#this takes place somewhere in V7

[sir-adamus]

What if the movie is taking place during the short timeskip in V7? I know Arrowfell takes place during it but considering this isn't really canon anyway it could be a possibility?

that timeskip did span a couple months so it is a point to plug in some wacky stories in a lighter section of the story before everything went to hell (Grimm Eclipse and the other non-canon crossover RWBY got pulled into, BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle - well, for RWBY, one of Neo's victory animations implies that she specifically was pulled from post-volume 6 - both happen in the time between volumes 2 and 3)

it'd make sense to place it somewhere during volume 7 if it is a case of 'the team are pulled into some kind of simulation that puts them in Beacon era but isn't a perfect recreation', with Yang's arm setup, plus Weiss has a Manticore summon

which she hasn't used in the main show but she would only get after volume 6 when they fought some on the Argus Express (though you could argue she might pick this one up in the course of the movie)

but yeah it's the one point post-Beacon where everyone's together for an extended period and their world isn't falling apart, so it'd make some sense to pull them from there

[jammatown919]

Splash

This one’s for @saph-ruby, who requested the Dolts on a rainy date!  Well, this certainly wasn't how Ruby had imagined her day going. At the very least, she'd expected herself and Penny to able to enjoy more than twenty minutes of their park date before it suddenly started pouring on them.

Personally, Ruby didn't mind the rain all that much. It reminded her of the occasional storms she would see back on Patch, and of trying to slip out of the house with Yang to play in the puddles when they were kids. Penny, on the other hand, was adamant that they needed to get somewhere dry before Ruby caught a cold. And so here they were, hiding underneath the awning of a closed ice cream stand, waiting for the rain to let up enough for them to leave.

"Y'know," Ruby said after about five minutes of staring out at the rain in silence. "We don't have to go. I kind of like the rain. Plus, we get the whole park to ourselves."

"But you might get sick!" Penny protested. She'd backed herself right up to the stand, as far away from the falling raindrops as she could possibly get.

"Isn't that a myth, though?" Ruby inquired. "Like, water can't actually make you sick, right?"

"Well, no, but being in the cold rain for extended periods of time can temporarily weaken your immune system." Penny replied matter-of-factly.

"Oh, c'mon Penny, that's such a small chance of me getting sick." Ruby insisted. "Isn't having some fun in the rain worth the risk?"

"Nothing is worth risking your health." Penny said seriously. She wrinkled her nose and added, "Besides, rain is gross."

"Okay, first of all, it's a cold, not the Black Death. I'd be fine in two days, tops." Ruby assured her. "Second of all, you bite your tongue!"

Penny gave her a confused look, but nevertheless, she poked the tip of her tongue out between her teeth and gently bit down on it.

"Figure of speech, Penny." Ruby chuckled, and Penny immediately released her tongue with a small 'oh'. "What I meant was, rain is awesome! How could you think it's gross?"

"I do not like it when my clothes get wet." Penny explained. "They get sticky."

"What if I let you borrow some of my clothes after?" Ruby asked. She grinned as Penny's face flushed. It was common knowledge among pretty much everyone they knew that Penny loved wearing Ruby's clothes and would take any opportunity to do so, but she always got flustered whenever anyone called her out on it.

"Can I wear your big sweater?" She requested softly.

"You really like that sweater, huh?" Ruby replied with a chuckle. Out of all her clothes, her oversized sweater was the one thing Penny asked to borrow the most. Sometimes she'd even swipe it when Ruby wasn't looking. "You can have the sweater for the rest of the day if you let me show you how fun the rain can be. And if you really don't like it, we can head back, okay?"

"Alright." Penny reluctantly agreed. "What did you have in mind?"

Ruby smirked and ducked out from underneath the awning, walking right into the huge puddle that had formed just beyond it. She shivered as cold water seeped into her shoes and pulled her hood up to keep the rain from messing up her hair too much.

"Ever been in a splash fight?" She asked. Penny shook her head and stayed where she was, waiting for an explanation. "Well, it's exactly what it sounds like. You just try and soak your friends as much as possible. Yang and I used to do it all the time as kids."

"How do you know who wins?" Penny inquired.

"There's not really a winner," Ruby replied. "It's just a fun way to spend a rainy day."

Penny considered this briefly, then slowly stepped out into the rain. She stood there for a moment, as if trying to get used to the sensation.

"Now try splashing me." Ruby prompted.

Penny glanced down at the water at her feet, then gently kicked some of it in Ruby's direction. A few drops spattered across Ruby's already wet shoes. In response, Ruby sent a real splash her way. Penny leapt back with a yelp as water struck her legs.

Ruby paused, thinking that perhaps this was too much to start with for someone who already disliked the rain. Just as she was about to open her mouth to ask if Penny wanted to stop, her girlfriend kicked out at the puddle again, much harder this time. The ensuing splash came up to her hips, soaking through her clothes in spots the rain hadn't quite been able to reach.

Ruby smirked and splashed again, and this time Penny let out a sound of delight as the water hit her. She dodged out of the way as Penny splashed at her one more time, leaving the puddle entirely.

"Having fun?" She asked.

"A little." Penny admitted with a small smile.

"Good." Ruby said as she dipped her toes back into the puddle. She kicked upward and sent a thin spray toward Penny's face, then turned to run before her girlfriend could retaliate. Behind her, she could hear Penny's quick footsteps giving chase.

"Come back here!" Penny shouted with a laugh. Ruby sped up, entirely leaping over another puddle in an attempt to outpace her.

Not even five seconds later, the sound of footsteps was replaced with a splash and a short shriek. Ruby, assuming Penny had slipped and fallen, stopped and turned around with the intention of helping her girlfriend up, but Penny was nowhere in sight.

"Firefly?" She called out cautiously, looking around. No response. "Penny, where'd you go?"  

Realistically, there was no way Penny could have gotten out of sight that quickly, but a whole person didn't just vanish into thin air. She had to be around here somewhere. Ruby stepped forward, squinting through the rain, and realized that there were ripples moving along the surface of the puddle she'd jumped over. No way, she thought.

But then Penny's head broke the surface and she scrambled out, her eyes still wide with alarm.

"Oh my God, how deep was that thing?!" Ruby exclaimed, hurrying to help Penny to her feet.

"Nearly six feet." Penny replied, blinking water from her eyes. "I suppose that was a hole that the rain filled, rather than a real puddle."

"Are you okay?" Ruby asked sympathetically. She almost wanted to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of a person having fallen into a six-foot deep puddle, but making sure her girlfriend was alright took priority.

"Yes, I'm fine." Penny nodded, though she seemed more than a little uncomfortable. "But I think I would like to get somewhere dry now."

"Okay," Ruby gently pressed a kiss to Penny's cold cheek. "We'll head back to the Academy now, and you can have my big sweater."

Penny smiled at that, and Ruby put an arm around her shoulders as they began walking toward the park's entrance.

"Sorry today didn't go the way we were hoping." Ruby said as they walked. "But you had at least a little fun, right?"

"I did." Penny affirmed. "I still believe that rain is gross, but you made it more enjoyable."

"So enjoyable you'd be willing to try this again, maybe?" Ruby prompted with a tiny grin. "Possibly when we're better dressed for it?" She added, not at all pleased with the feeling of her soaked cape clinging to her back.

"Alright," Penny agreed. "We can try again next time it rains."

Ruby's grin widened and she pumped one fist into the air in a celebratory motion. If nothing else, she'd gotten her girlfriend to stop hating rain quite as much.

"Mission accomplished."

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

If you enjoyed this piece, please considering reblogging to share it with others! Likes unfortunately don’t do anything to help a post circulate, so the only way content creators get any recognition on this site is if people reblog their posts. If you do reblog, know that I appreciate you so much and think that you’re the coolest! 

[amelia-yap]

Dunno if you're taking requests still, but crying Weiss and her teammates comforting her in their own way? Thank you!

aha

[femininetea]

RWBY Parallels:

Qrow and Winter

Spoilers for RWBY Volume 8 Finale

Now with V8Ch14, I finally have most puzzle pieces to make a post about these two. This post is up to interpretation so whether you view this in a shipping way or from a character plot perspective is all up to you. Stay kind. <3

Some parallels are obvious and don't need further explanation, for others I will go more into depth. I'm not sure if RWBY is doing this on purpose but I do hope that these parallels will matter at some point for character growth.

Both are the right hand to their head masters, trusting their judgement with their life

They were trained and put into their positions by their head masters themselves. Qrow who was a student at Beacon and became part of Ozpins inner circle. And Winter who was a student at Atlas, has the 2nd highest rank in the military and is Ironwoods right hand

-> note that we met Lionheart and he did not have anyone close in that position who'd be his 'Qrow' or 'Winter'

Both grew up in emotionally unstable environments with no proper image of family and were expected to become independent early in their childhood. Qrow who grew up with the bandits and Winter who grew up in the abusive Schnee household

They're related to the main cast and are their mentors (Qrow - Ruby/Winter - Weiss)

Qrow is like a 2nd father figure to Ruby and Winter like a mother figure to Weiss

They take their roles as mentors, caretakers and family figures and apply it to people around them. Qrow who took care of the main cast from V4 - V6 and Winter who acts like a big sister to Penny and is overprotective of people who are younger than her (like Marrow)

They're both emotionally distant and only get warm around their younger family members but also hide their true personal feelings in order to protect them

Both dealt with alcoholism, Qrow who is a former alcoholic and Winter who grew up with an alcoholic mother

They're cut of from their team. STRQ fell apart and Winter was in a former team since it's the norm for the academy. Penny told us in V7 that' she's not part of a team anymore since she works for the military and that the general told her "that she doesn't have time for friends", the same probably applies to Winter

They both are connected to magic (Qrow-> can turn into a bird, Winter - > Winter Maiden)

Ozpin and Ironwood both manipulated them. Ozpin didn't trust Qrow enough and sent him off to deadly missions and kept him in the dark. While Ironwood didn't keep secrets from Winter, her position in the military and Ironwoods knowledge of her past family life put her into a state where she is selfless and doesn't care about her life or doesn't let her personal feelings get in the way. She gets shut up by Ironwood when speaking her mind in certain situations (V3 Ozpins office, V7 Jacques Dining Table, V8 before Emerald disguised as Penny arrives)

They got both sent to deadly missions (for Winter it was in Mistral from V4-v5 and the planned bomb for the whale)

They're almost emotionally dependent on their guardians. Qrow felt like Ozpin finally gave him a purpose and a place to be. Similar to Winter where she found a father figure and a place where she felt like she could do some real good for the world.

After Qrow building up walls to not open up to people because of his semblance and Winter who was taught to keep her emotions shut her whole life, they lost their first and only friend (not counting former team members) tragically

Both also carry something that reminds them of their friends. Qrow has Clovers Pin and Winter holds the Maiden Powers

Their friends "died" in their arms/saw them before they faded

They both left (abusive) family members behind (Qrow - Raven / Winter - Parents)

They were both pretty skilled for their age (Qrow who got into the academy without going to a school beforehand and Winter's high rank for her mid-20's age)

Qrow and Winter were lied to/betrayed/dissapointed by their guardians. Ozpin hiding everything from everyone and then leaving, Ironwood giving into his paranoia and becoming controlling and threatening towards Winter (shooting people in front of her, pressuring her into staying with him, shutting her off and not listening to her, leaving his morals behind that she admired him for aka attempting to blow up Mantle, basically V8)

Manipulated and groomed into getting power to carry out dangerous jobs for them (Qrow getting turned into a bird, Winter getting the Maiden Powers)

Seeing their former home fall (Fall of Atlas and Beacon Academy)

Breaking down upon realization of what was done to them

(Qrow getting deeper into his alcoholism, Winter having an emotional breakdown and yes I don't think that Weiss was the only trigger for her to cry out. Her father figure got pushed into destructive paranoia who attempted to kill her , her best and only friend got murdered and her sister pushed into the void by the same person who again is responsible for everything that happened to her by influencing her most important guardian - and all of that within a few moments "You are going to pay - for everything that you've done" )

losing their younger family members

blaming themselves for what happens to their surroundings (Qrow with his bad luck and Winter not being able to save Weiss/anyone in the void)

Almost died (while protecting people they care about)

They have a pretty low self image and don't see themselves as deserving of anything. Winter told Penny that she doesn't deserve the powers and was just a machine. Qrow often deflects compliments and Clover even called him out on that.

If I missed any, feel free to add! So what do I think about this? Well at first there is more to them that was established but not continued. It was shown in V3 that they knew each other personally (on a 1st name basis) and had some kind of history but it didn't get addressed again after that.

Them barely interacting in V7 made me question if their build up was forgotten but on the other hand I think a lot of character interactions got the short end in V7 especially with the story. But what V7 and V8 gave us was more insight on Winter and with the fall of Ironwood and Atlas, these parallels became even clearer.

Now with Weiss and Ruby gone, I think there is the chance for the character's, especially Winter who also lost Penny and Ironwood, to step out of their character box. Winter was shown to be more than just an older sister and soldier. Now with her destiny in her hand but, at a painful cost, where does that lead her?

I think everyone knows already that V9 is going to be a detour and I don't think that it's going to be a split up like V4 but I think it could be similar to V8. It could be that Winter takes over the caretaker role like Qrow did in V4-V6. I hope it doesn't take long for him, Robyn and the Ace Ops to arrive. They still don't know what happened and I think they should work together with the Happy Huntresses in Vacuo and could perfectly function as minor characters and somewhat ending their (Happy Huntresses and Ace Ops) arc for now.

Overall I hope that we get to see Qrow and Winter grieve. They deserve it and Winter who's never been this emotional within one episode deserves to not hide it anymore. She'll have to struggle with her family and I just want her to have somebody to talk to who can relate. And after seeing all these parallels I think Qrow would be perfect for that matter and that build up from V3 would go somewhere.

Thank you for reading 💞 what do you think?💞

[piloversfinestbees]

wanted to thank you for your discussion with RWBYAnalysis on Ironwood and the Robyn angle.

I am so tired of people calling RWBY's Robyn Hood a terrorist just for standing up to a military nutjob who treats everything like a contest of measuring you know what.

I've never seen Male Robin Hood be called a terrorist.

So why is Robyn Hill treated like that?

I don’t want to point my answer in one single direction but I believe (My PO) is that the same people that go into fandom comments and call Robyn Hill a terrorist are predominantly the same group that just has a problem in general with RWBY and its 4 Female Protagonists. I dislike the whole “Team RWBY is just a bunch of Kids” laundry basket that so many use. Yes they are young but realistically by the time V6 rolls around Ruby being the youngest is 17! That’s tipping the “of legal age” scale. So these are young women, Winter and Robyn included, tasked with one basic underlying tone - Judgement of Humanity.

If a supreme being where to judge Earth TODAY on whether not we, as a whole, are the best for humanity, I’d WANT that Supreme “God” to look upon the younger generation as THEY WILL BE THE ONES TO INHERIT THE EARTH! It’s the younger generation, every generation, that creates the want for change, and Robyn is a reflection of CHANGE. Look at her interactions with Marrow! RWBY does a great job inserting real world issues into the story without offense (minus the Bumbleby haters) to the masses. They don’t want to offend anyone, BUT how do we fix things, how does a conversation get started so we can begin to fix things if offense is taken BEFORE the conversation even starts!

Marrow is an amazing character to watch because of his overall dynamic and growth in V7 and V8. He goes from stating to Blake and Weiss he’s not “here to solve” literally societal indifference, yet he speaks about the Faunus as being placed in society at the bottom on purpose. Then goes on to ask Blake for HER HELP as she’s a Faunus and can see in the dark, probably almost as well as he probably could. Yangs face speaks volumes as Blake abs Weiss are two sides of a coin but Yang being neither Faunus nor Schnee can see a wide view of the portrayed issue.

Marrow goes on to show his Faunus tail prevents him from doing specific Ace Ops missions because he is genuinely a hyperactive dude. So he’s already someone who knows how hard it is to overcome obstacles that society has put in place. Then watch his demeanor and tone with Ruby at the election party and how he quickly turns to Robyn and escalates. He’s standing on a soapbox for sure! Placing emphasis on LEGAL, and LEGALLY, as though he doesn’t know who her constituents are. How a large portion of her voters are of Faunus Heritage does nothing but make me cringe as I watch him dig his own grave! He IN THAT MOMENT is the epitome of the RWBY fandom group that are labeling her as a “terrorist” and that’s a predominant theme across Blake/Yang vs Adam’s story arc. What this shows is that we can put out the fire but someone, somewhere will still be trying to tan the flame.

Kill one cell, another emerges… etc…

Robyn is far from a Terrorist. She was “stealing back” supplies that were ORIGINALLY allocated for rebuilding/reinforcing Mantle’s border walls because Ironwood, having the power to tell the Counsel to STFU, decided “Eh, we will take the supply runs by force if necessary…” and diverted them all to Amity. Robyn went so far as to STOP THE THEFT of the supply runs and instead had a face to face with the supplier who then decided that business with Atlas Military was off the table until Mantle had their security/protection issues resolved. The blame doesn’t lie with Robyn, Robyn shows loyalty to THE MANY, not herself, the furthest definition from terrorist. Activist is by far what she is, she was reactive until she decided to become proactive and the supply company severed their deal with Atlas.

HAD IRONWOOD BEEN VOCAL ABOUT AMITY from the beginning I firmly believe Robyn’s actions would have not been what we saw unfold! Remember back to Qrow and Ironwood arguing at Beacon due to lack of communication!? Qrow was out scouting having to not only look forward but watch his own back, and he got his ass chewed because he didn’t inform them. Then finds out through James that important shit has happened and says “Communication is a Two Way Street!” It is! That goes to show that Ironwood doesn’t communicate outside of his tiny bubble.

Ironwood’s initial idea for Amity was a noble one, but he failed to do good when pushed into a corner.

Robyn’s cause was always noble, she however evolved in V7-V8 rather quickly. She saw how hot headed and rash decision making can be severely detrimental. She saw it unfold between Qrow and Clover. So her reeling Qrow in and telling him that he would be literally lying to himself if he believed that killing Ironwood would better the “whole” when it would have been out of spite, anger and revenge just for himself. She SAT with those thoughts, they cooked like a good stew, and in sitting with those thoughts she was able to see that if she continued to make “Ironwood like decisions” then she would in fact be playing into Destructions hand and not Humanity.

Humanity requires every single one of us, man, woman, young, old, to question whether or not what we are doing is the right thing. Winter’s inability to accept the Winter Maidens power, if you look at it from a different POV, could possibly have been because she wasn’t willing to do what she KNEW WAS RIGHT, because she was afraid that where she to adjust her actions in the slightest, she as a COG in the machine would have sent it into disarray. Penny force fed her what Winter needed to hear, Penny GOT UP AND WALKED OUT WITH RUBY and the Maiden Power because Penny being a machine was only letting her soul guide her. Winter finally saw that and it was a slap to the face. Once Winter realized it, she grew in her own personal strength before even accepting the powers from Penny, a selfless act yet again for Penny.

So the answer to your question as I’m sure you’ve read doesn’t have one neat answer. That’s something that RWBY displayed for us too throughout V7 and V8, so how I replied was necessary as no societal issue, question, comment, concern should be given a nice/cute little answer. It requires depth, as history is prone to repeat itself. I just hope that those who have jumped on that bandwagon understand the consequences to their bandwagons actions.

It goes both ways, and if someone where to come across our conversation and wants to give me a different opinion I’d gladly read it and reply. I’ve practiced Civil Law (one of many areas I practice), in and out of court for over 13 years in the US and abroad, so I welcome debate openly. I’m not one to be offended as my opinions are mine and staying humble, grounded and mindful; questioning my ethics, rights/wrongs, etc, is part of my personal growth until the day I die.

[itsclydebitches]

If I remember correctly during the V7 commentary, the reason why Weiss didn't get any upgrades for her weapon was because she had her Summoning and "was already perfect" which I think is very telling of what these writers think character development is: Weiss isn't racist/ mean to people anymore and is now in a comfortable place in her life so she doesn't need to grown anymore. Anything new she might need to learn is just combed aside like her perfect, Whitley-esque bangs.

You know how we're often joking about how RWBY tends to give us what we've asked for, just in the worst way possible? Such commentary would fall under that umbrella for me. I approve of not giving Weiss any major upgrades, simply because she's already got too many powerful abilities, to the point where the show has had to drop a couple to try and keep things balanced (time dilation, any dust that's not ice, relies mostly on just summoning now), but she shouldn't lack that because she's "perfect." Giving her so many OP abilities was a mistake on the writers' part, a mistake they needed to manage in Volume 7, preferably with some sort of explanation as to why the Atlas born, Schnee heiress didn't a cool upgrade in her hometown alongside many teammates, which we obviously didn't see. It's not a time to try and use that lack as some sort of proof of perfection, since such perfection obviously doesn't exist. And I don't say that as a criticism of Weiss as a person in this story (there's plenty of that elsewhere on the blog lol), but rather as an acknowledgement of her function as a character. If your character is "perfect" - if the story honestly believes they have nowhere else to go, not the character working under the false belief that they have no flaws - then... why are you writing a story? Why are you writing a story that, as far as we know, will continue on for at least a few more years? People don't turn to storytelling to watch the characters remain static and never develop. Weiss has to be flawed if RWBY wants to keep her as an engaging character we're interested in following. She has to go somewhere and not just in the literal sense of Kingdom hopping.

And, of course, she is flawed. She is struggling. She does have a wealth of things to work through... the show just doesn't seem to realize that. I've occasionally seen complaints that our Atlas arc had Penny as the focus rather than Weiss and honestly, I don't think we've discussed that enough; how huge a mistake that was (and not just because Penny was killed at the end of it all). I think your own phrasing is significant in terms of framing the writers' (presumed) perspective: Weiss "is now in a comfortable place in her life..." Sure, Weiss is more comfortable with her place and herself than she was at the start of the series - growth! - but that's really only in regards to her place on the team and her abilities as a huntress. Her family and status as a Schnee remain a treasure trove of difficulties she's barely touched. Prior to the Atlas arc, Weiss' setup included:

Being kidnapped by her father and separated from said team

Losing her inheritance to the company/family name, the one she claims to be interested in rehabilitating

Kidnapped by bandits and rescued by a teammate she's had incredibly little interaction with

Learning she has to return to Atlas, the place the just ran away from

Arriving to find her Kingdom in a state of lockdown, suffering from systematic problems and a war she's one of the few who knows about

Hearing that two teammates killed a faunus in self-defense who bore the SDC logo

That's a lot. So Weiss grapples with all of this during the arc taking place in her home, with her family, her leader, and populated by the minority her family has exploited, right? Of course not! She never has to deal with her father, her disinheritance, the faunus, her new connection with Yang... Weiss' "growth" occurs in random, confusing bursts that are meaningless given how convoluted the story has become. Oh, we're humorously arresting Jacques now. Oh, she no longer cares about Winter and is happy to leave her behind. Oh, she's suddenly announced to Marrow that she's patriotic for the place she keeps running away from. Oh, she's saved Whitley's life after ignoring and threatening him, so I guess they're loving siblings now? Weiss is as much of a mess as the rest of the cast at this point, made even worse by Volume 8's ending. The Kingdom of Atlas is destroyed. The unclear nature of Weiss' feelings aside, the entirety of her home wasn't merely attacked, but completely obliterated. The girl who should be dealing with complicated feelings regarding her family and home has just lost the ability to ever return to that home! And that loss was on her own leader's orders. And her sister is now a Maiden. And the father she apparently wanted to rescue got blown up by Ironwood. Even though Weiss hasn't had the chance to delve into the latter two yet - she doesn't know about Jacques, barely spotted Winter as a Maiden before she fell - surely she'll have something to say about her Kingdom falling, that core part of her identity destroyed through one, thoughtless wish?

Nah, the one line about that goes to Robyn 🤦‍♀️

[h4lcyonism]

If you're still doing the fluffy prompts.. I'm having a hard time picking between 6 8 and 11 for bumbleby. So if any of those inspire you?:)

20 Fluff/Relationship Prompts

“All I’ve ever wanted was a place to belong. Somewhere I could call home. And you gave me that. Because you are my home.”

(11 is so blake @ yang that i knew instantly i had to do it so here’s this!! it takes place sometime during v7 before things go off the rails)

Yang honestly didn’t expect things to be so calm upon first arriving to Atlas. Aside from the mixup with the Ace Ops that wound up with them being wrongfully arrested, everything had been going mostly according to plan.

Though Yang’s personal favorite thing about being in Atlas was the much needed down time it gave everyone. Despite being worked hard by the Ace Ops in huntsman training, they still had more free time than they’d had since before the battle of Haven.

It was nice, getting to just take a step back and relax for a bit. After what happened with Adam in Anima and everything before that, even back to the fall of Beacon, Yang didn’t realize just how much her body had been aching for rest.

And it certainly felt nice getting to spend so much time with Blake again.

Things had been strained between them since Haven, the wound of Blake leaving after Beacon still fresh. Then Adam had happened, and while that was a huge step in the healing process for both of them, they were still coping with what happened. But Yang was delighted to see Blake so much lighter, freer, and happier now that she was finally free from him.

On one particular night, Ruby and Weiss had been out for their own Iceflower training session, leaving Blake and Yang behind in the dorm. The peace was nice, with Blake curled up on her bunk with a book and Yang playing a game on her scroll on her bunk right above her partner’s.

Yang’s concentration was distracted by the sound of Blake closing her book and taking a deep, shaky breath. Quickly, Yang tossed her scroll onto her sheets and slid down the ladder, staring at Blake apprehensively. “Everything okay?” She questioned, but the tears that started forming in Blake’s eyes after she asked was answer enough.

“Hey, hey, hey…” Yang said softly, sitting down on the bed next to Blake. Her heart broke at how Blake curled into her instinctively, clutching at her Atlas Academy-issued shirt like Yang would disappear if she let go. “What’s wrong?”

Blake wiped at her eyes harshly, sniffling. “I’m sorry.” She choked out. “I don’t know why that was so sudden. I just… I haven’t been alone with my thoughts much since him.” That needed no further context. “And I hate how conflicted I am. I’m glad he’s gone, glad that he can’t hurt me or you or anybody else anymore. But I’m sad that it ever came to the point where we needed to do that.

“I did care for him, at some point. He was never the person I thought he was, that I thought I cared about, but I did. So much of my life involved him and now he’s gone. And I hate that I feel any sort of remorse or any sort of sadness about him being gone.” Blake’s hands take Yang’s metal one, clutching it to her chest just like she did back at Brunswick Farms.

“He did unspeakable things, he hurt you.” Blake chokes over the word you, undoubtedly thinking back to the fall of Beacon. “But at what point he was the only person I had. So I guess I’m just mourning who I thought he was, who I wish he was.”

“It’s okay to mourn him, Blake. The way he treated you is inexcusable, and the things he did are horrible, but it doesn’t mean you’re evil for wishing things had turned out different.” She used her left hand to reach up and gently wipe some of Blake’s tears away, her hand then moving to cup the girl’s cheek.

“But you’ll move on. You won’t always feel this guilt about what happened. I mean, you already seem more free and happy than you did when he was still alive. That’s saying something. You can acknowledge that he meant something to you at one point while still realizing that he hurt the people that mean something to you now.”

Blake sniffled again. “He made me think that he could give me the freedom I wanted, and I ate that up. I wanted to make a change in the world and I thought that he could help me do that.” Blake’s hand moved up to rest over Yang’s, still cradling her jaw.

“I wanted a home, I wanted to feel needed and important. I realized soon after that I wouldn’t get that with him, and I feared I never would, but then I met you and Ruby and Weiss. And I was home.

“All I’ve ever wanted was a place to belong. Somewhere I could call home. And you gave me that. Because you are my home.”

Yang’s heart fluttered at the words, and she could feel her face heating up. Blake blushed, but continued. “You’re everything I thought Adam was, and that terrified me at first because I didn’t want to risk a repeat of what happened with him. But after the fall of Beacon, I realized that you’re nothing like him. Adam wouldn’t have done what you did for me for anybody, especially not me. Gods, he was the one doing it to me in the first place.”

Blake wiped at her eyes again, now dry. She leaned her head into Yang’s touch, almost nuzzling her hand, and Yang felt a surge of love for her partner shoot through her. “You’re mine, too.” She said, quickly adding, “My home, I mean. My home life was so complicated that I sort of just drifted around for a while with Ruby as the only constant in my life. Then I met you.

“And yeah, you left, and I struggled with that for a while even after you came back. But that’s the important part right there, you came back. And you’re not gonna leave again, I know that now.”

Yang leaned forward, her forehead resting against Blake’s, just like back at the waterfall. “So don’t feel bad for feeling the way you feel, especially on my account. I know how you handle guilt.” Before Blake could protest, Yang continued. “But I’ll be right here, helping you every step of the way. We’re in this together, Blake. You’re not alone anymore. So please, don’t ever be afraid to come to me with what you’re feeling, because I’ll never judge you for any of it.”

Blake started crying again, this time tears of happiness. She pulled away so she could throw herself at Yang, pulling her into a tight hug as she buried her face in the crook of Yang’s neck. Yang smiled softly, stroking Blake’s hair comfortingly as her partner clung to her.

They still had a long way to go before they’d ever get over everything Adam had put them through. But they were there, and he wasn’t. And they were together, which was the most important part of all.

[littlemisssquiggles]

Sooo….about that RWBY RTX At Home Panel…

Hello all you happy people and members of the RWBY FNDM community, it’s your friendly neighbourhood squiggle meister here. Assuming that some of you folks weren’t able to attend the RWBY RTX At Home Panel, not to worry, here’s a quick summary of some of the more important details from the panel:

Let’s get the big one out of the way. RWBY Volume 8 is (hopefully) set to premiere November 7th, 2020 with a total of 14 episodes. It is also said that Volumes 8 and 9 are supposed to flow directly into each other much like how Volume 8 is taking place directly from where the last season left off.

A trailer was previewed during the panel. Hopefully it will be released on the official RT YouTube, much like the RVB Zero trailer that debuted yesterday.

The JNPR Anthology is still in the works and unlike the RWBY Anthology books which had one book dedicated to each member of Team RWBY, it seems that JNPR’s will be shared---so a book dedicated to the whole team as to opposed to each individual member.

A new RWBY videogame is said to be in the works as part of a collaboration between Roosterteeth, Wayforward and Arc System’s Works. According to the panel, the timeline for the game’s story setting is hinted to be set somewhere between the events of Volume 7. The game will be available for both PC and console with a release date estimated for some time next year 2021.

During the Q&A Panel, one fan asked for more character birthday reveals and we got the birthdays for the remaining members of Team RWBY. So according to the panel, Weiss’ birthday is May 15th, Blake’s birthday is January 19th and finally Yang’s birthday is July 28th. So all the members of RWBY’s birthdays have officially been revealed. (A moment of silence for us Pineheads who have been itching for Oscar’s birthday to be revealed).

According to RWBY showrunner: Kerry Shawcross---there will be many hugs throughout Volume 8 and one of them was even teased during the trailer---a hug between Ruby and Penny for all the Nuts and Dolts fans.

A JNPR Expansion Pack for the RWBY Combat Ready Board Game is set to be released soon.

In terms of merchandise:

Yang’s V7 bomber jacket will be available for purchase in the RT store along with Penny Polendina and Neopolitan hoodies with some RWBY pins.

There will Nendoroid dolls and Geeki Tikki mugs of Team RWBY

Ruby and Weiss have new figurines.

Eddy talked about the RWBY Fairytales of Remnant book that was released recently and mentioned that it will talked more at the Scholastic RTX Panel (I believe)

It was also announced that RWBY will have its own brand of coffee---I didn’t quite catch the exact name but I believe it’ll be called “King’s Coast Coffee”and it was also mentioned by Eddy Rivas that the coffee blend will make a cameo in a future episode of RWBY.

 And that’s pretty much all that I gathered from the panel.

 ~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

[aknolan]

OK..as a huge shipper who loves N&D to death, looking at all the hugs and stuff isn't QUITE enough for me to start freaking out for me the only patern to romance is Ruby that I can see is of there is a song that eludes to it, its pretty much Canon or going to be...so before I can fully get excited I really hope we get a song last episode or I'm gonna be even more conflicted, we got so much to go on and yet their is still that part of me that says wait, clam down ..how do you have so much confidence ahhh!

Anon, I am glad you asked! First off, do note that I am not a first member so if something happens in the finale please don’t tell me.

Another important thing to know here is also that I’m not really 100% confident N&D will be canon. I might be wrong! But I am fairly confident, and since you’ve given me an excuse I’m going to talk about why.

First off, songs are great and a song about them would be a pretty strong confirmation, but I don’t think a song is necessary. I never really paid attention to the soundtrack, but so far with Arkos, Renora, and the Bees my predictions for canon pairings have been 100% correct.

For Nuts and Dolts, I’m guessing I don’t need to tell you about the number of hugs (8, as of v8c12) or significant handholding moments (3, as of v8c11), but I still want to point out that this is a very high number! This is not typical of friendships in rwby.

And this also means that as of v8c12, they’ve hugged in every episode of volume 8 where they were both conscious and within hugging range.

But that’s all kind of besides the point, because hugs don’t translate to romance very easily.

What really makes me feel so confident in Nuts and Dolts comes down to three factors.

-

First of all is the fact that Penny often takes on a very typical Love Interest role.

In v7 she gets a lot of Love Interest framing. There’s the heartfelt reunion where the creators put in extra effort to make the Love Interest as appealing as possible. A tense fight scene against Grimm is completely taken over when Penny swoops in to save the day.

The tense music changes to Penny’s more pleasant music, we only watch what she does, and everything about the scene screams “love her, be happy she’s back”. She even gets to twirl around in the sky, lit by the moon, and then she sighs happily at a job well done.

The v7 intro also shows her framed very much like a Love Interest.

She shows up at the end of the phrase “through love your power just shines”, the animation of her movements is clearly meant to make us think she’s adorable, and the background is entirely white. Or rather, silver.

It’s curious timing to show her at the end of a phrase that refers to Ruby’s love-fuelled power, and even more curious to show her with a background that looks like Ruby’s activated said love-fuelled power.

It’s some very strong Love Interest framing.

Volume 8 goes past the framing, and instead puts Penny in a love interest role.

To be specific, after chapter 5 she becomes a Damsel In Distress. A role which is generally filled by the Love Interest. And to be clear, this is a case of her being a well written Damsel In Distress, she’s not a cardboard cut out waiting for Ruby to come save her.

However, as a Damsel In Distress Penny can’t save herself. She needs help.

First is Dark, where the hound knocks her out immediately because she can’t fight back. Ruby uses her silver eyes to save Penny.

(Sidenote: in this episode they also call attention to Ruby’s difficulties using the silver eyes and then have her use them easily when Penny is in danger. It maybe have gone the exact same with someone else there, but as a writer if you’ve got a chance to put the Love Interest in this position, you’re putting the Love Interest in this position.)

Then there’s chapter 11, where Penny gives up. She thinks there’s no outcome where she survives. And although saving her here is absolutely a group effort, it’s Ruby who figures out the temporary solution of Jaune boosting her aura.

Finally chapter 12… again, a group effort. But Ruby is the one who takes the staff, the one who makes the request to Ambrosius, and the one who talks him through most of it.

Three times, Penny needs to be saved. Three times she’s a Damsel In Distress. And all three times, Ruby plays the biggest role in saving her. This is what I would call Peak Love Interest Behaviour.

-

The second factor is the building intensity in their relationship. The build-up has to go somewhere, and I haven’t seen any alternatives to romance other than “Penny dies” which. Isn’t happening. Penny is not dying, I am as certain of this as I am certain that there are four maidens.

In volume 7 this build-up isn’t very clear. They’re still reconnecting, and Penny is still in the Atlas Military. Volume 8 though?

First Ruby helps Penny when Ironwood tries to manipulate her. Then in chapter 2, the manipulation still bothers Penny and Ruby reassures her she did the right thing. There’s already some build-up here.

Then comes chapter 3. It brings us Ruby whispering a promise to Penny, and a long, lingering hug. That’s a little intense!

But it doesn’t compare to the intensity of chapter 11. When Penny asks Ruby to kill her, and essentially tells her she’ll be in Penny’s final thoughts. The complete and total trust Penny has, the emotional weight that this has, the total confidence that Penny will be able to keep Ruby in her thoughts as she’s fighting a virus that’s probably interrupting her thoughts quite a bit.

Chapter 12 is less intense, but no less significant. Ruby is terrified that she might lose Penny. They use the staff to save Penny. The first thing Penny feels is Ruby’s hand on her shoulder, the first thing she does is hug Ruby. And she does so by deliberately crouching down to place her head on Ruby’s chest, which I don’t think we’ve ever seen in rwby before.

This is an incredibly important moment, and while Ruby and Penny’s interactions here aren’t intense, they are significant.

With this increasing intensity and increasing significance in their relationship, there’s a lot of build-up. All of that build-up has to go somewhere, and where does it go if not a relationship of some kind?

-

The last thing, the final nail in the coffin, is that it’s all deliberate.

We see the interactions between Penny and Nora, the writers are clearly trying to integrate her into the group. So if they want to integrate Penny into the group, why keep placing her with Ruby who she already has a strong relationship with?

Why would you have Ruby whisper a promise only for Penny to hear while the others watch in silence, when you could have all of them saying goodbye to Penny? Why would you have Ruby offer the solution in chapter 11, when you could just as easily let Jaune figure it out? And for that matter, why is Ruby constantly clinging to Penny in chapter 11 when that really doesn’t accomplish anything other than keeping Ruby close to Penny?

And finally in chapter 12, why would you exclusively focus on Ruby’s concern for Penny, have her walk forward by herself, have all of this be entirely about Ruby and Penny, when you could use a group hug to show that Penny is part of the group and they’re all glad she’s safe?

There’s no need to keep placing Ruby and Penny together, and in fact if they’re not trying to build their relationship towards something it would be better to let Penny talk to other characters.

But they keep choosing to develop Ruby and Penny’s relationship further and further, and I don’t think they’re done yet.

They’re going somewhere with this relationship, and I’m not sure where they even can go other than a relationship.

[queen-ofsunflowers]

If the roles were reversed

So, a while ago I got an ask asking me what would happen if BNHA!Ruby from my RWBY in My Hero AU met her canon counterpart. And that got me thinking about what in RWBY would be different in the AU was reversed -- if the My Hero characters were the ones in the RWBYverse rather than the vice versa.

So, here are a few of the small ideas that I came up with for that out of “why not?”

Tsuyu and Tokoyami are both Faunus. They live on Menagerie.

The “gang back at Signal” Ruby was referring to in V1 are actually Midoriya, Bakugo and Todoroki. They all grew up on Patch together. (And yes, they all call Bakugo “Kacchan”.)

It should be obvious that Midoriya and Bakugo are childhood friends with Ruby and Yang since they grow up on Patch together. Todoroki does too, but it’s only him. He was born in Mistral and ran away shortly after his brother Touya’s “death” and receiving his scar. He managed to sneak aboard a ship and made his way to Vale, where he was found and taken in by Qrow. (Even if he has his own issues, Qrow is a way better parent than Endeavor could hope to be.)

Todoroki’s semblance is different from his Quirk. His semblance only lets him alter temperature rather than generate ice and fire. His weapon (much like Ruby’s, something that is inspiried by his adoptive father) are a pair of kama with a shotgun feature. One uses fire dust and the other ice. They don’t have names yet.

Bakugo’s weapons are mostly his grenade guantlets. How that’s going to work is something that’s up in the air right now. His semblance is also altered from his Quirk. Rather than sweat being the source of his explosions, Bakugo is able to supercharge his Aura on a part of his body to make it explode. He usually does this on the palms of his hands.

Midoriya’s weapon... I want it to reflect his fighting style and analytical prowess. I’ve been thinking of something that’s most likely a mix of the guantlets from Assassin’s Creed and something similar to Mercuyr’s boots. Whether he just hasn’t unlocked his semblance or flat out doesn’t have one is unknown.

Because of age, there are only two teams that have been made in this AU so far, both from Beacon: Team TAYN (Mirio Togata, Tamaki Amajiki, Yuyu Haya, Nejire Hadou) and Team SHOT (Shouta Aizawa, Hizashi Yamada, Oboro Shirakumo, Tensei Iida).

That being said, Mirio gets heavily injured during the Fall of Beacon. He lives, but he’s one of the students who took the heaviest hits. Tamaki is the second most injuried on the team (not as bad as Mirio), and Yuyu and Nejire are primarily fine at the end of it all, with Nejire only having a few bruises.

Shirakumo, unlike his My Hero counterpart, actually survives the building falling on him due to his Aura, even though it breaks when it happens. His weapon so far is a staff.

Aizawa’s weapon is going to have something to do with his capture weapon. His semblance is mostly the same as his Quirk.

Team SHOT is a usual sight around the Xiao Long-Rose home. Aizawa and Qrow's relationship never took a nose dive in this universe (at least not as bad or as long as it is in the My Hero-verse), so Ruby grew up with those four as honorary uncles, too.

When it comes to V4 and V5, the remaining members of JNPR are replaced by Bakugo, Midoriya and Todoroki. They go to Mistral with Ruby rather than Jaune, Nora and Ren. They stay behind with Yang and show up with her and Weiss later on in V5.

Because of the above change, RNJR becomes RISK (though Bakugo insists it he should be the leader, leading to Izuku and Shouto teasing him over possible team names such as KISR). There's also team YARN (yang, jaune, ren and nora). ...I suck at team names, give me a break--

All for One dies decades ago, which results in a lot of relationships being different. Older brother Tenko Shimura is one thing (adopted by Inko after finding him on the streets). All Might's injury is caused by Salem rather than AfO.

Because JNR is not going with Ruby to Mistral, V4 is changed the most. Yang has her friends added to her support system (and vice versa, Ren still goes through his issues, just in another way that I have yet to figure out). And the nuckelavee fight never happens. Well... sort of. The nuckelavee does confront RISK but is killed by another Huntsman -- that one being Endeavor, who recognizes Shouto. This leads to the fight not being against the Grimm but against Endeavor as the others try to keep him from taking Shouto away from them and back somewhere where he was miserable and in danger. (And Shouto going off on Endeavor in the best way possible).

It ends when the airships arrive, as they do in canon, and see a huntsman fighting a bunch of kids. In the end, Endeavor gets arrested for assaulting minors, RISK gets a ride to Mistral and Qrow gets some help.

Thanks to Tensei, Tenya and Ruby are pen pals growing up. They lose touch with each other after the Fall of Beacon, however, due to the tower falling and Ruby being on her mission to Mistral. They only really meet face-to-face during Volume 7.

Ochako is also from Atlas, or rather she’s from Mantle and is a Happy Huntress-in-training (at least until shit hits the fan at the end of V7 and becomes official). Haven’t figured out a weapon for her, but her semblance lets her transfer a bit of her Aura into something/someone to temporarily make it float. The more Aura, the higher it can go.

The Iida family are major benefactors in Mantle. They care about the place and want to see it flourish like Atlas (especially since Mantle is where their family got their start). After the election, Tensei openly admits he wants to punch Jacques Schnee in the face.

Midoriya gets shot off of Atlas with Oscar (went with him for backup). If given the opportunity, Toshinori (who has trained Midoriya prior to him fucking off to Mistral) will punch Ironwood in the face.

And that’s all I really got for this so far. I’m not sure if it will go any further than this, since this was just a random “what if I went the other way” with the RWBY in My Hero AU.

[onewomancitadel]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHH

god that was...unexpected. I immediately thought “DAMN.” When I saw this. Getting recognition on YouTube!

This is my little den of iniquity and seeing it mentioned somewhere else I'm like *sweats* but yay thanks to that person for liking what I've written from the sounds of it and reccing my fic in the wild lol.

Though based on what the person said about RT 'butchering' it - well to be frank it's not like you see it as a popular theory, no? But there are things which have been unpopular, or unexpected, that I've managed to predict. In fact, even with Miles Luna's work on RVB, so I think my storytelling instincts for him are quite good.

I wouldn't like to go overly into detail and sound smug and self-satisfied, but there are a great deal many things I've got right which have been a source of surprise and shock in fandom. The most satisfying narrative experience is coming to know a story in execution, and intelligibility of narrative is important, and I wish more stories embraced this - I mean, even the thing which 'started' this trend (Game of Thrones), the source material isn't meant to be intentionally cruel. It has its own internal story rules, and when you familiarise yourself with it, you can understand why it does what it does.

I also like to think now I'm better at reading stories than I was a few years ago, and I have more tools up my sleeve and I also better know how they're applied. I don't overrely on Jung or Campbell, but they are useful analysis tools, and it's very clear R/WBY is playing with the former at the minimum.

I also think that a lot of people, as I've said before, underestimate the importance of the R/WBY fairytales. In some way Salem/Ozma will be resolved, but with the poetic storytelling in R/WBY it's very plain and clear it's being resolved through the younger generation currently. They sort of beat you over the head with the poetry, actually - quoth Penny, 'It'll be just like Beacon!' in V7. But that has to be resolved and changed in some way later in the story.

So it's sort of weird how you have Cinder/Jaune who can do exactly that and seem to have some exact setup with the last Relic which also happens to almost definitely take place near a Tower just like Salem/Ozma, like it's weird. It's weird isn't it.

I don't expect RT to butcher it because I'm just following what they're doing with the story, if they decide to turn around and fuck it that would be odd. As I've said before, I actually think they've got a lot of things right (I mean you can see a few of the asks I've had from some users on here about Penny, Pyrrha, to a degree Ironwood etc.)...... sooooooooo just saying

I'm not trying to be overconfident - and I mean, if you've followed my blog for a while you know confidence is something I really struggle with - but I'm trying just to be truthful about how I read R/WBY, how I've historically read it, and how like, yeah, other people in fandom are wrong sometimes, so am I, but the way this all neatly lines up is much, much too conspicuous to me. I also think Knightfall will probably end up shocking at first to half the audience but there's a way to do it right. As I've talked about.

Maybe more than half the audience, but it's not the path you take if you're trying to appease everybody - that type of fanservice would just be putting Jaune back with Pyrrha and giving him a gun.

Anyway thank you for bringing this to my attention and thanks to that commenter for mentioning my fic lol. <3

[im-the-king-of-the-ocean]

The Romancing of Ruby Rose - Act 1 Preview

Full disclosure, this isn’t a completed version of what I want it to be.  I’m just having trouble progressing the story forward, and figured putting it out there to see what the response is may help (so, if you want more, pls let me know :D)

(I also kinda wanted to show proof of concept for this fic somewhere on my blog since, other than me saying as much, it practically hasn’t existed in a shared format before now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just want something substantial to publicly back the claim of its existence)

anyways, a while ago now @misstrashchan sent me a couple of Bright Eyes asks.  Because I’m a disorganized chaos heap in a trench coat, I no longer have the original asks (but I did screenshot them in a post here).  This fic will roughly combine those asks into a single narrative where Oscar, Penny, and Ruby clumsily figure out that they’re in love with each other.  Eventually.

It will be three chapters.  One from each character’s POV.  The first one, previewed below, is Oscar’s, and will cover his crush on Ruby (and his currently unrecognized crush on Penny).

*the fic takes place vaguely in V7, so no new episode spoilers really.

.

I fell in love with her the moment I saw her silver eyes.

A shiver runs up Oscar’s spine.  He stares at the last line of the story, as if the intensity of his gaze will make it change to something else entirely.  His stomach twists uncomfortably into knots.  Oscar can imagine, far too easily, what it feels like to fall in love with a silver-eyed person.  The way one’s heart skips a beat.  The rush of heady emotions.

He’d chosen to read this book of fairytales to forget about his problems for an hour or two (and maybe find a deeper understanding of Ozpin along the way, since it was Oz who collected the stories for the book once upon a time).  Not to be reminded of his woes.

Oscar sighs.  He closes the book with a light thump, tosses it to the side, lies on his back, and stares at the ceiling.  When they were first getting settled, Jaune had given him the choice of top or bottom bunk in their Atlas dorm room.  Oscar chose the top.  It gave him a little more privacy, distance, from his teammates.  Oscar likes Jaune, Nora, and Ren, they’ve become his friends, but they can be a bit much at times too.

There are times, like now, where Oscar enjoys being able to think without being asked what he’s thinking about.  He’s not quite sure how that conversation would go, and he’s not eager to find out.  There are far more important things they need to focus on than something as insignificant as a puppyish crush.  He never even considered romance an option before leaving his aunt’s farm.  He shouldn’t now.

Because, because it doesn’t matter how he feels about Ruby.  Not in the slightest.  Ruby doesn’t feel the same way about him.  He doesn’t make her heart race.  She doesn’t smile softly, tenderly at him.  Not like she does at…

Oscar rolls over and groans into his pillow.  It would be much easier to endure if it were literally anyone else who managed to gain Ruby’s affection.  Literally.  Anyone.  Else.  ANYONE.

Other than Penny Polendina.

Oscar hadn’t known her before, at Beacon, like everyone else had.  After talking to them, he found out Jaune, Nora, and Ren hadn’t known Penny too well either back then.  She’d been closer to Team RWBY, and especially Ruby.  Oscar had wondered, after witnessing how Penny and Ruby just looked at each other, if there’d been something more between them back at Beacon.  He’d asked.  His three teammates looked between themselves and admitted they didn’t actually know.

Although JNPR and RWBY were close in their academy days, some things still didn’t leave their respective teams, Jaune explained.  It wasn’t until after the Fall that they’d learned that Ruby had known Penny’s true nature for quite some time before the tragedy in the arena, for instance.  They kept their own secrets too.  Ren and Nora had revealed their past to Jaune, and their late teammate, Pyrrha, but not to RWBY.

(Pyrrha Nikos, for the record, remains an entirely separate topic Oscar isn’t sure how to think about.  He knows none of his friends consider his her replacement on Team JNPR.  Even though his name technically has a ‘P’ in it and Ironwood was more than willing to register him as the new fourth member of JNPR in Atlas’s databases, they’d instead insisted on calling themselves ORNJ.  It causes some confusion since Jaune is still the team leader, but, for them, it works.  Both to represent who they are now and keep the memory of who they were then in tact.)

Back to the point, if there were anyone (outside of Ruby), to choose to have a crush on, Oscar completely understands why Penny would be that choice.  She’s like no one else he’s ever met, and not just because of the robot thing.  Okay, yeah, the fact she can fly is pretty cool.  But, more than that, she’s sweet.  She’s one of the most kind-hearted souls he’s ever met.  

Most importantly, Penny doesn’t see Oscar as just the boy who’d tagged along with her actual friends because their old headmaster had taken up residence in his head.  She sees him as a potential new friend in his own right.  She’s gone out of her way to make him feel welcome in Atlas.  She didn’t really have to do that.  Especially not when she’s so busy herself being Protector of an entire city.

It makes it impossible to dislike her.  And really, it’s flat out unfair to dislike someone just because the person you happen to have a crush on has a crush on them anyway.

A part of Oscar wishes he did dislike Penny.  That part of him is convinced that, if he were just to channel all his heartbreak over not being the one to catch Ruby’s eye into negative emotions for her, it would be easier to cope.  Every other part of him knows it wouldn’t be.  Not truly.  Not in any way that counts.

[marithlizard]

Impressions of RWBY v8c7, “War”

Will Winter act on her conscience?  Will Yang deck someone?  Will they deserve it?  How annoyed/depressed/horrified will I be 18 minutes and 50 seconds from now?

Farm fields?  Somehow I'd thought of the floating city as having only greenhouse-type agriculture.  Is there a heating grid underneath the fields, or something else clever?  (And, now that I think of it, does Mantle have food production of its own?  We'll probably never learn.)

Hooooly....    That is something.  That is "Sauron could take notes for his next invasion of Gondor" levels of something.

I never thought about the whale being used in actual combat - it's  terrifying enough as a floating fortress and symbol.  But Atlas is just a platform in the air. It doesn't have to land,  it can just sort of wriggle itself onto the edge.

The human soldiers standing there facing this deserve more recognition than they will ever get.    Not all valor belongs to small teams of elite heroes.

Apathy spotted. They're not fast or strong but  oh duh they are perfect frontline forces against a human army, aren't they?

Ironwood, you should've evacuated the entire city to shelters hours ago.  I hope you thought to prepare the subways for hundreds of thousands of refugees for an indefinite period of time.  But then you never thought  you'd be facing this, did you. You expected to recover Penny and raise the city and that Grimm somehow wouldn’t be able to fly that high. 

Obviously the soldier protesting that order has not actually looked outside and seen what's happening.   Which means most of the civilians haven't either.  They are not prepared for a sudden evacuation order and they're going to resist way more than the Mantle citizens did.  In a less doomed situation it'd be satisfying to think of all those Schnee party guests stuffed into a dark subway tunnel.  

Look, I've always seen the limitations of Ironwood's chess-game perspective.  And I'm certainly not on the side of a cartoonishly evil dictator who shoots unarmed people when they disagree with him.  But just now preserving the relic looks like both the ultimate priority and maybe the only achievable goal.

...okay, they're not resisting.  Grimm overhead are very convincing.

A suicide  bomb attack into the mouth of the whale makes logical sense. And Winter won't hesitate to carry it herself.   She's certainly not going to hesitate because Oscar is in there.  Tbh if I thought it would actually work, I wouldn't either - Oscar and Oz wouldn't put their own life over a city full of civilians.

Salem gracefully conducting her army like an orchestra.  Emerald has reached her limit for atrocities.  Beautifully constructed shots here.

SALEM DEATHWISH THEORY CONFIRMED. Oz has known all along. And horribly, I think he's being sincere when he agrees with Hazel that he deserves to be tortured like this.  

(Is that where we're going with the endgame?  The gods are summoned, realize Salem expects them to destroy the world and finally kill her, and say "Nah"? )

Oh, Nora.

I guess there's no point in the Manor occupants evacuating.  At this rate it would only buy Whitley, Willow and the servants a matter of hours.

Weiss,  Vacuo is halfway across the world - even if they sent an army it wouldn't get here in time.  Forces from Argus led by Cordo, now that might happen.  Though I don't know if they could make a difference.  What can take out that whale?   SEW is all I can think of.

Yeah, that's the problem isn't it?  All the heroic good will in the world only lets you make a last stand in one place.   And no  matter which you choose you're abandoning someone else.  Only in shoujo anime do sparkly love powers allow you to transcend that limitation.

Trans pride statement from May!

Whitley!  Okay, he's going to do something to help, and Weiss had better recognize him for it.

Oooooooooh.  Oz trusts Oscar,  Oscar trusts Hazel, and now both Hazel and Emerald have Jinn's name.  Who will use it, and to ask what?

That moment when you realize that Tyrian has had more common sense than you all along. That moment's embarrassing.

Now, how much of all this did that Grimm in the ceiling hear?  Was that the Hound?  I think perhaps it was.

A nod between Mercury and Emerald. He gets it.  And they were saying goodbye.  *sob*

Good job, Jaune!  Make it to her practical benefit to do what you want.  That's how you diplomacy.

"Like Marrow replaced Ortuga, and Winter replaced-"  Ow OW.   Harriet has the most depressingly mechanistic outlook on life ever.  Everyone's a cog, including herself.

Ren's panic and resentment haven't wiped out his understanding and perception.  And ...what *is* that?   Those petals?    Is Ren's semblance evolving?

This is what was being hinted at back in v7, isn't it.  In episode 1 when he sensed the Ace Ops about to attack, and then later that odd little moment in the training room.   Ren can detect as well as mask emotions now. Nice!

So Winter doesn't intend to make her own attack a suicide run. But how else does she think she can get the bomb deep enough inside to count?   TBH if I were her, I'd put the bomb on a timer and make JRY  *carry* it in.  They'll be in the best position to put it somewhere vulnerable.   It's not like they really have time for this "test run" idea anyway.

Qrow in his jail cell, mumbling resentfully about making Ironwood pay, seems so completely irrelevant to the plot right now. I think the writers just don't know what to do with him. :(

KLEIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KLEIN IS HERE TO SAVE THE DAY HE HAS MEDICAL SKILLS

Whitley called him, didn't he.   Now I am  happy, however briefly.

Well,  THAT is not who I expected to finish out the episode with.  

18:50 later,  I'm not very annoyed, and not as depressed and horrified as I probably should be. There are certainly worse cliffs to leave us dangling off for the next 7 weeks or so.

[its-a-branwen-thing]

The Next Steps

One of the closing shots of this volume captured my attention in that it directly parallels the closing shot of V6 and the opening of V7:

Here they’re entering Atlas at night and, although equal parts intimidating and exciting in the “Manta 5, welcome home”, it doesn’t seem unfriendly at first. We know Atlas relatively well. It isn’t until we progress further into the volume that we realize how dire the situation is, and then how much direr it gets. So I have some theories as to the next steps. My disclaimer is that these are always for fun:)

So with Salem arriving at Atlas, it isn’t possible that our team is running away, is it? They aren’t going down to Mantle or it would likely be a more direct route, right? I had an inkling that they might flee entirely, but I feel like that’d too directly undermine the message of not abandoning people no matter what. Because they always wanted to stand their ground. I find it much likelier that they’re going to seek shelter in the dust mines or in the crater where, presumably, Oscar and a newly present Ozpin are.

The Atlas arc is going to carry us into V8. It has to. (Unless, once again, CRWBY subverts our expectations). It might even carry into V9. But what feels so absolutely terrifying about this conclusion is that Salem is there. She really showed up! I used to think she couldn’t leave the dark continent for...plot convenient purposes but that’s now officially out the door. So what are her next plans? Because this feels like the endgame, and I highly doubt it is.

Atlas Defense Systems

“But, with the staff we have a constant, seemingly limitless energy source.”

Salem could so easily ram the city of Atlas with Big Chungus the whale Grimm and overrun it with the army she’s brought along. Not to mention she has two (three...with Neo?) agents inside of Atlas, and one now presumably in Mantle. It feels too much like an instant checkmate. But Ironwood also has the staff of creation that, while not manipulable at the moment, he might have had fail safes around. Maybe the Kingdom of Atlas, and not Mantle, can be protected by a hard dust shield that’s powered using whatever energy connection utilizes the staff to create Atlas’s flotation. If Ironwood can erect an impenetrable shield around the city, he can stall against Salem long enough to attempt to secure the maiden (if Winter tells him it’s Penny) or else keep the relic, at least for now, out of Salem’s reach until he can formulate an alternative plan. But I think too--why wouldn’t he just do this at the start? Instead of raising Atlas up as a last ditch effort, why not just hold out, like Ruby and Blake suggest, behind the shield until they finish the tower or form a different plan? Mantle was to be the sacrifice either way. And to that I say--this would be Ironwood’s last ditch’s last ditch.

He wanted to raise Atlas in order to keep the relic from Salem forever, in his thinking. Not just temporarily. And this shield solution, however impenetrable, would be temporary. Even if Ironwood revealed he could do it this season and hold out for more time to raise Amity, he’s probably thinking they wouldn’t even be able to get to Amity through her overwhelming forces. So it would fail. Or maybe he creates the solution on the spot, after realizing he could? Or he never did it before because Mantle would be unprotected and that, before his fall, was unthinkable? IDK!

I think, if this is how they go about it, Salem will be forced to lay siege to Mantle instead, and Ironwood will look down at the destruction as he’s slowly driven more and more into a corner. It could make him colder, more erratic, more unstable. It could make him able to change. Who knows! I just have a cool vision of him looking down at his city from his office, his look more haggard than now, flinching as the door opens at his back and one of his team enters, quietly, fearful of sparking his anger, to talk to him.

But I think next season will see Salem trying to secure the relic on her own, by utilizing Cinder, Neo, Em, Merc, and Hazel too, (with Watts and Tyrian as wild cards) so that she can unlock the Vault, secure the relic, and bring down Atlas.

I think our Atlesians will see less action next season. They’ll be trapped in their city. It’ll be Mantle fighting the Grimm. And it’ll be Mantle losing. Again.

Amity

The Amity Communications Tower is now repurposed, unfinished, and lying presumably vacant somewhere in...the tundra? I’m not sure exactly where the coliseum is, but the launch site was to be a collapsed dust mine. We know Watts and Ironwood fought there. We know Ironwood brought Watts back to Atlas. So if the tower is indeed on the ground, defunct, what better way to attempt Ironwood’s original plan than a group of ragtag heroes, and one very renowned Atlesian scientist, attempting to get the tower off the ground once more without Salem even thinking they’ll be a threat? It was partially done, why couldn’t it be finished now? Because all of Salem’s focus will be on Atlas. And with her concerns all there, these lose pieces won’t mean anything to her.

While Salem is occupying her time laying siege to Atlas and Mantle, team RWBYJNRMP and, hopefully, an eventual Oscar after some alone time for reflection, will see to its completion. And using it, they’ll call Vacuo for help. By the time Salem sees that the tower’s being raised, Ironwood will realize what’s happened and send his now hopefully rested military to fight her, head on, so that she will have two fronts to contend with. Redirecting forces away to attack the tower, or focusing them on crushing a now offensive and unified Atlesian military?

This is a totally out there theory, but it’s super fun to craft these things! I think if Ironwood sees that the very people he doubted, the very people he refused to trust and consult with, are acting of their own accord, putting their lives on the line, to save them all, I think he’ll act. And I’ll think he’ll fight this time. Against Salem. They all will, because there will be no other choice. It’ll be a desperate, last battle on all fronts. And it will be awesome.

What About Poor Mantle?

Well, I mean, I think the odds are already looking pretty...Grimm? (I’m sorry!) But in all seriousness, Mantle is already under attack. It’s already been breached. If anything, Mantle already fell this volume in the figurative sense. And not nearly everyone was or will be evacuated. Which makes the imminence of Salem’s arrival and Ironwood’s subsequent, as my theory goes, abandoning of Mantle again, all the more pressing for our heroes to find a solution fast. I think the people of Mantle will hunker down, go into hiding, as the Grimm comb the city streets. I think the Happy Huntresses will help protect as much as they can before realizing they can’t possibly win and going into hiding somewhere. Sewers were an established thing, right?

If this holds true, than by the end of the volume, depending on how fast and over how much time it takes place (if they want to launch the tower, days, if they want to do something else...weeks?) all of our disparate parties will be coming together and Vacuo, in a final, climactic scene, will be contacted. And I think that’d be an amazing ending. A fight for the life of Atlas, Mantle, and the Kingdom itself, and the final kicker being that Vacuo is now on the way and the maiden, whoever she is, with the relic of destruction, is ready to use it.

Unless my weird inkling that time manipulation is somehow involved as they reference the time line, like, a lot, and time dilation is totally a thing as Weiss has done it before with Blake in V2.

Anywho thank you to anyone who reads and enjoys these! :) I love making them, especially when they miss the mark (so, always haha).

[npmjs]

npm v7 Series - Introduction

>> Arborist Deep Dive

Quite a lot has happened in npm since our last update way back in 2019. We're overdue for a status update on npm v7.

Despite some massive distracting changes (some unfortunate, some very fortunate), development work has been proceeding steadily.

Yesterday, Edward Thomson presented a demo of a few of the features coming in npm v7 at GitHub Satellite. The Q&A session was awesome, and it was clear that a lot of you are excited for this update to the npm CLI, and have a lot of questions that unfortunately couldn't be adequately answered in such a short time.

This post started as a brief update on what we've been doing, intended to go live along with the talk, but it got long. So, instead, this is the first post, with more to come, where I take you all through some of the major changes coming in npm v7, the thinking and motivation behind them, and how they might affect you and your work.

Vision

npm v7 is based on a handful of technical and user experience principles, and each post in this series will tie back to one or more of these in some way.

Reduce noise that is not actionable. Or, in other words "make npm yell at you less". We've gone through the entire project from the data management to the presentation layers, stripping output that doesn't provide worthwhile information.

Manage your packages for you. There are a handful of places in npm where v6 and earlier versions sort of throw up their hands and make you fix stuff by yourself. But npm is a package manager! It shouldn't make you manage packages, that's its job!

Strict separation of concerns. Moving forward, the npm CLI itself is becoming strictly the user-interface layer, and we've moved out all complex tree management and registry interactions to @npmcli/arborist, pacote, and the various libnpm* modules.

Be as fast as possible while behaving correctly. The key to fast software is to do as little as possible, including doing as little waiting as possible. From the refactor to use Minipass streams to refactoring out a decade's worth of compatibility fixes for long-dead Node.js versions, npm v7 is leaner and faster because it's lazier.

If we know the right thing to do, let's not yell at you to do it. Let's just do it for you, and do it all the way the first time. That's what npm loves you means. It means taking care of you and your project like a good and faithful assistant, only troubling you to get involved when absolutely necessary.

Coming Attractions

In the coming npm v7 posts, we'll cover:

A deep dive on Arborist, the tree management and analysis utility that does a lot of heavy lifting in npm v7.

Updates and impacts from some of the major refactoring that's happened in the npm CLI dependency stack over the last year.

Automatically installing peerDependencies: why, how, and what you might want to be aware of.

Improvements to the performance, effectiveness, and UI of npm audit.

Updates to the package-lock.json format, added handling for yarn.lock files, and why we are going to keep using package-lock.json.

Support for acceptDependencies

Changes to how npm handles install scripts (RFC0021 RFC0022 and RFC0024)

Fixing the "noisy chokidar/fsevents" problem, and how this is related to npm fund.

Updates to permission handling while running as root.

Dropping the --depth config in npm update and npm outdated.

Changes to config options (especially, config options that determine what gets installed).

Improvements to the handling of "files" in package.json.

Workspaces

Overrides

Staged publishes

And, presumably, updates about the beta and eventual GA releases, because this is going to take a minute :)

RFC Process

The npm CLI team has been running an open RFC process for the last several months now, and the impact on our development process has been great.

Usually, writing the code is the easy part. The hard part is all the thinking and talking that goes into making sure we're writing code for a feature that users will benefit from, and that we've explored the edge cases well enough to be confident we're not overlooking something important.

If you're interested in getting involved with npm's design process, we want you to participate! Building something like this is a team effort, and we all benefit from getting a broad range of perspectives from our community.

Is there something that you really wish npm would do, or do differently, or stop doing? Head over to npm/rfcs and give us a proposal. Obviously the more engaged and thorough you can be, the more easy it'll be for us to get it done, but every great idea has to start somewhere, so don't feel like you have to have all the answers before you begin :)

Thanks!

If there's something you'd like to see covered around npm v7, you can post an issue on the npm/npm-v7-blog repo.

Stay tuned for more from us, and I hope these posts prove to be fun and informative!

>> Arborist Deep Dive

[remnantoforario]

RWBY V7 Ch. 10

Episode 8 was kind of boring, but 9 pulled the nose up. We’ll see if 10 can keep the momentum.

Oh we actually get to see the panic in the streets this time. Good. 

This wouldn’t have been happening if you plugged that wall.

Grimm everywhere? Let me pose.

Elm, marry me please. 

“Why is Ironwood doing anything?!” Sir, there are huntsmen and robots all around the city protecting your ungrateful ass. Take several seats.

I ship it

Ruby, what do you mean “he’s doing it”? HE ALREADY TOLD YOU THIS WAS HIS PLAN WHEN YOU GOT TO ATLAS! If anything you accelerated his timetable because you kept screwing up.

Tyrian and Watts don’t look the least bit bothered

I wonder how many people know what Robyn’s semblance is, otherwise a lot of “why are they holding hands” questions are going to be asked.

A bit late for Jaune to become and ACTUAL leader, but ok.

So can Nora stop being a bitch to Ironwood now? 

Ok, Cinder, 1. How would you know Vacuo was the next target? 2. How are Watts and Tyrian idiots when you were the one who got her ass whopped and sent to the bottom of a lake? 3. Salem has like 8 of ya’ll on pay roll, why didnt she just spread you all out to the different kingdoms instead putting you all one place like a bunch of dominoes ready to fall? You’re the Fall Maiden, your ass should be back in Vale looking for the relic there.

The timeline has changed? SALEM DOESN’T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE OR WHAT YOU’RE DOING! Unless you somehow contacted her...which I doubt because she would have told you to come back or go somewhere else besides Atlas. 

Neo, just stab her please. It’s so easy. She’s right there. 

I’m serious about that marriage thing, Elm.

Still waiting on a drawback for Silver Eyes

Jeez, the people of Mantle flip flop more than the Marvel Universe.

Josh Grelle, I will miss you whenever Tyrian dies

Robyn, I know they try to give you cool things to say...but they fail so hard.

Sorry, guys, Qrow has dibs from V4

It’s a trap!

We’re going to see Watts fight? Wasn’t expecting this at all. 

So this was another good episode. I mean it was just one big fight scene, but there have been a lack of fights this volume so this was a good time to put them in. Watts gets to fight next week, should be interesting.