#source: Rooster Teeth Off Topic

[alertarchitect]

I... Think I'm experiencing one of those moments of wistful nostalgia that leads to the road of constantly missing and wishing for "the good ol' days," even though I know that line of thinking is what leads to a lot of the "look at how great the US was before black people could vote! Hell, before women could vote!!" nonsense conservative reactionaries spout, but... There's just something weird about feeling something and not realizing what it is until you've almost gone through it completely. Especially since there's this weird sense of mourning tied to it, which you'll understand in a bit if you choose to read on. I'll put a full explanation of what I mean below the cut so my nonsense rambling won't fuck with your tumblr scrolling. CW, I'm going to be talking about Rooster Teeth, which involves some of the controversies that came up towards the end of its lifespan, so if that stuff (including discussions of homophobia, grooming, and abuses of power for sexual favors) triggers your trauma response and/or you were a victim of certain parties who were fired from the company for good reason in the last few years of RT (if you know, you know, and if you don't, well I'll get into it under the cut), feel free to skip this for your own safety.

So, I was a Rooster Teeth fan in one way or another for a very long time. I first watched Red vs. Blue when I was, admittedly, far too young to do so (I was born in 2000, and I was watching it on YouTube on the first iPod touch I owned that had the YouTube app back when the icon for YouTube was still meant to look like an old CRT TV... Yeah, far too young for that show lmao), around 2010-ish got into Achievement Hunter thanks to the Halo Reach Fails of the Weak series, which lead to their Minecraft series, then I had a massive hyperfixation on RWBY (though I didn't realize it was a hyperfixation due to being very uneducated on the ADHD I knew I had because I was a kid, was scared out of agreeing to get medicated by my mother when I was diagnosed at around 6-7 years old if I'm remembering the time frame correctly, and was taught the idea that you "grow out of" being neurodivergent) for the first 4-5 seasons or so. I was even a Rooster Teeth FIRST member for years when I started working.

Now, obviously, I took a bit of a step back from watching them around 2020 or so when the controversy around Ryan Haywood being a grooming creep who allegedly succeeded at having physical relations with minors (while married with kids btw) using the power dynamic of them being AH fans as an entry point to conversation and a way to coerce them came to light - and I ended up staying with watching RT in general, though I was far more into Achievement Hunter in particular at the time, because I felt they had shown that the people around Ryan didn't know he was a piece of shit and genuinely felt disgusted, betrayed, and overall appalled at what they learned about him. I also ended up maintaining my FIRST subscription, which was yearly anyway so I couldn't have really paused it at the time since they already had my money, but I decided to stay with supporting them because I liked the content and getting the early videos, exclusive series, and other stuff through the app and website.

Fast forward to late 2022. Now, at this time, I was dealing with the massively first-world problem of liking the content RT was producing, though not as much as I used to because things had changed a lot and I missed a lot of the "IRL fucking around in our offices" stuff that seemed to have gone completely by the wayside by that point, but I was also up-to-date on all of the stuff on their site that I cared about watching and so I started watching more stuff on YouTube again since, once I had started paying for FIRST, I had basically made RT into my primary content source to get my money's worth out of it. I listened to a lot of the podcasts that were kinda branched out from the AH space, such as Off Topic, Face Jam, and F**kFace (no, I'm not self-censoring, that is how the name of that podcast was stylized), the exclusive stuff related to those shows offered through the subscription, basically all AH content, and more.

I was basically current with all of it, because earlier in 2020 I was kinda in friend-group-limbo, where I was finally trying to find groups of friends away from just being in groups that I was introduced to by my sister where everyone just knew me as her younger sibling, and it was only around early 2022 that I actually started getting into the consistent friend groups I have now that I would consider some of the people I'm closest to in my life, including the group that I met my boyfriend in - partially thanks to a somewhat-depression-fuelled obsession with Destiny 2 that started shortly after the release of the expansion The Witch Queen. Due to my mostly-friendless life before then, not really knowing anyone IRL outside of family, the one friend group I thought I'd be able to stay in (a FFXIV FC I stumbled my way into) turning out to be fairly transphobic leading to me just straight-up ghosting them and quitting that game, and all of this being around the time that I finally quit League of Legends - which was both a toxic presence in my life that I was no longer enjoying but was also the main avenue I had for meeting and hanging out with friends - I ended up spending most of my free time thanks to the pandemic on a few, specific things. Those being 1) Zelda BotW on the Switch I purchased with my first-ever tax return since I had only started working in 2019, 2) my mostly fruitless-at-the-time pursuit of finding people who actually liked and knew me for me, not just my association with my sister, and 3) watching lots, and I mean LOTS, of videos on Rooster Teeth.

Seriously, through both of my failed attempts to go to college, the COVID-19 lockdowns, multiple personal events that led to me being pushed out of former friend groups not-so-subtly by my sister as I was trying to be a part of her groups a lot thanks to me not really knowing how to find people to interact with IRL or online for a variety of reasons, losing multiple good jobs that paid me much more than I get at this shitty retail job thanks to my own inability to handle having a full-time job without being constantly late to shifts and shit (seriously, working full-time hours makes me feel like absolute shit and I don't know if I'd ever be able to actually handle going back to a full-time job, which is why I really want to try and set things up to start streaming and turn that into something to supplement my part-time work enough to be able to live off of it and get away from my mother who is... not great), and multiple short-lived relationships that I still mourned over fairly heavily (to be fair, I had figured out I was pansexual, but I only realized in the past couple of months thanks to my BF that I'm demiromantic... plus I just didn't find any potential partners who understood my troubles with not being able to constantly message back and forth 24/7)... Watching a bunch of Rooster Teeth content was my comfort space, even when I didn't actually have my own space due to cramped living conditions for about a year at one point. It was what greeted me at the end of a long day of work, what got a chuckle or two out of me at my most depressed, what really defined (to me) some of the humor I love to this day of just friends fucking around and doing bits, I could forget some of the serious shit in the world that was going on for just a short time with the nonsensical stuff that just went into straight-up weird territory that really started rearing its head with the Morning Show Show (but was very visible with stuff like Last Laugh), and more. So I watched it all, voraciously, insatiably. I was caught up on everything until early 2022, when I started getting into Destiny 2 and actually, y'know, having friends again, so I missed a video here or there I'd catch up on later, usually as something to listen to as I went to sleep.

Then Kdin Jenzen made her post detailing all of the horrifically homophobic and transphobic bullshit she dealt with during her time working there, none of which I knew about because it had happened during times I was either too young to fully remember or during times I wasn't really watching RT. A "nickname" used for years (during which time people knew she was queer, btw, though she hadn't come out as trans yet and idk if even she realized that specific detail at the time) that was born from the f-slur. Horrific crunch that basically everyone in the company was subject to, constantly, which didn't change even after she was hospitalized with fucking pneumonia. She wasn't getting credited for videos she worked on. Then, she came out as trans, and the treatment got worse, where she'd deal with the same levels of overwork and crunch time while getting isolated off in a corner to do her work because "people had no idea how to deal with a trans woman," only there to do far too much work while simultaneously getting pulled out like a trophy as if to say "See? We're inclusive!!!" despite her horrible treatment and isolation.

In short, even though there were "a handful of good people" as she put it (with who being apparent by who she gave positive responses to at the time when they publicly apologized for their past behavior - some noting they had done so privately in the past and felt a public apology was still in order - with others being given rather harsh ones, including Geoff Ramsey, a founder whom she called out for never using the power he had as a founder of the company and as someone very high up in the company to do anything to stop the bullshit she and so many others dealt with at RT over the years), the company itself was absolute dogshit. So, I did what anyone should do in that situation - I felt absolutely sick to my stomach because I felt as if I, a queer person, had been duped for years on end by an inclusive PR image, set my FIRST subscription to never renew again, couldn't even stomach watching what they released during the time I could still watch ad-free until my subscription expired, pulled all of my RT merch out of my closet (all of which I ended up donating to a local Goodwill except for one shirt, though there's another one I regret getting rid of now), and proceeded to unfollow a lot of the RT people I had been following for years at that point en masse, with the exceptions of those Kdin personally responded well to.

Fast forward to now. I'm going to assume we all know that Rooster Teeth started the process of being fully shut down by Warner Media earlier this year, partially due to low revenue, partially because I don't think Warner could stomach having anything media-related they own have content anywhere that wasn't on HBO Max. As of now, the website is basically fully non-functioning, with just a farewell video and a simple goodbye message iirc. The only way to get many videos that were FIRST-member exclusive over the years is via the Internet Archive, and with recent rulings, that may very well be in jeopardy if the people who end up with the various RT IPs decide to have them pulled for one reason or another. Yet, because of a tangent in a conversation I had with my boyfriend after playing some Warframe, I started wondering what had happened to the various people and channels I used to follow...

So I went down a bit of a rabbit hole. I'm even following some of the ones that were decent people at a bad company that have gone independent, sometimes buying the old RT IPs they were associated with, now... but something just feels off. I felt empty. And now... I realize what's going on. I'm feeling this sense of nostalgia for a specific period of time in the history of Rooster Teeth's content production, during which I may have been at one of the lowest points of my life, but those videos were a massive source of solace during. I'm also grieving over the loss of a fucking company that I didn't even really care about anymore, but in some part of my mind I kind of did because of how formative some of the videos it produced were to me. I'm watching the post-mortem of a company that helped define so much of what we know as the modern internet thanks to its start as one of the last vestiges of the old internet before everything became overly monetized and corporate, for better or for worse - months after everyone else that still cared has already processed it.

I'm grieving over the final, 100% irreversible end of one of the last things that - again, for better or for worse - was a constant source of being able to see something new that fit within formats I was used to seeing since I was a kid.

If I wanted to see an actual let's play that had more than the bare minimum of editing done for a VoD that isn't just constant, over-the-top bullshit, had actual interaction between the people in it that showed they were at least work friends, that had all of the POVs in one video instead of needing to hop to 17 different VoD channels to see everything... Those videos were what I would turn to, more often than not. Like I said, new videos but in formats I loved. Now... even though I haven't watched anything like the old AH videos in almost 2 years since Kdin's post, I'm feeling this... Gap. A void. If I want to watch gameplay, chances are it'll be a VoD of someone I like watching, yes, but something like that lightning-in-a-bottle of the old AH stuff where everyone was in a room together and you didn't have to watch multiple VoDs to see everything you wanted to see... I genuinely don't know if that really exists anywhere anymore.

And thus, I grieve a part of my childhood and young adulthood that is gone forever. Sure, I can buy an external SSD and put copies of all of the old videos I liked on there for me to watch whenever I want, such as RvB or a bunch of the old AH stuff (I could probably even find the FIRST stuff that was never on YouTube if I really tried), it doesn't change the fact that, though some vestiges of what once was will live on through different podcasts and channels made by the few decent people that were left in the ashes of the dumpster fire that was Rooster Teeth, new stuff made like that is, quite possibly, gone forever unless someone were to get enough money scraped together to be able to try and do something like it again - and it's unlikely it'd make enough back to be around for long in the modern age of content creation and consumption. Hell, to my (fairly limited, admittedly) knowledge, even before RT was shut down, the main channel they owned that I'm nostalgic for now was essentially shut down - Achievement Hunter was retired and the people that remained made something called DogBark.

It's a part of the unending march of time - things come and go, no matter how much of a constant they may seem in the background of your life, even if you aren't engaging with them how you used to. But even knowing that... This one's hurting a bit as I finally process it. Especially as I take the time to write a post about it to be able to get these thoughts out of my head and off of my chest without directly weighing down those around me with my glum rambling about a shit company I didn't even watch anymore going under. It just feels... wrong, in some way. Hell, I'm anticapitalist as shit, but because of how formative those videos were to me for so long, I'm mourning the shutdown of a shitty fucking company that was a WARNER MEDIA SUBSIDIARY!!!

The human mind is a hell of a thing to have to deal with sometimes, huh...

[incorrectgundam00]

Setsuna: How did you get hit in the head with PVC pipe?

Johann: My little brother threw it at me.

Setsuna: Sounds right.

[salmonmakiii]

Hiii I’d like to request a time stamp please! 01:25 with boyfriend Kuroo, all fluff pls 🥺

I’m sorry for the late updates T_T I didn’t know my college schedule will be THIS packed T_T Here ya go!

[01:25]

About : Kuroo x reader Note : Fluff, nekoma rich, Kuroo being a whiny boyfriend >:( Sorry if I have any mistakes!

“HAHAHAH,”

“Tetsu! Stop laughing in my ear!”

You hit your boyfriend’s chest jokingly as he slowly calmed down from his laugh and let out a “sorry”.

Being stuck in quarantine with Kuroo was fun. For the past month, you two would either be cuddling all day in bed, trying new recipes from TikTok, making TikTok with him, or just lay around the house doing nothing. There are a few times where he had to do his work, but with the pandemic right now, he didn’t have a lot he needed to do.

You, on the other hand, didn’t have a job yet. You were about to find one but quarantine strikes first before you could. Kuroo was fine with it since his job could already fulfill your daily needs, that and maybe someone wanted you to be available whenever he needs cuddles after a stressful zoom meeting.

These days were just one of those days where you tow had been cuddling in bed all day, only to wake up a few times to get something to eat and then to go to the bathroom only to fall back asleep in each other’s arms.

That was a big mistake though. Both of you were now wide awake in the middle of the night and your boyfriend suggested to watch some of The Office episodes. The two of you got bored of it after watching five episodes, Kuroo then decided to go back to memory lane as he searched “iconic vines that…” on youtube and now both of your cheeks were sore from laughing and smiling.

When the youtube video ends, your boyfriend used his left hand to move the cursor to peek at the time while his right was still rested around your shoulders.

“Babe,” He called, you looked up from your phone to your boyfriend.

“Yeah?”

“I think we messed up our sleep schedule,” He let out a chuckle. You looked at the time on your phone and smiled.

“I guess we did,” You shook your head, fixing up your position to stretch out your limbs. Kuroo moved the laptop from the bed to the nightstand.

“You tired yet?” He asked, stretching his hands.

“Nope,” You smiled, leaning in as you kissed your boyfriend on the lips. Pulling back a little to stare at his handsome face. Kuroo gave you a grin as he leaned in once more to kiss you. You cupped his cheeks as he moved his lips on yours and you pulled back abruptly as you squinted your eyes.

“Why is your face so dry?” You asked, rubbing your thumb on your boyfriend’s cheeks.

“Dry? I don’t know,” He answered shortly, clearly uninterested in the current topic as he leaned down once again. You halt him and let out a laugh when he groaned.

“I have an idea!” You exclaimed, letting go of your boyfriend as you scrambled off the bed to go to your drawer.

“If it doesn’t involve you cuddling me and giving me kisses, I don’t want any part of it,” His child-like grumble made you laugh. You took out a few of your skincare products and put them all on the bed.

“We’ve been doing that for a whole day, Testu.”

Kuroo jutted his lips as he looked at you with those sad, cat-like eyes and his hair seemed like cat ears as it went a little droopy. You sighed and rolled your eyes.

“We can have that after I put chemicals on your face.”

Kuroo muttered a “Fine,” as he scooted closer to look at the products on the bed.

“Now come on, let’s wash up our face.” You smiled at him, Kuroo groaned once again as he lazily made his way to the bathroom, his feet dragging on the floor.

“Come on!” You said, pushing him to walk faster to the bathroom.

Finally arriving at the bathroom, you gave Kuroo one of your hair bands. Your boyfriend looked at the hairband and then at you. If you wanted him to do things your way, might as well be a little hard to get.

“Can you put it on for me, please?” He asked in a gentle and yet teasing tone but you did as he asked, since he looked so cute. Now that his rooster hair was out of his face, he continued to put his face wash on his face, rubbing it and then applying it to his cheeks first, you follow after him with your own and you both decided to brush your teeth right after.

When both of you finished, Kuroo handed you your towel as he wiped his face with his. You thanked him and walked back towards the bedroom with Kuroo following behind you. You plopped down on the bed and grinned at your boyfriend who’s towering over you.

“Now, let’s begin!”

“You’re weirdly excited about this simple thing.”

You gave Kuroo your toner and he looked at you with an offended look. You tilt your head to the side and raised an eyebrow.

“What’s wrong?” You asked,

“I thought you were going to put it on for me?” He pouted, jutting his lips out.

“Tetsurou, I swear, you’re a child!” You laugh. Nonetheless, you sat crosslegged, putting two pillows on top of your legs and patting it, gesturing for him to lay down his head there.

Kuroo smiled victoriously and laid his head down, his body bounced just a little as he plopped his body on the mattress. He let out a sigh of relief when he felt your hand ran through his hair.

“You’re so spoiled,” You planted a kiss on his forehead and put a few drops of the toner to a piece of facial cotton. Kuroo only hummed as he relaxed when you pressed the cotton to his face, the pressure you gave him felt like you were massaging his face.

Putting the cotton and toner aside, you reached out to the mini-fridge near you to get those facial masks. Kuroo said something about that fridge being used for drinks, but you put in some of your skincare there anyways. You took out your facial masks, choosing the right one for your boyfriend’s dry skin. Kuroo was still closing his eyes, hearing you rummage through things.

“What’s taking you so long?” He asked, opening his eyes and looking up at you.

“I’m choosing a facial mask for you,” You said, not glancing at him as you continued to search.

“I’d take anything, honestly,” He shrugged, closing his eyes once more. You let out an “Aha!” and tapped Kuroo’s head. Your boyfriend opened his eyes to see you smiling.

“Wanna wear this one? It’s for dry skin.”

“Yeah sure.” He closed his eyes once again.

Kuroo knew what masks they are, he saw you wear it a few times around the house. He even got scared by you when you wore a black one. If he remembered correctly, this was the one where it was like cloth but soaked in some moisturizer…? He shakes the thought away and just went with the flow.

What Kuroo forgot was that this was fresh out of the fridge and it was cold. The second the mask touched his skin he jolted and sat up, looking at you.

“Jeez, babe! Warn me next time! That thing is below freezing temperature!” He complained and you laughed at him, still holding the mask with your fingertips.

“Sorry! Sorry! Lay down and let me apply it to you.”

Kuroo glared at you as he grumpily lay down on the pillow. You laugh silently and warned him by counting. Kuroo flinched a little at the sudden cold touch, but as the mask covered more of his face, he relaxes. You let out a content sigh and gently stood up, Kuroo noticed your absence and let out a groan.

“Where are you going?” He whined,

“Will you stop being a child, Tetsu?” You giggled, reaching for your moisturizer on the table across your bed. “I’m just going to do my routine.” You heard another groan leave him.

“When do I take this off?” He asked,

“In 15 minutes,” Kuroo groaned once more and reached for his phone beside him, opening his social media.

Fifteen minutes passed by pretty quickly. Kuroo had set up a timer and he immediately called out your name to take the mask off. You shook your head as you move from your comfortable spot on the bed. You peeled the mask off and he let out an exaggerated sigh.

“Finally! I’ve been waiting for ages.” He said. you saw him about to wipe his face with a towel and you quickly stopped him, pulling his face to you.

“Do NOT wipe them off!” You warned while Kuroo raised an eyebrow.

“But my face’s so slimy,”

“You’re supposed to spread it all over your face,”

You began spreading the excess serum on both of his cheeks, gently putting on pressure to massage his face. Kuroo visibly relaxed and leaned into your touch. A few seconds of massaging his face, you finally let go and moved back to lay down on your spot once more. Kuroo throwing his body beside you. His hand reached for the light switch on top of your bed and the room grew dark, the soft light from the closed curtains being the only light source.

“Now, where’s my cuddle and kisses?” Kuroo asked in a raspy voice.

His hands were already around you and his lips were grazing yours. You giggle at him before closing the gap between you. Kuroo’s lips formed a smile once you started taking the lead, that giddy feeling he always liked resurfaced. Kuroo initiated to put sloppy kisses on your cheeks but stopped and pulled back.

“Ack! Ew!” Kuroo stuck his tongue out as he tried to get rid of the weird taste in his mouth. You stared at him confused before understanding what happened.

“You tasted my night serum didn’t you?” You chuckled, Kuroo frowned and turned to you.

“Yeah, and it tastes BAD,”

“Well, what do you expect?” You laughed, pushing a hand through his hair.

“Something sweet! Don’t they have some kind of strawberry flavor or something?”

“They don’t, Tetsu.”

“Well, they should!”

A good five minutes went by as you hear your boyfriend's complaints before the two of you were out cold. In the morning though, Kuroo was surprised at how soft his skin felt as he looked at himself in the mirror.

“Babe! My face is as soft as a baby’s bum!”

Maybe he’ll let you take care of his skin-care from now on.

[rwby-redux]

Deconstruction

Worldbuilding: Genetics

If any of my Deconstruction posts were going to turn heads, I had a hunch it would be this one. You’ll probably find this topic incongruous with the others simply because—unlike Aura, Semblances, Dust, and Grimm—genetics isn’t one of RWBY’s unique gimmicks. If I’m being entirely honest, part of why this post exists is because I still had some miscellaneous talking points to address, but lacked a proper heading to file them under. Call it what it is: a dumping ground for wayward thoughts.

But there’s a bit more to it than just that. The reason why I want to talk about this is because, much like the other mechanical aspects, genetics does have a bearing on RWBY’s worldbuilding, and the stories that were subsequently built around it. It has an undeniable impact on the sociopolitical human-Faunus schism that set the stage for Remnant’s immediate past, and the present-day terrorist acts committed by the White Fang. Genetics is also an extension of RWBY’s adherence to color theory, reflected in the hair and eye color choices of the ensemble cast.

Before we can finally conclude Part 1 of the Worldbuilding posts, we need to discuss this topic from both a narrative and a production standpoint. Genetics is firmly rooted in the development and design choices of the writers—choices which, as you’ll quickly see, had long-lasting consequences for the show.

Today we’re going to be dividing this topic into two sections. Since I’m sure it’s already on your mind, let’s get the obvious one out of the way first:

The Genetics of the Faunus

The Faunus are going to have an entire post dedicated just to them, but it’s impossible to talk about genetics without at least a passing mention of one of Remnant’s two main species.

Subspecies.

Races?

Yeah. You can quickly see where this is going.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me provide some context. Just like the conception of the Maidens, the Faunus can trace their developmental history to a rather impulsive design choice:

“Monty really wanted a character with cat ears,” admits Miles Luna. Shawcross expands on how Blake Belladonna’s look resulted in a cornerstone of the show’s lore. “So if Blake has cat ears, does that mean anyone can have cat ears? Could they have other animal traits? It’d be cool to see someone with scales or a fox tail…” [1]

Let me clarify by saying that there’s nothing wrong with basing a decision on aesthetics (in principle, anyway). And RWBY isn’t the only franchise guilty of doing this. It only takes a few seconds of consulting TV Tropes to see that zoomorphism is extremely pervasive. And while I have a tendency to complain a lot on this blog, I’m not such a kvetch that I’ll deny that animal-people with lion tails and ram horns look fucking sweet.

The problem I have with Faunus (from a genetic standpoint) is the way they’re inconsistently described in relation to humans. While Qrow unambiguously refers to them as a separate species, [2] we have Faunus characters that contradict him by describing themselves as a race. [3] This leads to the inevitable issue of whose account do we trust? On one hand, the information provided to us by Qrow is through World of Remnant, a spin-off series whose entire purpose is to clarify information and teach the audience about core worldbuilding concepts. On the other hand, what we’re told about the Faunus being a race comes directly from Ghira Belladonna. In this context, who would you expect to be the better authority on Faunus—a human, or a Faunus?

Even if we set aside the complicated implications of an outgroup member talking over a minority, we’re still left with the issue of well, which is it? Are they a race or a species? And why does it even matter?

Before we can answer any of those questions, let’s quickly define both terms:

A species is a taxonomic rank used for classifying groups of organisms together on the basis of being able to participate in genetic interchange via sexual reproduction, to produce fertile offspring.

A race (in biology) is an informal/unrecognized taxonomic rank below subspecies, defined as unique subgroups with either geographic, physiological, or genetic distinctions from other subgroups within their species. In anthropology, however, a race is typically regarded as a social construct. In this case, it refers to an identity held by members of a population that share physical or social qualities that are seen as categorically distinct.

The answer, if we’re being objective, is probably something along the lines of “RWBY’s writers thought that the two terms were interchangeable, or they didn’t think the distinction mattered enough to do the research and settle on a definition.” Unless someone specifically reached out to a Rooster Teeth employee and asked, we’ll never truly know. Speculation will only get us so far, and where this blog is concerned, we need a definitive answer—or at the very least, we need to talk about why the distinction matters to us.

So, are Faunus their own race? Meaning, are they a self-identifying ethnic group with a common language, ancestry, history, culture, nation, or social treatment within their residing area?

Common language: That’s a definite no. RWBY still hasn’t managed to explain how everyone across the four kingdoms speaks the same language, let alone develop any conlangs.

Ancestry: We actually don’t have a canon answer for this. The show has yet to tell us where the Faunus came from, so we can’t make any assumptions about how related they are to one another.

History: Technically, yes. But the series has a gross tendency to homogenize the experience of Faunus across Remnant, so the history of Faunus in Vale is virtually identical to that of Mistral. This trend results in storytelling discrepancies, like the Faunus in culturally-unprejudiced Vacuo [4] being equally threatened by and involved with the Faunus Rights Revolution, when there shouldn’t have been an in-world basis for this scenario.

Culture: Don’t make me laugh. RWBY couldn’t even be bothered to give any of its four kingdoms distinct cultures. Apart from a few scenes in Menagerie where you see a bunch of background characters hanging out in the Shallow Sea district of Kuo Kuana, there really isn’t anything culturally unique to the Faunus.

Nation: I guess? I personally wouldn’t consider Menagerie a nation, simply because it’s not one the Faunus originated from, but were rather given in the aftermath of the Great War. As far as we know, Faunus have always been just as widespread across Remnant as humans.

Social treatment: We’re told that social treatment for the Faunus as a whole is shitty, but that the degree of shittiness varies from place to place. Forgive me if I don’t buy that. Not after we’ve seen students in Vale physically harass a Faunus, [5] shops in Mistral refuse service to Faunus, [6] and companies in Atlas extract labor from Faunus. [7] If social treatment is contingent on shared experiences, then why are we told that these experiences change depending on the kingdom? And if the kingdoms vary in levels of racial acceptance, then why are we repeatedly shown the exact opposite?

Based on the aforementioned criteria, I’m inclined to say that Faunus don’t fit the definition of race.

So, are the Faunus a separate species from humans?

“History gets a little fuzzy past a certain point, but we do know that their kind and ours are completely compatible, from a—a biological standpoint.” | Source: World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 6: “Faunus.”

That’s a resounding no.

As much as the taxonomist in me wants to talk about things like the multiple competing species concepts, or the fact that plants frequently violate the definition of species by producing fertile hybrids through polyploidy (chromosomal doubling), I have to restrain myself. For simplicity’s sake, we’re accepting that Faunus and humans are members of the same species on the basis that they’re not reproductively isolated.

The reason why genetics matters in regards to the race-species discourse is because we have yet to learn what the Faunus truly are. If we ignore the fact that they exist because Monty Oum wanted to stick cat ears on a girl, then we have to figure out what their existence means to Remnant’s past: Did the Brother Gods intervene in the early evolution of Humanity v2.0, by creating a subset of people with animal traits that would sow discord, for the sole purpose of giving Ozma another obstacle to overcome? Did Salem (who watched Humanity v2.0 evolve) try to influence their evolution, and somehow managed to bestow animalistic traits upon select groups of early hominids? Is Dust like a magically-radioactive fossil fuel that by pure chance mutated early people through exposure, resulting in their animalistic traits? Are the Faunus’ animal traits completely irrelevant to the plot, and are only there for the sake of style?

That’s why the Faunus’ genetic background matters—because as the story progresses, it’s going to inform what questions the audience asks.

There’s a good chance that all of this will end up being nitpicky conjecture, and there won’t be any storytelling payoff. But I think it’s still important to address, if for no other reason than to illustrate why pre-production worldbuilding is essential for telling a coherent story. But I digress.

Genetics, and Its Relationship with Color Theory

It goes without saying that RWBY is defined by color. It’s reflected in nearly every facet of the franchise—team names, wardrobe, Dust color, Aura color, emblems, characters’ names, even the show’s title—and it’s just as important from a worldbuilding standpoint as it is from a narrative one. [8]

Where color theory and genetics cross paths is in the field of character appearance—specifically, hair and eye color. For the moment, let’s set aside eye color as a visual device for foiling and paralleling characters (like Yang Xiao Long’s purple eyes compared to Blake Belladonna’s yellow eyes). Instead, we’re going to talk about these phenotypes from a hereditary perspective.

We’re going to streamline this discussion a bit by focusing on hair for the moment, and picking three colors that would be considered unnatural by our world’s standards. Let’s go with blue, green, and pink. Here’s a handful of characters who have these traits:

Blue hair: Neptune Vasilias, Ciel Soleil, Henry Marigold, May Marigold, Nebula Violette, Sky Lark, Trifa

Green hair: Emerald Sustrai, Marrow Amin, Bartholomew Oobleck, Reese Chloris, Russel Thrush, Sage Ayana

Pink hair: An Ren, May Zedong, Nadir Shiko

Now we’re going to take those lists and swap out the characters’ names for their inferred country of origin:

Blue hair: Mistral, Atlas, Atlas, Atlas, Vacuo, Vale, Menagerie

Green hair: Vale, Atlas, Vale, Mistral, Vale, Mistral

Pink hair: Mistral, Vacuo, Mistral

We can conclude that these hair colors are natural on the basis that we never see characters dying their hair, and that similarly unusual eye colors (red, pink, purple, yellow) would also be natural in Remnant. Unless we’re assuming that everyone is wearing custom contact lenses, then it’s safe to say they’re legit. With the example of hair color, you’ll notice that they’re distributed across a wide number of nationalities, with little hint of consistency among them.

At the end of the day, it’s easy to write this off as “the writers wanted to have cool character designs and not have to think too hard about the worldbuilding implications behind them.” But there is a worldbuilding implication behind them, and it’s one that I’ll be focusing on in later Deconstruction and Amendment posts, so I want to make sure we talk about it now:

RWBY has repeatedly shown us that people are fairly geographically isolated from each other, and travel between kingdoms has always been difficult due to the Grimm. It wasn’t until eighty years ago, when the Great War ended, that a combo of international political cooperation and technological advancements made travel safer and more commonplace. Keep in mind that when populations of humans are geographically isolated from each other over prolonged periods of time, it results in those populations evolving specific anatomical traits.

Let me give you a few real world examples. Epicanthic folds are predominantly found in East Asian, Polynesian, and North Asian ethnic groups. Red hair, while not exclusive to any one nationality, is statistically highest in people of Northwestern European ancestry. Darker complexion is most common in equatorial populations, where high melanin production (especially eumelanin) protects against UVR exposure.

RWBY has every reason under the sun to ascribe certain phenotypes to the ethnicities of each kingdom, and for some reason it just doesn’t. Like, why not make green hair a trait common to people with Sanus ancestry? How about red eyes originating from Anima?

Avatar: The Last Airbender pulled this off by making dark skin, brown hair, and blue/gray eyes features of the Water Tribes. The Fire Nation, to reflect its broader geographic distribution, has a much wider range of phenotypes, with both light and dark skin tones and black or brown hair. However, it still retained golden, amber, and bronze eyes as a distinguishing characteristic of people descended from this ancestry. Frankly, I love that the show took the time to establish those traits among its ethnic groups. Not only was it a great way to visually communicate to the audience the ethnicity of the characters, but those traits took on entirely new meanings in the sequel Avatar: The Legend of Korra. When we meet the brothers Mako and Bolin for the first time and see their respective eye colors—amber and green—we’re immediately able to deduce that they’re the products of successful multiculturalism, something that would’ve seemed impossible seventy years ago when the world was gripped by war. It’s a powerful statement that was conveyed through careful attention to detail and excellent worldbuilding. Given that RWBY also takes place several decades after a global war, the writers had the opportunity to pull off a similar feat. And I don’t think it ever occurred to them once.

At the end of the day, it’s not the worst thing RWBY could’ve done. I think I’m just disappointed by the missed opportunities. The show already has so little going for it when it comes to shaping the identities of its four main kingdoms, so with color being such a vital motif for the show, this feels like it should have been a natural progression of those ideas.

On a more positive note, we’ve finally reached the end of Worldbuilding (Part I) - Mechanical Aspects! Next time, we’ll get to introduce the second section of worldbuilding topics: history.

-

[1] Wallace, Daniel. The World of RWBY: The Official Companion. VIZ Media LLC, 2019, page 42.

[2] World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 6: “Faunus.”

[3] Volume 5, Episode 3: “Unforeseen Complications.” Ghira Belladonna: “[Adam’s] actions not only tarnished the reputation of an organization originally created to bring peace and equality to all, but to our entire race.”

[4] World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 4: “Vacuo.”

[5] Volume 1, Episode 11: “Jaunedice - Part 1.”

[6] Volume 5, Episode 6: “Known by Its Song.”

[7] Volume 7, Episode 1: “The Greatest Kingdom.”

[8] Wallace, Daniel. The World of RWBY: The Official Companion. VIZ Media LLC, 2019, page 44.

[rwbyconversations]

Calxiyn’s Rooster Teeth production leaks reveal secrets of Gray Haddock’s time as RT Head of Animation

RWBY Youtuber Calxiyn has today put up a Google Doc (and accompanying video) detailing several anonymous complaints from within Rooster Teeth regarding the now-former Head of Animation Gray Haddock and also-now-former Supervising Producer Koen Wooten and the difficult production cycle they administered. Some of the accusations paint a rather harsh view of Haddock’s management style and point to accusations of potential embezzling, a heightened ego and usage of his position as Head of Animation to strike fear in his staff and keep complaints on the down low. I’m gonna do my best to share this around and take screenshots of the more important claims in case of the worst, but please share at the sources when possible. 

Calxiyn makes great pains to stress that all of these accusations are allegations at best but also stresses that everyone they talked to did work or currently work at Rooster Teeth. 

“Gray was shitty & fired people in mass. Was a bit shocked. Genlock’s production caused a lot of the current issues. And Gray had stepped down for a hike after everything came to light before RTX. Things were so bad that most of animation now refuse to work on Genlock”

Gray cared about Gray. He locked himself in his office the whole time or was out galavanting in japan having fun. He'd hold company meetings weekly to brag about the fun stuff he did until he, miles and kerry got in trouble from higher up because so many people complained about it. Probably one of the worst bosses I’ve had. I didn't work on genlock thank god. I was super worried about it as Gray was in charge sounds like all my fears were merited too from what ive heard

C: The anonymous poster also mentioned Keon Wooten but I don’t know anything about them. Like the post basically said he enabled Gray but idk who the dude is so do you know anything about that? Also thank you for responding to me : )

S3: Wooten is an asshole. Koen is the one right below Gray. head producer. He's a hollywood producer (worked for michael bay for 7 years). he gets people to do work by promising them what they want then making excuses or blaming them for not delivering

C:  Other sources are talking about how Gray prevented people from having creative control. Did you hear anything about that from any of the shows? Nomad, RWBY etc

Like that the plan was to do x, but Gray came and forced them to do y instead which was far from what they wanted to do

S3: Well the guy who created Nomad had it basically taken from him

C: How did that go down?

S3: Sadly I wasn't in 2D so i only heard it off-hand

Source 3 goes on to say that Miles and Kerry were fine to work with (”super nice people”) and seemed oblivious as to Gray and Koen’s actions behind their backs. 

C: 2) In the anonymous post from yesterday they discuss gen:LOCK going super over budget. Did things need to be cut or rushed because they were blowing gen:LOCK money?

S2:  Gray supposedly took some of 2Ds money to dip into his own project THAT HE HAD FULL CONTROL ON. Some other shows were rushed.

S2:  Grays personality is either he's completely clueless or knew exactly what he was doing and is a sociopath, it's hard to say, either way not leadership material in my opinion and never took responsibility for ANYTHING. 

S2:  I think Gen:lock was something he pushed through himself and because he was the head he could make the final call to show it to burnie and Matt on his own and push it over the other 3D pitches. Gray was already using company money to make concept art and work for it, without it being greenlit. The whole thing was sketchy. 

S2:  People were afraid of Gray because he was “Gray was judge, jury, and executioner”.  

Cal then goes on to say that Gray’s position as Head of Animation made workers hesitant to go to the HR department due to fears that they would be fired. Eventually someone went to Matt Hullum directly to tell him about the working conditions, after which Hullum stormed into the animation department and crammed everyone into a room. This seems to be where the choice was made to let Gray go. 

Calxiyn’s final source talks more about how Nomad of Nowhere suffered during this timeframe:

S4: gen:Lock and Nomad were greenlit around the same time, but Gray put more time, budget, and resources for preproduction on gen:Lock. Nomad as a result was pushed up in the schedule, only had two months of preproduction before animation had to start. The creator of Nomad wasn’t offered a lead position and was barely consulted on the story or art. That’s all I’m willing to say about that. This is something that almost anyone in the animation department can tell you. I don’t want to talk about Nomad as everything that went into that is way more complicated and there’s no way I have the full story as it feels like all the incompetency that led to the 2D department having to crunch back to back that year goes further and further up.

S4: There’s actually an episode of Off Topic where Geoff jokingly likens Gray to a slave driver when talking about the animation department. Little did he know how apt that comparison actually was.

While the fact remains that at their core these are anonymous accusations and ones that may very well be false, I have a gut feeling that these are legitimate compared to some of the other accounts from supposed “RT insiders.” If even half or just a quarter of the accusations are true it’s a damning picture of Haddock’s management, to say nothing of how taking funds and putting them into Genlock concept art before the show was greenlit and then taking funds from Nomad for Genlock can potentially open Gray up to accusations of embezzling. Which for those who need a reminder:

I’d like to thank Calxiyn for putting all this together. Hopefully now that the worst elements in the higher ups have been removed between Gray and Koen and the supposed managerial improvements being overseen by Margaret M. Dean, RT Animation can solve the issues that seem to have been plaguing it for the past year or so.

[ndgo-nebula-violette]

I’m here to guide you weary souls that tried looking into the RWBY fandom and found nothing but salty fans. I’m here to give a light spoilers guide to the anime RWBY. (less spoilers then wondering off to the wiki would do)  So you can know what it is about, from a person who absolutely loves the show.

Quick note: The series calls it’s Seasons “Volumes” and it’s Episodes “Chapters”

1.  RWBY is an American made Fantasy Anime. Made in 2013. You even get to this fact without finding some salty person going wElL hOw CaN iT bE aNiMe If ItS aMeRiCaN? Well let me tell you how.

RWBY is created by a lovely person named Monty Oum. Who unfortunately died in 2015 between making Volume 2 and 3. But He wanted to make sure the animation style was in line with that of Anime. As an Asian American man I trust his judgement well enough. (Please don’t diminish his death. He was hard working enough that he planned years of the show with the other writers-- so they still have a guide that follows in his name)

And if that’s not enough for you. In 2014 Japan got the rights to Dub RWBY in Japanese and in 2015 that Dub was released. And in fact, similar to most anime’s, but in Japan it became quite a popular anime. (And it had some quite famous Japanese Voice Actors)

On top of that a manga was made and released November 2015. (Note: I’m not sure how canon these are.) Manga volume one link [x]

And then on top of this. I’d like to add. Jack Pattillo’s words. Cause I think it’s great. But there was an Off Topic. If anyone can let me know which one that would be great. But I clearly remember the group talking about anime and him asking the group if “they go to high school. If they go to school then it’s an anime.” Or something along those lines. And the characters in RWBY do in fact go to high school.

2. RWBY is a show about girls fighting monsters.

At least that’s what the premise is. RWBY follows a team of girls who are training to become hunters and huntresses. Those of which fight the monsters of the world called Grimm. Yes, Grimm. As in the Brother’s Grimm. As in Fairy Tales. Because the anime and characters all have Fairy Tale themes to them.

Overall that’s what it comes down to. It's girls fighting monsters. (light spoilers ahead) and then there’s the whole subplot that leads up to where we are currently in hiatus as we wait for Volume 8 to come out. But we find out that the ultimate goal is to destroy the creator/master of Grimm.

But if you want to know even more about the lore and backstory of the show you can always watch World of Remnant. Youtube. [x] It explains a bit more on the Grimm and explains the Maidens a bit more. But for a simple explanation Maidens are similar to the Avatar (Avatar the Last Airbender) in which they control the weather and are more powerful. Except there’s 4 of them instead of just one and they are based on the seasons. They could also be used to fight the Grimm. 

But if you really really want to avoid spoilers this is all you really need to know. It’s a simple concept, but there’s a lot of depth to it. Thus this post continuing.

3. RWBY is an acronym.

Okay so the show mainly follows the main character Ruby Rose. And her (volume 1 spoilers) team RWBY. RWBY (pronounced Ruby)  is an acronym for the names of the characters in Ruby’s team. Which stand for --

Ruby Rose. [ Voiced by Lindsay Jones -- Dubbed by Saori Hayami ] Weiss Schnee.  [ Voiced by Kara Eberle -- Dubbed by  Yōko Hikasa ] Blake Belladonna. [ Voiced by Arryn Zech -- Dubbed by Yū Shimamura ] Yang Xiao Long. [ Voiced by Barbara Dunkleman -- Dubbed by Ami Koshimizu ]

If you want to know more of the voice actors, English and Japanese alike. This is the one time I’ll say the RWBY wiki is safe enough spoiler-wise. [x] It’s fun cause we get a mix of Rooster Teeth staff and notable Voice actors. (like Elizabeth Maxwell)

RWBY is also a pun on their names. Cause majority of the characters and team names are based on Colours. So Red/White/Black/Yellow as what matches their Colour Aesthetics.

These 4 are the main characters. They are what is important in the show. They get the most screen time cause they are who the show is following.

But of course there are other side characters and teams that we all love and adore. The noted ones are team JNPR, team CVFY and team SSSN. They follow the same rules as the original team. In which the letters represent the names of the characters in the team. Often the first letter of the team name usually matches up with the name for the team leader.

Luckily if you end up a fan of team JNPR (pronounced Juniper) you’re in luck. They become part of the main supporting cast.

If you happen to be fans of team CVFY (pronounced coffee) or team SSSN (pronounced Sun) you’re in luck. As of 2019 we have canon books. Written by E.C. Myers that follow these teams and talk about their back story and such. If you want to avoid spoilers I recommend not picking them up til after you see Volume 3. But it’s not required. If the animation is something you don’t like, but you’re still interested in the concept I highly recommend these.

Amazon Link book one [x] // Amazon link book two [x] 

If you happen to be fans of team NDGO (my url sake) or team BRNZ well too bad you get nothing. Love the characters while they have screen time. (light spoilers) And it seemed we got slightly lucky with team FNKI they got more screen time, and here’s hoping for more.

Fun note: The writers are cheeky and even called the crew that works on the show CRWBY which they also have a show on the behind the scenes if you’re interested in that [x] (you do have to be a first member for this one tho) 

4. The weapons are important. They also have “powers” This is just what makes the show cool.

Quick run down. Hunters/Huntresses are what they call those who fight Grimm. They all have their own weapons, which seems to work with their fighting style and Semblance.

Semblance is what they call their superpower in this show. Everyone has one. Some are not as remarkable as others. It’s very very similar to Quirks in the anime My Hero Academia. It’s kind of a one time use per battle type thing. But it tends to match the personality of the characters.

Aura is what they call their life force. But works more like MP opposed to HP in video game terms. It’s more of an internal personal power source, and running out makes you very weak. Aura is your shield. It’s what protects you from dying. You can heal with aura or you can use your semblance with your Aura.

Their weapons use an artificial power source called Dust. You can use your Aura to amplify it. Dust is just gems you use to power things. Most of them are elemental based. Fire, Ice, Lightning, Gravity, Hard Light, Plant, Earth, Steam, Water, Wind.

There might be more, but that’s what we’ve for sure have seen used. Add the Dust to your weapon, and use the Dust as needed. Majority of that time is bullets. Because a lot of their weapons have gun elements to them. For the weapons transform. Most of the weapons are a 2-in-1 type special. But some are more than 2. Depending on the fighter and their needs. Every weapon is highly personalized.

The weapon’s of team RWBY is as follows: Ruby has her weapon called Crescent Rose, a sniper rifle that transforms into a large scythe. That scythe is used a lot in promotional things involving the show RWBY. Ruby simply uses bullets, which she often uses for propulsion around her environment.

Weiss’ weapon Myrtenaster is a Rapier which transforms into Revolver. Which honestly, i don’t often see it out of the Rapier form so I almost forgot about this fact.

Blake’s weapon Gambol Shroud is a Katana, Cleaver, Pistol and Kusarigama. This one is particularly useful. For the most part this weapon is often transforming to her needs. She’s very much a fast moving, thinking on her toes type fighter.

Yang’s weapon Ember Celica is a Gauntlet shotgun. It’s literally guns she wears on her wrists. Like Ruby she also takes advantage of the gun for propulsion.

It’s really neat that they have names for all their weapons actually. That tells you how important the weapons are in the show. 

A lot of the weapons are fun tho. And some are harder to tell what they are until you see them in action. The most notable is that of one Velvet Scarlatina. Her weapon Anesidora was a fan favourite due to its secrecy. For you only see it as a box introduced in Volume 2. Which had all the fans guessing what would be in the box. Including myself [x] which got noticed by the voice actor Caiti Ward herself. But ultimately the reveal in the end of Volume 3 was well worth the wait and was quite satisfying. (this i refuse to spoil) 

5. A bit of plot, but I got to mention the Fantasy Racism™

So there’s a fantasy race called Faunus. Which are humans with animal traits. It could be any animal trait, belonging to any animal. But only one trait. The most common seems to be ears or a tail. On top of that, the majority of Faunus get the ability to have night vision. (volume one spoilers) The most notable is that of Blake Belladonna and Sun Wukung (leader of team SSSN, Voiced by Micheal Jones --Tomoaki Maeno)

Blake having Cat ears and Sun having a monkey tail. Whenever the story focuses on the Fantasy Racism™ It focuses on these two the most.

It is a large subplot of Faunus' rebellion and such. It’s really interesting how they handle this.

On a more touchy topic. There is also the matter of LGBT characters. Now in the canon we have at least two canon Lesbians and one canon Trans character. This is one of the things the fandom gets the most salty about. The writers are trying their best. They even claimed they handled the setup badly and so things are slowed down a bit when it comes to representation. They have done a decent job since. They have hired a new writer since.

6. It’s a well thought out show.

Look I can babble about this show forever. But overall I don’t want to spoil too much of it. I might still make a second post that’s a bit more plot heavy. Of the show up through Volume 7. A here’s what you missed on type thing. But to keep this post mostly spoiler free I’m going to wrap it up.

RWBY also has its own guide book [x] which if you really want to know more about the semblances and weapons and characters and such it’s very useful.

They also have their own DC comic books. [x] Which i think is really really cool. but i’m lame and haven’t been to the comic book store in a long time and i don’t feel like paying for shipping. 

So as I said earlier, the animation style isn’t for everyone. Especially within Volumes 1-3. So the comics and books and manga are a great way to get into the series.

They also have a brand new show. A DND campaign based on the show’s setting. If you like the concept of the show but want it in an DND setting. RWBY the Grimm Campaign. It’s really fun. (and you get new teams to love like team SMMK) RT site [x]  (this one you can watch the first episode for free and after that you gotta pay to be a first member) 

The music is really epic and composed by Jeff Williams. Most of which are songs song by his daughter Casey Williams. The songs have been known to drop some foreshadowing for the show. This person [x] is nice enough to have a playlist on youtube. And there was a nice surprise last Volume, the lovely Caleb Hyles sang one of the songs. Here [x]

They also have a show called RWBY Chibi which is non-canon silliness. Drawn in more of a cartoon style.  Which is basically an OVA. Which is 64 episodes which are all less than 5 mins. RT site [x] or youtube playlist [x]

And since it’s become such a big show, with lots of support we’ve been blessed with things like a mobile crystal game [ RWBY Crystal Quest ] and even a video game [ RWBY: Grimm Eclipse ] and a board game [ RWBY: Combat Ready ].

The board game is actually lots of fun. I’ve played it with friends. 

But yes. Please. Give RWBY a chance if you haven’t. It’s fun and great. No matter how salty the fans get. 

[conceptideaandtypelinda]

Life’s a tool bar

For this project our task is to pick a character which we like from TV, internet, games, etc, and then create a visual image of the character using any style we want to while also involving a tool bar beside the character which will represent their personalities and their interests, showing what kind of characteristics they have. 

Jacksepticeye:

Jacksepticeye is an Irish YouTuber who makes videos for his audience which mainly involves him playing video games and yelling at the screen. His real name is Sean McLoughlin but during YouTube he is known as Jacksepticeye.

Sean is well known on YouTube as he has 14 Million Subscribers now and he is the 30th most subscribed channel on YouTube while his channel is still growing and has been since November 12th, 2012. 

Jacksepticeye is well known for his bright green hair and his mascot for his channel is a massive green septic eye.

RWBY:

RWBY is an American 3D web series created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth production. The show is set in the fictional world called Remnant, which is where young people train to become Huntsmen and Huntresses to protect their world from the creatures of grimm. 

The main characters on this series are Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang which spells out RWBY and is their team name. 

If I decide to choose this topic, I will choose one of the four characters to design but I need to know each of their personalities.

Ruby Rose is a hyper 14 year old who is studying at Beacon Academy to become a huntress. Crescent Rose is Ruby's signature weapon which is a High-Caliber Sniper-Scythe which is a hybrid between a scythe and a sniper rifle. Her best friend is Weiss Schnee and she has a dog called Zwei who lives in her dorm room.

Weiss Schnee is a rich sassy 16 year old girl who is a very talented singer and and her signature weapon is Myrtenaster. It is a Multi Action Dust Rapier that seems to act as a focus or source for Weiss' power. Weiss is does not get along with her family because her father does not approve of her decision of training to be a huntress. 

Blake Belladonna is a 16 year old girl who is joined Beacon Academy after she quit working with a terrorist group with her then partner. Blake wears a black ribbon tied in a for of a bow which she never takes off as she wears it to cover up her Faunus heritage as she has black cat ears. Gambol Shroud, classified as a Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe is Blake's signature weapon.

Yang Xiao Long is a 16 year old girl who is training in Beacon Academy to become a great huntress so she can find her mother. Ruby Rose is her sister but they do not share the same mother as Ruby's mother passed away when Ruby was a kid. Ember Celica are Yang Xiao Long's signature weapons. They are a pair of Dual Ranged Shot Gauntlets which appears as a bracelet first, but when activated, they cover Yang's hands and forearms, acting as arm guards. 

Sans from Undertale:

Sans is a character from a game called Undertale which is a role playing video game created by American indie developer and composer Toby Fox. In the game, the players control a human child who has fallen into the Underground which is a large region underneath the surface of the Earth that is separated by a magic barrier. 

The player meets many monsters during a quest to return to the surface, mainly through the combat system and the player navigates through mini bullet hell attacks by the opponent, and can decide to spare monsters instead of attacking and killing them. These choices affect the game, with the dialogue, characters, and story changing based on outcomes. 

Your actions depend on the story mode of the game, for example, if you decide to kill the monsters, the game turns into a genocide route where it is mainly based on Sans, a skeleton which lives in the underground who kills you as revenge for killing his brother Papyrus. On the other hand, if you decide to start the game by sparing all of the monsters, you play the pacifist route where Flowey is the main character. 

Sans is a goofy skeleton who makes skeleton puns  and has a lovable personality, he has a brother called Papyrus which the player has to kill. He has white pupils which disappear when he gets angry and when Sans uses magical psychokinesis, his left eye flashes light blue and yellow which are the colours of for patience and justice, and his right pupil disappears. 

He wears a blue unzipped hoodie, a white shirt, black shorts with white stripes and a pear of sneakers. He is lazy and sleeps a lot and also likes eating ketchup. 

My project is to create a tool bar for the chosen character while also creating a digital image of them. So, I could create a poster which displays this or I could create a banner which could be used to represent the character I chose that could be used for a YouTube cover photo, Facebook, etc. 

When creating a tool bar, I need to add anything that represents the character, for example, if I chose Sans, I would add sleep, ketchup, jokes, blue eye on his tool bar because if anyone looks at my work, they will understand what I am trying to create. 

When creating this, I can do it as a pixel art, or I could use Adobe Illustrator while using simple shapes to create all the tools and the character, or I could use a stylus pen and a tablet to draw everything on Photoshop. 

[nyklifsondiviiportfolio-blog]

Reading Summary 2, Dragon Myths

April 25, 2017

Dragon Myth Global Symbols of Power

Tarasque

The Tarasque is supposedly a leviathan. A leviathan, according to different versions of the bible, is a sea monster. Having a turtle shell in that context makes sense, but what about the multitude of heads? Or the bear claws for teeth? This is a historical othering. This dragon is deeply entrenched in alienating heathens and those who stray from faith. In the festival the dragon will be slain by the townsfolk yelling “a ben fa” or well done when limbs fall off. What is the role of aggression in worship? And how does that apply to these dragon myths? Is this a fear mongering tactic? In some versions of this myth Saint Martha was in a shipwreck. In some she merely landed with her siblings. This is interesting. Is this dramatising the story for a better dragon cryptid? Or for a more rags to riches story of a saint? Did this sea monster cause her ship to be destroyed?  

In Hacinas there is one of the biggest Tarascas carnivals. Eight men are chosen every year to work a mechanical nightmare that terrorizes the town. It steals women and they are sexually assaulted inside the monster. The only way to get them back is if their man tells dirty jokes to the Tarascas or fights it. After three days of children throwing stones and pretending to be demons, the Tarasca admits defeat, wilts, and withdraws meekly to the outskirts of town, where it is killed by the mayor wielding a wand What is the wand made from? What does he say to kill it? This carnival had been majorly unsupported by the church, but it is such a town tradition that three days of heathen festivities still take place. This is a public consumption terror, similar to the church speaking of what happens to those who stray from god’s light. A large doll will be placed upon the dragon as a stolen women or the whore of babylon, the myth differs in the symbolism of the woman atop this beast. Her clothes are specially picked out new every year. She is saved once the monster is dead. The Tarascas has a horse skull or jaw bone for a head and a long neck connected to it. The men who control and create this monstrosity have a very laddy way of building fires together and bonding do “men’s” work to prepare. Sometimes a man will be abducted during festivities and he will have salt thrown down his pants to hurt his nether regions. This all seems fairly misogynistic, which is weird since Martha killed it? Shouldn’t this be a powerful story where females fight back against terror and win? Also the fear of female sexuality in these festivities, the implied castration of men is very odd. This dragon has been made into both a man-eater and rapist. Is the Tarasca meant to scare women from being sexual? And possibly men from being sexual with other men?

Saffron Walden Basilisk

Some say that there is a crown of bones on it’s head or just spikes protruding from its skull. It is truly a creature of darkness. A basilisk can be created in many different interesting ways, one is when an old cockerel lays an egg. The age of the bird ranges from 5 to seven years. A cockerel is a rooster. The warmth of a toad, snake, or dung is what helps these eggs to hatch. That version of the myth has queering of gender create monstrosity. A basilisk lives in the dark, sometimes caves. If a basilisk can also be killed by the crowing of a cock, does that reinforce masculinity? That a deemed male bird can take out the birthing of a beast that is the offspring of a gender mishap. In addition, these creatures are terrifying despite their small size, which is different from modern interpretation of basilisks such as Harry Potter and Cornelia Funke’s Dragon Rider. A common way Basilisks are killed is by the their own reflection, similar to medusa in greek mythology. The Basilisk creating a desert and being of either yellow or dark coloring seems to be a racist product of the crusades. It could have been an emotion-dump for harming Turks. So a dragon lay siege to this city. That is one reason they must arm themselves. One way the Saffron Walden creature was killed, after many people had died (possibly in the crusades or from plague), was a knight covering his armor in crystals to kill the beast. It saw it’s reflection and the rest is put into a pamphlet in the library in Saffron. The dragon pamphlet also speaks of the Monstrous Serpent of Henham, a town close by. This is just a sunbathing lizard that scared townsfolk.

Other odd basilisk in history include sewers under rome that are said to hold a dead basilisk. Alexander the great built these and the myth seems to go back that far. A dead venomous creature could account for the smell. There is a goddess of cobras in Egyptian mythology, Renenutet. Apparently her gaze was either deadly or could bring a surplus of good crops. Her followers lived closer to craggy parts of the desert where her baby snakes are found. There are many other versions of a basilisk, especially within Europe. The town Basal, Switzerland has this type of serpent holding its coat of arms. This Basilisk is thought to be the cause of an earthquake in 1356. It is a poisonous worm, that most want dead.   

Hydra of Lerna

In classical mythology, the Hydra of Lerna lake is slain by Herakles during his second labour, possesses the power to spontaneously replace any single head that the hero manages to lop off with two new ones. The Lerna swamp nearby is said to be where this evil was created, out darkness of tree groves. It lived in a cave near the lake shore and had been known to sun itself, like other lizards, on the rocks. A real lizard that resides in this area is the Balkan Green Lizard. These can be found all over Athens and are some of the larger reptiles in the area. One myth says that there originally were seven heads and one immortal one on the hydra.  Herakles did not get credit for this labor because he required the help of Iolaus to cauterize the beheaded stumps. When he took out the immortal head he put it in a hole and covered it with a rock. Today there is a sculpture on top of a rock where the head is supposedly buried. What can be learned from this myth? What could this be an analogy for? The persians? Is this a water monster?

Buccoleon

In the town of Ghent, Belgium is an image of a very caring dragon. The dragon cried tears over the graves of those who died in the crusades which then bloomed beautiful flowers. These were named “Turk’s Turban”, that of course through colonization are taken back to the town of Mordiford and sold. This dragon could be considered a pillaging of middle eastern gold. One interesting part of this myth is that the dragon is not on a coat of arms, but a weather vane. The history of vanes goes back to windsocks made in prehistoric times out of sticks and fur, then being made from bones and antlers. The oldest known weathervane was on the acropolis in Athens, greece. It is known as the Tower of Winds which served in the 2nd century BCE as an early clock tower. Around the same time as this serpent was put up, 1313, other towns used roosters or crosses to top their churches wind vanes. A dragon would need to know how winds work to fly, so having the Buccoleon show the changing wind directions seems logical. His death was out of greed for his beautiful golden scales.

Maracco

The Ilergetes lived on the Iberian peninsula and were originally colonized by the Carthaginian and Roman invasions. There are festivals that still commemorate this dragon, which is incredible considering the colonization efforts to stamp out their culture. The festival includes Lo Marraco, a 8.5 meter long dragon puppet that participates in flower wars with the crowd. In these festivities are reenactments of Roman soldiers taking out the Moors, which goes to show who wrote history. Could not find a lot of information on this myth, but here is a video of kids acting out the life of this cryptid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwKTrVPUSKk

Bibliography:

Maracco:

https://www.revolvy.com/topic/Ilergetes&item_type=topic

Simonis, Damien. Catalunya & the Costa Brava. Barcelona, Spain (2003).

Let’s Go Inc. Let's Go 2008 Spain & Portugal. St. Martin’s Press, New York (2008).  

Hydra of Lerna:

Magnanini, S. (2005). Foils and Fakes: The Hydra in Giambattista Basile's Dragon-Slayer Tale, "Lo mercante" Marvels & Tales, 19(2), 167-196. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41388749

Tarasque:

http://bibleandscience.com/bible/books/genesis/genesis1_leviathan.htm

Gutch, M. (1952). Saint Martha and the Dragon. Folklore, 63(4), 193-203. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1257108

MAGNANINI, S. (2008). Foils and Fakes: Manufactured Monsters and the Dragon-Slayer. In Fairy-Tale Science: Monstrous Generation in the Tales of Straparola and Basile (pp. 117-143). University of Toronto Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442688087.10

"Tarasca": Ritual Monster of Spain Author(s): David D. Gilmore Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 152, No. 3 (Sep., 2008), pp. 362-382

Saffron Walden Basilisk:

http://allaboutdragons.com/dragons/Saffron_Walden_Basilisk

http://allaboutdragons.com/dragons/Monsterous_Serpent_of_Henham

Mythic Motifs to Sustained Myth: The Revision of Rabbinic Traditions in Medieval Midrashim Author(s): Jeffrey L. Rubenstein Source: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 89, No. 2, (Apr., 1996), pp. 131-159

Mordiford Wyvern:

DeKirk, A. (2006). Dragonlore: from the archives of the Grey School of Wizardry. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books.

[rwby-redux]

Deconstruction

Worldbuilding: History

In hindsight, I probably should have called this topic political sciences, or social studies, or the humanities. Literally any of those would’ve been more accurate than simply calling it history. Sort of shot myself in the foot with that one. Oh, well. I guess we’ll just have to make do.

History (as it’s defined by the Redux) is an umbrella term for human geography, economics, legal systems, global affairs, anthropology, civil rights, technology, and resources. Its primary concern is analyzing how all of these studies shaped the actions of people in the past, and the ripple effects that carried those societies into the present. Being an interdisciplinary topic, it’s nearly impossible to talk about any of these studies in isolation without accidentally overlooking crucial details. Anyone who’s ever opened a history textbook knows that with that complexity comes controversy, and RWBY isn’t exempt from that trend. As we’re told by Salem in the show’s debut, modern-day Remnant was forged by that forgotten past, by the omission of the gods and monsters that set things in motion.

It’s often said that history is written by the victors. And if history is indeed a book, then you’ll quickly find that RWBY’s has pages missing.

Let’s start by laying our cards on the table and talking about what facts we do have. RWBY’s canon can be roughly divided into three vague time periods: the era of Humanity v1.0, prior to the gods’ exodus; the era where Salem and Ozma’s first host briefly ruled together, several million years after Humanity v2.0 evolved; and the era characterized by the aftermath of the Great War, about several thousand years after the collapse of Salem’s and Ozma’s apotheotic kingdom. Anything in-between is obfuscated by the show, either accidentally (due to a lack of worldbuilding) or intentionally (as an attempt to make the series “mysterious”).

My first instinct is to start calling bullshit left and right. There is no justification for spoon-feeding your audience crucial lore through a spin-off series, and then waving your hand and saying that the show doesn’t have the time for worldbuilding. If I had to start pointing fingers, I’d lay the blame on the writers for prioritizing animating bloated fight scenes that ate up the episodes’ already-stunted runtime. I say this knowing that some people will balk at the accusation, because there exists a demographic of viewers that does prefer watching the fight sequences with their brains turned off. And I’m not above that. (I could spend an hour raving about the choreography of the fight between Cinder and Neo, or about the coordination of the Ace Operatives in their takedown of the Cryo Gigas. Believe me, I’m not knocking the absurd enjoyment of spectacle fighting.)

My problem is that RWBY’s premise is so deeply-entrenched in rule of cool that it left its worldbuilding malnourished by comparison.

But fine. Let’s, for the moment, give RWBY the benefit of the doubt. What in-world reasons would the series have for its history being believably underdeveloped? (And no, we’re not talking about the erasure of the Maidens and magic. We know that information was deliberately expunged from the annals of history. We’re focusing on the parts of Remnant’s history that deal with ancient cultures, defunct countries, and influential past events.)

The immediate solution that comes to mind is the Creatures of Grimm. As we’re told by numerous sources, the Grimm not only prioritize attacking humans and Faunus, but they discriminately destroy any of their creations. [1]

“With every alternative form of communication that was proposed, there seemed to be the perfect obstacle. The destructive nature of the creatures of Grimm severely limited the reliability of ground-based technologies.” | Source: World of Remnant, Volume 3, Episode 3: “Cross Continental Transmit System.”

This leads to the conclusion that Remnant’s past was physically destroyed, and any traces of it were removed by the Grimm. This would include archeological records—artwork, architecture, books, clothing, jewelry, burial sites, tools, ecofacts, and so on.

The issue I have with this explanation is that it’s not consistent. Throughout the show we see ample evidence of immediate-past and distant-past societies. The remains of Mountain Glenn and Oniyuri still stand, despite the high presence of Grimm at the former (and the presumed presence of Grimm at the latter). Brunswick Farms is relatively intact and provisioned with food and fuel, even though the Apathy are quite literally hanging out under the floorboards. The Emerald Forest even has the derelict ruins of an ancient temple that Ozpin incorporated into the Beacon initiation.

Petroglyphs (parietal stone-carving artwork) of early hominids fighting a Death Stalker. | Source: Volume 1, Episode 7: “The Emerald Forest - Part 2.”

If the Grimm are RWBY’s get-out-of-jail-free card, then they’re certainly not being used to their full effect. The examples I provided tell us in no uncertain terms that Remnant does have an accessible history in the form of archeological artifacts. For fuck’s sake, Oobleck is literally an anthropologist. He teaches history classes at Beacon Academy and has a PhD on the subject.

Similarly, if we assume the format of World of Remnant (a classroom lecture given by Qrow) to be applicable in-world, then that means the history of the last few centuries pertaining to the kingdoms is common knowledge. [2] The existence of this information tells us that Remnant has a flourishing history, and yet we see little of it represented in the show.

I chalk up the lack of history to a nasty habit of the writers. You see, CRWBY has this infuriating tendency to treat RWBY like “it’s like our world but…” It’s like our world but with magic; it’s like our world but with Dust; it’s like our world but with bloodthirsty monsters. You get the idea. As I said back in the Worldbuilding: Overview, if you make your fictional world a one-to-one analog of your own, you end up either ignoring, underdeveloping, or erasing the history exclusive to that setting. And RWBY is largely bereft of any historical identity that it could call its own. Here, let me pitch a few examples of what I’m talking about:

If slavery was only outlawed less than eighty years ago, why don’t we see Mistral creating legal loopholes to retain the system, like through indentured servitude or penal labor? An empire built on human rights violations doesn’t lose that disregard overnight. While we see plenty of poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Mistral, [3] and we’re told about its infamous criminal underworld, [4] these aspects of Mistrali culture seem rather disconnected from the recent history of the country, and ultimately have no impact on the main characters or the plot.

The Faunus Rights Revolution was a three-year conflict that (presumably) took place across all four kingdoms, and involved countermanding the reparations made to the Faunus after the Great War. From a chronological perspective, this was extremely recent. I know Rooster Teeth has a track record of poorly handling systemic racism. Usually this manifests in characters doing tokenly racist things, like using slurs or refusing to serve Faunus customers. But here’s the thing: a discrimination-based conflict this recent should have more bearing on current events. We should see examples of things like police profiling, higher incarceration rates, a lack of representation in media, social pressure to conceal Faunus traits or assimilate into human culture, fetishization, inadequate healthcare, forced sterilization, a lack of clothing retailers which stock apparel that accommodates Faunus traits, and so on. To put it bluntly: Faunus are an underprivileged minority, and immediate history should be influencing how that plays out in the show.

To reiterate: the Great War was eighty years ago. Meaning that there are likely still people alive that fought during it. How have their attitudes and beliefs shaped the world in the last few decades? Did they pass on any lingering hostilities or biases to their family members or community? What about in the present-day? Do people from Vale that migrate to Mistral ever deal with bigotry? Do people in Atlas harbor any lingering ideologies from that time? Is authentic pre-war artwork from Mantle considered priceless because most artwork was destroyed during Mantle’s suppression of creative expression? Did immigrants from the other kingdoms help rebuild Atlas’ cultural identity by supplying it with the values that they brought with them? What about shifts in culture? Did kingdoms have to ration resources like sugar or cream? Did this result in cultural paradigms, where nowadays drinking black coffee is more prevalent as a result of adapting to scarcity?

Because Vacuo’s natural resources were heavily depleted by invading countries decades before the Great War, did this have a major bearing on technology? Does modern Vacuo have wind farms or solar arrays to compensate for a lack of Dust? How does this affect their relationship with other kingdoms? Mistral loves to pride itself on its respect for nature. [5] Does this attitude ever anger Vacuites from the perspective of, “Yeah, I can really see how much you ‘respect’ nature. You respected it so much that you invaded our country and destroyed our oases.”

As you can see, history can’t be idly ignored. It has long-lasting impacts on the people who lived through it, and it continues to inform the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of people to come. What we get instead are traditions that only exist within the relevance of the immediate past, like the color-naming trend that emerged in response to artistic censorship. Anything which predates it, though? Remnant might as well have sprung into existence a hundred years ago with how little its history exists beyond that context.

It’s frustrating and disheartening. We know precious little about Remnant because its history either exists separately from the story (and is delivered supplementarily through transmedia worldbuilding), or it wasn’t developed in the first place. This doesn’t even take into consideration how much the writers deliberately withhold for the sake of artificially creating suspense. (A suspense, I might add, that frequently lacks payoff, either because it gets forgotten by the writers, or the characters never bother to seek out knowledge from available sources, like Ozma. Seriously, why do these kids never ask any fucking questions? They did this throughout all of Volume 5—Ruby in particular, who I badly wanted to strangle when she said “I have no more questions” back in V5:E10: “True Colors.”)

RWBY didn’t even bother to give us a calendar era, like the BCE/CE one used today. Hell, if the writers wanted to buck the system, they could’ve gone with something similar to Steven Universe or The Elder Scrolls, where eras are divided by significant historical events.

Sorry. I swear, I’m done dredging up examples. I’ve already made my point. As we talk about the other topics in their respective posts, we’ll be able to analyze these problems in greater detail.

Trust me. We’ve only just scratched the surface.

-

[1] Volume 1, Episode 1: “Ruby Rose.” Salem: “An inevitable darkness—creatures of destruction—the creatures of Grimm—set their sights on man and all of his creations.”

[2] World of Remnant, Volume 2, Episode 2: “Kingdoms.” Salem: “In the countless years that humanity has roamed the planet, civilizations have grown and fallen. But four have withstood the test of time: Atlas, Mistral, Vacuo, Vale.”

[3] Volume 5, Episode 6: “Known by Its Song.”

[4] Volume 5, Episode 1: “Welcome to Haven.”

[5] World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 2: “Mistral.” Qrow: “There's one common thread that links all these people together, though, and that's their respect for nature. Particularly the sea and the sky.”

[rwby-redux]

Deconstruction

Worldbuilding: Semblances I

Remember in the Worldbuilding: Overview when I called Semblances magical? Technically speaking, that’s not actually true. The fact that I have to even qualify that statement tells you just how much of a headache RWBY’s magic system—excuse me, pseudo-magic system—is in practice. Unlike the last topic (Aura) where I focused on just one critical flaw, today we’re going to cover as many of those flaws as we can. Given the huge number of talking points we’ll be discussing, Semblances is going to be split into two parts.

You might want to get comfortable; we’re going to be here for a while.

Let’s first start by establishing what, according to canon, a Semblance actually is. If Aura is the manifestation of the soul, then a Semblance is the form that manifestation takes. Broadly speaking, a Semblance is a skill or ability that transcends the normal biological limits of what a person is capable of—a superpower that’s uniquely-tailored to its user. Despite taking on a wide array of forms and functions, all Semblances share six basic traits:

A Semblance draws upon Aura as its source of power. When this fuel source is depleted, a person can no longer use their Semblance, and must wait for their Aura to regenerate before it can be used again.

The specific ability or nature of one’s Semblance is alleged to be an expression of the user’s personality/character/soul.

Overuse of a Semblance can adversely affect a person and cause physical side effects, such as fatigue [1], headaches [2], or fainting [3].

Semblances can interact with Dust in such a way that their skills are augmented, resulting in the temporary acquisition of new subskills or secondary characteristics.

Through training and regular usage, Semblances can gradually become stronger or more advanced.

The intensity of certain emotions, such as stress, panic, despair, or rage, can cause a person to subconsciously activate their Semblance.

Your first reaction when reading this list might’ve been, “Oh, you mean like the Quirks in My Hero Academia.” Now, I’ve never personally watched the show or read the manga, but after briefly consulting the Wiki page I can safely confirm that yes, Semblances are very similar to Quirks. However, given my lack of familiarity with My Hero Academia, I’m going to avoid drawing too many comparisons between the two. This is partly because I don’t want to provide incorrect commentary on a franchise I know little about. The other reason? The longer I read the Wiki page on Quirks, the more embittered I become toward Semblances and the wasted potential they have by comparison. I’m already biased; I don’t need any help in that arena, thanks.

I think the best way to discuss all of the various flaws with Semblances is to break this topic into two parts, and deal with the meta and in-lore aspects separately.

Meta, Production, and Development

When I started doing research for this topic I went on the RWBY Wiki to track down sources and dates, as one typically does when preparing to excavate a salt mine. I knew what a Semblance was, but I decided that, for the sake of empirical evidence, that I needed to have a reference for that definition. (And a good line of defense against potential critics. It’s hard to argue with primary sources.) Fans can give a definition when prompted, but I’m willing to bet most of them couldn’t name the episode where we first got that information. That’s all right; I couldn’t either. In fact, the more I thought about it, the weirder it seemed that I couldn’t pinpoint the exact episode, let alone the volume, where Semblances are first explained. So I did some digging.

Here’s what I found:

The first time Aura is explained on-screen is Volume 1, Episode 06: “The Emerald Forest - Part 1.” This exposition is delivered to us by Pyrrha, whose explanation serves as a learning moment for us, the viewers, and Jaune, the audience-surrogate character.

The first time the word Semblance is mentioned (not explained, mentioned) is Volume 1, Episode 14: “Forever Fall - Part 2.” Take a moment to let that sink in: we’re fourteen episodes into the series, and despite seeing multiple characters use their Semblances on-screen, we still haven’t been told what these powers are. I think some viewers were able to extrapolate what our cast was doing based on a sense of genre-savviness, but that’s really bad. As a writer, your job is to find a way to organically explain the core aspects of your story. I know that CRWBY tried to use Jaune to fulfill this role (but why that ultimately failed to work is a discussion for another day), but even then, it shouldn’t take fourteen episodes to start addressing major worldbuilding elements.

At this point you must be wondering, okay, so if Aura didn’t get its first proper introduction until episode six, and Semblances were only namedropped at episode fourteen, then when were they properly explained? At least somewhere in Volume 1, right?

Would you like to know the answer?

The first time Semblances were formally explained was in World of Remnant, Episode 4: “Aura.” The fourth episode of this spin-off series debuted on November 14th, 2014. The fourth World of Remnant episode aired a month after Volume 2 ended. To give you some context, the very first episode of the main series aired on July 18, 2013, and the first episode of Volume 3 was released on October 24, 2015.

It took twenty-eight episodes, a runtime of 04:26:04, and a full year before we finally had an answer. An answer that was delivered in a spin-off series meant exclusively to supplement crucial worldbuilding and lore.

Do you see how fucking insane that is? How badly do you have to fail at writing to not explain to your audience one of the fundamental aspects of your story? Not only does this not make sense from a writing perspective, but it makes no sense from a development or production standpoint, either. At the time, Kerry Shawcross was an editor for Red vs. Blue Season 9, while Miles Luna was the writer for the Red vs. Blue miniseries Where There's a Will, There's a Wall, and co-writer for Red vs. Blue Season 10. While Monty Oum himself wasn’t necessarily a writer, he was part of a three-man team that together did have a background in writing and editing. (Mind you, neither of them are necessarily good writers, but it’s still better than nothing.)

To reiterate: There were three creative leads working on this project. Three. How is it that none of them, at any point during production, noticed this massive flaw with their story?

I don’t work for Rooster Teeth (obviously), and I’m therefore not privy to any of the decisions that were made behind the scenes. Whether the focus was more on animating RWBY than emphasizing the worldbuilding, whether the lighthearted tone made the team think that exposition wasn’t as important as being entertaining, whether there were deadline crunches and budgeting constraints that limited the quality of the final product.

While we can’t decisively say why this is the case, we can see how these choices had major consequences for RWBY’s plot—not just in retrospect, but going forward as well. Next time in Part 2, we’ll cover topics that focus more on the lore of Semblances than the storytelling nitpicks, and discuss how those oversights impacted the series.

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[1] Volume 3, Episode 12: “End of the Beginning.” During Salem’s monologue, Glynda can be seen using her Semblance to try and reassemble a storefront in Vale’s shopping district. Eventually, she tires from overuse of her Semblance, and the building collapses back into debris while Glynda hunches over gasping.

[2] Volume 3, Episode 7: “Beginning of the End.” Immediately after Yang is framed for attacking Mercury, Emerald complains about a headache from casting her Semblance on two people simultaneously.

[3] Volume 5, Episode 14: “Haven’s Fate.” When Yang claims the Relic of Knowledge and returns from the Vault, Emerald conjures an illusion of Salem. Performing her Semblance on nine different people at the same time consumes what little energy she had left, and causes her to pass out. Hazel has to carry her while he and Mercury flee from the battle.

[rwby-redux]

Deconstruction

Worldbuilding: Dust II

If Part 1 was the nuclear response, then Part 2 is death by a thousand paper cuts. Rather than focusing on just one massive problem with Dust, this time we’ll be discussing the smaller, albeit more numerous problems. Tempting as it is to keep our crosshairs on the obvious target, it’s important to remember that all of the subtle discrepancies—a throwaway line here, a contradiction there—eventually add up.

Today is all about what happens when those small problems get out of control.

Second verse, same as the first. Before we get started, I want to briefly revisit that list of traits so we’re all on the same page.

There are four basic types of Dust. They can be combined either naturally or artificially to produce new types that have their own specific characteristics.

Dust can be triggered by the Aura of humans and Faunus.

The default state of Dust is crystalline. The powdered form sold in shops is the result of processing and refinement.

The color of the Dust denotes what type it is.

Dust becomes functionally inert outside of Remnant’s atmosphere and no longer exhibits its inherent elemental properties.

Dust can be injected into the body in order for the wielder to use its effects more directly. Doing so requires a certain amount of discipline, and can be extremely painful without taking the necessary precautions.

Dust can be imbued into weapons like swords, or woven into clothes.

Dust can be used as a fuel source, to the end that Remnant’s technology is almost exclusively powered by it.

Semblances can interact with Dust in such a way that their skills are augmented, resulting in the temporary acquisition of new subskills or secondary characteristics.

Dust is volatile and prone to explode when subjected to certain stimuli.

Seeing as we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, I’m gonna keep my main talking points under neat little headings, so everything stays nice and organized.

Treating Dust as a Fossil Fuel Analog, and How It Relates to Technology

To say that Dust is a parallel for coal, natural gas, or petroleum is to miss the point entirely. Dust isn’t like these things—Dust is these things. For everyone who’s been watching the show since it first aired, this isn’t anything new. RWBY hasn’t exactly been subtle about establishing those comparisons. Dust is a natural resource that’s scarce, finite in quantity, found in underground deposits, reliant on minority labor in order to be mined, monopolized by a single supplier, and environmentally hazardous due to the extraction process.

A Dust drilling rig and refinement factory owned by the SDC. Excavating Dust resulted in anthropogenic pollution that destroyed Vacuo’s ecosystems, and depleted its natural resources. | Source: World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 4: “Vacuo.”

Like I said, it’s not exactly subtle.

The reason why I bring this up is because, to the best of my knowledge, the show has never concisely explained how Dust works as a fuel. When coal is burned, for example, it produces heat, and releases nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide into the air. Like, the coal doesn’t just stay coal when it’s being used up—as it’s being burned the coal is physically being reduced into the form of byproducts, like fly ash and slag. Similarly, when you operate a vehicle with gasoline, the fuel gets converted into exhaust gas by the 4-stroke engine. The compressed air-and-fuel mixture partakes in a combustion reaction when the spark plug ignites it. The byproducts of this process are carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water.

See where I’m going with this?

If Dust is a fuel source, then we need to understand what physical changes are taking place when it’s reacting/being consumed by various technology.

And the series…really, really doesn’t show us that.

Does the Dust get broken down when used? Is the elemental energy inside only released when the Dust is subjected to mechanical stress? Is that why Dust is sensitive to small amounts of energy and explodes when someone so much as sneezes at it? [1] Are all Dust types equally as volatile? Is there a threshold for the amount of energy Dust can be exposed to before it explodes?

Let’s assume, for the moment, that all of the aforementioned are true. Physically breaking a Dust crystal is analogous to burning a chunk of coal, in that mechanical stress is the catalyst for releasing its elemental energy. If we follow that thread of logic, then it means that Dust powder is the result of breaking down Dust crystals into finer particulate matter.

Keeping the analogy in mind, this means that Dust crystals are to coal what Dust powder is to fly ash. A byproduct. Leftovers from the initial fuel consumption process.

So why is powder Dust considered a “refined” form of fuel? How is a byproduct energetically more efficient than the initial source that it’s derived from?

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d argue that Dust as a fuel source is more like a combination between burning coal and splitting an atom. Maybe when Dust companies “refine” Dust, what they’re doing is preemptively grinding the Dust down into a powder, and then—what, flash-freezing it somehow in the middle of it releasing its energy during the breakdown process? And then the flash-frozen powder Dust is stored in some sort of canister, or cartridge, or battery that can indefinitely suspend Dust in its energy-release state until it’s ready to be used? That way the refined version (the powder) cuts out the step that requires a person to physically destroy the crystal in order to release its energy.

It’s not an unsound proposition, and with enough well-presented pseudoscience, I’m sure viewers would be willing to give it a pass. The problem is that the canon ostensibly refuses to tell us any of this. Having your fandom do your homework for you so you don’t have to explain your magical fuel isn’t good storytelling. And the more RWBY continues to withhold its lore—or worse, refuse to develop it entirely—the less credible the setting feels. There’s only so much an audience is willing to suspend its disbelief before pedants like me come along and start poking holes in it.

While we’re still on the topic, I want to quickly touch upon the second issue I have with Dust being Remnant’s de facto fuel source.

Although the show did its best to visually emphasize Remnant’s reliance on Dust, it wasn’t until World of Remnant, Volume 2, Episode 1: “Dust” that we got our first concrete evidence of just how extensively it was integrated into everyday life:

“Since its discovery, man has concocted a multitude of ways in which to harness these mysterious crystals. From airships to androids, Dust has made its way into practically every facet of technology. […] Dust ammunition serves as a more practical application in today's modern society. With the technological advancements in weapon design, warriors need merely choose the right cartridge for the job and pull the trigger.”

We don’t have to question the validity of this under the assumption that Salem is an unreliable narrator, because Qrow says more or less the same thing in later episodes.

“The cold climate of Solitas forced its settlers to adapt. It developed a more advanced technology—and they did it faster than the rest of the world—because they had to, to survive. But it was the Great War that really kicked things off. New forms of Dust application and weaponry allowed Mantle to expand. More and more territory was set aside for Dust mining and research. The territory beside the Kingdom's combat school, Alsius, was the most opportune area to construct a new R&D facility.” | Source: World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 3: “Atlas.”

While this conclusively established Dust as the predominant fuel source, there was still some lingering ambiguity of whether or not other sources of energy—petroleum, natural gas, coal, solar, wind, geothermal, hydro—were as developed, or whether they existed at all.

Our first tentative answer to this question came up during Rooster Teeth’s 2015 Extra Life livestream: [2]

Gray Haddock: Is all technology, including scrolls, everything in the world of Remnant powered by Dust? Is all technology Dust-based?

Kerry Shawcross: You’re making me commit to this right now?

Gray Haddock: No, no, no.

Kerry Shawcross: Okay.

Gray Haddock: Most? Some? A lot?

Kerry Shawcross: I would say that a lot is.

Gray Haddock: But there might be some alternate stuff out there. Maybe. Ish.

Kerry Shawcross: Yes. Unless I change my mind later.

Take a moment to let that sink in. At the time this aired, Volume 3 had already been written and animated, and the third episode had just been released on the website. This is one of RWBY’s lead writers admitting that they didn’t have a definitive answer, and the answer that he gave could be subjected to change later down the road. 

Words cannot begin to describe how insane that sounds. That’s like J. K. Rowling deciding after Prisoner of Azkaban, you know what, I’m tired of wizards using wands to cast spells. From now on, everyone’s going to use human femurs!

You can’t just change the show’s rules on a whim. A lack of consistency and adherence to worldbuilding kills any believability your story might’ve had. And more importantly, why didn’t you figure this shit out before the series first began?

Sorry. I’m getting sidetracked.

Instead, let’s look at how well the answer he gave held up. Did RWBY give us any evidence of other fuel sources existing apart from Dust?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Yes, but I have to qualify that statement, so bear with me for a moment.

The next time we’re given another direct answer, it comes to us from The World of RWBY: The Official Companion.

From Part 1: Origins of Remnant - Types of Dust:

“This technology doesn’t use our fuel,” explains Patrick Rodriguez. “Dust makes everything work. We take tech, put Dust into it, and go with that aesthetic. When I was creating cars for Volume 1, Monty told me to design the motor for how they’d work. I diagrammed a whole engine that ran on Dust, and we never even showed it!” [3]

And then again in Part 2: The Characters - Yang Xiao Long:

“There’s no gas [in Remnant], just Dust,” says art director Patrick Rodriguez, “and Yang’s motorcycle works using combustion Dust.” [4]

It looks like we have our answer at last. An answer that’s infuriating and rife with contradiction, but there it is, plain as day: not only is Dust Remnant’s sole fuel, but alternatives don’t exist. Period.

If that’s the case, then why did I say earlier that they did?

Because throughout the entire course of the series, from Volume 1 onward, the artists have included one very important thing: Plastic. Polyamides used in toothbrushes, polycarbonates used in eyeglasses, polystyrenes used in plastic cups—every one of these things exists in the show. And do you know what plastic is made from?

NATURAL GAS AND FUCKING CRUDE OIL.

So unless RWBY wants to introduce yet another fictional substance to the show, then it needs to reconcile with the fact that yes, oil and petroleum exist, and yes, they’re potential alternatives to Dust.

Look, if the show insists on having plastic products, but not have oil or gas be fuel sources, then there’s a very easy way to get around that. The show has already gone to lengths to establish the SDC as Remnant’s version of BP, right down to both companies using acronyms instead of their full names. Just like real-life oil tycoons, you could have the SDC use resources like lobbyists, lien, and government influence to stymie the alternative fuel industry. Like any morally-bankrupt monopoly, the SDC would be threatened by competitors in the energy sector, especially if those competitors were developing technology based on renewable resources, like solar or wind. In a world where a limited resource like Dust has a stranglehold on the kingdoms, Jacques Schnee would do his damndest to ensure those alternatives never saw the light of day.

See? Problem solved.

Treating Dust as a Gemstone Analog (and Some Other Minor Nitpicks)

Okay, this complaint isn’t as important in the grand scheme of things, but I have to ask: why are Dust crystals treated like gemstones? No, seriously. Look at how the gems on display in this shop

A display case full of various crystal Dust types in From Dust Till Dawn. | Source: Volume 1, Episode 1: “Ruby Rose.”

differ from the ones seen in unharvested deposits.

Large, jagged deposits of unmined Fire Dust embedded in the ceiling of a cave. | Source: Volume 7, Episode 3: “Ace Operatives.”

The Dust for sale was likely cut, as evidenced by the additional facets not present on the unmined deposits. Then again, if you look at the Gravity Dust found at Lake Matsu, Dust might actually belong to the hexagonal crystal system (with and without pyramidal terminations), so a few of those facets could be natural. Regardless, the implication seems to be that on some level, the Dust was treated post-production.

An unmined Gravity Dust deposit found on one of Lake Matsu’s floating islands. | Source: Volume 5, Episode 2: “Dread in the Air.”

Why I bring this up at all is because if Dust crystals are only going to get broken down while being used as a consumable fuel source, then why waste time cutting and polishing them? It doesn’t really make any sense.

While we’re on that subject, how the hell does a person cut a Dust crystal without blowing their fingers off? Seriously. This shit’s like azidoazide azide. You could fart at it from halfway across a room and it would still somehow find a way to explode.

Which also begs the question of how Hazel isn’t dead from repeatedly jabbing what is basically a stick of dynamite into his arms every time he goes berserk. At the very least, shouldn’t he be suffering from severe health complications? His Semblance nullifies pain, but there’s no way it can skirt around the ramifications of what would basically be acute chronic Dust poisoning.

Dust, and How It Relates to Aura

Like any hardcore fantasy enthusiast, I’m a sucker for floating islands. I don’t care if they’re overused and cliché. That is peak aesthetic, and nothing you say will ever convince me otherwise.

That being said…

Remember how the show repeatedly tells us that Dust can only be triggered by humans and Faunus? Meaning that its effects can only be activated in the presence of Aura?

If that’s the case, then how are any of Matsu’s islands floating? If Aura (or mechanical stress, I suppose) is a prerequisite for activating the elemental properties of Dust, then shouldn’t the islands all have fallen into the lake? It’s not like there are people hanging around out there to keep them passively airborne.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Remnant is some sort of genius loci à la Gaia hypothesis, and the planet generates its own Aura (which would explain why Dust becomes inert when leaving the atmosphere—it’s no longer within range of an Aura). But without more information to go on, we’re left scratching our heads at how this contradiction of nature can exist.

At the very least, consider this: If this ambiguity managed to generate a discussion in the fandom on what the hell is up with Lake Matsu, then shouldn’t that have also generated an in-world discussion between the characters? Fantasy setting or not, people are people, and we are an inherently curious bunch that love to ask questions about the unknown. Given that we had three volumes dedicated to the cast going to school, it always struck me as a weirdly wasted opportunity. An academic setting is the perfect place to script conversations like that, simply because it organically allows the story to teach the audience alongside its characters without everything feeling contrived.

But I digress. At the end of the day, this is far from my biggest grievance with Dust, but I felt it was still important enough to warrant being mentioned.

Cultural Aspects of Dust

There were a lot of ideas I wanted to talk about concerning Dust and its impact on culture—like if there was specific terminology for people who worked with Dust (like a Dust-cutter being called a “lapidary,” or “collier” being used as a slur for Faunus). Or if there were Dust-specific idioms or sayings. Or if there were superstitions and folk stories about Dust that still get passed along.

But we’re almost 3,000 words in and I want to try and keep things concise. For now, I’m choosing to focus on just one of those ideas instead, one which has always weirdly fascinated me: weaving Dust into clothing.

Fun fact: Did you know that in the 1700s, people used to wear clothing made with a green pigment that was derived from arsenic? Contact with the skin would give the wearer extreme chemical burns. Similarly, in the 1850s, aniline (a poisonous compound from the indigo plant) was used to create a dye that, when it was absorbed through the skin, would cause skin irritation, nausea, and dizziness. And well before we figured out that asbestos was carcinogenic, fibers made from it were often used for uniforms in professions that dealt with fire. Apparently, it’s really heat-resistant. And let’s not forget lead face paint, the skin-melting makeup that was all the rage in sixteenth-century Europe. [5]

The reason why I bring up all of these comically awful fashion trends is because, to reiterate, Dust is really explosive.

And people on Remnant used to just casually sew it into their clothes. Like, no big deal, I’m just going to wear my jacket with the custom Fire Dust sequins on the lapels and pray to god that no one bumps into me while I’m at the market. Maybe tomorrow night I’ll wear my hat with the Ice Dust embroidery to the banquet. I just hope I can avoid physical contact with another human being so my head doesn’t get encased in a block of ice.

Believe it or not, none of this is meant as a criticism, strictly speaking. On the contrary, I wish the show had taken the time to explore this neat little bit of lore, rather than consign it to a throwaway line. Because I think it would be fucking hilarious if Dust-woven clothing was the equivalent of radioactive and carcinogenic fashion trends. Not only would it enrich the history of Remnant and expand upon its worldbuilding (which it sorely needs), but it would be an organic way to explain to the audience one of the inherent dangers of unmanufactured Dust.

And just like that, we’ve finished covering Dust. Mostly, anyway. I have a few minor gripes, but nothing that can’t wait. Next time we’ll be discussing the topic near and dear to my heart, the thing I’ve been waiting for weeks to talk about: the Grimm.

-

[1] Volume 1, Episode 2: “The Shining Beacon - Part 1.”

[2] “Rooster Teeth's Extra Life Stream 2015 Hour 3-RWBY Crew & Matt/Jeremy Kiss.” YouTube video, uploaded by John Green. November 09, 2015. 51:44 - 52:09. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFCK-OwGoLA&t=51m44s]

[3] Wallace, Daniel. The World of RWBY: The Official Companion. VIZ Media LLC, 2019, page 36.

[4] Wallace, Daniel. The World of RWBY: The Official Companion. VIZ Media LLC, 2019, page 71.

[5] SciShow. “10 Dangerous Fashion Trends.” YouTube video. March 20, 2016. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhXeUQOuRaw]