparently can’t take control of their body, otherwise he would’ve done so while they were falling to there deaths instead of trying to wake oscar (“we’re wide awake” ✅ taken literally means that ‘we’ does not include oscar, but that tracks with ‘you’ being salem later).

the… other major problem is that none of oscar’s fears regarding the merge are irrational: he’s not imagining the existential threat to his selfhood. the sky-is-falling motif has very specific connotations that just don’t fit with who oscar is as a character and what he’s afraid of. the lyrics also directly contradict the way oscar expresses these feelings: throughout v8 his deepest fear is that the merge is increasing in tempo and he’s running out of time as he loses himself, versus “we’re losing all control/not getting closer” in ‘the sky is falling.’

the apocalyptic imagery of ‘the sky is falling’ in general also feels at odds with oscar. “our world’s/lost without a soul” and “we’re trapped in slow decay” and “eternal enemy/our fate is sealed” and “now it’s one more sin/as evil wins” and so forth, none of that sounds like oscar. the narrative makes the point over and over that for all his private existential despair, oscar is a lot more optimistic in his view of the world than oz.

meanwhile a significant chunk of what oz does in v8 is screaming about the apocalypse. “you’ll only be helping her bring about the end, for all of you!” / “if salem gets all four relics, there will be no world left at all.” so ‘the sky is falling’ is tonally appropriate for ozma but not for oscar.

lastly, reading the song as oscar’s makes a muddle of the emotional reversals in the final section, unless one interprets that section as a switch to ozma’s point of view—although that is problematic in that the song narrative doesn’t make a lot of sense as a duet. “feeling nothing but pain/until i see you again” is the pin holding the song’s narrative together, and this scene is followed directly by “it’s been… how many years since we saw each other like this, face to face?”—there’s a clear emotional throughline from ozma thinking i want to see salem and then castigating himself for having that thought and then hiding behind oscar rather than face her.

whereas if it’s oscar… who is the you in until i see you again? given the context of the song-narrative it would have to be ruby, but in the context of the scene interjecting her here is sort of arbitrary: she isn’t involved in the chase and her and oscar’s separation isn’t a defining thematic development for them in the way it is for yang and blake. certainly it doesn’t carry the same weight as ozma having the chance to talk to salem again for the first time since that night and convincing himself not to do it.

and like granted. i shouldn’t be surprised given that the general consensus on ‘fear’ also seems to be that it’s oscar’s even though it’s literally just ozma’s v7 soliloquy in song form a la divide musicalizing salem’s v3 soliloquy. this fandom fucking loves to take oz things and pretend they’re oscar things. but every particle in my body screamed NO? WHAT? mrgdbxjkm

coughs. ‘touch the sky’ though is one of my very few exceptions to the principle that songs play under the characters or scenes that they’re about, because the snippet of ‘touch the sky’ in 7.3 is preceded by this:

oscar says “ruby?”, the scene cuts to rwbyjnr landing in front of the mine, wby sort of pull ruby aside to question her decision to lie to ironwood, and then we cut back to see the rest of the ruby-oscar conversation. which ends with oscar going “hiding things from ironwood, doesn’t that feel like what ozpin did to us?” with the lamp in his hands and thus sets up their big thematic disagreement for the volume.

so while oscar isn’t there during ‘touch the sky’, the scene when it plays is conspicuously about his absence and specifically ruby not feeling good about doing Ozpin Things.

and then touch the sky is like:

I’m soaring  Like I never have before Flying self-assured and free And I somehow feel I finally feel like me I looked in the mirror And I gotta say It’s been a long long time Since I felt this way

and:

My heart’s electric racing endlessly Feeling like the stars have all aligned Illuminate the darkness that was blinding me  Now I’m positive that it’s my time to shine I will explode You’ll see me rise You may not even  Recognize I just can’t wait for this reveal Exploring  Now I’ve opened up a door Finding so much more in me When I look inside I’m liking what I see  I’m climbing higher with the past behind me  Heights like I never dreamed Finally learned I need to do it my way Now I see what I can be When I trust in me I’m free

which is a) SUPER NOT what ruby’s feeling in this moment of the story, but b) exactly the feeling that oscar recalls when he explains why he’s upset that oz came back: “i started to feel like me. not the same me i was before all of this, but the me i always wanted to be. i felt like i was actually part of the team.”

ergo, oscar song. and it plays right after “ruby?” and before “how did oscar feel about that?” because it’s a song about oscar not being ozpin, and the scene is about ruby’s fear that she is like ozpin. the contrast between ‘touch the sky’ and ‘the sky is falling’ both lyrically and musically is because one is oscar and the other is ozma.

Any thoughts on "The Sky is Falling"? I happened to be listening to it the other day and went "wow, this seems like something BestWorstCase would have Thoughts about", but searching your blog didn't turn anything up on it. If Tumblr search has failed me (probably not for the last time), I'd be interested to see what you've written before; otherwise, I'd be interested to hear now :)

ough i do have thoughts. many thoughts. idk if i’ve ever posted them, partly because i argue with myself a lot about whether it’s a hound song or an ozma song brfghks. much as i’d like it to be the hound for rotating him reasons, though, i do think ozma is a stronger textual reading.

unhinged about songs hours ->

the motif of the sky falling obviously calls to mind the chicken little folktale, of which there are numerous variations but in all of them the kerfuffle over the sky falling is hysterical: the danger is not real. in some versions of the tale, a sly fox incites the panic on purpose at the beginning and then eats the frightened birds who turn to him for help at the end.

the song’s narrative placement also connects it to atlas, and thence to atlas telamon, the titan who holds up the sky on his shoulders. (not the world—that’s a common misconception; classical images of atlas shouldering a globe depict the celestial sphere. it’s the sky.)

so we have on one hand the apocalyptic motif of the sky falling, and on the other the very real danger to atlas, conflated together: if atlas falls, so too must the sky… except that ‘the sky is falling’ is idiomatically an irrational fear. atlas may fall—that danger is real—but the world will not end if it does. the song’s central motif implies paranoid hysteria.

there is also the latin maxim fiat justitia ruat caelum, let justice be done though the skies fall. i go back and forth on whether i think the writers specifically have that in mind, in relation to this motif, but: “it’s important not to lose sight of what drives us—love, justice, reverence” and “in pursuit of a new world, no cost is too great.” fiat justitia, ruat caelum. that’s the salem perspective.

and i bring that up because of sacrifice:

Born an angel, heaven-sent Falls from grace are never elegant Stars will drop out of the sky, The moon will sadly watch the roses die In vain, Lost, no gain But you’re not taking me.

and

Show them gods and deities, Blind and keep the people on their knees. Pierce the sky, escape your fate, The more you try, the more you’ll just breed hate And lies. Truth will rise, Revealed by mirrored eyes.

with its similarly apocalyptic imagery (‘stars will drop out of the sky’/‘pierce the sky, escape your fate’) in relation to ozma and his task, and salem positioning herself in opposition (‘but you're not taking me’/‘truth will rise’)—fiat justitia, ruat caelum.

hence, ozma song.

‘the sky is falling’ is directly a dark mirror to ‘touch the sky’ but it’s also—i think more interestingly—a sardonic reflection on ‘until the end’ if one reads both songs as articulations of ozma’s perspective.

emotionally, ‘until the end’ leaves off here:

Love brings us dreams, But grief makes the heart burst at the seams. As light fills my eyes, I’ll picture me beside her, And pray that I’ll inspire, I promise I’ll be here until… …our story has been told. Til our bodies break down every door. Til we find what we’ve been looking for.

it’s a dream—a fantasy—ozma finding hope in this imagined scenario where he can be with salem again. i’ll picture me beside her.

and then she, uh. captures him:

Here comes another nightmare, Another fever dream. The horror just won’t stop, An endless scream, But this is not subconscious; We’re not imagining. We’re wide awake, This is reality.

lol.

‘until the end’ is very lovelorn and idealistic, and also fundamentally passive: though “desperate to make amends,” the promise ozma makes is to… wait. to do nothing. to hope for salem to make the first move.

and well. she does. this is what ‘the sky is falling’ is about, the collision of ozma’s romantic fantasies with the harsh reality of the situation.

Our world’s Lost without a soul. We’re losing all control, Not getting closer. Every day is just another dose of torture. Now we pay the cost. The race is lost, This nightmare’s Our real life.

points.

OSCAR: It should not be this hard getting people to just cooperate. OZ: And yet, it’s something I’m becoming increasingly concerned about.

this is what oz is worrying about all morning while the hound stalks oscar across mantle, how difficult it is to get anyone to “just cooperate.” because—contrary to the popular fanon—he is in fact still committed to his task and he does still, on some level, believe that remnant is damned and its people are missing something fundamental; his secrecy and manipulation, his guiding interest in silver-eyes and maidens and elevated ‘guardians’ and ‘symbols of hope,’ his all speak to his lack of true faith in humanity. and that traces back to what the god of light told him.

(since people love to cite ozpin’s commentary on ‘the story of the seasons’ as “evidence” that he’s abandoned his task by misinterpreting “I fear that if unrestricted magic use were possible, the results would be chaotic and catastrophic” to mean that ozpin thinks people are better off without magic rather than ozpin justifying his efforts to control the maidens; here’s part of his commentary on ‘the two brothers.’

Whether or not you believe in the Brothers, or in this story in particular, the underlying message still holds value: We are burdened with responsibility for our world, and we share a common destiny. Like the twin gods, we are intricately connected with one another, and if we can learn to work and live together, we can create things greater than the sum of their parts. Remnant survived the Great War, but while the four kingdoms now cooperate and coexist, our bond seems tenuous. We have a fragile peace, and in some ways, we are more divided than ever. Even if the gods aren’t real, even if they don’t return to judge us for our deeds, we should act each day as though they are arriving tomorrow. In the end, we will be the arbiters of our fates. We will either create a beautiful, peaceful world and live in harmony together or destroy ourselves and our planet, and the gods will judge what we have chosen.

in which he not only states his belief in his mandate and the inevitability of divine judgment outright, in plain terms, but also repeats the same fear he confided in salem thousands of years ago, that despite finding happiness or achieving peace, he worries that people are “more divided than ever.”)

thus: “our world’s/lost without a soul/we’re losing all control/not getting closer.” oz has become “increasingly concerned” about how hard it is to “get people to just cooperate.” and so “every day is just another dose of torture,” because, well…

To live free or die, it’s all the same. The enemy was right, there’s no reclaiming. In waves of shame, We’re desperate to make amends

…he knows salem is right. his task is impossible; things can never go back to the way they were. the old world, the world of the brothers, is gone and trying to reclaim it will achieve nothing but destroying remnant.

and yet he cannot bring himself to believe it, because to him this would amount to condemning the world, to admitting that remnant is broken and irredeemable and must be destroyed because it cannot be saved. to him, salem’s rejection of the mandate is horrifying—tantamount to a a declaration that nothing in the world is worth trying to save.

in her mind, rejecting the mandate is an act of defiance: remnant does not need to be saved because there is nothing wrong with it, and where he sees damnation, salem finds freedom. and that’s what ripped them apart.

‘sacrifice’ makes this point also:

Did the things you thought you should, All the things they said were good. All your faith in ancient ways Leaves you trapped inside a maze. […] Even with the lives you stole, Still no closer to your… goal.

that ozma’s faith in the god of light imprisons him in a futile, impossible quest because he can’t escape his belief that the world is broken, that salem’s freedom is really damnation. he achieves so much—he united the four human kingdoms after the great war and ushered in an era of unprecedented worldwide peace—and still, in ozpin’s own words, he sees only that people are “more divided than ever.”

the chorus of ‘the sky is falling’:

Better cover up your eyes, my friend, The sky is falling, Can’t outrun the ruin of our lives. Be prepared, we’re near the end, The final days are calling. Hold on now, The sky is falling down.

similarly echoes the motif of blindness that appears in ‘sacrifice’ (“close your eyes now, time for dreams/death is never what it seems” and “show them gods and deities/blind and keep the people on their knees”) and, more obliquely, in ‘until the end’ (“love brings us dreams/but grief makes the heart burst at the seams/as light fills my eyes/i’ll picture me beside her” -> the light is death, the light is love, love brings us dreams and death is never what it seems).

the first two lines of the chorus are also a direct inversion of ‘trust love’: “better cover up your eyes, my friend/the sky is falling” vs “trust love/and open up your eyes.” which is salient because ‘trust love’ is chiefly about ozlem; it’s in conversation with ‘sacrifice’ and ‘until the end’ and on top of the central motif of love restoring sight there is also, “if you could only open up a door/spread your wings and fly away from here/write yourself into a fairytale/all your problems would just disappear.” the you is ozma.

and that makes ‘trust love’ + ‘until the end’ + ‘the sky is falling’ really um, pointed foreshadowing:

All you have to be Is here in reality Leave your fantasy You’ll find the key  To victory I know the dark’s returning And the fires of hate are burning But the lies can’t hide what’s true When love’s alive

in one sense ‘until the end’ is the fantasy and reality ensues in ‘the sky is falling’, but in another—deeper, more important—‘until the end’ is also the truth which ozma keeps hidden from himself, and ‘the sky is falling’ is the act of self-deception; better cover up your eyes, my friend, the sky is falling.

so all of this—all of it—this is the false narrative oz has constructed about himself and salem, his blindness:

A curse that’s Never-ending This path with No escape No sudden death We’re trapped In slow decay These words are Not symbolic The torment’s All too real Eternal enemy Our fate is sealed We slide Further down the hole The damage takes its toll Helpless and broken Failed to stem the Tide of pain The floodgates open Now it’s one more sin As evil wins And misery steals Our lives

notice too how this section of the song reflects darkly on the hope and longing expressed in ‘until the end.’

ozma let himself imagine a reprieve (“time falls away/but pain always finds a way to stay/the tears that you’ve shed/will find a tree to water/but only when you’re stronger”), which he now scathingly reminds himself is impossible: his curse is never-ending, there is no escape even in death, he’s trapped in slow decay, his fate as her eternal enemy is sealed.

he admitted to himself that he wished to make amends and for just a moment he let himself believe that he could (“and stare with pride into the face of fear/in our finest hour, i’ll be standing here/and should we fall to darkness/this power i will harness/i promise i’ll be here until the end”), and now he mocks himself for it: he has done nothing but decay, corrupted more and more with every lifetime as he becomes unrecognizable to himself; the damage takes its toll. helpless. broken. he can’t make the pain stop, he can’t fix anything, he can’t save either of them.

oz found enough courage and hope to crawl back out of his darkness and try, once more, to do the right thing—to make amends—and what happened when he tried? “i’m not upset that you left. i’m upset you came back.”

that conversation, oz trying to apologize and being told that he’d done wrong again, made a mistake again, happened at most an hour or two before the hound caught them. one more sin as evil wins, cue the chorus.

and then the song turns inside out. (pour one out for the terrible rap 😔)

Lost all my hopes And dreams Watch my life flash By in scenes And it seems there’s No soul on the  Video screen But I’m green tryin’ To figure out what All of it means Staring at the casket Hoping to move past it Knowing things will Never be the same And that’s it Cold soaked as I stand in the rain Feeling nothing but pain Until I see you again

clears throat. not a metaphor. this is about the lost fable—ozma very literally watched his life flash by in scenes, narrated by jinn in ozpin’s own words, and then he retreated into isolation to think about it. not to brood or sulk but to reflect; he comes back with a very clear idea of what he did wrong and how he wants to change because he used that time to, well, try to figure out what all of it meant, knowing things will never be the same.

and that’s it?

this part of the song is an emotional echo of the regret and longing expressed in ‘until the end’; “love brings us dreams/but grief makes the heart burst at the seams/as light fills my eyes/i’ll picture me beside her/and pray that i’ll inspire” -> “cold soaked as/i stand in the rain/feeling nothing but pain/until i see you again” it’s the same idea.

that salem is his hope, his comfort. deep down in his heart of hearts ozma… wants to see her again. ‘until the end’ hints that it isn’t a coincidence that oz makes his hopeful return in the same hour that salem reaches atlas. here, too, “nothing but pain/until i see you again.” a flicker of hope. because the hound is taking them to her.

and then:

Feel the waves crash Loud and hard Oh God Lost control I think I’m gonna lose it All my sanity’s slipping away Oh Lord Press record I’d die without the music Each breath is closer To my death Except that which is, This life There’s none left Let my demons live on Through my legacy Study my pedigree I need therapy

he catches himself feeling that small glimmer of hope and freaks out. lost control, sanity’s slipping away. every breath is bringing him closer to death, oscar will die, his demons will live on in his next host, he needs therapy. why did he even think that?

where you seek comfort, you will only find pain. his heart knows that isn’t true, but ozma is still fighting tooth and nail to force himself to believe it; cue the chorus. better cover up your eyes, my friend, the sky is falling.