#rwby my worst enemy

[elektricangel]

Since I finished the ONQR AU, I've been going back and editing the core duology to create a manuscript for a personal print copy. It's the longest thing I've ever written and I wanted it on my bookshelf. Anyone else who'd like to have this series in book form is welcome to print your own copy from the same files (formatted for a 6" x 9" book, 788 pages) linked below. I used Barnes & Noble Press, but there are a bunch of print-on-demand book services out there. Of course, no profit can legally be made on this book (not even by me), but as long as it's a personal or gift copy, print away! 🤗

📙 Paperback File

📗 Hardcover File

📖 Interior File

(If you'd prefer to place an order for the finished book through me rather than going through the hassle of printing it yourself, I can order and have it shipped to you at cost. Just shoot me a message.)

✨Thanks again to everyone who took a chance on this insane series, but especially to @/goosegrumble who came up with the ONQR team name (and thus, the name for the whole dang AU)!✨

And if you do want to throw some money at me, a reminder that these 3D printed Cloqwork Orange and Cloqwork emblems are available (with and without the little keychain loop) in my Etsy shop! I also have all the typical merch options in my Redbubble shop.

[coldgoldlazarus]

I can't believe I have to make this fucking post but here we go

What Neo did to Ruby was cruel and awful and fucked-up and unforgivable. Ruby didn't deserve to have that done to her.

What the Cat did to Neo is also awful, fucked-up, and generally horrific. Neo, even after all of that, didn't deserve that either.

These statements can coexist.

You can hate Neo for what she did, and believe me I get it, but acting like other people are somehow excusing that if they still feel any sympathy for her is like, not the approach to take. Yeah I'll agree that there's no "greyness" to Neo's revenge, but I don't care for this punitive sentiment I'm seeing in some corners.

[gachagon]

I'm glad you started the show again on you own instead of letting the toxic negative parts of the fndm steer you clear, unfortunately rwby fan like the Adam, ironwood, and sometimes Ozpin apologists tend to completely be blind to the fucked up shit the characters have done in favor of insulted the main girls and clinging to this hurt,misunderstood, man ideology for these characters

Unfortunate but understandable considering this is a show made by Roosterteeth which was really a "boys club" for a long while (and also just the fact that its well...roosterteeth in general) Female characters are always getting an unfair level of blame and hatred leveled at them that their male counterparts don't face even when they do things equally as annoying or abhorrent.

It's annoying but like I understand where it comes from I guess, since a lot of male viewers do watch the show and probably just wanted it to be like every other battle shounen anime. In those animes, female characters are never explicitly romantically involved, their feelings and actions are never taken seriously, there's always a man somewhere close by to help save the day if they fail etc.

RWBY excels at breaking that standard by having it's female cast support one another rather then waiting around for whatever script assigned boyfriend the fans wanted them to have. I think about the "Script assigned boyfriend" trope a lot where there's a cast full of female characters and they all just HAVE to have a matching boyfriend to date like a purse to carry around...

these shows come to mind when I think about it lol

And when I was younger I was really afraid that when Neptune and Sun showed up, that the rest of the girls would "naturally" have their own Script Assigned boyfriend to hang out with that matched them or whatever, and I was really happy that they went a completely different and beautifully written route with Bmblb

And I love that Ruby throughout like 7 seasons doesn't have anyone she's really romantically interested in girl or boy. I think more shows need to take advantage of the storytelling platonic love can show, or familial love.

[rwby-redux]

You recommending My Own Worst Enemy was how I got into that series, and I loved it to pieces, so thanks for that. With the sequel having just wrapped up, I'm curious if you're caught up on that fic. (Also, I hope the family emergency cools down soon!)

IT’S FINISHED?

Normally I’d ask, “How the hell did I miss that?” but… [gestures at the last four months]

Thanks for letting me know! It’s awesome to hear that I was able to get someone else hooked. xD ElektricAngel deserves all the love and praise for her work. Y’all make sure you go and tell her what an amazing writer she is!

[scattered-winter]

every time I watch the rwby trailers I wish I could animate similar trailers for my ocs

[elektricangel]

Normally, the timing never works out for me to participate in these things, but this time the stars aligned! Get ready for... ONQR: Emerald Empire.

Participants List

Here is a list of the people who Signed Up for the Vytal Festival this year! This'll be an on-going list that gets updated regularly to encourage you guys to meet new people and reach out to each other! Be sure to sign up if you're interested!

@cara-kira

@powertaco

@kinaesthetiqueer

@bardock1991

@bowl-but-its-also-a-gun

@cat-draws-stuff

@bafflement

@frederick2223

@elektricangel

@zacs-of-rwby (admin)

[bestworstcase]

your point about team rwby being the maidens’ liberators made me think - do you think blake is going to have a special connection to the summer maiden? I noticed that she’s the only one who hasn’t been close to a maiden yet

i think gillian asturias is the summer maiden (and this post is hysterical in hindsight. at the time i wrote it, the full-length v9 epilogue hadn’t been released yet so we’d only seen qrow’s section and about half of winter’s – hence my pausing to lay out the argument for salem going to vale next and making a pretense of hedging my bets on the crown being narratively central in v10. lol)

now! with regard to blake and the summer maiden, the common thinking here seems to mostly run along the lines of “…and that’s why summer maiden ilia,” or the more general speculation that the summer maiden will be a faunus character.

to this i say:

it’s a fallacy to conflate “blake will probably have a strong narrative connection to the summer maiden” with “the summer maiden necessarily is or will be blake’s old friend,” and the argument for ilia being due for maidenhood is quite thin otherwise, and

blake can and does have important narrative connections to characters who aren’t faunus, and it’s a weird to presume that in order for the summer maiden to have a meaningful tie to blake, she must be a faunus herself.

to expand on that first point, let’s consider the personal relationships between each of the maidens so far and ruby / weiss / yang:

pyrrha -> ruby’s friend

cinder -> ruby’s personal enemy

raven -> yang’s estranged mother

penny -> ruby’s friend

winter -> weiss’s beloved sister

the takeaway here – other than that if you’re ruby’s friend and someone offers you to become a maiden you should refuse – is half the relations between maidens and members of team rwby are antagonistic. (raven seems likely to at least try making amends with yang in v10, but as it stands in the narrative right now things between them are very fraught.)

it is just as likely that blake’s narrative connection to the summer maiden might develop through a personal conflict between them, rather than friendship. yes?

and, if i’m right about gill being the summer maiden, well—stop me if you’ve heard this one: a girl with a driving, passionate ambition to uplift her people from the ashes of centuries of conquest and subjugation is radicalized by a boy she loves who pulls them both deeper and deeper into violent, spiteful extremism that ultimately harms the very people they claim to fight for, until he finally crosses a line she can’t accept and she says no i will not.

that’s blake and adam but it’s also gillian and her brother. the difference between them is that blake’s red line was adam glibly revealing that the train heist was actually intended to be a massacre whereas gillian’s was jax stating his intention to commit suicide rather than retreat and live to fight another day; she helped yatsu subdue him specifically to save jax’s life, not because she had a crisis of conscience about their movement.

(there is a certain—really irritating—contingent of CFVY novel readers who project their own dislike of jax onto gill and insist that she turned against him because he demanded she ‘sacrifice her life’ to save him, which 1. he didn’t, he asked her to give him all her aura and then bodily shielded her because he’s physically bigger than she is so this was at worst a “if we’re going down together, i’ll make them go through me first,” 2. if gill only wanted to save her own neck all she had to do was rip her aura out of him and bounce, and 3. she explicitly says that the reason she did what she did is because he’s her brother, she loves him, and she couldn’t let him die.)

the point being, gill is still a radical; her soft betrayal of jax revealed her priorities in that she loves her brother more than The Cause, but in no way did it represent a break from her belief in the cause. if the epilogue is any indication, she’s just as committed to overthrowing shade academy as before. (and i think there’s a real chance that her actions will have improved her relationship with jax to some degree, because he believed she didn’t care about him at all! he thought she only stuck with him because his semblance compelled her to do so! and then gillian exploded his mind by revealing that his semblance straight up doesn’t work on her and she just loves him. which, if the twins are on the same page now, cuts down on the internal tension and likely makes them more dangerous adversaries to the coalition.)

but her history, the way she became like this, is eerily similar to blake’s radicalization in the white fang, and i think blake would certainly be able to piece that together. she’s also by far the member of team rwby i would say is most likely to recognize and relate to the genuine pain at the heart of the crown’s movement—vacuo has suffered.

vacuo wasn’t even a state until the end of the great war. it was a mistrali territory. its people were enslaved and worked to death in a systematic and horrifyingly effective project to extract every last speck of valuable resources from the region, and then even statehood was a slap in the face because they were left to fend for themselves in a barren wasteland whose ecosystem had been completely and utterly destroyed.

the crown is a mirror held up to the white fang; blake is insightful and empathetic enough to realize these similarities and see herself and her past mistakes reflected in gillian, but this time she’s an outsider to the movement—she can’t effect change from within or reclaim the true, important work from the vengeful extremists. so she’s limited in what she can do, practically, even as it’s going to be painfully clear to her that the crown is falling into the same trap adam did.

and at the same time, the new white fang will in all likelihood either be in vacuo or show up to join the coalition in v10, so blake’s part in her own movement, her place in her community, can be directly juxtaposed with her opposition to/empathy for the crown.

v9 sets up for this with blake’s advocacy for the afterans—v7-8 do as well to a lesser extent, because blake is still dealing with the personal fallout of v4-6 and thus is quieter about mantle than say, nora is, but like. blake draws a comparison between her experiences in the white fang and with adam and the moral compromises ironwood starts making after the election. it just seems… pretty clear to me that the narrative has been setting up blake to play a pivotal role in relation to the crown since at least v4 if not earlier, depending on how granular the vacuo outline was during v1-3.

so this is a narrative connection i very much expect blake to have with gillian regardless, but… if gill is the maiden…

well, she’s certainly not trapped inside ozpin’s vault/key maiden paradigm! so in that case what does it look like for a member of team rwby to fulfill this narrative role of liberation? probably something like de-radicalizing her and her brother by convincing them there is a better way forward than their divisive, violent, paranoid ideology. and blake is unquestionably the member of team rwby best equipped to get the ball rolling there.

further, blake’s semblance is a really strong counter to gill’s – that’s true of ruby and weiss as well, because gillian has to touch a person in order to steal aura and so agile, fast opponents are going to be tougher for her in general. but blake has two more things going for her beyond the basic mobility advantage, vis-a-vis making it personal:

the illusionary aspect of blake’s semblance will allow her to create decoys, which is a very powerful tactical advantage against an opponent who really wants to grab her, and

blake’s girlfriend is a hand-to-hand fighter, and an incredibly brave one with an intense protective instinct at that.

clears throat. we all remember yang getting possessed in rwby x jl part 2, yes? and blake clocking it instantly? well.

if blake and gillian are meant to be not just foils but personal adversaries in the vein of ruby and cinder—yang’s gonna get got. agile though she is, as a hand-to-hand combatant yang is unavoidably much more vulnerable to the twins’ contact-based semblances than the rest of her team, her personality will make it very hard for her to play it safe and stay back if it comes to an open fight, and there is nothing the narrative could do to lock in that personal enmity that would be punchier than yang being compromised.

even if gill as a personal adversary to blake isn’t in the cards i expect yang to get got anyway because, let’s be honest: do we really expect crwby to set themselves up with a golden opportunity to do a climactic love-overcomes-mind-control scene with the bees in v10 and then not take it? with how nuts the entire creative team goes for these two? after the climactic battle in ice queendom hingeing on yang being able to free blake from a nightmare with the mere lesser power of unrealized lesbianism? do we reeeally believe they would pass that up? lol.

[perpetuallyfive]

making some kind of "commitment"

I've been feeling such a strong impulse to write.

But I do know that I've said this before, often in fact, and the final product doesn't always appear. Sometimes life gets in the way, sometimes the confidence in what's already written down dries up, but that's why I've decided to try to say some of it more explicitly.

I'd like to put it out there in an effort to give myself a commitment to something to work toward, sure, but also permission to actually do it and post, even when it's not entirely perfect. The world is largely imperfect, and I might as well chase my bliss.

Currently Writing:

Warrior Nun Dragon Age AU: There's 18,000 words of chapters 3 and 4 written, some of which has already gone to beta. I need to do some revising but this feels very, very close and I'm excited about it again, which is the most vital part.

Really Want to Write:

Frantically thinking about a believably in character way to write something for Caitlyn/Vi in the same vein as You Can't Become Unreal Again. This is the main place my brain is at right now.

A small Agatha idea that's not too intense in world building, dear god please brain just let me write something around 10k and let it go, let it goooo into the world.

Honestly I keep thinking about the idea of Bishova at the TVA. Has this already been done? It's probably already been done. But the time hijinks!

I Promise I Am Going to Finish and Still Think About It Regularly:

RWBY Dishonored AU. It's going to happen. I want it to happen. I have written so much of the next two chapters it's sick that they're not out yet. I just made it so long that I have to go back and reread everything to double triple check which things have already been made explicit and which things I've only been pondering for literally years at this point and never actually put into the text. I am (often) my own worst enemy.

Less Sure About But I Still Wanna Finish One Day:

When The Feast Is Over, the third Bechloe Marvel AU fic where I set myself up to have to figure out the entire first major arc of the MCU as it plays out in my specific universe so I could mess with it. Why do I always try to write ideas that require SO MUCH world building? Why is that the kind of thing that makes my brain so happy? Some mysteries will never be solved.

[hamliet]

What I've Been Watching

It's been a crazy, crazy month for me, so I've not been here very much, but wanted to post a couple quick reviews of things I've been watching lately!

Blue Samurai

Unsurprisingly, I love it. Fabulous, top-notch female characters, a completely unashamed approach to sexuality, and best of all, enemies to lovers!

Mizu and Taigen are definitely the core of the story, and I'm looking forward to how their relationship will develop. I lost track of how many times Mizu and Taigen had metaphorical sex, the fire/water imagery, the way one of them would bleed after their encounters, the way they can bring out the absolute best in each other (Taigen associates Mizu with honor, but his honor is tied to her living, not defeating her; likewise, while Mizu associates Taigen with childhood bullying and trauma, he's often the one offering her moral guidance and who sees value in her life that she doesn't even see in herself), and the way they can bring out the worst in each other too. Ship of dreams.

I think Akemi is my favorite character, although I also love Ringo. Akemi works as an excellent foil to Mizu, in that they have completely different approaches to femininity. Mizu denies sexuality completely and pretends to be a man, while Akemi uses sex and people's perceptions of her as a woman as a weapon. Mizu is physically strong, but Akemi is beyond intelligent and gifted in politics. Akemi and Mizu both end the season with their father figures as their hostages, and clearly the implication is that this isn't good for either of them. They risk becoming like these father figures--overly cruel and violent for Mizu, scheming and cold for Akemi.

That said, I doubt they will. It seems clear to me that Ringo and Akemi will choose to be great in the end, while Mizu and Teigen should choose normal lives with each other. Akemi will probably end as shogun.

Demon Slayer

Finally, I caved. I've started the second season so this is by no means complete. I quite like Zenitsu and Inosuke's characters. Tanjiro is a bit standard for a protagonist, but I like him well enough--he's not offputting, at least. I wish Nezuko got more to do.

I do like how the Hashira are framed so far. It's got potentially interesting things to say about religious-like groupings that unquestioningly follow after a leader who may or may not have their best interest at heart but whom also probably believes he's doing the right thing.

Rewatching: RWBY and High&Low

Nothing to say at this point but be prepared for more annoying posts about these two series I love.

If Warner Bros doesn't greenlight Volume 10 because David Zaslav hates everything about storytelling and art to its core and only wants to sell his company to Paramount or something, I'm going to flip my sh*t.

For H&L, I also named my new cat Smokey. So.

[meteor752]

Spent a whole week binging rwby because why not

Here are mah thoughts

Very interesting decision of the show to open on literally the best character, like I’ve heard of peaking early but come on

No but fr Roman is actually so special to me

I just finished volume nine and I broke down crying at his and Neo’s final moments

Thing is, I’m a person with daddy issues and my favorite family member is my uncle so like of course Qrow is second favorite guy

We love us a bisexual subby whore

Ozpin is number three so like guess what my favorite ship is

(Side note, My Own Worst Enemy by Elektric Angel is one of the best fics I have ever read and I cannot recommend it enough)

Why the fuck did this show start out with having one of the four main characters be racist?! What a bold choice

I hate Jaune so fucking much. If you like him, cool, but he’s one my most hated fictional characters ever, not just him but like what he represents

Tho it is worse with Neptune, who’s also like why tf are you here bruv

It’s very funny to have a borderline kinda racist character and a literal meme from 2014 be drafted into war

It took me five days to break and create ocs. They’re called Lemon Lime, Azure, Iris, and Koral. Team LAIK. Maybe I’ll talk about them more at some other point

Listen okay I know that animated shows like to have your hero be depressed in a whole arc, but like god Ruby was kinda grating in season 9.

Blake is kinda rolling with like, one personality trait, but ya know good on her for getting a cool gf

Yang is also the best out of the main four girls

So is Tai, Summer, and Raven’s relationship supposed to be a polycule? That must have been awkward for poor Qrow back in school

Why the fuck is everyone so mad at Ozpin all the time. Like boohoo, daddy didn’t tell you Santa isn’t real, get fucking over yourself Qrow you’re forty three

But fr what is the animosity about. I think Jelloapocalypse summarized it the best in his rwby video

Also did you know the top comment on there is from Technoblade? Check it out, it’s true. No idea he was a rwby fan, but like good for him

Season 6 episode “Alone in the woods” is the best episode by far. I really like when they do more unique stuff with the Grimm, other than just ‘monster’

That being said I’m always a sucker for a space whale

But the line from that episode, “No one was angry or sad or scared. No one was anything. And then, no one was left” is so powerful

Season nine is like fully a fever dream, but it helps with connecting to the main four again, so I like it

Also they need to stop introducing characters we don’t need any more it’s so cluttered

Why the fuck did the tree have Summer’s weapon? What the fuck was she doing there, frolicking in wonderland? Gurl…

I miss Oobleck. He hasn’t been around since like season 4, like what the hell man

What the fuck is Cinder and Emerald’s relationship supposed to be? Are they sisters? Friends? Is Emerald in love with her? Because she seems to be.

Emerald and Mercury are fully siblings tho. Also I love Mercury

Arthur’s monologue to Cinder was one of the best scenes in the show. I loved it, I’m sad he died

The character I relate the most to is little scorpion freak, because honestly dude saaaaaaame

God I want Salem to fuck me

The motivation of the villain being that they’re an immortal being, who wants the world to end because then they can die, is so fucking interesting and I’m surprised I don’t see more of it.

Do you guys think the only reason that Jaune was made leader of team JNPR was because they couldn’t think of a colour with those letters that started with P?

Do you think that’s how they choose all leaders?

How the fuck is Ren supposed to be a version of Mulan? Apart from him being Asian, there’s no correlation. Jesus Christ…

Him and Nora are very t4t tho. Very glad that they established boundaries about their relationship tho, like open communication is all I need

Why is Ambrosius kinda 💅

This isn’t related to rwby but there’s like a bird or smt screaming outside my window and it kinda sounds like a ghost girl and now I’m scared…

I feel like Salem and Ozpin’s relationship is very uncomfortable with Oscar stuck in the middle. Like why did they have to make him fourteen

Pupsicle!!!!

If I had a child in this universe I would absolutely name them something that starts with a vowel. Some of these team names are a fucking stretch, I mean SSSN?!

Another bold move by the creators is having the first few seasons villains be minorities fighting for Justice and equality. Like idk anything about these dudes, but it’s a little yikes

The fact that everyone in this world is an X-men and the show took four seasons to actually explain that is hilarious

Actually the show taking its time to explain anything is hilarious

Like, six seasons in and we find out the villain’s motivations. Hell four seasons in and we find out the villain

The first opening song was easily the best. Like I said, peaked early

The ship names of this fandom are fucking baller dude. Very creative

[aces-to-apples]

Fic Writer 20 Questions

Tagged by @dead-cowboy!

1.) How many works do you have on ao3? Across three accounts and like 1......1? years, jesus, 154. (I think. Give or take a couple anonymized that I may have forgotten.)

2.) What’s your ao3 word count? 325,886. Somehow.

3.) What fandoms do you write for? Previously? Red vs. Blue, The Magnificent Seven (2016), The Musketeers (2014), Warcraft (2016), RWBY, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Umbrella Academy, The Hobbit trilogy, Supernatural, and Star Wars. Currently: Dragon Age, Jak and Daxter, Skyrim, Ted Lasso, Kingdoms of Amalur, and Star Wars.

4.) What are your top five fics by kudos? A trite, originally tumblr not!fic about OWK (anonymized), the sequel that tricked me into liking Darth Maul (anonymized), an old Cody/OWK Week fic from 2020, the first Sith!Cody fic in the tag (anonymized), and Renegade (time-traveling clones from 2018). Seven out of my top ten are anon, and eight of the top fifteen, so I figure we can just leave it there lmao.

5.) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Not really, no. Most comments I get are.....cursory? Obligatory? They aren't substantive, is what I mean to say. "Thanks for writing this", and whatnot, which not only don't necessitate a reply, but like, what reply can there possibly be? If there's a non-rhetorical question that I can answer, or the commenter had something to say, or even just has fun energy, then I try to respond in kind, but those kinds of comments are uhhhhhh. Not something my work attracts lol. Basically, I'm not going to send a thank-you card for a thank-you card, you know?

6.) What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Uhhhhh, I don't know, I don't really deliberately do angst? Maybe a Dogma/Hardcase ficlet with ghost!Hardcase, but also depending on your point of view, maybe the Sith!OWK Kenfetti fic. It's hard for me to judge, I don't think I've ever even tagged something with angst, but that definitely seems like the darkest ending I've written? Idk.

7.) What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? God this is much harder than I thought it would be. Somehow I don't think these two were meant to be the hardest-hitting questions lmao? *scrolling down my fic summaries* Hmm, learning things about myself that I'm not sure I appreciate... Maybe "she wore it wonderfully well" (Mag7, Emma/Vasquez)? Trying to find something unambiguously happy that I also am less embarrassed to link is. Difficult.

8.) Do you get hate on fics? Not especially. I have guest comments turned off, my fics are locked, and I generally don't write ships with wide readerships to start with. For the most part I occasionally get something rude and entitled that I delete, but I tell you FFN readers are some of the most hostile people you'll ever meet, they're truly dedicated to being haters of anything even resembling creative writing, it's very funny.

9.) Do you write smut? If so what kind? I do, it's not very good, and honestly I think the most prevailing trend is consent issues and power dynamic fuckery. My first smut fic was anonymous mindsex, and my second was sex-pollened enemies lmaoooooo.

10.) Do you write cross overs? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Not as often as I'd like to, but yes! Allow me to introduce you to (and please ignore that it's a fusion), DRUMROLL PLEASE!, The Worst AU In The World (Game of Thrones/Winx Club)! If you want an actual crossover though, I did just write Dorian "Dragon Age" Pavus/Savage "Star Wars" Opress, so that was fun.

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge; I doubt it.

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated? Um. Yes. About eight years ago someone translated a Warcraft smutfic of mine into Chinese. That's the only one I know about.

13.) Have you ever cowritten a fic before? No, I genuinely don't even know how that would work.

14.) What’s your all time favourite ship? Hmmm. I can't say I have one. I'm a multifandom multishipper at heart, I've burnt out of several fandoms, burnt out of several ships, and I'm too AuDHD to be able to pick a favorite anything. Trent Crimm/Jamie Tartt.

15.) What’s a WIP you’d like to finish, but doubt you ever will? To be fair, most of them. But also the Dooku POV installment of the first two most-kudosed fics' series, and the Locus/Tucker roleswap RvB fic, and the Locus time-travel fic, and the Dragon Age/Star Wars crossover Maulrexsoka fic. Just off the top of my head.

16.) What are your writing strengths? I've been told my fics tend to be very high concept and I do weird things with syntax. And honestly, that's already me knowing too much.

17.) What are your writing weaknesses? Quickest answer? Plot.

18.) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I'm monolingual and don't have any cultural baggage around it, so I generally find it at least some level of fun and engaging, but it's also easy for it to become gimicky when it's a conlang (guilty) and not well-executed when it's a canonically code-switching character (also guilty). I maintain however that all of that should be forgiven in Red vs. Blue fics though; the entire point from the ground up is that all the Spanish is wrong.

19.) First fandom you wrote for? ....................................Yu-Gi-Oh!. With reader-insert. I plea Not Guilty by reason of I Was Fourteen.

20.) Favourite fic you’ve ever written? See, recency bias says "cat-scratch" (amnesiac!Sabretooth AU) but brand loyalty says "peace is a lie" (JesseMaul). Maybe I'll split the difference, end up with a net-zero, and say "memento (mori)" (Cailan Theirin/Female Surana).

-

Honestly I think our biggest takeaway here is that I can't be trusted to answer questions about my own content because I harsh the vibe by tending to not like it lol

Tagging whoever wants to play!

[elektricangel]

Fandom: RWBY / RWBY: Ice Queendom

Ship: Ozpin/Qrow Branwen/Roman Torchwick (Cloqwork Orange)

Description: Roman and Ozpin already thought they were living their worst nightmare, being bound body and soul to one another. They were wrong.

[This fic is set between My Own Worst Enemy and With Friends Like These. Is it canon within my AU? Uhh, if you want it to be! Posting in celebration of Vytal Festival 2024 hosted by @remnants-of-rwby-events​! As a double AU (AAU?), I think it fits today's prompt of Alternate Universes nicely.]

[rachetmath]

Aura

 I’m sorry but I feel this needs to be said. Aura is by far the most under-used source in RWBY beside dust. Look I get it aura is used to make barriers and fuel semblances but that's it. I mean the semblances are sometimes horrible at best. Especially when they’re passive. Oh my, the worst semblance to me is sadly Qrow’s because anything could happen. You could be enjoying your day and something bad happens because you're there. But that’s minor.

Now some semblances are good. We got semblances that can stop time. We got some that can erase memories. We even got some that can create clones and summon creatures. Too bad summoning things is only in the Schnee department but still. However some of them can be both imitated and surpassed by other characters. For example, Adam, Yang and Tock. Adam creates a wave projectile to slice his enemies. Yang can build and store energy every time she takes damage from enemies and dish it back ten fold. Tock can literally take no damage until her timer goes off. Guess who can copy these abilities? Five characters; Ren, Blake, Fox, Qrow and yes, even Jaune can do it.

Four of these characters have managed to replicate Adam and Yang’s semblances. Blake and Qrow manage to create slashes in the air to launch at their opponents before. Though theirs are not strong as Adam’s they still performed the same function. Fox and Ren can do the same like Yang. I mean, in volume one and two, Ren and Fox made Grimm’s bodies explode. And the sad part about it is Jaune can do all this because of his aura reserves and his semblances. And this is why aura control is needed.

We need characters who are better skilled in aura. I understand semblances are supposed to be unique and tied more to the user but if you were a hunter and you never unlocked your semblance or if you did but it’s not as helpful as you hope, what would be your best source to fight with? Your aura, because so far semblances have been more of let down due to being similar to others. Examples are Harriet and Neon, both being fast characters. Or where it's just in their names. Like Vine with extended limbs; Elm being rooted to the ground; or Clover having good luck. But if you understand the basics and learn more ways to use your aura you can basically do anything. The prime demonstration is Hazel. Nora said herself, Hazel can recharge faster than most people. This means no matter how much damage they dish out Hazel will recover and still keep going.

(Bro I need to say this. Man I’m sorry but in my opinion Hazel is the strongest male character in the RWBY series. Bro, think about it, James was scared of Hazel more than he was of Cinder. And when we saw him fight Salem,… oh my god, these kids were lucky he didn’t really want to fight them because if he did they would all be dead. Like Hazel is the best example of both aura and dust users. He should have stayed alive. Maybe then the kids can finally have a functioning adult in their lives. Hazel solos.)

Okay, after explaining all this, how else can aura be used? Well other than being barriers, slash waving projectiles and a healing factor, it can also be used like haki, chakra or for this show like it was before Salem screwed the world over, magic. But only maidens have magic right? Well let me tell you why I disagree with that statement. But first let's talk about dust.

Dust is the second most under-used source in RWBY. The reason I say secondary is because at least it’s visible in the world. Not only that it is used in weapons, machines, and as ammunition. It is really a natural resource but no one ever uses it in its rawest form. No one except Hazel and maybe Weiss. And what makes it better is they are Remnants of magical elements. Dust in rawest form is more powerful than a gun. And if used properly you can rival maidens.

Maidens are supposed to be special due to them being able to control the elements without the need of dust. However, their power might as well be that of a semblance considering it requires aura to even use. I mean think about it Cinder and Raven. They have used the maiden powers which not only exhausted them as well decreased their aura to the point they break. Not only that they were able to be defeated or in Cinder’s case almost die multiple times. And to prove my case further, Salem is a magic user yet Hazel still killed her multiple times. Hell, Penny was able to beat Cinder even without maiden powers. Basically, the sad truth is the maidens are just keys. If Cinder crossed the wrong person she would be dead. Never mind that if Hazel, Watts and Tyrian wanted to, they actually would have killed her themselves. Especially if she keeps messing up they're plans.

So how does dust increase the use of aura? Well dust is part of the world. And so is the aura. So wouldn’t having more of a connection with the world increase aura and dust efficiency. I mean Vine said aura can be extended. So using the environment itself is good. Just like chakra, if you extend the aura enough to spread across an area enough while using gravity dust you can increase the pressure to keep opponents down. With plant dust trapping your enemies to a certain extent. Heck if you learn to control your aura and merge it with the element you can throw projectiles, create weapons, increase your speed and/or damage output. Effectively uses your whole body as a weapon.

Aura can even be used even without the need of dust. Like with haki it can harden your body against attacks. Extended to where you can locate upcoming enemies. Or when released all at once ,can be used to knock out enemies without engaging in combat.

Look, I am sorry. Please, forgive me but after thinking about this it made me ask this question, “What is a hunter?” Like really what is a hunter because so far this show has disappointed me on the term. We have seen hunters die whether be by non-hunter groups or Grimm who are arguably not that much of a threat. If anything, ordinary people can fight and kill them. Even semblances are starting to become nothing but excuses to why characters act the way they do, like with James who was determined to blow up Mantle because of his ability. Or having basic abilities that other characters should possess like Tyrian’s aura breaking ability. It’s sad really, aura is supposed to be this source of power but it's not as weaponized as I hoped it would be. But that’s my opinion.  

[strqyr]

okay but we need to unpack jaune/Rusted Knight bc i Do Not Trust Him. idk what his deal is though. his armor is a little different, and the fact that he survived the poison is interesting, since in fairy tales poison usually indicates death unless specified otherwise. and he said the cat found him, presumably after alyx did whatever she did. plus the cat seems pretty confident ppl from remnant can't ascend. do you think that's what they tried to do to jaune? im rattling the bars of my enclosure

jaune is. he's been through a lot. i think in a way he's been through the same thing as team rwby trying to follow alyx's story except that he was actually there during it, trying to control the way it went based on what he knew and that's. obviously going to make him look suspicious to alyx like inadvertently he was his own worst enemy and he's not doing great.

i mean idk if i understood it correctly but the way i got it is that in the book, the rusted knight drinks the poison so of course jaune would drink the poison too to try and keep the story on track but what did the poison do, jaune? was it really just to put him to sleep? why did the berry have a skull on it then???

like. i think that's a pretty good summary of jaune's state of mind: he drank the poison even without knowing what it would do to him (i'm assuming the rusted knight disappears from the story from that point on, so.. yeah.) he's been waiting for his friends for years and then he helps alyx and lewis, attempts to keep the story as he knows it on track and drinks the poison because sure! why not! all for the sake of the story!!

i don't know about anything else, i'm just. i'm going to wait until the next episode to learn more bc atm every new episode comes with new information so just this once, i'm going to be patient lmao

[howlingday]

Thinking back on the idea of RWBY and rogue galleries in general, which comic book rogues do you think would be interesting to see Team RWBY (and JNPR/ORNJ) go against?

Obviously some villains would be flat out ridiculous (Superman's, Hulk's, etc.), but others, like the Spiderman or Batman villains, seem like they have potential...

Both rogue galleries are accustomed to teenage heroics yet are still susceptible to being defeated by them.

Some members are flat out crazy (Joker, Electro, etc.) and will probably get trounced without mercy while others are WAY more sympathetic in spite of their villainy (Curt Connors, Clayface, Mr. Freeze, etc.) adding a "human" twist that RWBY isn't exactly used to.

I mean can you imagine Blake, a faunus, trying to call the Lizard or Clayface monsters despite them not wanting their horrendous appearance?

Or Weiss trying to stop Mr. Freeze plunging beacon into the Ice Age despite the fact that all he wants to do is save his wife who brings warmth to his lonely existence?

What do you think?

When it comes to RWBYs own rogues gallery, it's not hard to find a set point on who fits who best.

For example, starting from the beginning, there's Vale's criminal underworld run by Roman Torchwick. I'd consider this

GANG-LEVEL

Street thugs, ne'er-do-wells, and general human scum who will lie, cheat, and steal, doing whatever it takes to survive. These are villains on the same level as most of Gotham's worst of the worst; Joker, Penguin, Scarecrow, Riddler, ordinary humans with slightly above average physical skills. But, it should be noted that these are also villains who have tricks up their sleeves. Tricks like, well, a trick cane... or Joker Venom.

But after the Fall of Beacon, we reached a new level of threat that gives us a broader perspective. These are the villains who have went beyond the ordinary and into the extraordinary, bringing with them a dangerous arsenal of weapons, skills, and super-powers that make them a threat to even the most skilled fighters. In honor of this, I choose to classify them as

HUNTSMAN-LEVEL

Superhumans, supervillains, and super pains in our backsides, these are the kinds of baddies that definitely make a Death Battle list. Villains like Tyrian Callows, Adam Taurus, Arthur Watts from RWBY get put up against super-criminals like The Scorpion, Shredder, and Doctor Doom. These would be tough fights for RWBY and would require help from the other side to assist. I'm thinking entire stories with them as the big bad guys. There's some kind of superhuman skill they have that makes them more than just a threat, but a super threat.

Speaking of Big Bads, going beyond the scope further are the enemies that are way too much for RWBY and would actually the fun of writing these universe together. Yeah, I'm talking

EXTINCTION-LEVEL

Thanos, Darkseid, Salem; you know them, you fear them, and there's a reason for both. These are the final bosses of their own franchises, and the reason for that is pretty clear. Planets? Dusted. Galaxies? Peanuts. Life? Meaningless. Resistance? Futile. However, my biggest problem with these villains for RWBY is they're too big. Like, these guys just blink, and the worst thing that could happen to our heroes is just the start. So, yeah, don't expect me to write anything serious with these players anytime soon.

---------------------------------------------------

Now, as for sympathetic VS merciless, it kinda depends on the situation they're in.

For example, Basil Karlo, Clayface, was a famous actor who desperately wants to regain his original appearance. Sympathetic. However, I can also see Weiss freezing him without hesitation because he's trying to kill a doctor who can't fix him.

Dr. Kurt Connors would be similar with Blake, as you said, but I feel she would also feel no hesitation in putting him down. She might draw some parallels between him, and another seemingly passionate man driven over the edge into becoming a monster.

Honestly, these are both interesting scenarios, and I'd like to do more with them if I get the chance (COUGH, COUGH, 70 ASKS) but we'll just have to wait and see until then.

Keep up the good work and thanks for the food for thought!

[kitkatopinions]

Let me be clear, if someone is going to "tell me things about myself" that they've decided that they know I must think and feel and secretly want and they involve ADAM as someone I like or think Blake belongs to or anything like that, they're proving that they do not actually care about my opinions or even know what they are, and they don't care about me as a person, or anything, and they just copy-paste their idea of 'rwde-posters' with absolutely no backing.

I don't like Adam.

In fact I hate Adam.

I think that the White Fang and the handling of Adam reflects badly on RT, but as a character, I can't stand almost anything about Adam. I don't really like either of his outfits, I think his voice acting is some of the worst in the show, and his two-dimensional personality that was never given much depth is an F-minus and he's an abusive asshole who put Blake through hell only to try to manipulate her into doubting herself.

Trigger warning for discussions of abuse below the keep reading

Although my experiences aren't the same as Blake's, I have experiences both with abuse and with an unhealthy giant red flag of a romantic partner.

I was abused by a parental figure, it made me feel horrible and broken and it's followed me in my adult life in a way that makes me really hesitant to get close to people especially concerning physical contact from people that aren't my immediate family members.

I was in a romantic relationship where my several-years-older-than-me boyfriend would make me feel bad if I took twenty minutes to text him back and he got angry at me for hanging out with an old friend I hadn't seen for years because I wasn't paying attention to him for an hour, and he lied to me about his political views in order to manipulate me into staying with him, and a lot more I can't even get into here.

Adam's actions towards Blake - while all a little heavy handed - get me on edge and feel a bit personal, because I felt responsible for the emotional well-being of a man who was only trying to use me, and I felt guilty about being hit by someone because I felt like I was hurting them by making them 'punish me.' So seeing someone try and make Blake feel bad about them hurting her hits a bit close for me.

Adam to me is icky, he makes me feel bad and on edge due to my past experiences, and when I think about doing my own re-writes I've heavily considered cutting him completely. I've talked about how I relate to Blake as an abuse victim before and how I like her story of escaping abuse once it's removed from the 'faunus racism' angle. I can only tolerate Adam if it's a heavily edited and changed fan made reinvention that's more like Zuko than Adam. This doesn't mean that I think that the RWBY writers were right to write him the way they did. But I do hate Adam, and I really definitely truly don't think he 'belongs with Blake' or especially that Blake 'belongs to him.' I see a lot of myself in Blake, all I want is for her to be healthy and get closure and be sure of herself and happy, because that's all I want for me too. Blake isn't one of those characters that I want to whump for that reason. Most of my favorites, I want to put through the emotional wringer, but for Blake I just want her to be able to be happy and content and herself no matter who that leaves her with romantically.

So whenever people make their accusations about me... And it includes ADAM and they say that I worship Adam or want Blake to belong to him, it literally pisses me off and it's pulled from the person they invented to get mad at. Because I've certainly made it no secret that I feel this way about Adam and I've said before that I hate him. They're just culty. They invented a 'rwde poster' and assigned all of us the beliefs they gave to their imaginary enemy, and now they waste their time accusing a queer woman who was an abuse victim of secretly thinking things because they can't tolerate even the idea of someone actually having a reason to criticize RWBY.