#the council is to blame for a good chunk of the issues and it shows

[bibibbon]

From the takes, I have seen a lot of people think that jayce and viktor have an all say in hextech, but that isn't true. Sure, they can stop working and they wouldn't really face huge consequences but a huge flaw about both jayce and viktor is that they're people who see a corrupt system, try and change the corrupt system from the inside just to get swallowed by said corrupt system and end up adding onto the corruption. To sum it up, they are both consumed by their desire to help and their ambition. That is their tragedy, and its something consistently referenced to in the series.

From what we see in Act 2, jayce's and viktor's resources are heavily and I mean heavily patronaged by the kirramans. This is why you see cassandra showing off jayce as the inventor of the hexgates in episode 4 progress day. This is why you see the kirraman symbol almost everywhere when it comes to the hextech stuff. Even in jayce's own speech, it's his houses symbol, AND the kirramans. The polished and safe hextech gemstones are in a kirraman box. Their latest invention literally doesn't have their symbols on it. The only symbol it has is literally the kirraman's.

Also, viktor never ends up being mentioned as a designer for the hexgates even though caitlyn knows just how close viktor and jayce were, and it seems so intentional with the way cassandra was mainly promoting jayce you can see it look back at the progress day episode.

When talking about what THEY want to do with hextech, their conversation ends up being very telling of the circumstances they are in.

The council heavily regulates all hextech productions and jayce does point out that he feels quite annoyed at not being able to prioritise their plans which is to give hextech/magic to the world, to have it be a resource that benefits all life. Viktor returns the same sentiment in another episode, reminding jayce of their goal when it came to hextech, their pledge to help the people in need.

The only major thing that hextech was being used for was the hexgates which I find really interesting how the council and heimendinger by extension allowed such a big project as the hexgates but he was hesitant to allow jayce's and viktor's minor projects. Mind you, the hexgates are way bigger in terms of scale, and they are also something that somehow only took 7 or less years to build but heimendinger is here telling them that they both need a decade before their plans could be set in place.

We find out later in the series that the hexgates were causing heavy pollution and corruption, but did they know? Did they try and warn the council? Did they try and do anything? What did heimerdinger say? Is this another way heimendinger failed them and, by extension, the city?

I imagine that if they did bring it up to the council, the councillors like hoskel, salo, and even shoola would have dismissed it by bringing up the fact that their shipments can't wait just like they did when jayce and viktors lab was raided on progress day.

Maybe this is me reading too much into it, but jayce's wording towards the council is so interesting here. The use of the word "recommend" is almost as if the only thing he could really do is advise them, as someone not in the council (yet) jayce doesn't have the chance to really put his foot down and demand a complete shut down of the hexgates and suspension of their project.

Another interesting detial is that when people talk of the hexagates, they always talk about how it can transport people, but we never see that. The council only ever talks about the transport of shipments instead. So, do you think that jayce and viktor wanted to create the hexgates for the transport benefits of people, but it just ended up being for shipments instead? Jayce did seem a bit unsatisfied with the hexgates, labelling it as something that he had to do for the council, not really something that he did for the people?

Mind you, this is all before episode 6. I mention this because episode 6 is the same episode that introduces the hexcore into the equation where they (ambition is their flaw) boarden their horizon and start to deviate heavily from their original goals.

Jayce and viktor quickly end up losing sight of their goals to help people as they start to use hextech and the hexcore as benefits for them specifically and heimerdinger does call them out on it and the dangers that the hexcore itself brings. When heimerdinger talks to jayce and viktor about the destruction of this material, he is only talking about the hexcore, not hextech. Heimerdinger deems the hexcore as dangerous something that viktor described as an "adaptive and learning version of the hexcore".

Again after their own experiences with hextech in general both jayce and viktor come to the understanding that they strayed far from their dream that they have failed and them trying to get zaun's independence is painted as them trying to redeem themselves, trying to finally give something to the people that they wanted to help because they couldn't benefit them from hextech.

In the end, you can also argue that jayce and viktor's plans were heavily flawed for a variety of reasons. Like I said in a perfect system, their plans could work, but again, you're in a system filled to the brim with corruption. Your dream is bound to be corrupted by external forces and YOU!

In the end, we don't get much of this because arcane chose to drop the political plot line and how the council really did affect a lot of people. This isn't me saying jayce and viktor are innocent because they also share a lot of the fault for THEIR OWN experiments but it's me saying that the council is heavily to blame and its not something that the show ever touches upon.

An important part of Jayce and Viktor’s story that some people tend to forget is that they don’t have nearly as much input on hextech as some people think they do. Like yeah they made it but they have to grovel in the dirt to get the funding to continue making it. They are not the ones in charge, not by a long shot. Jayce talks about how they always have to do what the council asks of them (building the hex gates, stabilizing the crystals, etc) and how they’ll finally take back hextech for themselves once they fulfill their demands (they don’t even get the chance to do that!). If they even thought of trying to provide hextech to the undercity before that, they’d definitely be immediately shut down.

Jayce was extremely influential at hextech’s prime, yes, but he will NEVER be on the same level as the ones who fund his and Viktor’s work because they are old, old money and he is nothing more than the son of a lower house. Though the Talis crest flies during progress day, the hex crystals are held in a case with a Kiramman crest. Hextech wasn’t theirs, really, and it’s why Piltover continued to rise to even greater heights while Zaun was left in the dust to rot.

[pterodactylterrace]

*less than two months ago*

Beloved? You sure about that Condal? Just… forgot about the mass murder at the coronation? Never happened? Not one of those small folk remembered when she killed hundreds of them for absolutely no reason other than to stare at Aegon and then fly off?

If you were going for a more realistic reaction, they would have been cheering that the dragon and dragon rider that slaughtered so many of them answered for their crimes.

So, according to Condal, hanging a dozen rat catchers (I believe?) to ensure no other assassination attempts befell the royal family would turn all the small folk against Aegon, but the dragon that killed HUNDREDS of them was “beloved”? Did Aegon not meet the quota for small folk slaughter to be beloved or something? Is that it? You have to kill at least 200 before they go from hating you to loving you?

Someone get Condal’s dumbass out of the writing room. Let like 3 hardcore fans take his place. One TB, one TG, one Team Smallfolk. They will make a MUCH better and balanced show. And maybe something interesting will happen. I mean, do we really need five episodes of Rhaenyra’s council not listening? And huge chunks of those episodes just being a bunch of old men squabbling about “women can’t!” While Rhaenyra continues doing fuck all but getting upset about it?

Jesus, show us Aemond decimating the blockade with Vhagar now that Meleys’ patrolling isn’t an issue. Show us Sunfyre’s wounds and the men left to guard him! FFS, stop just standing around talking about what they should do and actually DO something already! Fuck, after Jaehaerys assassination why didn’t they all jump on their dragons and just burn down Dragonstone in the middle of the night? Riders without their dragons are just people. Dragon fire can cook them through the stone walls (see Harrenhal) but nooooooo. Just have a bunch of scenes of people blaming each other and doing nothing about it. Super compelling TV.

Season 1 I rewatched several times because there was usually something going on. Season 2, I was able to catch husband up on the entire season in under two minutes. “Aegon wants to be a good king, his son gets killed by assassins, Rhaenyra grieves the loss of her son, Daemon left for Harrenhal after Rhaenyra found out he sent the assassins. Cole leads an army through the crown lands, sets a trap at Rook’s Rest, Aegon drunkenly interferes and ends up getting roasted by Vhagar. Aemond is now regent.” Tada, five episodes summed up. Hit all the major plot points. Most of which weren’t even impactful.

The only two major events have been B&C and RR. We are over halfway through the season, and we have had less action and interesting things happening than the last three episodes of season 1.

We were promised all out war. Is the all out war in the room with us?

[dodo-begone]

When you Wish Upon a Star

Pairing: Karlnapity x Reader

Request: Can you maybe write some poly karlnapity x reader fluff with a bit of angst?

Word count: 1.7k

Warning: memory loss, angst, cursing, loss/relationship strain, depression (?)

A/n: haha memory issues go brrrrrr. Sorry if it's bad, i wanted angst but didn't know how-

Your world was slowly becoming a monochrome film. So meaningless and alien to what your life once was. All color and life had left and all that remained was an empty shell of what once was. Your boys were no longer sticking together, acting like the loving couple that they are. Or were. You couldn’t tell what the status of y’all relationship was. It felt like everything was falling apart. Nobody was communicating with each other and they weren’t coming home sometimes, going missing for days on end with no contact.

Now sometimes business could be rough and long, so that wasn’t an abnormal thing. No, the issue was how increasingly common this “uncommon” occurrence was. Anxiety boiled in your chest with every night that passed without your lovers. Cuddling with just one wasn’t the same as with them all. You just wished everything would return to its original state; all four of your being a giddy and affectionate couple. Back to that honeymoon stage.

Everything was becoming so different, much less vibrant. Like a depression had fallen onto y’alls happily-ever-after. You only had Sapnap for comfort, and vice versa. There was no Quackity to rely on or Karl to giggle all the worries all away. And it was painfully obvious how it was affecting everybody, yet nobody did anything to fix it.

Quackity never came to y’all for comfort. He was always at his damn casino or scheming a way to end Techno’s anarchy. Slowly he just stopped talking to y’all like he loved you. Now you and Sapnap were like a war council, but even then he wouldn’t listen to y’all advice. He’d just rant to y’all about how much he despised Techno and wanted to kill him, destroy the damn god complex the man had.

But Quackity was blind to himself; he was on a high horse and saw himself as a worthy opponent, somebody who could subdue such a savage beast. Every time Quackity came home bloody and on the brink of death, it killed you on the inside. Why wasn’t he coming to y’all about the issues? Why did he think he was so alone in his endeavor?

And you didn’t even want to mention Karl’s condition. He was acting so odd now. More forgetful and aloof. It was like he was a complete stranger now. Your interactions were slowly becoming shorter and shorter, less meaningful and shallow. From meaningful, deep and loving talk during cuddle sessions to a curt, cold and disconnected. Sapnap even tried to get information out of him, but he stayed closed and guarded like a clam. Then he’d also come home with some injuries, but there was never an explanation for why he got hurt. Quackity at least admitted to what happened, so you knew what possible dangers he was facing. But Karl? He was an absolute mystery now.

Karl wasn’t the type of person to be so mysterious. Well, cold and mysterious that is. Definitely a mystery though, but so charismatic that you could easily push that fact aside. He used to be so cute and “unsuspecting”. Now that’s the same case, but subtract the “cute and unsuspecting” part. His newfound apathy worried you to no end. It was like he was completely detached from reality.

It was such a silly thing, but you wished for the stars, asking them to help you. Please, you needed your boys back. You didn’t know how much longer you could keep living through this cycle.

Quackity’s hyper-independence and Karl’s now apathetic attitude was disheartening. And the effect it had on Sapnap was heartbreaking. He kept blaming himself for the relationship for falling apart. You reassured him that it wasn’t his fault, but you were hypocritical. Telling someone that it wasn’t their fault that a relationship was failing yet blaming oneself for the same thing? Honestly it wasn’t just one singular person’s fault; everyone was to blame. Nobody was communicating, which harmed the relationship you once thrived in.

So you begged the stars for guidance, for a chance at mending your dying relationship. There wasn’t a way you could live without your lovers.

You should’ve been more careful for what you wished for.

________________________________________________

Sapnap commed you one day, which wasn’t abnormal by any means. You two talked throughout the day multiple times. That was the only consistent thing that was still steady. A constant in your ever changing lives. But when you got on call with him, he sounded different, desperate and panicked. Your anxiety started to peak when he spoke, but the subject of the call made time stop. No way- there was no way.

You fucking chunked whatever the hell you were holding or doing out of your hands. It was way less important now. Honestly you can’t even remember what you were doing. All you knew was that you had to get to them and swiftly. No time could be wasted. Sapnap needed you right now. Your boys needed you. Everything was on the line. Well, for you it felt like that. Your boys were your everything; if one more “unfortunate” accident occurred to them, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. You were absolutely failing at protecting them. They protected and loved you for so long, and you wanted to protect them now.

Sapnap had begged, nearly demanding you come to Karl’s library that instant. Karl had apparently appeared there, and he wasn’t looking so good. He said he also contacted Quackity so he should be there too, but who knows if he’ll actually be there.

When the library came into sight, your anxiety both increased yet decreased, allowing joy to grow alongside it. The combination was odd, one that sounds like it shouldn’t be put together. Yet that’s exactly what you felt; bitterness and cold with some warmth hidden beneath the surface like a sun chasing the night way at dawn. You bolted into the building, frantically sweeping the immediate area for Sapnap and Karl. No sign of them. Your panic grew exponentially. Where were they? You yelled out, hoping to hear any sign of them.

Some commotion was made from your left. Walking closer to it, you caught sight of Sapnap’s shoes. He peaked around the corner to check the new visitor, and almost ran to you. The moment he stood, he hesitated. He took a step forward and stopped, looking between you and where you presumed Karl was. Ultimately he just took a few more steps toward you before turning back to Karl. When you arrived at Sapnap’s side, you dropped to your knees alongside him. There one of your worst fears faced you.

Karl lay on the ground, unconscious and bloody. He was so pale, it scared you. How long was he like this? What happened to him? Would he make it? You didn’t want to know the answer to it. Specifically, you didn’t want to know in case he wasn’t going to make it. Seeing him like this, it’d hurt too much to know the reality. You just wanted your old picture-perfect life back. Yes, it wasn’t absolutely perfect, but it was perfect for you and your boys.

So much time must’ve passed with you and Sapnap just watching Karl, tending to the wounds he had. It was fortunate that only his head showed clear signs of damage. Yet that was also a very unfortunate thing. There could be so much potential damage done and you’d never know if he was or wasn’t okay unless something happened to him.

You were so focused on Karl that you hadn’t realized that Quackity had joined y’all until he gently laid his hand on your shoulder, which shocked you out of your trance. Quackity’s eyes and face were red and puffy, tears trailed down his face and he was out of breath and panting. But he was here. You jumped up to hug him, pulling him down to the ground with you, Sapnap and Karl. Sapnap joined in the hug without a word. A sniffle left Sapnap, but you never mentioned it. This was a very stressful situation.

After a short period of pseudo peace, the exhaustion finally started to take ahold of y’all with the adrenaline slowly leaving your systems. Talking it out for a bit, after seeing how visibly tired everyone was, it was decided that y’all would watch over him in shifts. There was a small squabble for who’d be first; each of you wanted to be first to sate your guilt. It wasn’t long until a victor was declared; Quackity would take the first shift. Then Sapnap and finally you. The plan fucking pissed you off so much and there wasn’t a reason for it to. It just did, and you couldn’t pinpoint what it was. But you didn’t question it. If conflict could be avoided, then it’d be best to go along with the plan.

One moment you were blinking, trying to fight off sleep and the next Quackity was shaking you awake. You were so groggy and barely heard what he said. It must’ve been so obvious to Quackity that you just weren’t hearing jack shit, but he kept repeating- something. You actually had no clue if he was repeating something or just babbling. All you heard was noise and his mouth was moving. What could be so important that he was just fucking shaking you like a damn earthquake- oH SHIT!

Without a second thought, you jump to your feet and flop just a bit closer to Karl. You got up too quickly but you made it to your goal, kinda, so score! Scrambling to your feet, more accurately your knees, you view the situation.

All you could see was Karl sitting up and talking to Sapnap. That’s all that mattered though- he was alright. Karl was alive and thriving- okay that was debatable- but still! Your Karl was okay!

You’re on your feet in a flash once again, flinging yourself into Karl’s arms. The relief that washed over you was immense. Cleansing you of all your anxieties.

Yet he didn’t hug you back. Matter of fact, he did nothing at all. He froze up. Though it went unnoticed by you. Salty tears dripped down your face and splattered onto his jacket. Quackity joined in on your group hug, cry and babbling his apologies along the way.

Suddenly you and Quakity are shoved away, landing into Sapnap’s waiting arms. Saying you were shocked would be an understatement. Confused also couldn’t, yet they were the first words your frazzled mind could conjure.

“Who are you all?”

[medea10]

My Review of Fruits Basket: 2nd Season

It’s really happening! It’s fucking happening! The never-before animated story to one of the best shoujo series in the 21st century is finally happening!

HISTORY: Just read my long-ass review for that.

Okay, okay!

Tohru Honda stumbles upon the family secret of her classmate, Yuki Sohma when she moves in the Sohma household. Whenever a member of the Sohma family is hugged by a member of the opposite sex, they turn into an animal from the Chinese Zodiac. Because of this, the Sohma family is very secretive about this issue and only let close people in on the family secret. And even then, it rarely happens! But after a lifetime of worry and hell these members have been put through, they learned that Tohru cares about each and every one of them. She was able to bring out the sun for many of these characters who have suffered a lifetime of ridicule, pain, and isolation.

SEASON TWO: It’s the start of summer and many things around Tohru, Yuki, and Kyo are changing. For Yuki, it means taking over the student council full-time, as his seniors will be graduating in the spring. And for one Sohma family member, she’s made it her mission to lift the curse that has plagued the Sohma’s for generations. This season is filled with the cute and fluffy moments it’s known for where characters are having fun. But then you remember this is Fruits Basket and the cute and fluffy moments are shrouded in pain and misery.

And when you have an unstable character like Akito, people are going to be hurt. With the addition of several characters, we do detour from time-to-time for stories about them instead of following Yuki, Kyo, and Tohru. But many of these characters have some sort of connection to the main cast. With the introduction of Rin, we see the desperation in finding a way to rid the Sohmas of the zodiac curse. The student council members introduced this season helped Yuki come out of his shell even further. And the introduction of the final zodiac Kureno gave us possible hope for Tohru and a possible love interest with someone you probably didn’t see coming.

LICENSING: Thank you FUNimation. Thank you for once again taking the helm by licensing it and putting in the delicate care the mangaka went in to creating it! And also thank you for not being greedy dickholes and letting Crunchyroll and Hulu air it too. Anyways, the cast from the previous season have returned to do their respectable roles in both the English and Japanese cast. It’s just that due to the Coronavirus outbreak, the dub wasn’t as frequent as it was last year so I spent a good chunk just sticking to the original Japanese audio.

NEW CHARACTERS: In the final episode of season one, we were quickly introduced to several new characters who are going to make a big splash this time around. Just a reminder, there are only two zodiac members that were never introduced until this very moment. But there are several characters, who may not be part of the Sohma clan, but are a big part of the story and to several main characters.

First, I would like to introduce Kakeru Manabe and Machi Kuragi. They will now serve under Yuki as Student Council Vice President and Treasurer. They’re also half-siblings (same father, different mothers). Now by no means are these two ever going to be let-in on the Sohma family secret like Tohru, but they definitely make a big impact on Yuki’s life as Yuki seems comfortable enough to have one-on-ones with Kakeru and share common themes with Machi.

Isuzu (or Rin) is a Sohma with long, black hair. She is the horse of the zodiac curse. She doesn’t let a lot of people in her corner and usually only confides in either Hiro or her boyfriend, Hatsuharu. A lifetime of family issues and Akito being a cunt has something to do with it. Rin’s mission is to find a way to break the curse set on her and the rest of the Sohmas. But after an altercation with Akito, Rin has taken it upon herself to become a lone wo-, um horse in this mission.

Kureno is the final zodiac member to be introduced. And if you haven’t guessed, he is the rooster! Kureno is usually never seen by anyone in the Sohma family due to the fact that Akito keeps him on a short leash. But once Kureno was able to step away from Akito’s side, he finds comfort in one of Tohru’s friends.

I’m familiar with many of these voice actors they’ve added to these new characters. The only one I was surprised at came from Aki Toyosaki playing Rin. I think it’s just leftover questioning after hearing her voice these cutesy, moe characters (blame K-ON for that one). But Rin’s voice isn’t bad.

As for the dub, thank you FUNimation for bringing Aaron Dismuke back to the Fruits Basket family. If you’ve been following Fruits Basket from the very beginning, you might recall him being the original voice of Hiro Sohma. But since he was quite a young child when voicing Hiro, that voice he carried at the time wasn’t going to stay forever. Puberty happens! Aside all that needless info, I really liked his Kakeru! I’m digging Ian Sinclair as Kureno. I spent a full-on decade imagining who would voice him. And back in the day, I always thought Micah Solusod or Vic Mignogna would do him justice. But once 2019 happened…

*crosses off a name on a list*

…Yeah, Micah Solusod would do his voice justice, just him, no one else! But Ian Sinclair is awesome in nearly every thing he’s in and this is fine by me. Brina Palencia as Rin…eh, I mean she always plays characters who are monotone or serious. I’m not bashing it, but it was a predictable role for her. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Kakeru is played by Takuya Eguchi (known for Cheren on Pokemon BW, Takeo on My Love Story, Ryouma on Love Stage, Kujo on Gosick, Watanuki on Inu x Boku SS, and Fumiya on Domestic Girlfriend)

*Machi is played by Ai Kakuma (known for Misaka Worst on Index III, Rossweisse on High School DxD, Lala on Monster Musume, and Hato on Genshike Nidaime)

*Rin is played by Aki Toyosaki (known for Uiharu on Railgun/Index, Yui on K-ON, Suu on Shugo Chara, Satsuki on Maid-sama, Momo on To Love Ru, Chitose on Yuru Yuri, and Aoi on Beelzebub)

*Kureno is played by Yuichiro Umehara (known for Gorou on Darling in the Franxx, Mars on Black Clover, and Goblin Slayer)

ENGLISH CAST: *Kakeru is played by Aaron Dismuke (known for Al on FMA, Hiro on Fruits Basket, Young Hohenheim on FMA: Brotherhood, Van on Escaflowne [redub], Marx on Black Clover, and Takami on Deadman Wonderland)

*Machi is played by Caitlin Glass (known for Winry on FMA, Haruhi on Ouran HSHC, Maki on Love Live, Miria on Baccano, Petra on Attack on Titan, Evergreen on Fairy Tail, and Kirigiri on Danganronpa)

*Rin is played by Brina Palencia (known for Nina on FMA, Ciel on Black Butler, Yuno on Mirai Nikki, Saten on Railgun/Index, Juvia on Fairy Tail, Touka on Tokyo Ghoul, Holo on Spice & Wolf, and Chopper on One Piece)

*Kureno is played by Ian Sinclair (known for Whis on DB Super, Bard on Black Butler, Sousuke on Free!, Chuck on Panty & Stocking, Magna on Black Clover, Brook on One Piece, and Space Dandy)

SHIPPING PART II:

I still know who everyone ends up with and I’m doing my darndest to keep my mouth shut and not let out a decade-old spoiler. So let’s get some crap over with!

*Yuki x Motoko: Yeah, remember Motoko? That Yuki-obsessed chick who literally can’t breathe without the boy in her life! Well, first episode of the season, we get an episode featuring her once more. Because Motoko is one year older, she faces the harsh reality of graduating a year before Yuki and is pretty depressed over that. Not only that, but she's still super jealous that Yuki spends so much time with Tohru. But it gets a little deeper when she noticed that Yuki has changed as he’s smiling a lot more (and those smiles are not fake this time). She so wanted to be the woman in his life to make him smile like that. But Motoko’s probably just going to admire him from a distance. Oh and she still finds time to harass and/or threaten any foreign girl that hangs around Yuki’s aura.

*Ayame x Mine: I almost forgot to talk about this one. Probably because we really only got one episode to show the slightest ship hint from them. Mine has got to be the only female on earth who is able to handle Ayame’s wacky behavior 24/7. Then again, Mine has a few quirks herself. But both of them find that they can confide in each other. Here’s the thing with this one, it is unknown if Mine actually knows about the family curse up to this point. And if they are really in a relationship, Akito hasn’t given her “blessing”. I don’t know, maybe everyone in the family thought it would be best to not pry into Ayame’s private life for many valid reasons.

*Hatsuharu x Rin: So these two were actually in a (secret) relationship. Secret for obvious reasons! They knew the consequences after what Akito has done to Hatori and Kisa for being loved. In this season, we see how much these two really care for each other. Rin is so desperate in finding a way to rid Hatsuharu and everyone else of the zodiac curse that she’ll pursue it by any means necessary. And when she dumped Hatsuharu, this devastation built up pretty big until it burst in the destruction of a classroom. Hatsuharu can be very laid-back, but the break-up really devastated him. Later this season, we do get the development of this ship. Hatsuharu is one of the few people in Rin’s inner circle she was able to rely on and this blossomed into both of them confessing their love. And even sleeping with each other! Yep, Fruits Basket gave us a sex scene! However, Akito found out and Rin took the blame for everything.

…And Akito gave her blessing by shoving Rin off the second story.

Akito’s blessings really should come with an advisory.

Advisory: DON’T ASK AKITO FOR HER BLESSINGS!

*Hatori x Mayu: If you’re wondering who Mayu is, that is Tohru’s homeroom teacher. She surprisingly has some history with Shigure, Hatori, and Kana. First of all, Mayu is best friends with Kana. When Kana was dating Hatori, Mayu started to get these feelings and she ended up dating Shigure (seriously, bad choice). But she knew like the rest of us that Shigure is distant, sneaky, and you just can’t trust him. But Mayu was the only one to cry for Hatori’s sake. Mayu does hold out hope for one day going out with Hatori. Five, ten years, however long it takes!

*Kureno x Uo: The one time Kureno was allowed to escape from Akito’s grasp and he enjoys the company of Tohru’s best friend Uotani. When I first read this in the manga, I thought this was absolutely random, but cute nevertheless. And after watching their small time together, I yearned for there to be more time for Kureno and Uo to be together…but you know it’s not possible because you know the real deal. I mean, Kureno has spent the majority of his life as Akito’s personal bitch. After that one episode, Kureno has remained on the Sohma estate and Uo has wanted to see him again. So much so that she quit her part-time job where she first met Kureno because she feels like she’ll never see him again! Thing is Kureno promised to stay by Akito’s side after a really big revelation happened (stay tuned). Kureno is like the only Sohma that is able to cast his shackles aside and be with someone he loves. And Uo is the first person he’s ever truly felt that about!

No…I’m not going to mention that OTHER ship just yet. I get upset just even thinking about it.

*sniffles*

Just let the little bird fly and be free already.

*Kyo x Kagura: I probably should have covered this in the first season. But I was too focused on the sad ship and cute ship. Anyways, it’s well known that Kagura loves Kyo. REALLY LOVES HIM! But after Tohru moved in, Kagura slowly learned that Kyo has changed because of Tohru and knows that Kyo might not like Kagura that way. In the 11th episode, we get a moving storyline where Kagura goes on a date with Kyo and we learn a little more into why Kagura began to like Kyo. Kagura pitied Kyo as a child since he was the unfortunate child cursed under the cat. It made her feel better about her own sad fate of being cursed under the boar. But she still played with him until she accidentally took off Kyo’s rosary beads that revealed the demonic cat curse. By this time in the story, it’s absolutely cemented with Kyo that he’s in love with someone else and is ready to tell Kagura that he will never love her. But that doesn’t stop Kagura from telling Kyo that she loves him.

*Yuki x Machi: Unlike all the other girls in school, Machi doesn’t see Yuki as a prince. She sees clearly through his fake smile that he gives off all the time. At least that was her thought at the beginning of the series! Machi has been pretty quiet and kept to herself whenever at the student council. No one even knows what her favorite foods and colors are! Truth is, Machi doesn’t know either. But it wasn’t until a simple (and I do mean simple) gift from Yuki that Machi changed a little bit! This ship didn’t get much action until near the end of this season where the student council met up for some lunch. This was the first time we saw Machi act all tsundere around Yuki when he noticed she held onto the gift he gave her.

It was a leaf. He gave her a friggin’ leaf. And then she turned it into a bookmark.

*Tohru x Yuki: Sigh. He kissed her on the forehead and cried. Moving on! She’s not even friend-zoned. She’s MOM-zoned! Tohru is the mother that Yuki turns to because Yuki’s mother is an uncaring cunt. I know who Yuki really ends up with in the end, but if you ask me, I prefer Yuki x Kakeru.

Don’t at me, I love seeing these two together! Okay, final shipping for the category.

*Tohru x Kyo: There is no doubt that Kyo and Yuki have changed for the better since meeting Tohru. Both of them felt that there was no hope and only self-isolation in their life. In Kyo’s case, he knew early on that his life was fucked. His mother committed suicide, his father abandons him, the Sohma family shuns him, and once he reaches a certain age, he faces a lifetime of being locked in confinement. So Tohru’s kindness and persistence has definitely done wonders for the boy. Romance, wise? Let’s just say that things were almost said at the beach. And we get a realization from Kyo that Tohru is precious to him. His precious!

Oh, there is ONE certain ship I feel I should mention. However, it’s still too much of a shock for people to take in. So I will wait for the final season to let it rip.

HORRIBLE PARENTS: The original series only scraped the surface of how horrible the Sohma parents truly are. I could have done my worst parents/mothers/fathers list with at least half of these people. But the original series never showed us the ugliness when it came to Yuki’s mother, Kyo’s father, and queen of the bitches, Ren Sohma. Bitch, I will see you in season three! Thankfully, we’ve got at least one or two nice parents like Hiro and Kagura’s mothers.

Before I bring up the worst this series had to offer, can we just talk about how precious this woman is? Hiro’s mother loved rams and was very happy when Hiro was born. Hiro’s mother is just so precious for this series. She loves her son and even loves Kisa. It’s adorable! As for Kagura’s mother, even with Kagura’s aggressive personality, her mother is quite supportive of her daughter and even Rin. So let’s go down this rap-sheet of the worst ones!

Kyo’s father was never able to forgive his own son for “causing the death of his wife”. He even refuses to call Kyo by name, he only refers to Kyo as “It” or “That Creature”. Thank God we have Kazuma to replace this dick. I know Kazuma’s hands aren’t clean either, but he has treated Kyo like the son he never had. More than what I can say about this fucker!

Yuki’s mother did some unpleasant things to her son. For starters, selling Yuki to Akito for her to do whatever she wanted with him. Because the rat in the zodiac was the first to arrive, it is said that the rat is closest to the god. This gave Yuki’s mother the opportunity to have Yuki deal with Akito’s scary tantrums and scar him for years. Ayame doesn’t have anything pleasant to say about his own mother either. Last I recall, she’s quite cold to Ayame as well. She’s a cold, uncaring witch.

Ah shit, here we go again! Momiji’s father! Yes, that very same father who told Momiji that his mother’s memories of him had to be wiped away in order for her to get better. We see him once again taking away more from Momiji because his daughter Momo is catching on. In an episode, Momiji is told that he should give up playing the violin. Why the fuck for? Well, Momo’s getting music lessons from Momiji’s teacher and feels these two should not meet or even cross paths. And of course, his father isn’t too keen about Momiji coming to his office so he can watch the family he sacrificed so his mother could be saved. This boy just can’t catch a break and I still want to hug my little bunny-kins.

Rin gets panic attacks spontaneously due to her parent’s physical abuse and abandonment. Rin’s home life was okay until one question sparked years of abuse. Because Rin caught on to her parent’s fake smiles, they showed who they really were. Rin hid her abuse until she passed out from so much pain that she had to be checked into the hospital. It was there that Kazuma and a young Hatsuharu learned she was being beaten by her parents. And what do the parents do? Abandon her then and there at the hospital!

Kakeru and Machi aren’t a part of the Sohma family, but that doesn’t stop the fact that they have a messed up home life. Kakeru and Machi are half-siblings (same father, different mothers). Kakeru was an illegitimate child, but was the elder sibling (+ male), so is a prime candidate to be his father’s heir. And both of their mothers fought over who would be the heir to their father’s fortune in the future, putting endless stress on Kakeru and Machi. As a kid, Kakeru would have spontaneous panic attacks because of the stress his mother put him under. While Kakeru was able to tell off his mother and she begrudgingly accepted it, Machi’s mother still puts pressure on her to a point where Machi just does what she’s told and has infrequent bouts of panic attacks.

Oh, there’s another parent worth mentioning. But the final season will take care of that one. I know you’re expecting me to say something about Ren Sohma (Akito’s mother). Problem is, she only had one line in this whole season. I could say there was a scene where her name was mentioned at Akito and Akito went a little berserk. But that’s all I can say here.

SADDEST MOMENT OF THIS SEASON: Hands down, anything involving sweet, little Momiji is going to hurt. Granted, this doesn’t hurt as much as the backstory between him and his mother. But when we get the episode of Momiji’s sister Momo spying on Momiji playing the violin, it’s like a knife to the chest. You want these two to see each other, but it’ll trigger some unhappiness with the family. Momiji sacrificed a butt-ton just for his mother to recover. Momo knows that Momiji exists, she just doesn’t know that Momiji is her brother.

So what does Momo do?

Ask Tohru to ask Momiji to be her big brother.

Ouch. Ow, Fruits Basket! I know this scene hurt when I read it, but it nearly killed me in animation. God and Momiji’s crying. I want to hug him so much. 

EVERYONE’S FATE: In this season, we hit the asphault when it’s revealed that Kyo made an ultimatum with Akito. If Kyo is able to beat Yuki in a fight before the two of them graduate high school, he will obtain his freedom and avoid a lifetime being caged (like the previous cat). As this clock ticks, Kyo knows he doesn’t have much time left before he spends the rest of his life sealed away.

And it isn’t just Kyo! All the other zodiacs are destined to live on Akito’s estate so that Akito can have her delusional “eternal banquet”. So of course, Akito feels threatened that Tohru has such a hold on almost all of the Sohmas. That’s why Rin wants to free everyone from this curse and a little later once she learns about this, Tohru wants to do the same.

THE HAT: Remember the hat that seems out of place for Tohru to have? An old, dusty hat that doesn’t match anything! It was mentioned briefly in the original series and expaneded a bit in the first season. This season gives us a little surprise in the form of the hat connecting to Yuki, Kyo, and Tohru.

The hat originally belonged to Kyo. When they were children, Yuki tried to talk to Kyo and it turned into Kyo yelling at Yuki because he’s the rat of the zodiac. And as the story goes, the rat lies to the cat about the banquet and the cat is left out. A lot of the zodiacs were always sour at Yuki growing up. Moving on! Kyo’s hat fell and Yuki never returned it to him. Yuki once wore the hat on his head and ran away from the Sohma estate. It was at that time he came across a lost, little girl (Tohru). Yuki lead Tohru back home and puts the hat on her head as he leaves from her sight. And that’s the tale of that mystery hat you might have seen prior.

Oh, there’s another connection with Kyo…yeah, you guessed it. Third season! Wait for it.

ENDING TO SEASON TWO: So this season seems to be getting 25 episodes as well. That means if the final season only has 13 episodes that would equal up to 63 episodes in total. And that would make Eric Vale’s comments in a video a year ago correct. Eric Vale is bad with spoilers, isn’t he?

Anyways, this season has given us a lot to mull over. We get new characters that have no connection to the Sohma family, but has a big impact with Yuki that he changes for the better. We finally get to see the two zodiacs that have never made their debut until now. And the backstory of Tohru with the out-of-place hat as a child is settled. Inching closer to the second season finale, we get some cute and semi-impactful stories around the school. Tohru and Kyo were in a class production of Cinderella where Kyo finds out Tohru knows what’s going to happen after graduation when she accidentally blurts out the wrong thing on stage. Then we have Yuki opening up more to his student council members (especially Kakeru) and long-time holdout Machi opening up and becoming a blushing girl like many her age.

Well folks, it’s New Years and time for another zodiac banquet. And Yuki was feeling a sense of weight being lifted from his shoulders. He was going to make a change with his life by not blaming others for his problems. So Akito gives her blessing by…

You should know by now that when I say that, it’s not going to end well.

Let’s just say, hearing Yuki say those words, Akito started to recall a time with Kureno that really struck a cord. I’ll get to it in a second. Akito struck Yuki in the face with a blunt instrument and thankfully he did not end up blind like Hatori. Akito had yet another psychotic outburst that resulted in one of the Sohmas being hurt. And you have to wonder why Akito is this evil, twisted soul that hurts her family physically and mentally. Hatori permanently loses the sight in one of his eyes and still forgives Akito. Kureno stays by Akito’s side no matter what she did to him.

In the final episode, we get quite a few revelations exposed (especially for Tohru). The play, Tohru, Hana, Uo, and Kyo were in was videotaped and Momiji gave a copy to Kureno. Let’s just say that Uo sent her own secret message of wanting to see a certain someone again. Kureno was conflicted that he wanted to reach out and talk to Tohru. When Tohru met with Kureno, she came upon some startling discoveries about the man possessed by the rooster zodiac (or bird).

When walking towards birds, they flew away from him. If you recall, many animals are drawn to the zodiacs (i.e. cats to Kyo, rats to Yuki, etc.). But with Kureno, they all just flew away! And finally, Kureno walked right up to Tohru, hugged her, and he didn’t transform.

Kureno has been curse-free for several years. Actually, since he was in high school and dude is in his 20’s currently. It’s unknown why only he was released from the curse and everybody else still transforms. Kureno kept it from everyone in the Sohma household (even though Shigure was suspicious for a while). And when the curse lifted from Kureno, he felt as though he could finally fly free (irony is that he can no longer “fly” being a zodiac bird). Problem is that Akito had a mental breakdown when she saw Kureno was free from the curse and she screamed at him to stay and never leave her side. This was actually the one time Akito didn’t hit or injure someone during one of these fits, so this felt very different.

And because of Kureno’s decision to stay by Akito’s side, he feels he can no longer see Uo. Even though, he really feels a connection towards her despite only seeing her two times. This was his first actual love! And then, Tohru learned another bombshell.

Actually, this bombshell isn’t as huge as it was years ago.

You see, up until this point in the manga it was hard to decipher what gender Akito was. In the original anime ALL of Akito’s voice actors (even in Japanese) were male. Yes, including when Akito was a child. Aaron Dismuke was everywhere 15 years ago. But then a chapter from the manga came out where Kureno clearly tells Tohru (who had no idea at the time) that Akito was female. So, for hardcore fans such as myself, this wasn’t so much of a bombshell. Although I forgot Tohru didn’t know about Akito’s true gender. New fans to the anime, it might’ve caused great impact. Anyways, the second season ends on that note.

Come on Fruits Basket, you announced another season on my birthday last year. Surely you can give me something to go on for my birthday this year.

OH HELL YEAH!

This totally…doesn’t make up for RBG dying over my birthday weekend, but it’s a start!

Aside from ONE episode, this season was totally brand-spanking new, never-before seen in anime form. And it was satisfying to watch many of these moments I thought were going to remain on the printed page forever finally in animation. This season gave us the good and the bad. We’ll have those light and funny moments that Fruits Basket was notorious for. Tohru visiting Ayame’s clothing store, Yuki’s class taking a trip, and the Cinderella storyline. But then you get all the heavy stuff like Akito coming to see Tohru at the beach house, Rin’s backstory, Kureno’s reveal, and Momiji’s sister wanting to know more about him. Every Momiji episode hurts me! Momo is too precious for this world and she just wants to know her secret onii-chan.

Now some people might think the lineup of these episodes and story is a bit sloppy with how it’s listed. Well, that’s how most of it was in the manga, just go with the flow. I mean, yeah, I’d agree with you there and maybe if this series were one continuous anime with no breaks, you’d get no complaints there. But whatever, you can’t please everyone on everything. This season gave us more character development from these characters. Kyo, while still an angry kitty from time to time has really matured a bit. He doesn’t fly off the handle to fight Yuki every day like you’d see in season one. Yuki was able to realize many aspects of his life and grow from there. Hatori was able to move on from Kana. Ayame learned to be a better big brother…though he’s still a yutz.

Shigure is NOT to be trusted!

I know some people have been saying that since season one and I feel it’s well worth repeating. And it’ll get worse next season, believe me! The only character I was disappointed in by not seeing that much of was Ritsu. But as I recall, Ritsu doesn’t get that much action in the second year arc. I’m so happy to hear the original dub (most of them anyways) with this new material that they’ve never done before for these characters. And I’m hoping to ride this train going into 2021. I love this story and I can’t wait for the final season.

Yes, watch this. Watch the first season too! Hell, watch the original series, it’s not out of print yet!

All of the episodes are available to watch on FUNimation, Crunchyroll, and Hulu. The dub is available through FUNimation only. And if you want to watch the original anime (w/o the new story), Hulu still has it available.

[psyga315]

Prelude

With Volume 7 just beyond the horizon, I figured to look back at my thoughts for Volume 5 and, through more cooled down eyes, boil down why I consider it to be the worst volume of RWBY. When I wrote my review of Volume 5, it was literally the night the episode premiered, so I was boiling. But now? I’m going to look through the review with fresher eyes and clarify what sort of problems I had with RWBY.

First, a bit of backstory. There was an interview made during the summer in between Volumes 4 & 5 that had the cast say what sort of themes one could expect for Volume 5. Among these were stuff like “building yourself back up again”, “shouting ‘we’re not done here!’”, “solving problems on your own”, and lastly, from Barbara herself, “Strength” and “Growth”. For someone who was just starting to realize why people were turned off by the darkness of Volume 3, this was uplifting to say the least…

Shorts

The Character Shorts kinda hyped the Volume, though they sunk in their own way. Weiss’s Character Short effectively foreshadowed her loss to Vernal. This tough and talented girl gets her ass stomped rather quickly and needed to be bailed out. Winter’s line about how she “won’t be around to save her” was foreshadowing to her not actually being in the season, but when I first heard it, I thought she meant “Hey, I’m going to die this volume, lol!” and that’s without bringing up how the trailer fails to hype Weiss up like the other trailers did.

Blake’s Trailer was alright, especially in taking steps to address a problem regarding Menagerie, but it felt more like Ilia given the backstory dump we got that feels all the more like mandatory reading. The problem is that, and it’s perhaps the very first problem I’ve heard about RWBY, is that the trailers (and by extension, anything that’s a spin off of RWBY like World of Remnant) feel more like you need to watch this rather than you can watch this. It’s confusing, but let’s use Blake’s Short as an example.

Ilia talks about her backstory as it is contrasted with a chase between Blake and a random dude we never see again. Assuming you’ve never watched the trailer, you’d just get the truncated version of “MUH PARENTS ARE DEEEAAAD!” and not the bits where she was forced to resent her own race because it was easier to blend in to her surroundings, like a chameleon. It’s ironic, since RWBY would do the reverse problem with Adam, where his trailer isn’t mandatory but we barely get a backstory for him beyond “I got branded, but everyone will speculate that it’s because I did something bad and not that it drove me to do bad things”.

Lastly, there’s Yang’s short, which had the minor hiccup of contrasting what an interview said about running out of Aura means you can’t use your Semblance. The Aura thing is something that can be discussed for another day, but the basics you should take away from this is that, for some time, people didn’t know how running out of Aura is symbolized. Most people take the flickering as the signal as the next hit on those guys are usually the one that does them in. As such, you had this huge debate on what kind of flickering means Aura broken and what just meant Aura is low, which, personally, could have been avoided if the writers and/or animators just utilized that Aura dust thing (seen prominently in the Bumblebee vs Adam fight) as their definitive “aura broken” animation instead of just using it some of the time.

First Episode

The first episode proper promised a lot. In fact, a good chunk of the first half promised a lot. However, it became much clear in a second viewing that a lot of it was just padding at worst and showing us where the characters are at best. But what I think was done dirty the most in this episode was introducing Mistral. We were hyped in Volume 4 (thanks to World of Remnant) that Mistral was this dichotomy of rich, cultural people and the seedy underbelly of criminals and that, at least one of the elements would be utilized in Volume 5. Unfortunately, all we got were a few mat paintings that contrast what Lionheart was saying in regards to Mistral being in chaos.

And so, the most we get out of Mistral are those mat paintings and a perpetually raining downtown that we don’t see much of, even when it gets briefly revisited in Volume 6. We’re supposed to be invested in the city and yet all we get are empty rooms and 2D art. They took great steps to improve this in Volume 6 with Argus, though, so if there’s any consolation, it’s that they learned from their mistakes here.

But we now get into the biggest problem of why Volume 5 is disliked. Because of the situation, the group are left to basically wait until Lionheart convinces the council to get them some Huntsmen. The heroes. Wait. In a volume where the writers were talking about the themes of improving yourself and pulling through with your own strength.

Do you guys see the problem here? I know people have bitched about Volume 5 to hell and back and you’ve probably heard the complaints to high noon, but this entire issue is what rots Volume 5 to the core the most. Not the piss poor fight scenes, not the inconsistent characterizations, it’s that the plotting decides to take a back seat when the volume was meant to be about taking action.

As the episode goes on, you see the problem unfold. Ruby and friends hit a dead end until Oscar appears and has Ozpin exposit things to them, Weiss is denied a chance to save people and fight the Grimm until the Grimm come to her, Blake is hit with the dead end of the Albains deflecting blame, and Yang had the chance encounter with Bakugou where he knows the hideout of her mom.

The closest person who is taking action here is Yang, who established that she is actively looking for Ruby (technically Raven, but as we see later on, moot point). Blake’s situation is being handled by her dad, Weiss is sitting in the plane until the Grimm come for her, and Ruby is sitting on the couch that I’m pretty sure has her grooves molded into the cushion with how many times she’s sat there.

Episode 2

A minor complaint before we go to Episode 2, we had the Stinger repeat itself because the crew thought that people wouldn’t see the stingers. This is the show, mind you, that makes a point to include scenes at the end of every volume, regardless of how long they are or what point they serve in hyping the next Volume. Hell, one of the major complaints about Volume 2 was about the stinger not mattering. So why did they suddenly decide that the viewers might not see the stinger in a culture where the MCU exists?

Alright, cooling things down, we have three major scenes in Episode 2. Salem’s chat with Lionheart was meh at best and wtf at worst. I get the idea of Salem using different approaches to get people to do what she wants, but the cool aspect of Salem was that her approach was not what a villain would normally be. Instead of berating or choking her minions should they fail or talk back, Salem instead talks people down like she’s a mother to them. Even when Tyrian fails, she doesn’t hurt him, but rather tell him that he disappointed her. So, having her choke Lionheart, even when in hindsight it made some sense, is kinda an odd thing to do.

But not as odd as Salem’s whole “Not you, Arthur” bit. A lot of people drew points to that and the best I can explain is that it’s either a typo (she’s meant to say not yet or not now) or Arthur and Watts are some sort of Jekyll & Hyde thing. Unfortunately, it seems Watts is more a parallel to Watson rather than Jekyll, so that brings me to believe that it’s a typo and so, rather than have an easy explanation for a problem, we just have a compounded problem. One of many.

And there’s something funny to be said about Salem warning Cinder about Silver Eyes when Ruby barely learns about it this Volume. And also that she wants to speak with Tyrian but we never see what comes of it. At all.

I only have one new thing about Weiss vs. the Bees. Originally, the pilot was supposed to be gay, but held off on it because they’d be killing off their first revealed gay character, something that wouldn’t look good to the fanbase. Now, while I understand the reason behind it, I have to question the logic behind why they think it isn’t okay for their first LGBT character to be offed, but instead be someone who seemed okay with murdering her crush’s parents while sending said crush to her abuser.

But more on that later, we have Sienna to discuss. Now, there’s a lot to dissect. For one, RT has obviously realized that they’ve messed up and brought Sienna back for a bit (while taking the heat for “if she’s so badass, why did she go out like a chump”). However, in hindsight, what purpose did she actually serve outside of some cute nod to Shere Khan?

All she did was tell Adam that he’s going too far and that’s it. And really, it just seems hypocritical for the leader of the White Fang to effectively restructure the organization into a terrorist group, murder tons of people, and then suddenly back away and say “woah, too much” when Adam proceeded to help torch Beacon. It’s to the point where one question most people want to ask at cons is “did Sienna order the hit out on the SDC”, since we don’t actually know and that it could be a radical leader of that quadrant like Adam.

It felt more like Sienna should have been just the leader of Mistral’s White Fang faction instead of ruling over all the White Fang, which would make more sense as Adam would need permission to attack a kingdom that isn’t his stomping ground. Then there’s the introduction of Hazel, who at first is presented to be a pretty decent character, not wanting to kill people if he had no choice, but as time goes on, is basically your stock “big soft guy with a secret hulk side” character.

Unfortunately, this episode didn’t help enforce the theme of taking action when it’s the villains who are doing it and seeming to be two if not twenty steps ahead of the heroes.

Episode 3

Episode 3 has that whole speech thing I overlooked. Barring Ghira’s speech that the crew said is based off Obama’s “we killed Osama” speech (which, if it is, paints the whole situation of Sienna’s death in a rather dark light) before Ilia interferes. Now, I actually liked that Menagerie is hesitant to stand up for Haven. After all, humans hated their guts so much that the island was originally planned to be a place where people could dump Faunus on. There were lynchings and enslavements that are still going on to this day, just in subtler forms, Of course the Faunus wouldn’t want to fight.

Then Ilia swoops in and robs Blake of any agency she has with the scene. If RT wanted to not let Blake convince the people until three quarters to the end, they should have cut the subtlety and have some annoying kid go “IT’S TOO EARLY IN THE PLOT TO DO YOUR SPEECH!”. Hell, let Blake tell her story about her team, but the audience balks at the fact that she’s not only friends with a Schnee, but also a human who crippled a guy on live television. Remember that plot point?

We then cut to Oscar and this is perhaps the reason I decided to do this revisit of Volume 5. The way Ozpin talks of action and resolve, it felt like we’re going to the root of the themes of taking action. No more being subject to the events of the plot like in previous Volumes. Now? Now is the time to fight back! And that built up to… what? One training scene and Ruby learning headbutt?

Granted, we see later on that there was a bit more to the plan, but for the most part, it seemed like an excuse for “character growth” as opposed to actual character growth. A training arc isn’t just some short scenes of a person lifting weights and jogging up stairs. Its meant to be a sort of means of growth for the character. There’s a reason most training montages have the character suck at first, but then get better by the time the montage ends. It’s because it’s the quickest way to show growth. But even without that, you could get some serious mileage for a pulled off training arc.

Rocky IV and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back have some good examples of it. Rocky IV had the titular hero train and work out in the middle of a cold, mountainous range, while his opponent is simply given steroids. It shows the dichotomy between the two and how they view their eventual fight. Empire, on the other hand, had that masterful scene with Luke in the cave, where he has a huge moment of both foreshadowing and character growth.

Here? We just have Ruby learn headbutt like she’s nothing more than a Pokemon. There could have been a lot more done with it, like having Ruby put a lot more force in her punches, causing others to realize she’s extremely angry about what happened to Pyrrha and Penny, or, if the need to exposit about Semblances is needed, bring something new to the table that isn’t going to confuse the fuck out of people… Something like:

“Your Semblance might not reveal itself until you need it most” or something like that. Not “A semblance is someone’s personality, but not. Wow! Exposition!” or “Hey, remember how we said Aura was passive? Welp, not anymore!”

Not to mention that Jaune is seemingly cool with Ozpin suddenly coming back from the dead. Here’s the thing, last Volume had him upset with Ozpin about what happened to Pyrrha, something that didn’t seemed to resolve itself. Keep in mind that, for all rights and merits, Jaune believed Ozpin to have died. In fact, it was that confirmation that Ozpin had lost against Cinder that convinced Pyrrha to kill herself. Now here he is, seemingly stuck in the body of another kid and he just outright said this is a normal thing for him.

You’d expect him to have something more than “golly!”. The fact that he didn’t seem to have any aggression towards Ozpin until after he ran to his hidey hole in Volume 6 seems rather odd given that his entire character is that he’s angsting about Pyrrha and angry at Cinder for what she did. The group seem rather content to just sit back and let the plot happen, which is the opposite of what the crew was trying to convey with their themes.

Episode 4 and Episode 5

I still stand by what I said regarding how Episode 4 was a good episode, finally having a reunion between two members of Team RWBY, but it’s perhaps one of the last good things about RWBY we’ll ever see in Volume 5. Because Raven’s promise to tell Yang “the whole truth” turns out to just be regurgitated exposition at worst.

But first, we need to have Blake, the woman who doesn’t want her race to be labeled, turn out to have labels for her friends. Okay, granted, it’s not that dumb but it is kinda patronizing that we need to have a character tell us what another character is. While the rest of her speech is pretty effective in defining Blake’s character, making her perhaps the only character these themes of growth and strength actually apply to, it still is annoying that the most we take away out of this is her boiling down every character to a single word, then bringing up how Adam is going to ruin everything for the Faunus. You’ll see why this is a problem later. I liked the setting of Menagerie’s Shallow Sea marketplace thing and felt like Menagerie is wasted potential.

Ruby’s whole speech still feels like damage control, but with the added complaint of Ruby deciding to blame Salem for something Cinder did. Now, I heard the common excuse a lot: “Salem told Cinder to do it so it’s all her fault”, but that problem with that? Cinder told Emerald to kill Penny. So… Yeah. It is her fault. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded this if Ruby didn’t word it like Salem personally killed Penny and Pyrrha. Like as in, she just up and appeared out of nowhere and shot both Penny and Pyrrha in the head.

It still doesn’t fix the fact that Ruby is basically “hey, remember how I’m supposed to be upset?”

Lastly for Episode 5, we have the White Fang do the brilliant plant of murdering the chieftain who just spoke out against them. It’s dumb. Extremely dumb. What the hell do they think will happen after they murder the chieftain in cold blood? Menagerie is just gonna magically bend over and obey the White Fang? But perhaps the biggest waste is the White Fang in general.

You have these two sneaky fox brothers who seemingly oversee everything and even state that they’re only letting Adam do what he wants until he’s no longer of use to them, a buff bat dude, and a spider-lady… And they’re never seen again after this Volume. I get the idea, because RT is trying to wrap up the Faunus subplot as quickly as possible, but the problem that you can’t exactly introduce new characters or hidden depths if you’re just gonna throw them out with the bath water.

If they wanted to end the subplot, why did they put all the effort in some random characters that are just gonna be defeated off screen with a tea tray? Then again, this is a problem endemic to RWBY. Introduce this character, then quickly shoo them away before you’re committed to writing a plot for them. If you know you were going to half-ass the White Fang conclusion, why bother with stuff like more White Fang members or the SDC brand? In fact, why bother with the White Fang to begin with if you’re going to do so little with them?

Episode 6

Moving on before I lose my cool, we have Qrow aimlessly walking around downtown Mistral. Now, the crew said that Maria was supposed to be here… But… Why? What purpose would she serve? If she’s just gonna be a “hey, look, cameo to foreshadow Volume 6”, then that’s a horrible purpose. You know how most Cinematic Universes tanked because they spent more time hyping the next twenty movies when they should focus on their pilot? That’s what she would have been like.

Not to mention that she would have been caught in the crossfire of why Volume 5 was bad. “So here we have this random old lady who doesn’t matter at all to the plot so why is she even there” and then “Oh wow, she’s a SEW. They’re doing damage control to justify her unneeded presence in Volume 5”. And, don’t get me wrong, Maria is a fun lady and all that, but there needs to be a reason she was there beyond “hype for next Volume”.

What makes the problem worse was that they’re planning to include Maria so as to have a sort of Yoda to teach Ruby. This makes the complaint of “why didn’t Ruby ask about the Silver Eyes” even more of a complaint because now it seems like they decided “hey, we’re going to address it next volume, so let’s not bother bringing it up here”. Which is even worse than “hey, people noticed we didn’t address this so let’s completely invent this character for the sole purpose of addressing it!”

And then there’s Raven who is all “lol, I know more than you realize but I’m not actually gonna answer anything trolololololol” AARHG!

Okay. Okay. Before I completely lose my marbles, there’s one thing about the scene with Raven that’s stupid.

It’s the “there’s no such thing as magic” thing.

Okay. I get it. Turning into a bird is something that, in the world of RWBY, seems impossible. But there’s a ton of problems with this:

What makes summoning dead Grimm to fight for you so much more different than magic?

You’re willing to believe in magic rocks that augment your fighting style and are in fact part of a company that profits off magic rocks, yet turning into a bird is the messed up thing?

The guy who gave her this ability is currently inhabiting the body of a young boy and has said to basically devour his soul in due time, as well as create the magic that’s responsible for torching your school and your friend… And the BIRD is the most messed up thing!?

“But Raven made it sound like she was forced into it”. She didn’t seem to have any fucking problem with it though. Not only that, but it didn’t seem like a big dark secret that Ozpin wouldn’t want uncovered. In fact, he even said he gave Qrow and Raven the ability to turn into birds in an amused way.

Even more so when everyone but Yang seemed to respond to it with disbelief rather than outright anger. There’s a reason this whole bird issue was made fun of in Jello’s “So This is Basically RWBY” video.

Also, before we move onto Episode 7, I wanna bring up that the scene where Qrow visits the Shields is perhaps the reason why I hold Ozpin’s censorship of Lionheart’s role in the Battle of Haven to be one of the most scumbag moves he could have made. “Your mom’s dead, but don’t worry, the guy who sold her out is a hero!”

Episodes 7-10

Right, back to Episode 7. Okay, I’ll admit, it was a nice reunion scene all things considered, albeit with some rather unnerving things like Yang asking Weiss if she let the Boarbatusk skewer the trophy wife or even the dumb, patronizing “we haven’t made character arcs for us to go through so I’ll just say we had some”, since they had the great idea to use Ren, who is voiced by Monty’s brother, as the mouthpiece for that.

Unfortunately, this is the episode I always think back to when I think of Volume 5. The perfect epitome of a slow, monotonous Volume. The problem I have is that, yeah, it’s meant to be this breather episode, a calm before the storm, but this just feels like a long lull that’s made even more insulting with the cliffhanger. All it has is people dumping exposition that viewers have either figured out or weren’t even burning questions and I think the awkward silence that followed Ozpin saying how he was the wizard that gave the Maidens his power is the perfect epitome for just how boring the volume is. The dude just revealed a massive plot twist and it’s treated as nothing more than a “did you know” factoid.

While I liked how they addressed that Blake leaving Yang would have had some serious negative emotions in Yang, it felt rather half-assed that they basically resolved it with “hey, my mom’s drunk, so shut up and accept Blake the moment she comes back”, especially since it comes from Weiss, who told Blake at the end of Volume 1 that if she ever runs away again, she best let RWBY know. If they wanted to ship Bumblebee so badly, this would have been a great hurdle for them to come across instead of just “hey, let me resolve this plot for you”.

Now, the whole thing with Ilia… Let’s get the elephant out of the way. The way they revealed her sexuality, I feel, could have been done better. “You wanna know why I’m gonna kill your parents and bring you to your abuser? Because I wanted you to look at me like a lover!” There’s a reason why some fans label her as a “psycho lesbian”.

However, I want to bring up that Rooster Teeth did an excellent job at building tension during the climax of the Menagerie Arc. Sure, the cliffhangers were tiresome, but you couldn’t help but admit you were at the edge of your seat and it even did a good job at subversion. Even if they allegedly didn’t even intend for it to happen.

The constant dryness of exposition and dialogue exchanges is what made Episode 10 so much better than the other episodes. Not just because it’s action-orientated, but because it finally tries to get back to the themes that it was originally supposed to tell. Throughout the entirety of the middle portion of Volume 5, the group basically took a backseat and allowed characters and plots to happen to them rather than advocate for themselves. The closest thing we got to the theme of “building yourself back up” is Weiss talking to Yang about Blake.

In fact, the only actual characters taking action are the villains. Constantly roadblocking the cast, setting them in for a trap, and even aiming to screw each other over. These guys have more advocacy and agency than the main characters. The most any of them did was…

Burn down their own house and blamed everyone else for it, all while saying that the house is the message Adam wants to send.

Use a girl’s unrequited feelings towards them to their advantage, straddle them, and guilt tripped her enough for her to consider switching sides.

Cry about how things are not going their way until their hands start magically glowing.

Yelling at someone until they cry bitch tears and then have them run away without even bothering to close the door leading to the dangerous artifact everyone had been working so hard to keep out of enemy hands.

In the volume where the theme is “solving problems on our own”. Just because Yang drops the word strength a few times when bitching out at Raven doesn’t mean that the theme had been accomplished. In fact, they do nothing of their own accord and just follow a script. Even Ozpin, the supposed smartest guy in all of Remnant, doesn’t even bother to figure out a way to counter the trap. Just instead walk in. Hell, if Yang didn’t spot Raven, they’d be mulched.

But, back on track. Episode 9 was an entire waste that failed to pay off the expectations of what we had with the cliffhanger set up in Episode 7. “But it subverted your ex-” NO. There’s a good way to subvert expectations and being promised a fight after episodes of bland exposition only to have it be “lol, no, it’s just gonna be more talking” is not a good subversion.

No. Here’s a better way. Set up the cliffhanger like normal, but don’t show Cinder’s dragged out negotiation with Raven. Instead, have her “allying” with Cinder be a twist. That way, people’s expectations for what happened are actually, you know, subverted?

The Battle of Haven

But, you know where this is leading to… The Battle of Haven. Really, I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t been covered by someone else. We all know it makes all the Vytal fights look like masterpieces by comparison, we all know the jokes about useless Weiss or Lionheart hogging the staircase, or even the plot holes of Raven knowing Cinder’s arm being Grimm but doing nothing about it or Blake, despite spending the past volume saying how Adam must be stopped, suddenly doesn’t care about him…

So let me cut it simply:

The reason this battle sucks might have to do with the crunch.

We don’t know how long this issue with Rooster Teeth had been going on for, but if it is indeed what people say it is and that animators don’t get paid for the last quarter or third of their work, then that might explain all the cut corners animators and writers made. Why the fights are broken up into one on ones or why fights are cut out entirely. Maybe they weren’t getting paid enough and thus, the quality of RWBY suffered as a result of it.

And that’s perhaps the shittiest thing about the Battle of Haven. It could have been this epic fight that would have made up for all the boring, drawn out scenes of exposition and chatting, but because Rooster Teeth got too greedy or even because of our own impatience (which, again, isn’t helped by the aforementioned long, drawn out scenes), we are treated to a final battle so broken and tiresome that the Battle of Winterfell manages to be a better final battle, with the only thing holding it back being that Haven had a better identity twist.

And if, for whatever reason, it isn’t due to crunch issues, then we have another problem. This was meant to be this hyped up rematch between the heroes and villains, who haven’t seen each other since the latter ruined the lives of the former. This would have been excellent to see how the killers of Jaune and Ruby’s friends would interact with them, how Yang would react to the person who framed her, even how the group had grown since their last battle…

But… if crunch wasn’t to blame for the quality dip and the writers intended for the fight to go the way it went… I have to say… What the fuck were they thinking!? So many moments could have been brought up here and yet they decided that they weren’t important enough to focus on! And now, with this battle over and done with, those moments lost their luster. If they decide to bring them up, it’d be too little, too late at best and “why the fuck are you bringing this up now” at worst.

I’ll deal with one commonly used example to get what I mean. Adam was established in Volume 3 to be a threat only made strong because he uses Blake’s emotions against her and has a Semblance that lets him dish out aura-breaking damage. Blake easily defeats Adam and has him on the ropes, only to let him run with a few excuses that some people have debated to death and back, when it would have been much easier for Blake to have to choose between apprehending Adam and helping Yang. Then, when he inevitably returns to haunt Blake next volume, suddenly he’s a threat that Blake is afraid of again despite Blake having “grown” to oppose him.

They wanted that “triumph” over him, but realize that by doing so, they’ve burned that opportunity to have the triumph be meaningful. Same goes with Emerald and Mercury. They had a good opportunity for Ruby to effectively call them out for their crimes like how Jaune did to Cinder, but instead she just headbutts Mercury. Yang had at least some closure on her arc with Mercury, but it was meh.

The Point in All of This

Hell, speaking of wasted opportunities, the reunion of Team RWBY, something that the opening had hyped and one that the fans had been waiting for since Volume 3 ended, is nothing more than an afterthought. They couldn’t even be assed to show Blake’s first fight back with Ruby and Weiss. That’s how little they cared. It’s like everyone was just wanting to get that paycheck but they needed to rush that final episode out the door and also need to make room for Gen:Lock and Nomad trailers. They didn’t even care about the stinger, as they basically ignored any sort of information relating to the stinger.

Perhaps the biggest reason why Volume 5 sucked so hard was that it was running off the heels of Volume 3. Everyone basically accepted that Volume 4 was meant to be a breather Volume, with lower stakes and lower drama (with the exception of possible death flags for Ren and Nora), but the moment they made Volume 5 the grudge match everyone wanted, then the stakes got raised back to the heights of the third Volume, only for it to fail to live up to the expectations. Sorry, I think I mean to say “subvert the expectations” in this day and age.

Though, I think the huge problem with all of this, and perhaps the biggest bottom line I can say, is that it might be due to Volume 3 going too over the edge. By killing important characters and even dividing the team, the villains had raised stakes up so high, that people began to take the show more seriously. When characters were vaguely hinted to die, be it through threats from the villains or even flashbacks, people fretted that they would die. When the villains go back to striking distance with the heroes, people desired a grand battle. When the show tried to deal with the ramifications that happened with RWBY separating, people wanted to know what was going through the characters’ heads.

And when Volume 5 failed to deliver/“subverted their expectations”, people considered it a bad volume.

But worst of all, it failed to live up to its own themes. Jaune was the only person to build himself back up again through deus ex hands, and we saw next Volume that it needed a statue for him to feel better. No one was in a position of giving up only to be defiant and shout “we’re not done here”, but instead cry “it wasn’t supposed to be like this!”. The big problem of Volume 5, make sure the relic is secure, is only solved because two characters had a catfight in the basement and the survivor didn’t bother to lock up because their daughter was too busy bitching at her. No one really grew or strengthened their resolve. The triumph… wasn’t theirs to have.

Although, it seems Rooster Teeth had learned from their mistakes, with Volume 6 being leaps and bounds better than Volume 5, regardless of what you thought of the latter half. Best of all, the themes promised in Volume 5 were shown prominently in Volume 6, albeit some of the scenes capitalizing on those themes feeling more like a child is having a tantrum because they couldn’t have the airplane.

To close out this rather long winded discussion, and to give people a tl;dr on the whole matter, Volume 5 failed to address the themes it had presented and instead just padded itself out, expecting people to accept it because it’s RWBY.

[baoanhwin]

The case for betting on a Trump victory in November

A guest slot from Mr. Ed on Why he thinks the President will be re-elected

If you don’t want Trump to win in November (which I think is most people on this site), then there is plenty of data out there to give you hope. The RCP national polling average has Biden’s lead over Trump at +7.1%. In key swing states, the RCP average also shows Biden leading in all 5 (FL, PA, WI, NC, AZ) and polls have suggested Biden is now competitive in states such as Ohio and Texas. Trump’s approval ratings continue to fall, with the RCP average showing a net disapproval of c. 11%. 

However, I think these hopes are overdone. I have skin in the game as I have a £5 bet with Kinablu that Trump will win. More than that, I think the data and evidence is pointing to his re-election. 

First, two points. First, all the polls will have been conducted before Friday’s (positive) shock job numbers (caveat: I am writing this on a Saturday afternoon before any new polls are out). The beat versus expectations was simply staggering. To repeat: consensus had expected a 19.5 % unemployment rate vs the actual 13.3% expected, and 2.5m jobs were added vs a 20.7m fall in May. It was truly a surprise of the first order. Back to this later.

Second, the question of whether the polls can be trusted. For many reasons, I think they cannot and there are wide variances. To use one example, if the RCP national average of a 7 point lead for Biden is correct, then Trump should not be having a 4 point lead in Pennsylvania, which the latest poll says he does. The two latest polls out of Michigan have Biden’s lead at +2 or +12 depending on the poll also shows the variance. 

However, this is not a post about polling. I would argue, at this stage, there are four reasons why a Trump victory is more likely.

First, evidence from actual results suggests Republican enthusiasm is extremely high. Democrats might have “reduced” Trump’s 20 point margin in 2016 in the Wisconsin 7th special election to 14 points but there was no sign of an anti-Trump surge. But the special election result in CA-25 shouldn’t have happened if Trump is in trouble. The Republicans won a district by nearly 10 points that Clinton won in 2016 and against a candidate whose state district covered a majority of the area. And note the Republicans flipping the solid Democratic council of Staunton in Virginia. Yes, a City council but step back and think about this: the turnout surged to a level seen more for Governor elections (votes cast more than doubled). In Pennsylvania, the New York Post reported 861,000 Republicans cast votes for Trump in this week’s primaries vs. 734,000 Democrats. That is despite Democrats have an 800,000 advantage in registrations (in PA, you can only vote in your registered party’s vote) and Donald Trump a shoo-in for the nomination. What these actual results suggest is that the Republicans are fired up to vote, which will be crucial for November. 

Second, jobs. It is no wonder Trump was, ahem, trumpeting Friday’s job numbers but the surprise was stunning and it boosts his argument America can bounce back quickly. More importantly, it boosts the Republican argument that lockdowns need to be reversed as quickly as possible. It was a serious mistake for the Democrats to allow themselves to be portrayed as the party of lockdown. As each day goes by, and there is no surge in cases, Florida’s and Georgia’s Republican Governors look right and Democrat Governors like Gretchen Whitmer wrong. And recent endorsements of demonstrations by these same Democrat Governors have shot to pieces arguments against opening too soon (and will lead to a muddying of who is to blame if there is a surge in cases). Claiming “systemic racism” is more of a public health threat than CV-19 and justifies the demonstrations might sound good on Twitter but it is unlikely to cut it with a significant body of voters, who might rightly say the economic problems have caused significantly more deaths.

Thirdly, several Democrat wins in 2016 look vulnerable in November. Minnesota and New Hampshire are two obvious ones (I think the Republicans will flip the former at least this November – the Minneapolis riots are likely to play badly in the suburbs and Biden has said he will rip up the Keystone XL pipeline which will go down badly in a resource-dependent state). I would highlight three more; (1) Nevada. Clinton won it by 2.5% in 2016, smaller than the combined Libertarian / none of the above vote of just under 6%. There is an argument that Trump should win a chunk of that 6% this time round; Biden also didn’t do well amongst Hispanics in the primaries; and Nevada relies on tourism, which needs the easing of restrictions, which helps the Republicans. (2) Virginia, which I think could be the shock of the night. Clinton won it by over 5% in 2016. This is not much more than the 4.3% combined vote of the Libertarians and Evan McMullin, a lot of which again could go to Trump. And what is happening in Virginian politics – with conservative voters riled up over gun and abortion rights – should fire up Republican turnout as demonstrated by the Staunton result; (3) Colorado. Clinton won it by less than 5% and less than the Libertarian vote of 5.2%. Again, a chunk of that vote could go to Trump. Last week’s unanimous censure of the Democrat’s Senate candidate, John Hicklenhooper, by the state’s Independent Ethics Commission also did not help. I suspect Biden will repeat Clinton’s mistake in 2016 and think that several states are “safe” which, in fact, might be vulnerable. 

Finally, and perhaps the most pertinent point, increasingly elections are about underlying themes. Work out the theme, you can work out the result. In the US, 2016 was about many voters feeling left behind and deciding to roll the dice with Trump as they did – irony of ironies – with Obama in 2008 (who beat a far more experienced opponent). For 2020, I believe there will be three underlying themes (1) who will be best to get the economy back on track? (2) who will deal best with China? And (3) who will sort out the problems as seen with the recent riots? I would argue that Trump has a distinct advantage over Biden on (1) and (2), especially given the jobs data for (1) and all that he can point to with Hunter Biden and Biden’s own comments on (2). The third theme really has two parts – a law and order part, with voters scared about criminality, which is likely to play well for Trump; and a police reform issue, which may help Biden for Black turnout but where Trump has not made given his opponent so much in the way to persuade independents that Trump is viscerally anti-reform. SO, on the themes, Trump has a clear advantage. 

These are not the only problems for the Democrats. Biden is a weak candidate, in that he doesn’t enthuse and the risks of a major gaffe (or several) are high. Because there is a concern over his health, mental and physical, there will be more focus on the VP candidate. A white female VP candidate is virtually impossible now but the Black ones have issues of their own (Harris and Demmings because of their previous roles in the justice system; Stacey Abrams is too inexperienced; and Keisha Lance Bottoms hasn’t been helped by the Atlanta rights). My own view is that Biden should go for a Hispanic female (I have recommended Michelle Lujan on here as an outside bet) which ticks both the “woman of colour” box and helps cement a voting bloc where there are signs of drift. But he may need to go with a Black candidate because of recent events.   

So, sorry (nearly) everyone. I think you have four more years of Trump to enjoy.

Mr. Ed

from politicalbetting.com https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/06/07/the-case-for-betting-on-a-trump-victory-in-november/ https://dangky.ric.win/

[mikemortgage]

Terence Corcoran: Toronto floats the idea of making Big Oil pay for climate change damage. What damage?

It didn’t take Alberta’s United Conservative leader long to react to the latest belch of green ideology from Toronto the Good. After one of Toronto’s councillors, Mike Layton, proposed a motion asking city bureaucrats to look into the idea of suing Big Oil for billions of dollars to cover the cost of fighting climate change, Jason Kenney responded immediately with a letter to Toronto Mayor John Tory and an appropriate comment: “Albertans are tired of being a punching bag for virtue signalling political efforts that seek to apply a higher standard to our oil than OPEC oil or other sectors in our economy.”

Even NDP Premier Rachel Notley reacted with a tweet: “It’s clear that Mike Layton is out of touch with Canada’s economic reality and doesn’t see Alberta’s contributions because he has tunnel vision.”

It’s not quite up to Alberta Premier Ralph Klein’s advice in the 1980s: “Let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark.” But it’s on the same track.

Layton’s motion, limply supported by Mayor John Tory, made it to council on Thursday. City bureaucrats, already notorious for dredging up scary climate scenarios, could now spend months digging up data and massaging climate change risk into a big dollar figure. Whatever they come up with, a lawsuit doesn’t have a snowstorm’s hope in hell of going anywhere.

Joe Oliver: The climate alarmists are keeping poor people in the dark — literally

Dalton McGuinty is back preaching ‘green’ again — whether Ontario wants him or not

Hyped-up, misleading insurance myths about ‘severe weather’ flooding distract us from real problems

Layton did not in fact single out Alberta’s oil over OPEC oil, but it didn’t really matter since virtue signalling was indeed one of his prime objectives, a trick he learned from his father, Jack Layton, long before the concept of virtue signalling became — as Wikipedia describes it — “a pejorative by commentators to describe empty or superficial support of certain political views and also used within groups to criticize their own members for valuing appearance over action, or for not holding the same values which that group considers to be morally unquestionable.”

That’s our Toronto boy, Mike Layton, who pretty much concedes that virtue signalling is part of his game. In an interview with Vice shortly after he released his idea to sue oil companies to pay for the city’s alleged rising costs to cover the damage done by climate change, Layton conceded: “There’s a statement being made, but I wouldn’t downplay the fact that we have hundreds of millions of dollars in state-of-good-repair and infrastructure upgrades that we are going to need to develop, that we’ll need to pay for. In all likelihood, a good chunk of it will have to do with climate change.”

Let’s assume, for the moment, the accuracy of the statement that “a good chunk” of Toronto’s rising infrastructure costs are due to climate change. Let’s also assume that the following statement in Layton’s motion is accurate: “Extreme weather is already causing massive damage to Toronto-area infrastructure, homes, services and businesses. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, the Greater Toronto Area has had “six ‘100 Year Storms’ since 2005. These storms are a direct result of climate change.”

Even if all of the above were true, what exactly is the point in suing the oil industry, aside from the fantasy idea of being able to collect carbon taxes retroactively from corporations? Governments have been collecting billions annually at the gas pumps and via other energy taxes. The problem is their failure to use enough of that money to maintain the sewers and other infrastructure that are now in need of repair and upgrade.

Layton says he wants to look at the idea of suing corporations because he is “a firm believer in the notion that polluters should pay.”  Fair enough, but when it comes to fossil fuel consumption, most of the pollution is produced by individuals driving cars around the city, heating their homes, and otherwise improving their lives using fossil fuels. They are the front-line polluters, not the oil companies.

Another wrinkle is the role played by Toronto and provincial politicians. They enthusiastically built the roads and bridges that accommodate all the fossil fuel consumption that has turned cities like Toronto into thriving metropolises. Politicians like to have it both ways, in this case taking credit on the one hand for building roads and highways and then blaming others when the roads are used as intended.

Now, back to Layton’s motion and the reference to the “six ‘100 Year Storms’ since 2005.” The Insurance Bureau of Canada has been trumpeting such claims for some time, without citing any data or evidence. In January, a CBC ombudsman forced the network to issue a correction to insurance bureau claims about “so-called 100-year events.”

In a commentary on this page in February, Robert Muir, an Ontario municipal engineer, said the insurance bureau’s claims are unsupportable. Muir said that studies by leading universities show that there has been “no change in storm design intensities that drive flood damages. When rainfall trends are extended to incorporate more recent data, including 2013 extremes, it is seen that there is no increasing trend in observed maximum rainfall amounts to support IBC’s repeated hypothesis that storms are on the rise.”

In an email interview Thursday, Muir said “the bottom line is statistics are showing lower (storm) intensities since 1990 in Toronto, Mississauga and Markham.”   According to official climate data sets, said Muir, the storm intensity trend is now 8.1 per cent lower than in 1990.

Making polluters pay is a good idea in principle, but first Toronto needs to find evidence for the pollution damage.

• Email: tcorcoran@nationalpost.com | Twitter: terencecorcoran

from Financial Post https://ift.tt/2HOp0IN via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[psyga315]

With Volume 7 just beyond the horizon, I figured to look back at my thoughts for Volume 5 and, through more cooled down eyes, boil down why I consider it to be the worst volume of RWBY. When I wrote my review of Volume 5, it was literally the night the episode premiered, so I was boiling. But now? I’m going to look through the review with fresher eyes and clarify what sort of problems I had with RWBY. First, a bit of backstory. There was an interview made during the summer in between Volumes 4 & 5 that had the cast say what sort of themes one could expect for Volume 5. Among these were stuff like “building yourself back up again”, “shouting ‘we’re not done here!’”, “solving problems on your own”, and lastly, from Barbara herself, “Strength” and “Growth”. For someone who was just starting to realize why people were turned off by the darkness of Volume 3, this was uplifting to say the least… The Character Shorts kinda hyped the Volume, though they sunk in their own way. Weiss’s Character Short effectively foreshadowed her loss to Vernal. This tough and talented girl gets her ass stomped rather quickly and needed to be bailed out. Winter’s line about how she “won’t be around to save her” was foreshadowing to her not actually being in the season, but when I first heard it, I thought she meant “Hey, I’m going to die this volume, lol!” and that’s without bringing up how the trailer fails to hype Weiss up like the other trailers did. Blake’s Trailer was alright, especially in taking steps to address a problem regarding Menagerie, but it felt more like Ilia given the backstory dump we got that feels all the more like mandatory reading. The problem is that, and it’s perhaps the very first problem I’ve heard about RWBY, is that the trailers (and by extension, anything that’s a spin off of RWBY like World of Remnant) feel more like you need to watch this rather than you can watch this. It’s confusing, but let’s use Blake’s Short as an example.

Ilia talks about her backstory as it is contrasted with a chase between Blake and a random dude we never see again. Assuming you’ve never watched the trailer, you’d just get the truncated version of “MUH PARENTS ARE DEEEAAAD!” and not the bits where she was forced to resent her own race because it was easier to blend in to her surroundings, like a chameleon. It’s ironic, since RWBY would do the reverse problem with Adam, where his trailer isn’t mandatory but we barely get a backstory for him beyond “I got branded, but everyone will speculate that it’s because I did something bad and not that it drove me to do bad things”.

Lastly, there’s Yang’s short, which had the minor hiccup of contrasting what an interview said about running out of Aura means you can’t use your Semblance. The Aura thing is something that can be discussed for another day, but the basics you should take away from this is that, for some time, people didn’t know how running out of Aura is symbolized. Most people take the flickering as the signal as the next hit on those guys are usually the one that does them in. As such, you had this huge debate on what kind of flickering means Aura broken and what just meant Aura is low, which, personally, could have been avoided if the writers and/or animators just utilized that Aura dust thing (seen prominently in the Bumblebee vs Adam fight) as their definitive “aura broken” animation instead of just using it some of the time. The first episode proper promised a lot. In fact, a good chunk of the first half promised a lot. However, it became much clear in a second viewing that a lot of it was just padding at worst and showing us where the characters are at best. But what I think was done dirty the most in this episode was introducing Mistral. We were hyped in Volume 4 (thanks to World of Remnant) that Mistral was this dichotomy of rich, cultural people and the seedy underbelly of criminals and that, at least one of the elements would be utilized in Volume 5. Unfortunately, all we got were a few mat paintings that contrast what Lionheart was saying in regards to Mistral being in chaos. And so, the most we get out of Mistral are those mat paintings and a perpetually raining downtown that we don’t see much of, even when it gets briefly revisited in Volume 6. We’re supposed to be invested in the city and yet all we get are empty rooms and 2D art. They took great steps to improve this in Volume 6 with Argus, though, so if there’s any consolation, it’s that they learned from their mistakes here. But we now get into the biggest problem of why Volume 5 is disliked. Because of the situation, the group are left to basically wait until Lionheart convinces the council to get them some Huntsmen. The heroes. Wait. In a volume where the writers were talking about the themes of improving yourself and pulling through with your own strength. Do you guys see the problem here? I know people have bitched about Volume 5 to hell and back and you’ve probably heard the complaints to high noon, but this entire issue is what rots Volume 5 to the core the most. Not the piss poor fight scenes, not the inconsistent characterizations, it’s that the plotting decides to take a back seat when the volume was meant to be about taking action. As the episode goes on, you see the problem unfold. Ruby and friends hit a dead end until Oscar appears and has Ozpin exposit things to them, Weiss is denied a chance to save people and fight the Grimm until the Grimm come to her, Blake is hit with the dead end of the Albains deflecting blame, and Yang had the chance encounter with Bakugou where he knows the hideout of her mom. The closest person who is taking action here is Yang, who established that she is actively looking for Ruby (technically Raven, but as we see later on, moot point). Blake’s situation is being handled by her dad, Weiss is sitting in the plane until the Grimm come for her, and Ruby is sitting on the couch that I’m pretty sure has her grooves molded into the cushion with how many times she’s sat there. A minor complaint before we go to Episode 2, we had the Stinger repeat itself because the crew thought that people wouldn’t see the stingers. This is the show, mind you, that makes a point to include scenes at the end of every volume, regardless of how long they are or what point they serve in hyping the next Volume. Hell, one of the major complaints about Volume 2 was about the stinger not mattering. So why did they suddenly decide that the viewers might not see the stinger in a culture where the MCU exists? Alright, cooling things down, we have three major scenes in Episode 2. Salem’s chat with Lionheart was meh at best and wtf at worst. I get the idea of Salem using different approaches to get people to do what she wants, but the cool aspect of Salem was that her approach was not what a villain would normally be. Instead of berating or choking her minions should they fail or talk back, Salem instead talks people down like she’s a mother to them. Even when Tyrian fails, she doesn’t hurt him, but rather tell him that he disappointed her. So, having her choke Lionheart, even when in hindsight it made some sense, is kinda an odd thing to do. But not as odd as Salem’s whole “Not you, Arthur” bit. A lot of people drew points to that and the best I can explain is that it’s either a typo (she’s meant to say not yet or not now) or Arthur and Watts are some sort of Jekyll & Hyde thing. Unfortunately, it seems Watts is more a parallel to Watson rather than Jekyll, so that brings me to believe that it’s a typo and so, rather than have an easy explanation for a problem, we just have a compounded problem. One of many. And there’s something funny to be said about Salem warning Cinder about Silver Eyes when Ruby barely learns about it this Volume. And also that she wants to speak with Tyrian but we never see what comes of it. At all. I only have one new thing about Weiss vs. the Bees. Originally, the pilot was supposed to be gay, but held off on it because they’d be killing off their first revealed gay character, something that wouldn’t look good to the fanbase. Now, while I understand the reason behind it, I have to question the logic behind why they think it isn’t okay for their first LGBT character to be offed, but instead be someone who seemed okay with murdering her crush’s parents while sending said crush to her abuser. But more on that later, we have Sienna to discuss. Now, there’s a lot to dissect. For one, RT has obviously realized that they’ve messed up and brought Sienna back for a bit (while taking the heat for “if she’s so badass, why did she go out like a chump”). However, in hindsight, what purpose did she actually serve outside of some cute nod to Shere Khan? All she did was tell Adam that he’s going too far and that’s it. And really, it just seems hypocritical for the leader of the White Fang to effectively restructure the organization into a terrorist group, murder tons of people, and then suddenly back away and say “woah, too much” when Adam proceeded to help torch Beacon. It’s to the point where one question most people want to ask at cons is “did Sienna order the hit out on the SDC”, since we don’t actually know and that it could be a radical leader of that quadrant like Adam. It felt more like Sienna should have been just the leader of Mistral’s White Fang faction instead of ruling over all the White Fang, which would make more sense as Adam would need permission to attack a kingdom that isn’t his stomping ground. Then there’s the introduction of Hazel, who at first is presented to be a pretty decent character, not wanting to kill people if he had no choice, but as time goes on, is basically your stock “big soft guy with a secret hulk side” character. Unfortunately, this episode didn’t help enforce the theme of taking action when it’s the villains who are doing it and seeming to be two if not twenty steps ahead of the heroes. Episode 3 has that whole speech thing I overlooked. Barring Ghira’s speech that the crew said is based off Obama’s “we killed Osama” speech (which, if it is, paints the whole situation of Sienna’s death in a rather dark light) before Ilia interferes. Now, I actually liked that Menagerie is hesitant to stand up for Haven. After all, humans hated their guts so much that the island was originally planned to be a place where people could dump Faunus on. There were lynchings and enslavements that are still going on to this day, just in subtler forms, Of course the Faunus wouldn’t want to fight. Then Ilia swoops in and robs Blake of any agency she has with the scene. If RT wanted to not let Blake convince the people until three quarters to the end, they should have cut the subtlety and have some annoying kid go “IT’S TOO EARLY IN THE PLOT TO DO YOUR SPEECH!”. Hell, let Blake tell her story about her team, but the audience balks at the fact that she’s not only friends with a Schnee, but also a human who crippled a guy on live television. Remember that plot point? We then cut to Oscar and this is perhaps the reason I decided to do this revisit of Volume 5. The way Ozpin talks of action and resolve, it felt like we’re going to the root of the themes of taking action. No more being subject to the events of the plot like in previous Volumes. Now? Now is the time to fight back! And that built up to… what? One training scene and Ruby learning headbutt? Granted, we see later on that there was a bit more to the plan, but for the most part, it seemed like an excuse for “character growth” as opposed to actual character growth. A training arc isn’t just some short scenes of a person lifting weights and jogging up stairs. Its meant to be a sort of means of growth for the character. There’s a reason most training montages have the character suck at first, but then get better by the time the montage ends. It’s because it’s the quickest way to show growth. But even without that, you could get some serious mileage for a pulled off training arc. Rocky IV and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back have some good examples of it. Rocky IV had the titular hero train and work out in the middle of a cold, mountainous range, while his opponent is simply given steroids. It shows the dichotomy between the two and how they view their eventual fight. Empire, on the other hand, had that masterful scene with Luke in the cave, where he has a huge moment of both foreshadowing and character growth. Here? We just have Ruby learn headbutt like she’s nothing more than a Pokemon. There could have been a lot more done with it, like having Ruby put a lot more force in her punches, causing others to realize she’s extremely angry about what happened to Pyrrha and Penny, or, if the need to exposit about Semblances is needed, bring something new to the table that isn’t going to confuse the fuck out of people… Something like: “Your Semblance might not reveal itself until you need it most” or something like that. Not “A semblance is someone’s personality, but not. Wow! Exposition!” or “Hey, remember how we said Aura was passive? Welp, not anymore!” Not to mention that Jaune is seemingly cool with Ozpin suddenly coming back from the dead. Here’s the thing, last Volume had him upset with Ozpin about what happened to Pyrrha, something that didn’t seemed to resolve itself. Keep in mind that, for all rights and merits, Jaune believed Ozpin to have died. In fact, it was that confirmation that Ozpin had lost against Cinder that convinced Pyrrha to kill herself. Now here he is, seemingly stuck in the body of another kid and he just outright said this is a normal thing for him. You’d expect him to have something more than “golly!”. The fact that he didn’t seem to have any aggression towards Ozpin until after he ran to his hidey hole in Volume 6 seems rather odd given that his entire character is that he’s angsting about Pyrrha and angry at Cinder for what she did. The group seem rather content to just sit back and let the plot happen, which is the opposite of what the crew was trying to convey with their themes. I still stand by what I said regarding how Episode 4 was a good episode, finally having a reunion between two members of Team RWBY, but it’s perhaps one of the last good things about RWBY we’ll ever see in Volume 5. Because Raven’s promise to tell Yang “the whole truth” turns out to just be regurgitated exposition at worst. But first, we need to have Blake, the woman who doesn’t want her race to be labeled, turn out to have labels for her friends. Okay, granted, it’s not that dumb but it is kinda patronizing that we need to have a character tell us what another character is. While the rest of her speech is pretty effective in defining Blake’s character, making her perhaps the only character these themes of growth and strength actually apply to, it still is annoying that the most we take away out of this is her boiling down every character to a single word, then bringing up how Adam is going to ruin everything for the Faunus. You’ll see why this is a problem later. I liked the setting of Menagerie’s Shallow Sea marketplace thing and felt like Menagerie is wasted potential. Ruby’s whole speech still feels like damage control, but with the added complaint of Ruby deciding to blame Salem for something Cinder did. Now, I heard the common excuse a lot: “Salem told Cinder to do it so it’s all her fault”, but that problem with that? Cinder told Emerald to kill Penny. So… Yeah. It is her fault. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded this if Ruby didn’t word it like Salem personally killed Penny and Pyrrha. Like as in, she just up and appeared out of nowhere and shot both Penny and Pyrrha in the head. It still doesn’t fix the fact that Ruby is basically “hey, remember how I’m supposed to be upset?” Lastly for Episode 5, we have the White Fang do the brilliant plant of murdering the chieftain who just spoke out against them. It’s dumb. Extremely dumb. What the hell do they think will happen after they murder the chieftain in cold blood? Menagerie is just gonna magically bend over and obey the White Fang? But perhaps the biggest waste is the White Fang in general. You have these two sneaky fox brothers who seemingly oversee everything and even state that they’re only letting Adam do what he wants until he’s no longer of use to them, a buff bat dude, and a spider-lady… And they’re never seen again after this Volume. I get the idea, because RT is trying to wrap up the Faunus subplot as quickly as possible, but the problem that you can’t exactly introduce new characters or hidden depths if you’re just gonna throw them out with the bath water. If they wanted to end the subplot, why did they put all the effort in some random characters that are just gonna be defeated off screen with a tea tray? Then again, this is a problem endemic to RWBY. Introduce this character, then quickly shoo them away before you’re committed to writing a plot for them. If you know you were going to half-ass the White Fang conclusion, why bother with stuff like more White Fang members or the SDC brand? In fact, why bother with the White Fang to begin with if you’re going to do so little with them? Moving on before I lose my cool, we have Qrow aimlessly walking around downtown Mistral. Now, the crew said that Maria was supposed to be here… But… Why? What purpose would she serve? If she’s just gonna be a “hey, look, cameo to foreshadow Volume 6”, then that’s a horrible purpose. You know how most Cinematic Universes tanked because they spent more time hyping the next twenty movies when they should focus on their pilot? That’s what she would have been like. Not to mention that she would have been caught in the crossfire of why Volume 5 was bad. “So here we have this random old lady who doesn’t matter at all to the plot so why is she even there” and then “Oh wow, she’s a SEW. They’re doing damage control to justify her unneeded presence in Volume 5”. And, don’t get me wrong, Maria is a fun lady and all that, but there needs to be a reason she was there beyond “hype for next Volume”. What makes the problem worse was that they’re planning to include Maria so as to have a sort of Yoda to teach Ruby. This makes the complaint of “why didn’t Ruby ask about the Silver Eyes” even more of a complaint because now it seems like they decided “hey, we’re going to address it next volume, so let’s not bother bringing it up here”. Which is even worse than “hey, people noticed we didn’t address this so let’s completely invent this character for the sole purpose of addressing it!” And then there’s Raven who is all “lol, I know more than you realize but I’m not actually gonna answer anything trolololololol” AARHG! Okay. Okay. Before I completely lose my marbles, there’s one thing about the scene with Raven that’s stupid. It’s the “there’s no such thing as magic” thing. Okay. I get it. Turning into a bird is something that, in the world of RWBY, seems impossible. But there’s a ton of problems with this: 1.  What makes summoning dead Grimm to fight for you so much more different than magic? 2.  You’re willing to believe in magic rocks that augment your fighting style and are in fact part of a company that profits off magic rocks, yet turning into a bird is the messed up thing? 3.  The guy who gave her this ability is currently inhabiting the body of a young boy and has said to basically devour his soul in due time, as well as create the magic that’s responsible for torching your school and your friend… And the BIRD is the most messed up thing!? “But Raven made it sound like she was forced into it”. She didn’t seem to have any fucking problem with it though. Not only that, but it didn’t seem like a big dark secret that Ozpin wouldn’t want uncovered. In fact, he even said he gave Qrow and Raven the ability to turn into birds in an amused way. Even more so when everyone but Yang seemed to respond to it with disbelief rather than outright anger. There’s a reason this whole bird issue was made fun of in Jello’s “So This is Basically RWBY” video. Also, before we move onto Episode 7, I wanna bring up that the scene where Qrow visits the Shields is perhaps the reason why I hold Ozpin’s censorship of Lionheart’s role in the Battle of Haven to be one of the most scumbag moves he could have made. “Your mom’s dead, but don’t worry, the guy who sold her out is a hero!” Right, back to Episode 7. Okay, I’ll admit, it was a nice reunion scene all things considered, albeit with some rather unnerving things like Yang asking Weiss if she let the Boarbatusk skewer the trophy wife or even the dumb, patronizing “we haven’t made character arcs for us to go through so I’ll just say we had some”, since they had the great idea to use Ren, who is voiced by Monty’s brother, as the mouthpiece for that. Unfortunately, this is the episode I always think back to when I think of Volume 5. The perfect epitome of a slow, monotonous Volume. The problem I have is that, yeah, it’s meant to be this breather episode, a calm before the storm, but this just feels like a long lull that’s made even more insulting with the cliffhanger. All it has is people dumping exposition that viewers have either figured out or weren’t even burning questions and I think the awkward silence that followed Ozpin saying how he was the wizard that gave the Maidens his power is the perfect epitome for just how boring the volume is. The dude just revealed a massive plot twist and it’s treated as nothing more than a “did you know” factoid. While I liked how they addressed that Blake leaving Yang would have had some serious negative emotions in Yang, it felt rather half-assed that they basically resolved it with “hey, my mom’s drunk, so shut up and accept Blake the moment she comes back”, especially since it comes from Weiss, who told Blake at the end of Volume 1 that if she ever runs away again, she best let RWBY know. If they wanted to ship Bumblebee so badly, this would have been a great hurdle for them to come across instead of just “hey, let me resolve this plot for you”. Now, the whole thing with Ilia… Let’s get the elephant out of the way. The way they revealed her sexuality, I feel, could have been done better. “You wanna know why I’m gonna kill your parents and bring you to your abuser? Because I wanted you to look at me like a lover!” There’s a reason why some fans label her as a “psycho lesbian”. However, I want to bring up that Rooster Teeth did an excellent job at building tension during the climax of the Menagerie Arc. Sure, the cliffhangers were tiresome, but you couldn’t help but admit you were at the edge of your seat and it even did a good job at subversion. Even if they allegedly didn’t even intend for it to happen. The constant dryness of exposition and dialogue exchanges is what made Episode 10 so much better than the other episodes. Not just because it’s action-orientated, but because it finally tries to get back to the themes that it was originally supposed to tell. Throughout the entirety of the middle portion of Volume 5, the group basically took a backseat and allowed characters and plots to happen to them rather than advocate for themselves. The closest thing we got to the theme of “building yourself back up” is Weiss talking to Yang about Blake. In fact, the only actual characters taking action are the villains. Constantly roadblocking the cast, setting them in for a trap, and even aiming to screw each other over. These guys have more advocacy and agency than the main characters. The most any of them did was… 1.  Burn down their own house and blamed everyone else for it, all while saying that the house is the message Adam wants to send. 2.  Use a girl’s unrequited feelings towards them to their advantage, straddle them, and guilt tripped her enough for her to consider switching sides. 3.  Cry about how things are not going their way until their hands start magically glowing. 4.  Yelling at someone until they cry bitch tears and then have them run away without even bothering to close the door leading to the dangerous artifact everyone had been working so hard to keep out of enemy hands. In the volume where the theme is “solving problems on our own”. Just because Yang drops the word strength a few times when bitching out at Raven doesn’t mean that the theme had been accomplished. In fact, they do nothing of their own accord and just follow a script. Even Ozpin, the supposed smartest guy in all of Remnant, doesn’t even bother to figure out a way to counter the trap. Just instead walk in. Hell, if Yang didn’t spot Raven, they’d be mulched. But, back on track. Episode 9 was an entire waste that failed to pay off the expectations of what we had with the cliffhanger set up in Episode 7. “But it subverted your ex-” NO. There’s a good way to subvert expectations and being promised a fight after episodes of bland exposition only to have it be “lol, no, it’s just gonna be more talking” is not a good subversion. No. Here’s a better way. Set up the cliffhanger like normal, but don’t show Cinder’s dragged out negotiation with Raven. Instead, have her “allying” with Cinder be a twist. That way, people’s expectations for what happened are actually, you know, subverted? But, you know where this is leading to… The Battle of Haven. Really, I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t been covered by someone else. We all know it makes all the Vytal fights look like masterpieces by comparison, we all know the jokes about useless Weiss or Lionheart hogging the staircase, or even the plot holes of Raven knowing Cinder’s arm being Grimm but doing nothing about it or Blake, despite spending the past volume saying how Adam must be stopped, suddenly doesn’t care about him… So let me cut it simply: The reason this battle sucks might have to do with the crunch. We don’t know how long this issue with Rooster Teeth had been going on for, but if it is indeed what people say it is and that animators don’t get paid for the last quarter or third of their work, then that might explain all the cut corners animators and writers made. Why the fights are broken up into one on ones or why fights are cut out entirely. Maybe they weren’t getting paid enough and thus, the quality of RWBY suffered as a result of it. And that’s perhaps the shittiest thing about the Battle of Haven. It could have been this epic fight that would have made up for all the boring, drawn out scenes of exposition and chatting, but because Rooster Teeth got too greedy or even because of our own impatience (which, again, isn’t helped by the aforementioned long, drawn out scenes), we are treated to a final battle so broken and tiresome that the Battle of Winterfell manages to be a better final battle, with the only thing holding it back being that Haven had a better identity twist. And if, for whatever reason, it isn’t due to crunch issues, then we have another problem. This was meant to be this hyped up rematch between the heroes and villains, who haven’t seen each other since the latter ruined the lives of the former. This would have been excellent to see how the killers of Jaune and Ruby’s friends would interact with them, how Yang would react to the person who framed her, even how the group had grown since their last battle… But… if crunch wasn’t to blame for the quality dip and the writers intended for the fight to go the way it went… I have to say… What the fuck were they thinking!? So many moments could have been brought up here and yet they decided that they weren’t important enough to focus on! And now, with this battle over and done with, those moments lost their luster. If they decide to bring them up, it’d be too little, too late at best and “why the fuck are you bringing this up now” at worst. I’ll deal with one commonly used example to get what I mean. Adam was established in Volume 3 to be a threat only made strong because he uses Blake’s emotions against her and has a Semblance that lets him dish out aura-breaking damage. Blake easily defeats Adam and has him on the ropes, only to let him run with a few excuses that some people have debated to death and back, when it would have been much easier for Blake to have to choose between apprehending Adam and helping Yang. Then, when he inevitably returns to haunt Blake next volume, suddenly he’s a threat that Blake is afraid of again despite Blake having “grown” to oppose him. They wanted that “triumph” over him, but realize that by doing so, they’ve burned that opportunity to have the triumph be meaningful. Same goes with Emerald and Mercury. They had a good opportunity for Ruby to effectively call them out for their crimes like how Jaune did to Cinder, but instead she just headbutts Mercury. Yang had at least some closure on her arc with Mercury, but it was meh. Hell, speaking of wasted opportunities, the reunion of Team RWBY, something that the opening had hyped and one that the fans had been waiting for since Volume 3 ended, is nothing more than an afterthought. They couldn’t even be assed to show Blake’s first fight back with Ruby and Weiss. That’s how little they cared. It’s like everyone was just wanting to get that paycheck but they needed to rush that final episode out the door and also need to make room for Gen:Lock and Nomad trailers. They didn’t even care about the stinger, as they basically ignored any sort of information relating to the stinger. Perhaps the biggest reason why Volume 5 sucked so hard was that it was running off the heels of Volume 3. Everyone basically accepted that Volume 4 was meant to be a breather Volume, with lower stakes and lower drama (with the exception of possible death flags for Ren and Nora), but the moment they made Volume 5 the grudge match everyone wanted, then the stakes got raised back to the heights of the third Volume, only for it to fail to live up to the expectations. Sorry, I think I mean to say “subvert the expectations” in this day and age. Though, I think the huge problem with all of this, and perhaps the biggest bottom line I can say, is that it might be due to Volume 3 going too over the edge. By killing important characters and even dividing the team, the villains had raised stakes up so high, that people began to take the show more seriously. When characters were vaguely hinted to die, be it through threats from the villains or even flashbacks, people fretted that they would die. When the villains go back to striking distance with the heroes, people desired a grand battle. When the show tried to deal with the ramifications that happened with RWBY separating, people wanted to know what was going through the characters’ heads. And when Volume 5 failed to deliver/“subverted their expectations”, people considered it a bad volume. But worst of all, it failed to live up to its own themes. Jaune was the only person to build himself back up again through deus ex hands, and we saw next Volume that it needed a statue for him to feel better. No one was in a position of giving up only to be defiant and shout “we’re not done here”, but instead cry “it wasn’t supposed to be like this!”. The big problem of Volume 5, make sure the relic is secure, is only solved because two characters had a catfight in the basement and the survivor didn’t bother to lock up because their daughter was too busy bitching at her. No one really grew or strengthened their resolve. The triumph… wasn’t theirs to have. Although, it seems Rooster Teeth had learned from their mistakes, with Volume 6 being leaps and bounds better than Volume 5, regardless of what you thought of the latter half. Best of all, the themes promised in Volume 5 were shown prominently in Volume 6, albeit some of the scenes capitalizing on those themes feeling more like a child is having a tantrum because they couldn’t have the airplane. To close out this rather long winded discussion, and to give people a tl;dr on the whole matter, Volume 5 failed to address the themes it had presented and instead just padded itself out, expecting people to accept it because it’s RWBY.