#to me that always felt like a personal thing between Weiss and Jaune

[todds-rwby-liveblog]

personally refusing to acknowledge that canonically Weiss did tell them that Jaune killed Penny. Everything makes much more sense to me with them not knowing that detail

[solardragun]

v7/v8 made me dislike ruby a lot but v9 made me really side with her. i've been in her shoes, with having to put on a strong happy face for everyone because their problems always seem to be bigger than mine.

but to see yang walk ahead of blake to shield her from ruby really broke me. like?? do you not know your own sister?? do you genuinely think she'd harm her own teammate??

blake doesn’t need protection, and it’s weird how yang tries to shield her like ruby is about to hurt her. i get bumbleby's whole thing is "we're protecting each other"

but that doesn't mean go and protect blake (who has shown she can hold her own in a verbal argument anyway) against your own sister, yang!

sorry for the rant, i just am in shock that this was written and executed this way with no one thinking of how ruby would feel from this. ruby was somehow more effected by jaune's rant (which, while valid, doesn't change the fact that jaune basically held a whole town hostage for 10-20 years) than by yang shielding blake.

i also grew to dislike ruby in v7 and 8 because of her hypocrisy (that got half addressed before dropped) and her attempt to talk down all the adults and take over before making situations way way worse. however i do agree that i also began to sympathize with her in volume 9, and it felt like her actions were finally being addressed while also showing that maybe she isn't suited to be the leader like she and everyone else thought.

the whole yang vs ruby thing angered me. i'm sorry, but YANG? the actual hothead who trashes clubs, assaults grown adults, destroys government property, charges into battle headfirst. that yang? meanwhile ruby is the kindest, sweetest person, who despite being socially anxious, tried her best to make friends and impress others. the kind, quirky girl who loves cool weapons and adores the adults in her life and wants desperately to be like the heroes in fairy tales?

yes, as I addressed, she started fumbling as the weight of the world finally started to get to them, she charged through situations half-baked, thinking she knew what was best because it's what everyone expects of her. but at her heart she's still a kind, simple soul who is meant to see the light in every situation, and yet the moment she started losing sight of that, wondering if she truly made mistakes, the friends that propped her up as the best leader and someone they looked up to, they let her fall.

yang, who grew up with her sister, who knows her inside and out. yang, who went into this FOR ruby, insisted she only took part to make sure her little sister was safe. that same yang turning against that said sister she fought so hard to find is astounding to me. her sister is falling apart at the seams, having panic attacks and an identity crisis and struggling with guilt and shame and the horrifying thought that she made the world worse and helped salem grow closer to victory. and yang instead steps up to defend blake.

ruby has never been a threat, not like this. ruby screaming and crying and having a reasonable and justified meltdown after everything she's been through should not be met with yang putting herself between her sister and girlfriend, nor should it have been brushed aside.

it bothers me because the show and fans insist adamantly that yang is the greatest big sister, but then say that yang doesn't have to always be there for ruby and that she's allowed to make time for blake. nobody said that yang wasn't allowed to spend time with blake, the issue was this. the issue was that yang sensed her own sister as a dangerous threat and stepped between her and blake as if ruby is the one with anger issues who flies off the handle and attacks anyone and anything with said anger. it's ridiculous.

yang sat there while her sister fell apart and did and said nothing beyond limp "are you okay?" the person who actually tried to be there for ruby was weiss, despite the flawed writing of her character. i'll give her credit there. but imagine your team partner trying to comfort you over your own sister who is too busy making googly eyes at her girlfriend or defending said girlfriend against you.

i didn't watch the last two episodes so i'm not gonna touch on that, but yang throughout this volume showed where exactly her priorities lie.

[richardsphere]

Lets watch Ice Queendom cause i got a month of Crunchy-Blog S1E3

Ok before i start the episode, I hope this is where the timelines start to diverge. because duck fammit everything so far has been a rethread. ---- First thing in the episode “redecorating complete”. If i remember right that means we’re probably not diverging stories yet because of course we need the port classroom scene that happens imediatly afterwards. I dont remember ML!Port’s speech, but my gut says there might be a tiny rewrite to hint at things that have since been written into the series lore in more recent seasons. That RT probably didnt have defined in S1 yet. But also his speech is generic enough i might just be imagining it. (that is not a put-down. Generic is not always the same as bad.) Ports face is a lot more angular then i remember. the boarbatusk battle is pretty much identical,  Weiss sees herself.

Im betting that there must at one point have been some of those “Yang is a bad sister” types complaining ML!Yang didnt interfere, and thats why IQ!Blake tells her this is something Ruby has to do herself. Is it me or is the size disparity between IQ! Rose-pin bigger then the ML! equivalent? Could be trying to emphasize Ruby’s youth.  The Port and Ozpin scenes are both still not that great. IQ!Cardins eyebrows are really unsettlingly thick. IQ! Jaune has a neckscar matching Weiss. the Cardin V Jaune scene is entirely offscreen, focussing on the teammates in the stands with some generic “sword vs sword” sounds. (presumeably to save on budget). Personally i think they could have thrown in a few “dustsplosion” sounds to sell the weight of Cardins Mace offscreen. The Pyrha unlocks Jaune’s aura scene is moved to the rooftop where she accidentally told him to “do a flip”. this scene happens AFTER aforementioned Cardin fight. Which features Aurameters that imply its already been unlocked.  Unlocking increases Scarsize. IQ!Weiss is secretly watching Pyrrha and Jaunes rooftop gettogethers. IQ!Weiss takes more then just Port talk to decide to be a good teammate, and instead decides “well if my girlcrush can support the inadequate noodleboy, clearly its a secret test by the school that awards extra credit and Pyrha realised this before I did”. As a result IQ!Weiss attempts to be a good teammate feel somewhat hollow. (also on a note, the whimsical life-threatening bunkbeds remain unchanged) I’ll be honest, im not entirely certain i remember what JNPR’s room normally looks like, but the presence of a dividing curtain in IQ! has been noted. (i dont remember seeing it in cannon, but also it could just be peeled out the way when everyone is awake) We didnt get the sleepover, but the BunnyJamas are here! (also Jaune wont wake up after GhostJaune brambletangled him) Turns out scars are more like Bramble-tattoos.  Only “closest friends” can enter the dream. Presumably because IQ!Jaune and IQ! ruby never had the “first friends” scene, IQ!ruby doesnt go and its IQ!NPR only. Nightmare environment has Carrot-lance wielding bunny-knight statues with the Rabbit logo on the shield. Because IQ was released after S4 and they dont need to hide Jaune’s “true symbol”. Tiny todling Jaune with rabbitears, Im still annoyed they didnt go for “Jaune ascenscion shows his true leporine symbols” in the V9 climax. This was only yesterday so i cant NOT make note that they ACTUALLY MADE HIM A RABBITFAUNUS IN THE SPINOFF.  VINDICATION. if only for this one dreamscene. There’s a dreamphone. Bunny Jaunes ears wilt when sad. We need more Bunny!Jaune. (if only because, having only 1 of the 8 “core” ensemble castmembers be a faunus always felt like a fantasy tokenism-thing) IQ!Glynda mentions that jaune’s aura is underdeveloped This is not a change in the series. (cannonically aura regeneration can be trained, such as shown by them mentioning him starting to regenerate quicker during an Atlas Arc Trainingmontage), but i suspect some people might have thought it goes counter to Pyrrha claiming Jaune has a naturally large aura.  Oh no, time to see if this spin-off treats the “Weiss is racist against faunus in general, then Sun in specific then continues to equate all faunus with the White Fang and never apologises for it, instead expecting Blake to apologise for getting angry at her racism and cannon treats this like an apology”-arc better then ML! did. PENNY! *sobs in five languages* The one thing about this arc i hope they dont change, is Penny being Penny. Ghost weiss is looming I get they’re using that line about “the nightmare grimm gets stronger the more stressed you are” to justify including this arc at all.  Teleporting Penny! you know, rewatching this scene now, it becomes rather obvious that they probably didnt have the finer details of Blake’s backstory worked out yet, because otherwise Penny (who probably has a database of political VIP’s) wouldnt have felt the need to verify that “blake” was “the faunus girl” as she’d have recognised her as being basically a princess of a foreign kingdom. IQ!Penny “saw her without it” and doesnt hiccup. whereas ML!Penny just has the detailed cameras and processing power to identify them beneath the bow. Dockyard battle happens entirely off-screen (for budget reasons presumeably) and the conclusion of this arc is still dissapointing and still includes no apologies. Just a “dont run away in the future” with a non-specific implication she’ll try to be less racist in the future and a total unwillingness from Weiss to admit she commited any wrongs during this storyarc. IQ!Ruby wants blake to “give her those kitty ears”, i dont know enough about fantasy catgirls but that feels like something you cant demand, catgirls have a right to consent too you know. Oh ok, so not only is the ending of this arc still as bad as it was before, with refusal to acknowledge past wrongdoing. IQ!Weiss is also lying about her intentions to become less of a racist person in the future. Thanks for confirming that Ghost!Weiss.  ------- I can barely believe it myself. But they somehow managed to take, what was already widely recognised as some of the worst dissapointing characterwriting in RWBY’s history and managed to make it worse in this adaptation. Congratulations!

[hyperfixation-hideout]

That part of the FNDM(TM): we want female characters with flaws!

Female character: acts questionably

Fan: points out the questionable actions

That part of the FNDM(TM): nooooooooo she is perfect and good and you thinking she EVER did ANYTHING not perfect or in line with my hc is sexist and homophobic and evil!

I'm not a Yang hater, and I get how dramatic irony works, but the way none of the characters seemed to notice something was seriously Up with Ruby felt like a stretch of my personal suspension of disbelief.

Yang DID try to talk to Ruby in Volume 8, but when Ruby expressed her fears and doubts, Yang did what most of the mains (Oscar being the exception) always do when Ruby exhibits doubts -- told her how much they need her and how good a leader she is and that she did her best and how her optimism is what keeps them going, etc., even comparing her to SUMMER in a way that framed her sacrifice as a good thing while Ruby feels she's following in her footsteps.

Yang saw Ruby break down when Salem mentioned Summer in v7, but I do get that being an easily misinterpretable moment on Yang's part. Comparing Ruby to Summer was something she intended as comfort. It made sense for her character in that moment.

But v9? We're past that. Yang noticed SO LITTLE of Ruby's mental struggles, and when she DID ask and Ruby began to express worry, Yang shut her down by outright TELLING her "no you don't mean that" and comparing her to IRONWOOD for so much as having similar fears. Imagine being Ruby, who bottles her emotions and clearly feels bad for having negative ones, and hearing your sister compare you to the man who tried to bomb a city of innocents the moment you open up. Oof.

They all have a lot on their minds, and I appreciate bumbleby getting focus, so this isn't about taking from that. But aside from one shockingly brief check-in from Yang and Weiss, both of which resulted in Ruby shutting down further, WBYJ acted so oblivious with her it kinda baffled me...

If it was intentional and gets brought up that'll be one thing, and they did talk (again, briefly) about how they've been putting too much pressure on Ruby (only AFTER she broke down and yelled that fact at them point-blank), and I loved that! But the way the finale ended with WBY all telling her the SAME SHIT they have been -- putting her on a pedestal, Yang saying Ruby's "NEVER been ANY of those things" [weak, broken, or confused], Blake saying "that's why we follow her" and Ruby SMILING at it? Rubs me the wrong way. Ruby had been confused all volume! Last volume, too! She just tried to potentially kill herself! And right after her telling you to stop expecting perfection from her, you go right back to saying you follow her BECAUSE she's never confused or weak??

Momentary relief her sister is okay & the battle at hand distracting Yang? Cool, makes sense! But Yang in c9, after watching Ruby essentially attempt suicide, took it way too well to feel right to me (also as an older sibling). If my little sister's close friend died, if she blamed herself for the fall of a kingdom, if she fainted in front of me, if I watched her try to end her life, I would NOT have been as chill as Yang. She tried to pull off some branches and said "what if she isn't Ruby when she comes out?" but other than that? It wasn't enough for me. Yes, everyone's different, but if you want to communicate care between sisters, I need more than that. [Note: I well may be forgetting something, but even that is indicative the impact was insufficient for me]

Imagine Yang bolting for Ruby as she drinks the tea. Imagine her lashing out at Neo but hitting an illusion instead and breaking down. Imagine her being uncomforted by the paper pleasers becoming gems, or irritated with Jaune for stopping when they need to find Ruby ASAP. Imagine her ripping off the branches and needing to be physically held back while she cries and yells to be let go, as her teammates convince her to stop bc she might be hurting her. "So what, I'm supposed to do NOTHING? Just stand around and lose her?" Imagine her FURY at the curious cat and Neo blinding her in battle. Imagine Ruby's return distracting her and almost getting hit because of it, only prevented because Blake stepped in to have her back, and that being the only reason she doesn't rush to embrace her sister. Imagine her hugging Ruby afterwards and asking if she's okay, and Ruby saying something along the lines of, "No. But I will be." to which Yang responds, "That's okay. Take all the time you need." Or even, "We can talk about it later, if you want," And Ruby smiling. "I'd like that."

Just... ANYTHING to make it feel like they're sisters, like Yang sees her, like anything that just happened affected the way WBY treats her/talks about her. And we may get more of that in v10, I understand time constraints are a thing, but we needed SOME of it in v9 to have the message land.

Please don't take this as hate towards the character; I understand she's fictional and everyone reacts to grief differently. I just wish we'd gotten more, or at minimum greater intensity with what we did get. When I mentioned in the v8 finale that I wished Ruby's reaction to Yang falling had gotten more focus or been more intense, I got hate asks calling me a lesbophobe with a hate boner for bumbleby (even though I'd clarified in the post that I LIKED Blake's reaction to Yang falling and this was unrelated, and I'm sapphic, and I ship bumbleby), so I'm hoping this isn't taken as that, too. All I mean by this is that, for ME, Yang's reactions and lack thereof felt disingenuous to the character as well as to their sisterhood, and I hope going forward this is acknowledged and/or rectified.

EDIT: Gonna go back and check and update if I missed stuff cause I probably did

Ok so we have

Ruby faints; when she comes to, Yang puts a hand on her shoulder and asks "Hey, are you alright?" (A lil casual for the situation but eh I digress on that one.) Ruby doesn't answer, changing the subject back to Neo with, "She attacked me when we were falling." Found it odd no one else expressed concern over her fainting... unless you count Weiss' "I know that Penny... I know that was a lot to hear" but that was later in the next episode, and again, Ruby didn't reply, and Weiss returned to treating Ruby oddly harshly for much of the volume.

This is a good time for me to re-clarify that Ruby being shut off made it hard for her team to check in with her, even in the moments they did try, but they acted like it was way more minor than it was overall, and from Yang in particular, I would've expected more... I dunno, insistence? Attempts? Persistence? Girl, at least walk beside her in worry she'll faint again?? Or react to Jinxy saying Ruby "doesn't have enough hope" to fill a jar?

2. Ruby sits sadly, cradling Penny's sword and looking down on it. Yang says, "Ruby?" Ruby says she was drawn to it. It rains, Weiss complains about it and yells at the team. Ruby represses again. The rain stops.

3. Ruby stops in her tracks and looks sad after the cat calls into question how they can defeat Salem. Yang goes, "Uh, hey? Rubes?" Ruby says, "I- uh-" and Blake cuts her off with "Maybe we shouldn't worry about home right now? We've got enough problems to--" Yang: "The cat!"

NO ONE but Little stays with Ruby in the markets... Yang immediately says she'll go with the cat, Blake follows, Weiss says "get me FAR away from the nose hairs" and Little says "I'll go with you, Ruby!" No one so much as offered. OMG even when Ruby's on her knees in the battle Yang runs right past her with a grin bc she's normal size again.

4. Ruby says "We lost Atlas and the relic." and then adds "what good is saving anybody if Salem just destroys the world anyway?" Yang puts a hand on her shoulder and says, "That's how Ironwood thought. You don't mean that." Jaune angrily interrupts, "Are you done?" So that time Yang didn't even ASK, Ruby just expressed worry and Yang told her no you don't feel that, that's bad.

Still SHOCKED at everyone's reaction (or lack thereof) at Ruby lingering in the paper village all sadly and not joining the battle. Weiss snaps at her, Jaune yells at her and blames her (for HIS plan???)

5. When Jaune drops Crescent Rose and Ruby backs away so it hits the ground, Yang goes, "Ruby? You o--" and gets cut off, but like??? NO?? Obviously she's not okay? You should know this by now???

And that's everything before Ruby's breakdown at them all.

So yes, there are multiple moments of Yang beginning to reach out, but "are you ok" and "rubes?" are like, the BARE minimum of worry imo. I'm not trying to go "Yang is a bad sister 100%" or anything btw! Just that I wish ALL the characters took more notice, ESPECIALLY Yang. And even if they didn't, after she attempted suicide? There's no excuse to not realize how bad it was.

People are really out here trying to convince themselves that Ruby's suffering in volume nine is so hard to perceive so that they can try to convince everyone that Yang is perfect and her not really noticing Ruby needed help was totally fine and good when like..... Ruby literally fainted.

Like, even if the rest of the signs Ruby was displaying weren't like a giant neon sign reading 'I'm not okay' that Yang ignored - even if Yang hadn't completely ignored when Weiss and Ruby stopped walking to have a serious conversation, even if Yang didn't take more than a moment or two for a short 'are you okay' and then bought the obvious deflection, even if Yang hadn't shut down the time when Ruby actually started trying to express feelings of hopelessness and frustration by telling her she was being like the villainous and hated Ironwood, even if Yang didn't try to dispute anything Ruby was saying during her angry breakdown and didn't stop Jaune from screaming in her face and didn't immediately try to run after Ruby when she ran off alone crying, even if she wasn't a smiling beaming hugging person like five minutes after Ruby tried to kill herself, even if Yang didn't immediately start acting like Ruby was a good perfect leader who has never been confused directly after Ruby told them that she didn't want to be the leader anymore and didn't want to be treated like she was perfect......

Ruby literally

And Yang??? Was not that concerned???? Like bro if I ever fainted in front of my family??? They would want to call the doctor. They would be flipping out. Like, yeah, maybe I'm a little frustrated that Yang's reaction to Ruby's problems is like

When Ruby passed out. I'm sorry to the people who are on the "how could Yang have known that Ruby was feeling bad" train, but

Ruby quite literally fainted. And then had a breakdown while crying. And then ran away and tried to kill herself. And Yang's like

And people are like "idk what you're talking about, seems like the reaction of a great sister who cares about Ruby more than life itself and knows her better than anyone and raised her all by her lonesome and is always there for her and always knows best."

Bro just let??? People say that they think Yang is wrong???

[aspoonofsugar]

RWBY Over the Rainbow

So, have you already read this wonderful meta by @hamliet on how RWBY is at its root an alchemical story? Well, you should :P

If you haven't, this is the gist of it. RWBY takes both some imagery and its structure from the alchemical tradition. Alchemy is an ancient discipline that aims to create the philosopher stone and to turn metal into gold. In stories, this idea is usually used to comment on the protagonists' inner journey and refinement through some motifs and a specific way to organize the narrative.

To be more specific, alchemical stories have 5 phases. Sometimes 2 of them can be skipped, but when all 5 are present we have:

Black Phase (Nigredo)

Rainbow Phase (the Peacock's Tail)

White Phase (Albedo)

Yellow Phase (Citrinitas)

Red Phase (Rubedo)

Yes, they are team RWBY's colors, but these phases are also followed step by step when it comes to the story and to the characters' journeys. Again, for more details just check hamliet's meta.

In this short post, I wanna focus a little on the Rainbow Phase. As hamliet writes in her meta:

At the very end of nigredo, just before albedo, there is sometimes a flash of light, of rainbows and colors, that give hope. It’s not quite a phase, more of a moment, but it’s referred to as the peacock’s tail. While this is less plot-related, it does make sense that this is the point in the story where Team RJNR is formed. Why? Because look at their colors:

Ruby: red, black

Jaune: yellow, blue

Ren: green, purple

Nora: white, pink, orange

Between them we’ve pretty much got the full rainbow. 

So, the Rainbow Phase is a very short moment meant to give hope after the devastation of the Black Phase (The Fall of Beacon). Now, in RWBY this happens in volumes 4 and 5 where our protagonists pull themselves together after the shock and trauma of volume 3. What's cool is that symbolically this is conveyed by all girls meeting a character linked to the rainbow. These colorful characters have key roles in RWBY's stories and help them moving forward in their personal developments.

RUBY

Ruby. We lost... We lost Pyrrha. You lost her, too. And Penny and your team and in a way... your sister. But you're still here, despite everything you've lost, everything you could still lose, you chose to come out here, because you felt like you could make a difference. You didn't drag us along, you gave us the courage to follow you.

Just like each RWBY girl is linked to 1 of the major 4 phases, Jaune is the one among the main characters linked to the Rainbow Phase. HIs surname "arc" (bow) is a reference to the rainbow and he and his 7 sisters are all linked to 1 of the 7 rainbow colors.

In short, he fits the rainbow motif and he and his team support Ruby when her teammates can't. The colorful JNR joins Ruby in her journey helping her to push forward in her mission. They are inspired by her and give her friendship and warmth in a very dark moment. They are a reminder that good people exist in the world and that everyone can step up to change things, if they are willing to.

WEISS

Hot coffee, Miss Schnee? I always find he keeps his study dreadfully cold.

Speaking of warmth, Klein gives love to Weiss when her family is too fractured and in pain to care for her. He plays the role of the Helper in Weiss's story in volume 4. He supports her fully and risks his job to make sure she leaves safely.

In short, he is the perfect embodyment of Snowhite's 7 dwarves who protect the girl from the Evil Queen. At the same time, his link to the number 7 and his eyes changing colors make his linke to the rainbow obvious.

BLAKE

I lost control. Every inch of me turned blue as I wept. And suddenly, all the girls that I'd laughed and played with... were scared of me.

Ilia too changes colors according to her emotions and her surname literally means rainbow. Her role in Blake's arc is different from Jaune and Klein's in Ruby and Weiss's, though. She is not really the Helper (that is Sun), but rather she is the Shadow. She embodies Blake's flaws and by helping her, our Cat girl shows her growth and change.

That said. Ilia is still fundamental for Blake pulling herself together, finding her inner strength and preparing to face off Adam once and for all. Her redemption proves people can change for the better and gives hope that hate can be overcome.

YANG

I... I'm sorry...

Some Shadows are able to step into the light when given the chance, while others... need a little bit more time. Raven's role in Yang's arc is similar to Ilia's in Blake's. As a matter of fact Yang too is helped by a Sun character (Tai) and confronts a Shadow (Raven), so that she can psychologically face her trauma. In this way, she is ready to finally move past it physically in volume 6, when she defeats Adam.

Differently from the other characters in this post, Raven's link with the rainbow is not so clear and I might very well be missing something (so help me if I am missing some piece of symbolism). Anyway, Omen is a weapon with 7 color-coded blades hence resembling a rainbow. Raven's role as a link or bridge (Kindred Link, but also ravens are symbolic of bridges) can make her a living rainbow, since they are seen as bridges in many mythologies. Finally, @hamliet found this. The Ranbow by Lawrence tells the story of the Brangwens, whose name sounds similar enough to Branwens. Take what you want from this :)

What's important is that Yang's meeting with Raven is a key moment and leads to the girl finding her loved ones again (Weiss, Ruby and metaphorically Blake). In a sense, her mother is the bridge that leads Yang to her personal rainbow...

CONCLUSION

RWBY is extremely creative with its alchemical symbolism and manages to be blunt, but also original in its motifs. The way the Rainbow Phase is handled is an example of this. At the same time, picking up such motifs is useful also to better understand the story and the girls' foiling and parallel journeys.

For example, as stated above, both Yang and Blake's arc in volume 4 and 5 and centered around the ideas of light and shadow. Fitting, considering the 2 girls themselves are linked to these 2 concepts (Blake is the shadow to Yang's light).

Ruby and Weiss's rainbow phases instead simply set the stage for future developments. They are moments where the brave child and the cold princess are shown love and appreciation. Similarly, it is interesting how Weiss and Blake's rainbow character is a minor one, while Ruby and Yang's a major one.

In general, noticing similar structures can lead to unexpected future realizations and I can't wait to be surprised more and more by RWBY!

[arc-misadventures]

To make rwby feel even worse, can we get the interation between them and ren and nora right after their talk with jaune. And these two telling them about yang's insult and that he knew about pyrrha's feeling , that they didn't care about HIS feelings, only pyrrha's and that they were pyrrha's friends and he was only pyrrha's partner/friend to them.

Friends VI

Ruby: Hey guys…

Nora: Hi…

Yang: You guys seem pretty down; I take it your talk with Jaune yesterday failed?

Ren: We did, we failed from the moment we started…

Weiss: What do you mean?

Nora: He knew that you didn’t like him. And, that Pyrrha loved him. He knew all this and more, and yet, we all believed he was a dense idiot who couldn’t pick up on a damn thing…

Yang: He… he knew?!

Ren: Not until the dance. After that, he became aware of everyone’s feelings.

Ruby: If he knew then why didn’t he do anything! Pyrrha was waiting so long! If he told her, then maybe…!

Nora: Because he didn’t know how he felt about her! Dammit! Jaune was right!

Weiss: Right about what?

Nora: Pyrrha, Pyrrha, Pyrrha! We all saw this from Pyrrha’s view, that not once did we think about Jaune’s view on this! He’s never had someone sincerely fall in love with him! He had no idea what to do, how to do it, and how he felt about anything! And the worse part is, we’re still doing it! All of use are looking at things from Pyrrha’s view! And not, Jaune’s! This about two people in love, not just the one of them!

Ren: Nora, please calm down… I understand why you’re upset. But… it’s too late to fix anything about it.

Weiss: Jaune’s right… We always saw things from Pyrrha’s perspective… Why didn’t, Jaune see how wonderful Pyrrha was. Why couldn’t, Pyrrha just tell, Jaune how she felt… Did we ever see it from his point of you?

Yang: I remember the combat classes back at Beacon; I always thought, ‘Man, how could, Pyrrha be partnered with such a weak guy.” How could Pyrrha… Never, why is Jaune so weak? Always from Pyrrha’s view…

Ruby: T-That’s not true! I saw things from, Jaune’s perspective!

Blake: Is that how you remember it, or is that how you want to remember it?

Ruby: I-I…

Weiss: The more we hear about this, the more we learn that we were never his friends… Always thinking about others or ourselves, but never about Jaune…

Ren: We made him feel alone within a crowded room.

Blake: I can’t imagine what that does to a persons mind; So many people within arms reach, so many people who can see you, so many ears capable of hearing you whisper. And yet, he could grab us by our arms and shake our bodies like a rag doll, bloke the world so he was all that we could see, scream into our ears with a deafening voice. And yet, we were blind and deaf to it all…

Weiss: I’m afraid we must accept the fact that we were never, Jaune’s friends, and that we never will be…

Ruby: That’s… That’s not true! We are, Jaune’s friends, we’ve always been his friends! We’re…! We’re… we’re…

Nora: Nothing… We’re nothing to him now…

Ren: I guess there’s nothing we can do now, is there…?

Weiss: No, there is one thing we can do for, Jaune…

Ruby: What?! What is it?! Tell me, tell me!

Weiss: We find, Cinder, and kill her.

[madman479r]

Time skip

Cinder: Ah~ the foolish knight. You actually surprise me each time i see you, because I always assume that you had fallen against the lowly Grimm.

Jaune:...

Cinder: What? No righteous speech? No promise of pain or revenge? Nothing. And here I was, just starting to enjoy your little monologues. But that's fine, just watching your handsome face contort into rage or angst is enough for me-

Jaune: Okay, real talk, just stop, Cinder.

Cinder: Oh~? Asking me to stop my crusade for powe-

Jaune: No, as in stop this. Whatever your doing.

Cinder:... You mean stop hurting people? Or stop seeking the Maiden's-

Jaune: This! This thing you're doing. This thing between us! Stop it. It's not fair to Ruby.

Cinder: What does she have to do with this?!

Jaune: You know damn well what you're doing. This nemesis thing is meant to be between you and Ruby. SHE'S your nemesis, not me! And I won't hurt Ruby by playing along anymore.

Cinder:...

Jaune: You and Ruby had a good thing going. She secretly appreciated how descriptive and gory your death threats were. She looked forward to the next time she'd fight you.

Cinder:... Look, things between me and Ruby have gotten... stale. We don't have the spark anymore. I don't even ask Emerald to make illusions of Ruby for me to kill anymore.

Jaune: Have you tried spicing things up? Tried some foreplay like kidnapping or working together to fight a bigger threat before fighting each other again?

Cinder: I tried but it just felt empty. And lately, everytime I fight Ruby, she's always thinking of something else. "Oh, what is Salem planning?" Or "Oh, what can my Silver eyes do?", it's like I'm not even there!

Cinder: But with you, it's more... intimate, Because you're not the main character, you don't have other things occupying your mind, your whole focus is entirely on me and me alone, you're not thinking of other enemies or yourself.

Jaune: Cinder, you killed a dear friend of Ruby, I'm sure she thinks about that plenty enough.

Cinder: No, I killed a mere friend of hers, but you? I killed your partner! I took away the only person who believed in you! That's a deeper emotional attachment and you have more a reason to hate me and I can see it! I can feel that hatred and rage when we fight!

Jaune: But you tried to kill Weiss. Surely that means something. That has to mean that you're trying to reignite that flame between your and Ruby.

Cinder: Oh for brother sake! I didnt do that for Ruby, I did it for you!

Jaune:...

Glynda: Okay, our sessions officially starts…now. 

Cinder: *annoyed groaning*

Ruby: *pouting, arms crossed*

Glynda: Okay, Cinder. Anything you’d like to say?

Cinder: Uh, no. I don’t even know why we’re here. Our relationship is fine.

Ruby: No, it’s not! 

Cinder: Excuse me, I had the floor.

Glynda: Ruby, Cinder is right. She has the floor.

Ruby: *goes back to pouting*

Cinder: Look, I don’t know what this is even about. We’re nemeses. We hate each other. I try to kill her; she tries to kill me-what about this is complicated?

Glynda: Alright. Ruby. Your response?

Ruby: Well, I disagree with Cinder. Completely. I slave over a hot plot trying to be the hero Remnant needs and that spark we had is just gone! She doesn’t even look at me anymore! 

Cinder: What are you even talking about?! I tried to kill you yesterday!

Ruby: But it wasn’t about me! It was trying to get at Jaune!

Cinder: Oh, come on!

Glynda: Now, Cinder, be honest. Was it to get at Jaune?

Cinder: …Well, yeah, but-

Ruby: See? Sees?! 

Cinder: Look, it’s personal with him, alright?! I killed his little girlfriend!

Ruby: Yeah, in front of ME! And Pyrrha was my friend too! It’s not like I never knew her! But no, one little screaming match with Jaune and suddenly he’s all you ever talk about! You don’t even send me death threats anymore!

Cinder: Ruby!

Ruby: Don’t you ‘Ruby’ me!

Glynda: Now Miss Rose, be reasonable.

Ruby: *sighs* Sorry, Miss Goodwitch.

Cinder: Look, I attack some other person and I’m the bad guy. Literally. I don’t get upset whenever she gets into a fight. I didn’t get jealous when she cut Tyrian’s tail!

Ruby: Tyrian’s a slut!

Glynda: Miss Rose…

Ruby: Sorry. *ahem* That was a fight for survival. And it wasn’t personal. I wasn’t leering and having flashbacks when I saw Tyrian. And he’s just an asshole who just goes and attacks people at Salem’s discretion. But when I see the way you look at Jaune and how you banter, it’s like you completely forgot who your nemesis is. 

Ruby: *sniffling* Cause the way you look at him is the way you used to look at me…

[professorspork]

superhell fic prompt: JAUNE RUNS INTO PYRRHA

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5]

It doesn’t occur to that she’s allowed to talk to them until Torchwick reveals himself to Neo. And even then, well-- Roman Torchwick isn’t exactly a shining paragon when it comes to setting a good example of what’s allowed.

But the idea refuses to stop hounding her footsteps, once it’s come. Once she’s seen it’s possible, without consequences. Still, she waits, and keeps her distance. There’s no sunset, here on the island, no night, but there are shady places beneath the towering roots of the Tree; eventually, they all bed down, and Jaune-- as she’d known he would-- volunteers to take first watch. It’s a heartening display: Yang and Blake twined together like ivy on a wrought iron gate, but each clinging to the hands of their teammates, chained together by grasping fingers. Otters in a stream, unwilling to be separated.

She doesn’t know why she’s surprised to hear her own voice when she approaches.

...I know this can be frustrating, and it can feel like so much effort to progress such a small amount, but I want you to know that I'm proud of you. I've never met someone so determined to better themselves...

“You’ll drain your battery,” she cautions, reaching out with her mind to press the off button on his scroll. His head whips up, expression aghast, and she smiles at him softly. “I’d have thought you’d have it memorized by now anyhow; you haven’t seemed to need it in some time.”

She expects disbelief, perhaps, or shock. Joy would have been nice, but she’d have understood anger. So she’s surprised and---bizarrely proud, actually-- when instead his eyes narrow in suspicion and the first thing he says is, “Your Semblance works.”

“Well, yes.”

“Why does your Semblance work?”

“Because I’m where I’m supposed to be. A soul knows when it’s in the right place. Or the wrong one, as the case may be.”

“Or I’m dreaming.”

“Or you’re dreaming,” she agrees, keeping her voice mild, but feeling it like a punch to the stomach when his shoulders relax at the idea. Does he... not want her here? Goodness, but she’s out of practice. She’d forgotten it was like this; how talking to him had been both the easiest and the hardest thing in the world. “Would you-- prefer that? If I weren’t really here?”

“The real Pyrrha would know better than to ask me that.”

Despite herself, she laughs. “Oh, I wish that were true. I asked myself that every day. Every class, every glance, every study session on the roof. I’m afraid I was never as confident as I should have been.” It’s an embarrassing admission, but an effective one; the walled-up caution behind his eyes dissipates... only for tears to well up in its stead.

“Are you-- can I touch you?”

“I hope so.” (She’d left Torchwick and Neo behind before they’d gotten that far, for obvious reasons.)

“I--” He scrambles to his feet and crosses the distance between them, enveloping her in a crushing hug. It doesn’t feel like she remembers, but then, that’s no surprise-- he’s taller than he used to be, and her body isn’t exactly a body, per se. She’s grateful, even so. Happy just to have the chance to hold him up. She keeps quiet at first, letting him get it all out as he sobs incoherent apologies into her shoulder--

(IloveyouImissyouIloveyouImissyouI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry)

--and contents herself with playing with the short hair at the nape of his neck. Eventually, he calms.

“I like the haircut,” she says, when he pulls away. “It’s handsome. You look so grown up.”

“You look so young,” he croaks in response, and-- she supposes she must, to his eyes. It’s strange to think that she’s the same age as Ruby now; that they’ve kept going on without her, and they’ll continue to do so, once she’s led them out. “Are you--? Have you--?” He wipes at his eyes, laughing at himself a little. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know where to start. I just-- I can't believe you're here with me.”

“I'm always with you,” she assures him, unable to suppress the urge to thumb away a tear he’s missed. She keeps her hand there, at his cheek, as she she speaks: “Even when you can’t sense me, I... oh, Jaune. I’m so proud of you. You’ve come so far.”

He sighs and steps out of the circle of her arms, hanging his head to stare at Crocea Mors where it rests in its sheath. You’d never know it to be broken, just by looking. The scabbard hides the damage-- giving him the appearance of being armed and ready though all he carries is a shattered hilt. “Yeah, maybe. I-- I thought I had, but...” He swallows, face filled with shame.

She starts to reach for him again, unwilling to waste even a moment of their time not touching him, but forces herself to relax and drop her hands to her sides. It has to be his choice, doesn’t it? “Tell me. You can tell me anything; you know that.”

His voice falters terribly when he finally speaks: 

“I mean, I feel like you already know. For the longest time, I wanted to be this... I dunno. This warrior, or whatever. And it never fit, no matter what I did, or how hard I worked, and I just-- I resented it so much. Being...” He shakes his head. “I just felt useless. But when I unlocked my Semblance, I had to let that go. And it was hard at first, it took time, but for a second there it finally started to feel like... like I knew my place. Where I belonged; what everyone needed from me. I was good at it. But then Penny needed--” He chokes on a sob, and has to stop and take several deep breaths before he can continue. “Nothing’s changed. I’m still useless. The idiot stuck on the wrong side of the glass, out of his league and forced to watch because someone else has to be the Maiden now and there’s nothing he can do about it. Only this time it’s worse, because this time I actually-- I--”

Unable to hold herself back anymore, she reaches for his hands; he squeezes her fingers tight, like a lifeline. “I understand,” she soothes, voice heavy like a vow. “Did you think I wouldn’t? I don’t think I have to remind you that I’m the only other person who knows what that feels like. To have been the one who killed her.”

He lets out an awful, cynical noise; a parody of a laugh. “Depends on who you ask,” he says in explanation, looking askance towards Ruby. Pyrrha sadly follows his gaze. Ruby’s shifted in her sleep, curled under her cape to be as small as possible with her head nestled in the crooks of Yang’s bent knees. Her arms are wrapped around Yang’s shins in a death grip, as though she fears her sister might fly away at any moment. Pyrrha’s heart aches for her; for the responsibility she carries. Weight Pyrrha could have helped shoulder... if only she’d been a little faster, a little more clever.

She shakes off the feeling; now’s not the time for regret. “But things have changed,” she says, bringing Jaune’s hands up to her mouth and kissing the knuckles. It will be a long time, she knows, before he believes there isn’t blood on them; maybe this small act can help. And if it doesn’t... she has other options. Maybe even a little levity, for once. “You’re not useless. You’re amazing. You’re a licensed Huntsman now; you’re accomplishing things you’d only dreamed of. All the mothers of Mantle adore you. You even got to go on a date with Weiss!”

He boggles at her, wrenching his hands away. “What?! That wasn’t a date, we were just hanging out with Oscar, we--” His jaw falls open, suddenly, and his eyes narrow once more. “Wait a minute. Are you teasing me?”

She grins, sheepish and caught. “I figured it was now or never to give it a go; I didn’t want to waste my last chance to try it. Nora always said it would be good for me.”

“To make fun of me?” he squawks, indignant.

She laughs. “To remind myself it’s okay to be a novice sometimes; that there are things I won’t instantly be good at.” She bites her lip, unable to stop her grin. “...And also to make fun of you, yes.”

He surges forward, then-- wrapping a hand around the back of her neck and pulling her closer, pressing a fierce, grateful kiss to her forehead. Then he does it again; then once more, at the bridge of her nose. And then a final time, against her lips. Quick; intense. Filled with meaning.

She’s got not breath in her, and still she’s breathless.

“I miss you so much,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut and resting his forehead against hers. His fingers thread themselves into the hair at the back of her skull, tangled into the base of her ponytail. “So much. I think about you all the time. Every day. Wondering how different things would be, if only...”

“I know,” she says, because she does. There’s more that she should say, probably-- that it’s good that he’s started to move on; that none of them can hold onto her forever. But she can’t quite bring herself to voice the words.

“It’s not fair,” he mutters, then sighs at the sound of it. “I mean, none of it is fair, but-- I feel like a jerk, I guess. That I’m the one who gets to see you, of all of us.”

“You’ll tell them I love them, won’t you? Ren and Nora. They...” They’re doing things she never did, is the thing. Maturing in ways she’ll never have the chance to. Learning that responsibility doesn’t mean putting it all on your own shoulders; that love doesn’t mean giving all of yourself away. It’s overwhelming, how proud she is of them for that. “They were on the right path, in Atlas. Don’t let them convince themselves otherwise.”

He nods, the movement of it levering her own head in shared agreement. “Anything else? Anyone else you’d like me to...?”

So many; too many. But one rises above the rest. “Tell my mother to stop leaving flowers,” she murmurs, wishing she had more to offer than that. “Tell her they belong in the garden; that I like to watch them grow. That’s-- the way it should be.”

“Okay,” he says, and relief rushes through her. “Okay. I will.”

Slowly, they both become aware once more of the gaggle of Huntresses sleeping just a few yards off. Pyrrha could leave dozens of messages with Jaune, if she wanted, but the people she most needs to speak to are right here, within arm’s reach. They need her guidance; it’s selfish not to provide it. She’s taken so long already. And yet...

Jaune beats her to voicing the thought: “I know we should probably wake them, but-- can it be just the two of us, for just a little longer? Please?”

She smiles, and brings a hand up to caress his cheek. “I thought you’d never ask.”

[theseerasures]

Re: that anon who asked about the shuffle step of the themes of sacrifice

I also found the ideological shift in the volume very interesting, and I think she most interesting bits are with Team RRAYNBOW. Like I think the dynamic between Yang and Ruby and their respective missions this volume is very interesting (if maybe a bit underdeveloped, atm at least). You said a little about it with Team JOYR in Chapter 7. Do you have anymore thoughts about the "shuffle step" in regards to that?

i’m gonna admit upfront that i find this question kind of perplexing, because i don’t know what “ideological shift” it could be alluding to when imo our heroes didn’t so much pivot (or shift, or shuffle step) ideologically so much as make a series of context-specific decisions according to what they felt in the moment they could live with, or would die for (don’t make me tap the sign, etc).

what i DO think might be helpful, though, is to lay out what was at stake in each of the weighty choices/discussions our heroes took part in, from the very beginning of the Long Night to the end of volume 8, to see what (if any) throughlines persist or change. so:

Cordially Invited (7.8) to Out in the Open (7.10): our heroes are all in accord. transparency (telling the truth to Robyn) and collaboration (working with/helping Mantle) are paramount, and Ruby specifically takes steps to remedy her own wavering in that earlier in the season, by letting Oscar tell the whole truth to Ironwood. what’s key about this run, though, is that our heroes aren’t calling the shots yet. they advocate for certain actions when advising Ironwood, but they still trust him to take charge of deciding Atlas/Mantle’s fate.

Gravity (7.11): the Big Shift in terms of status quo. our heroes (JNR more implicitly) remain in accord--abandoning Mantle is the line in the sand they refuse to cross. but what does RWBY advocate for, if not Ironwood’s plan? they all agree that the best thing to do is to stand their ground, but for what? Blake and Weiss are comparatively silent on that front, but Ruby and Yang are more explicit. Ruby makes her plea about Amity--that if they hold out long enough, they can do what they always planned, and unite the world, and get help. Yang’s argument is that Huntsmen and Huntresses don’t back down from a fight. (she’s also the first person to suss out that Amity isn’t ready for launch.) this difference is going to come up later.

The Enemy of Trust (7.13): Oscar makes his last individual plea to Ironwood. his reasoning, much like Blake’s (and presumably Weiss’), is simply that abandoning Mantle is a sacrifice of such magnitude that it becomes unconscionable. it’s wrong because it’s wrong, and Ironwood’s rebuttal that it’s pointless to argue about philosophy when Salem’s right on their doorstep, is dickish, but not incomprehensible. Oscar is still looking to retain the advisory capacity that Team Unwieldy Acronym has had for the entire season, and guide Ironwood to making the right call, but that bridge has already been burned. they have to decide the fate of Atlas/Mantle now if they want to save both.

Divide (8.1): The team is no longer in accord. Ruby and Yang recognize that though they agree about Ironwood, their reasons for not abandoning Mantle are different. Ruby’s looking at the big picture, both in terms of what they have to do for the world, and what the world can do for them. Amity looks to be the only obstacle to getting both and saving everyone. Yang thinks it’s pointless. Yang didn’t want to abandon Mantle because that’s just not what you do, but she has no expectation of fighting toward any good outcome. she’s gonna do what seems more readily achievable, which is saving whatever lives can be saved. Ren and Nora split along similar lines more acrimoniously, because Ren at this point is desperate for tangible success and Nora is...just as desperate for total consuming optimism. Blake throws her lot in with Ruby, Weiss abstains, remaining the most quiet on the fate of Atlas/Mantle despite being Atlesian. Jaune and Oscar, though they go with Yang, mostly go for pragmatic reasons.

Refuge (8.2) to Midnight (8.6), Yang’s Team: the plan to help with Mantle is almost immediately derailed when the Hound kidnaps Oscar. i’ve talked about JYR’s plea to Winter in War, but that of course is not the first time that team chooses the few over the many; they do that IMMEDIATELY after Oscar is kidnapped, when Fiona calls for their help and they--without even verbally consulting with each other--go for Oscar instead. in that moment the more proximal thing they can and need to achieve becomes rescuing their friend, whose captor was still in view. but crucially: as soon as they lose Oscar in Fault, and especially after they discover the Grimm River in Amity, JYR had been on their way back to Mantle, and presumably, back to the less impossible thing to do, the thing they promised the Happy Huntresses they’d help with. running into the AceOps and Salem’s invasion throws a monkey wrench into that plan. suddenly rescuing Oscar becomes possible (though not probable)...

War (8.7), Yang’s Team: but not if Ironwood blows up the Whale, whereupon the equation changes again because now doing nothing for Oscar means leaving Oscar to certain death. tbh the confrontation on the airship is about like fifteen different things at once, because the variables keep changing and everyone is having their own argument over whether to rescue Oscar, and why. Yang’s response once she hears about the bomb is mostly you can’t; it is once again just not what Huntresses do, with some personal stakes thrown in. for the AceOps it is about the weighing of lives, and how they can’t put the mission to save Atlas on hold for one life. Jaune is the one who thinks of an idea where they might be able to do one without delaying the other (the second time this season Jaune has suggested the “go for both” option), where they would be the only ones risking their lives, and no harm comes to the greater good. only then does Ren jump in and shift the argument to caring and friendship; that is to say, after the stakes have been lowered so it’s not Oscar vs. Atlas anymore. i don’t think it takes away from his big moment, though: we know from Fault that Ren has taken Yang’s challenge of “let’s do what we can do” and run with it, and come up with “and what we can do is nothing because we’re not ready and we get everything wrong,” so him vowing to do whatever we can here is important. the point is clear: Team Hero draws their strength from their friends, and they’re willing to die for each other...but the question of if they’d let the world burn for their friend is put off for now.

Strings (8.3) to War (8.7), Ruby’s Team: in contrast to Yang’s plan faceplanting at the first hurdle, Ruby’s plan...works. they accomplish their primary objective! but they had to pay a steep price, and the only immediate consequence of that victory was entirely negative. Nora threw so much of herself into Ruby’s optimistic gamble that she now has lasting scars, and if they had never gone to Atlas Command Penny would not have been hacked (so easily; she might have been regardless). Ruby successfully put the ball in the world’s court, but that the problem: the ball is in the world’s court, and the longer it stays there the less sure she is that help will come. and it IS just about the help they’ll receive by War; Salem batting away Atlas’ hard light shields has shifted the goalposts from “hope the other Kingdoms can prepare :/” to “BLAKE’S PARENTS CAN YOU PICK US UP???” the question of Atlas or Mantle rears its ugly head for the first time since Gravity, and this is the first time Weiss is the first one to advocate, and she says we can’t leave--which, not coincidentally, is also what RWBY said to Ironwood in Gravity. May’s argument, of course, is driven by far more compassion: the need in Mantle is greater, and having finished facilitating Ruby’s (and Robyn’s) plan she’s going to do what Yang decided to do, what Joanna wanted them to do, which is fight for every last life. there’s no longer any big wheels to turn, nor any big powers to convince; all they have to do is decide what they themselves will do, and who to fight for. and Weiss finally shows her hand here. she believes in not leaving Mantle behind, but when it comes to the faces she’d fight and die for, Weiss’ are still in Atlas. Blake and Ruby are the ones to abstain this time, and notably when Ruby tries to argue that they’re all in this together it’s much less effective, because...there’s nothing left for them to do together. Ruby is out of concrete solutions.

Witch (8.9): what goes easily missed here that in retrospect is very important is...Oscar kills Hazel. (which means that an Ozcarnation killed BOTH of the Rainart twins.) we all thought he doubled back to make a sacrifice play, and he did, but not for himself. he received Hazel’s verbal consent, and Hazel would have died regardless, but the point still stands. he had to kill Hazel to neutralize Salem, to buy them the time they desperately needed. an unsettling portent for what comes later, innit? it highlights what his own kidnapping, Nora’s injuries, and Penny’s hacking already illustrates, which is that they are now risking every inch of their body and souls in this fray, and it also illuminates the other part of that, which is that by continuing to throw themselves back into this conflict, they now control the fates of other people as well. Hazel trusted Oscar to make the right call, but Oscar had to make the call.

Risk (8.11): where we ultimately land with the splitting of teams is that: Yang’s team went out to achieve the easily graspable, and they ended up forging alliances they never anticipated and dealing a devastating blow to Salem. Ruby’s team went out to achieve what should have been much more difficult, and they did, but with little palpable impact beyond the negative. what comes out and blends exquisitely with their conversation about Summer is that yes, Ruby sent out the call to warn the world, because she believed in humanity and unity, but Ruby sent out the call because she wanted help. she wanted people--say, parental figures--to save her and tell her things would be okay, and she wanted back the innocence to believe them. Ruby didn’t ask to be the face of the war against Salem, and she most certainly does not want to be in charge of it; she has lived with the material consequences of her family being the centerpiece of that war for her entire life. the Hound reveal is the final twist in the knife of Ruby’s childhood, because now the figure on the highest pedestal in Ruby’s mind has been perverted to a malevolent specter, and if that’s the case there are no more adults. THEY have to be the adults now, and look what a terrible job she’s done with that. Yang’s response is that Ruby is not alone--either in her traumatic fall into adulthood, or in her choices not panning out as expected. all they can do is the best they can in the moment, and Yang’s probably going to keep defaulting to what feels more tangible to her, but that doesn’t mean she wants Ruby to stop going for pie-in-the-sky options, either. Summer is still Yang’s hero, which means Ruby is too. what matters most is that they remain responsive to the moment, and don’t get bowled over by despair when something inevitably go off the rails.

so given all these developments, what are we to make of the plan from Creation (8.12) to The Final Word (8.14)? we start with the archetypal Third Option, as championed by Ruby and Jaune: use the Staff to save Penny and Mantle, and Atlas along the way. but the priorities of the plan--civilians first, presumably even before the Relics or the Maiden powers (though the question of one of them or a Relic is really only answered by Winter, who does not speak for Team Hero)--have Yang all over them. we have to do this for Yang isn’t just because Yang’s gone, it’s because they know it’s what Yang would have wanted, and they will respect that. they made a Ruby n Jaune style Big Plan, but when that plan fell to pieces there was no time to think of a fourth, or fifth, or sixth option that would get everyone out, so they had to improvise and double down on what they all agreed was most important. the choice between their friends or the people could no longer be deferred, or augmented, so they chose. civilians, then the Relics and the Maiden powers, then each other. and when any of them wavered--Blake, Ruby, Jaune--someone else checked them, reminded them to trust and respect what they all committed to. they’re still drawing strength from each other, still dying for each other, but they acknowledge that they are not directing just their fates with their decisions anymore. they took a huge desperate gamble to save Atlas/Mantle, and it worked, but what they gambled with was their own lives. and they made themselves make peace with that--that they’d have to do what they can, everything they can, without hoping for salvation for themselves, even from friends or family.

in the end, what comes across just from doing a close reading of these moments is that RWBY’s views on sacrifice, logic vs. sentiment, the greater vs. the few, etc can’t really be plotted on a solid line. that’s why i can’t really think of what happened this volume as a palpable shift--because so many of these choices were context and character dependent. what i DO think happened with our heroes’ ethical beliefs (or “ideology” ig) is that they were tested across a sequence of stressful and traumatic situations, and as a result they had to compromise on a few things they hoped to never have to compromise in order to shore up defenses on what they were certain they could not live without, or would die for (or both! in the case of six of them). if they have to die like every other Huntsman in history so be it, but they refuse to be so cavalier with the lives of others. none of that is meant to be definitive, however: in-universe RWBY is far from over, and Team Hero is going to get to re-litigate and reexamine these questions from lots more angles, out-of-universe...RWBY is far from over, and the point of the show is not to provide an ethical rubric against which the audience can judge themselves and the characters. there are things--like y’know. genocide--that this show will always consider to be beyond the pale, but in terms of grayer complex questions it is content to simply feel out what is and is not allowable in each particular instance, without trying to resolve all options into One Correct Option.

because sometimes you do just have to sit with the discomfort of there not being one right choice or one golden rule, and sometimes you are awash in the consequences of not only your own actions but the actions of others. and then you have to keep going.

[razorblade180]

Interdimensional Moms pt3

Part 2 right here! <-

Team RWBY continue their interesting chat about their respective worlds. After the emotional roller coaster that was Weiss’s, a bit of light hearted stories would be welcomed.

Yang:Okay, does anyone have some real feel good things to talk about for their world? Just run of the mill pleasant life?

Ruby:Guess I’m going last....

Yang:Oh no!

Weiss:We’ll circle back to you then. Blake, I guess you’re up.

Blake:Wouldn’t you want calmer stuff at the end?

Yang:Blake, I would very much like to go at least ten minutes without wanting to cry.

Blake:Hmmmm I can guarantee you like...six I think.

Yang:I’ll take it! Blake Belladonna, tell me about a world where you and Jaune Arc are happily married. How did such stars align?

Blake:You make it sound crazy?

Weiss:Blake, there’s list of people I could see you with. Now I’m not saying Jaune couldn’t be one of them, but he’d have to fight his way up that list.

Blake:You...that’s kinda fair. It’s a bit hard to explain really. It happened back at Beacon initially, or our bonding did. Some days his team was busy and I didn’t tag along for the crazy antics you three wanted to do all the time, so we occasionally bumped into each by circumstances. He’d go to the library for a book, I’d do training and he was there, or sometimes he’d knock on our door and not realize I was the only one around.

Weiss:Was he trying to sing to me?

Blake:That plan did show up at our a few times, yes. One of those times I asked him out of nowhere to sing the song anyways because I just had to know if it was any good. Hehe, it wasn’t sonically pleasing at times, but you could tell it was genuine. Eventually though...he just sort of gave up on you. It was actually a little sad to see, even you thought so. It was strange. Jaune was definitely stumbling through his flirting and it came off as childish, yet the day he gave up, it was easy to see his heart was breaking a bit. Like all his insecurities ate even the faux confidence away.

Yang:Ma’am, it has barely been three minutes and I’m getting sad about thinking of Jaune being sad.

Weiss:Yeah don’t tell me I broke his heart!

Blake:Whoops, sorry. It’s important though. Jaune kinda kept to himself a little more after that. He still chatted pretty regularly but it was easy to tell he dived more in studies as a way to keep his head clear, which lead to us being on a project together. I was the only person in our friend group that wouldn’t actively try to make him open up about how he feeling. At first I thought it was a bit rude when he told me that, but I didn’t room to talk when it comes to socializing.

Yang:One more time for the people in the back.

Ruby:I’m the back.

Blake:*smirks* I was very against socializing about my feelings at Beacon.

Ruby:Yeah you were.

Weiss:I couldn’t even ask if you slept well without a lukewarm answer sometimes.

Blake:I’m better now. That’s all that matters. Romance and feeling love is a personal thing and talking about it is uncomfortable. I think we both recognized that in each other during our project. Trouble is, there’s only so many conversation starters and small talk subjects. Talking only about the project was dry and eventually all the facts a person could say about themselves ran out. Favorite food, color, hobbies, etc. We eventually had to dig a little deeper into those topics. To our surprise, we actually more in common than we thought when it came to how we felt about certain pieces of literature and music.

Ruby:Awwww, bonding over smut.

Blake:*red* It wasn’t all adult literature! Some were poems and stuff. Even when the project ended, we began being less formal around each other and hanging out. We went to the bookstores we mentioned and he even got us tickets to bands I liked. It...it was nice. I never really got to have just a normal teenage experience before without it being political. He always felt bad about being average compared to everyone but average was so foreign to me that I welcomed it. I liked having a normal time out. It was a thing we all took for granted. Especially when Beacon fell.

Yang:Yeah, that probably put a real bind on your relationship.

Blake:Actually....we technically never officially started to date.

Ruby:What? You courted each other all of Beacon.

Weiss:Ruby, who the heck says courted? I’m a Schnee and even I have never used the word courted.

Ruby:Hush, I read a lot of bed time stories to a five year old.

Blake:We were a bit shaky on labels. Me for obvious reasons. As for Jaune, it’s really true about what they say about guys when they get heart broken.

Yang: “Never again.”

Blake:Hehehe, it’s funny to look back at it but he’ll tell you it’s a bit cringy. He was so on gaurd. I could tell all the time when he was mentally telling himself to not be excited whenever we hung out or I complimented him.

Ruby:Hey it takes guts to shift feelings to a teammate of your first crush. That could blow up in your face.

Blake:Yeah...about that. *looks at Yang* you...were another reason why nothing was official. You uhhh, we actually had some jumbled up emotions.

Weiss:*sarcastic gasp* You and Yang, liking each other? Who could’ve seen that coming?

Yang:Was it mutual or...

Blake:Very mutual. Also...intimate at times.

Yang:*red* Oh....yeah. Yeah that tracks.

Blake:That jumbled mess was only more confusing after you got hurt trying to rescue me from Adam. Meeting up with-

Ruby:Question, so was Sun just not on your radar?

Blake:Sun? We’re just friends. He’s cute and I’m glad he was there for me when I needed help but things between us were always pretty calm. I think he noticed how confused I was with other people in my life and chose to not add to it.

Ruby:Bless him. Please continue.

Blake:Learning about Salem and reconnecting with you all was a lot. I’d really been out of the loop and my Yang and I were on....shaky ground.

Yang:That’s what happens when you leave someone who’s been left their entire life.

Blake:Sigh...yeah. It was a trying time, but not with JNPR. It’s funny, Oscar and I also hit it off quite well from the jump. I think we were both glad to have each other learn on the craziness at once. Even with readjusting, Jaune and I fell back into a groove naturally. Instead of doing average things we day dreamed of the things we did. Once again we become this little slice of simple life in this crazy adventure. Still didn’t date.

Weiss:What is this, a slow burn!?

Yang:Weiss, you literally didn’t date your Jaune until Atlas.

Weiss:There’s a difference. I didn’t make any heart eyes at him until around Atlas. I say I may have been a little quick. These two were “courting” for over a year at this point.

Ruby:Stop making fun of me!

Blake:Well anyways, I wouldn’t say much was too eventful in terms of romance with world destroying things happening. Salem, she was way too much to deal with. Every move age did was calculated and unrelenting. Keeping our head above water wasn’t easy. In fact, it was boarder line impossible. Yang and I barely beat Adam after all.

Yang:How’d you two feel about that?

Blake:Relieved. Huge weight off my mind, and yet...a piece of me still wishes things never got so dire. At least now I know that in another world, things aren’t.

Ruby:Sounds like your world was put through their paces? You survived though.

Blake:Not conventionally. I gotta say, hearing the ages and how you beat Salem so far makes me feel more than a little embarrassed. To be frank, we didn’t have this grand battle that involved the entire world making a final stand. We had Atlas, and then we had Haven. With their might and a plan to gain more time, we managed to seal Salem in a vault.

Yang:*chokes on water* Y- cough what!?

Ruby:You put her in a vault!?

Weiss:Thah sounds harder than a last stand honestly.

Blake:No matter what way we looked at things, we just weren’t ready for her, so we locked her away until we were. Two years on constant defense from her followers and grimm until Ruby had trained enough to use her silver eyes and we were all strong enough.

Ruby:Two years!? How old was I then?

Blake:Twenty I believe.

Weiss:Hey, you beat mine by a year.

Yang:Not mine, I think we either tied or just narrowly beat yours by like a year. Honestly it hard to keep track of birthdays and stuff.

Ruby:Wow. No offense to myself, but that’s a little disappointing. I guess being the same person really doesn’t mean we were all at the same level.

Blake:Hey, my Ruby put everything she had into saving the world. There wasn’t a second she wasn’t trying her best to defend it!

Ruby:My point exactly. If that was her at her absolute best then by all accounts, she doesn’t hold a candle to me; at least back then anyways. But I have no reason to believe she would be at my level now.

Yang:Okay little miss prideful, care to tell us when you saved the-

Ruby:Seventeen.

The reaper took a long swig of coffee while the others processed that information. It took a her a couple of seconds to realize she may be acting just a tad bit arrogant.

Ruby:Uhh, sorry. I think I was tooting my own horn a bit there.

Weiss:Seventeen....why so soon?

Yang:Why? Don’t you mean how?

Blake:That’s....almost unbelievable.

Ruby:Really? I don’t think so. I’ll dive into it when it’s my turn but for now all I really gotta say is people needed help, and I was going to answer those cries. I bet your Ruby had a similar urgency in her, but for some reason or another just had different limitations. I got hurt a lot as a kid. Maybe an injury did more damage in one universe than another? Who can say?

Blake:I...wouldn’t know. Odd, I know if my Ruby heard this, then she’d probably be more than a little upset. Saving lives is still what she’s all about. I know when she put everything she had into fighting Salem when the day came. All that training paid off. Her skills were polished and her silver eyes eradicated the grimm essence in Salem.

Ruby:Wait, she’s not dead?

Blake:No. Salem roams Remnant with Oz keeping an eye on her until one day she can finally grasp the lesson the gods wanted her to have.

Yang:That uhhh sounds risky.

Weiss:Yet oddly okay?

Blake:Funny, my Weiss said that too. Those two get checked on in secret. Can’t be too careful. With Salem beaten though, Remnant entered a state of...let’s call it average chaos. All in all, it’s way more peaceful but you know, people will be people. Downside about a secret war is you don’t get the unity of the masses. Atlas and Haven working together was still a great step in the right direction though.

Yang:Woah, I’m a little jealous. My world felt like a race against the clock. The pressure either broke you or made you harder than diamond, with most people crushing under it.

Weiss:Yeah. The tension and meet of extremes I had on the frontlines was beyond imagination. The unity was great, but to feel it on the battlefield against the odds was feeling with way too much adrenaline and stress. Can’t say I enjoyed it. I simply lived through it.

Blake:Well it isn’t like I had a walk in the park. But I guess in comparison, my experience was a tad more mellow. Still, people were lost and hurt. Oscar isn’t himself anymore, don’t have Penny, former classmates and a few enemies turned allies fell in battle. Family.... it took a bunch to get the plan of containing, then it took a lot more to do it. In a way though, the two years of training is time I can’t regret. It tested bonds, strengthening and reestablishing others.

Ruby:I take it since love couldn’t bloom on the battlefield, it bloomed in the training yards?

Blake:*red* You can say that. That’s when Jaune and I got serious. *frowning* But.....

Yang:We fell apart?

Blake:Yeah. I didn’t learn my lesson well enough the first time about the potential problems of dating a partner. Only difference this time was I felt like I was the one being cruel. We had gotten into arguments and apologized more than once. Your fear of being left and my own insecurities just kept butting heads. I’d cry, you’d cry, our friends would be concerned. Then the day came where you put it all on the line. You confessed genuinely how much you loved me and how you felt a bit jealous when it came to Jaune. I had never seen you look so vulnerable; letting your gaurd completely down. And though a piece of me loved you and wanted you in my life for ever....this sense of genuine comfort Jaune gave was something I want-needed for so long. So I did the one thing I didn’t want to do. I broke your heart. I hurt you again.

Yang:Sigh....*leans back in chair* Okay, let’s see how well I know myself. My eyes went red automatically, followed by tears. I lashed out at you angrily out of pain and embarrassment until I was probably blue in the face. But to take make things worse, somebody probably overheard. No matter who it was, I yelled at them too for trying to calm me down and then I eventually run off leaving everyone unhappy. A good old meltdown. Sound about right?

Blake:To the letter. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so distraught.

Yang:Of course not, I’ve never been in love before meeting you. I....did a similar thing with my Blake over the stupid Adam shit. *covers face* of all the things to be similar, it had to be my temper. Please tell me our team didn’t suffer too harshly?

Blake:The good thing about two years of training was it didn’t have to be together all the time. Team RWBY didn’t fall apart, but it didn’t feel comfortable either. Outside of missions, the four of us didn’t hang out as much. It was three at the most. Nobody pinned blame on me or Yang for it but it was obvious.

Ruby:I mean how can you blame someone for feeling sad or not in love with someone? Pointing fingers doesn’t do anything. However, I bet missions were rough.

Blake:Bumblebee was shelved. We did any other team up we could. When push came to shove, Yang and I did put feelings aside. Neither of us wanted our feelings to get anyone killed. That’s probably what kept us connected for awhile, especially with Salem. I don’t think we questioned each other when it came to watching one another’s back. Slowly, our relationship got a bit better. Until....we stopped speaking to each other altogether about a couple years later.

Yang:Wait, why!?

Blake:I got pregnant.

The three listeners’ faces scrunched up and they let in a sharp breath like they just got cut. No one had considered that bombshell.

Blake:Marriage was rough enough. Having Jaune’s kid and starting a family just...cut deep I guess. You didn’t make a scene or anything if that’s what you’re worried about. One day you told me “I just can’t do this” and exited my life. I wanted to keep you close to me, but you wanted to be closer. That was a thing I couldn’t do. Hehe, I can’t tell you how weird it is talking to you like this again.

Yang:So that’s it!? We just don’t see each other at all!?

Blake:Certain events and celebrations have us in the same room, but that’s all. Ruby is the only thing that regularly links us, but she’s busy living life too.

Ruby:Is it a good life?

Blake:The best. You’re the huntress you always wanted to be and a hero to many.

Ruby:*smiles* Really? That’s good. May she ride that high for as long as she can. Though I bet she wished she had a special someone to share that with.

Blake:Huh? Oh, you married Weiss.

Weiss:*red* What!?

Ruby:Aye, nice.

Weiss:Weren’t you upset about thinking of other people with Jaune besides you!?

Ruby:Yeah, but I won’t deny if I am going to be with someone that isn’t him, I’m very happy it’s the other special person in my life. I mean come on, the only reason we don’t get weird in your universe is because I married your brother and you already invited my sister.

Weiss:I mean...it’s mainly the brother portion. The second part...

Ruby:Weiss, that’s weird.

Yang:Eh...

Ruby:IT’S WEIRD! YOU CANNOT TELL ME OTHERWISE!

Yang:*sips coffee* Eh.

Blake:Anyways, Weiss, you’re running your company. The Schnee Dust Company was scrubbed top to bottom to remove as much corruption as possible. No department was overlooked. In times of money, there’s a notable decrease in how much the company used to make.

Weiss:Gee, I wonder if that’s because the other me is doing oh let me guess, paying all their workers and not cutting corners in safety?

Blake:The SDC people approval has gone up considerably, just so you know that too. Turns out people like it when the company they buy from have good morals.

Weiss:Am I happy though? I make time for my social life and hu- I mean wife?

Blake:Yea, you’re happy. In a way I think we’re all happy, but....

Yang:We’d be happier if we were all happy together? Yeah, that’s how it works. You’re only as happy as the most miserable person in a family or group; if you all care about each other that is. Ugh, I wanna punch the other me. I get how she feels but it’s fucking immature to just ignore years of teamwork and family. At the end of the day, team RWBY is a family! Can’t believe I’d runaway from it instead of figuring out...I don’t know! Something!

Blake:*small smile* Well if you feel that way then there’s no reason to believe she doesn’t. My Yang just struggles with it more I guess, but I hope she can come around one day. Not really for my sake, but for her own peace of mind. As well as Lucas’s.

Ruby:Lucas? Your son I take it?

Blake:Mmhmm. My strong and lazy young man. He got his father’s hair but my eyes and ears. I can’t think of a person who warms my heart quite like him. He acts uninterested in a lot of things, but his heart is so big.

Weiss:Ah, so he’s just you?

Blake:More or less hehe. Though I’d say I was passionate about things all my life. Lucas will sleep all day if he could and doesn’t like going out without a reason.

Weiss:Still sounds like you if I’m being honest. Teenager?

Blake:Seventeen, almost eighteen.

Yang:You said he’s need peace of mind too? I’m not...hostile towards him am I?

Blake:No, not by a long shot. On the occasions you two have meant, you were polite. It’s just he knows why you don’t visit or talk to me. That’s rough, knowing your parent’s closest friend stopped being apart of their life because you were born. I think sometimes he believes it’s actually his fault.

Yang:I really, really want to meet this other me and have a few words. She needs to know she isn’t trying hard enough. I’m proof.

Ruby:Yeah, but you’re only well off because the person that helped you get over Blake, was Jaune. Yeah she still can find love, but who that person will be would be uncharted territory for everyone.

Blake:Also I’m not entirely sure exactly if my Yang is even bi like you.

Yang:Sigh....

Weiss:Love.

Blake:Huh?

Weiss:As long as a person shows your Yang genuine love and a place in their heart where she’ll remain forever, Yang would fall for them. They just have to make it a point to make her feel like they’ll stay. Yangs are softies like that.

Yang:Wow, you an expert on me and all the versions of me now?

Weiss:No, you’re just a bleeding heart that’s super emotional. Let me guess, you fell for Jaune the moment you realized just how relaxed and vulnerable you could allow yourself to be around him.

Yang:*red*.......he holds me when I’m overwhelmed.

RWB:Awwww

Yang:Shut up! Blake, take the heat off me.

Blake:Not too much more. Lucas is a smart kid who generally stays out of trouble. Unfortunately, trouble finds him. Mainly because of his semblance.

Ruby:Don’t tell me...

Blake:No no, it’s not bad luck like your uncle, but Lucas can’t always control it so their similar in that regard. Premonitions, that’s his semblance.

Weiss:Like...the future? You child can see the future?!

Blake:Yeah. *sips drink* it’s terrible.

Ruby:What? That sounds so handy! Man, if I could someone fighting me before it happened, I’d be a monster on the battlefield.

Blake:Lucas isn’t a fighter. Well, he’s not aspiring to fight. He can fight, pretty dang well in fact.; but randomly seeing the future is not a gift. Imagine picking up a book and you suddenly know the ending, or watching a movie and you start seeing the middle of it right after you press play?

Yang:Ahhh, that’s why he’s lazy and unmotivated. His semblance is massive spoiler alert. Half the fun of new things is not knowing what will happen.

Ruby:Oof, you have a point. I’d be paranoid to no end.

Blake:To a point, he was. Ever since he was ten. Disasters happen at the drop of a hat. Lucas isn’t the kind of person to watch bad things unfold, so whenever it was possible or even if it was risky, he’d do whatever he could to prevent said disaster. But.....there’s only so much anyone person can do. There’s only so much information he sees. The constant strain and guilt that came from failing ate him up. The. There’s the incidents he’s seen that didn’t show him how it began or how it will end. *rubbing her hands* It’s bad...

Weiss:Hey, I...I’ve noticed your hands and frankly even your face are a bit....slim. Your skin isn’t as colorful as I’m used to either. Almost like it’s regaining color.

Blake:Hehehe.......I guess you were bound to notice of all people.

Weiss:Of course. I may not run a a company in my world but I keep tabs on my brother and have had my fair share of visits to a doctor. Why wouldn’t I notice.

Yang:So can we talk as if there are people who have no clue what’s going on?

Weiss:Blake has had one of two things happen to her. She’s either worked way too hard to the point she’s not taking care of her health, or she’s fallen very ill and her body is still recovering.

Blake:Yeah, it’s more of the second one, but probably because of the first one as well. Forwarding equality, I was overzealous with it. One day Lucas just started shaking and crying when he was twelve and I couldn’t understand why. Turns out he kept seeing me bedridden and unconscious without a reason. Day in and day out he simply cried and tried his best to get another premonition to learn more, but couldn’t. A week later I started feeling a little dizzy, and then blacked out after vomiting. At first I thought maybe I had the flu or something. Nope, a tumor.

Weiss:What?

Ruby:Blake!?

Yang:Oh shit, are you-

Blake:Perfectly fine! *smiles* I’m fine. Liver cancer, but it was caught early. No more tumor what so ever, but the meds and the entire process was really draining. Got sicker a couple of times. Not once did I feel like I was dying necessarily, more like...slipping? I felt myself getting drained. The whole time Lucas was so scared; blaming himself for not preventing this or knowing how to fix it. Though simply knowing he saw me like was a warning most people wish they got. I know I said seeing the future is terrible, but the scariest part through all of this was not knowing how it ended. Choosing medicine, doctors, surgery possibilities, it made me crack under pressure a little. I think he noticed that. I wasn’t sure if I picking an option that lead me dying or getting better. The stress alone may have killed me. Ever since then Lucas hasn’t been so outgoing.

Ruby:....

Weiss:....

Yang....It was already said, but there was no way this wasn’t going to get sad was there?

Blake:Take it from me, there’s joy in pain. So many people came to visit me when I was recovering. Even Yang dropped by for a bit. After I got out, I don’t think Lucas ever hugged me so hard. Jaune tried to stay calm through the whole ordeal but it was rough for him too. He was all but spent emotionally when I came home.

Weiss:I’m surprised Lucas didn’t become an older brother.

Blake:The last thing a recovering patient needs is a pregnancy, but as far as missing me goes...

Ruby:You can stop right there with that tangent.

Yang:We’ll talk about that in private. I wouldn’t mind that story.

Blake:*playfully rolls eyes* These days I try not to over do things. I’ve only officially been deemed completely cured for about a year. I can feel that I’m still not entirely up to strength. It’s fine though. It gives me an excuse for Lucas to dote on me a little. He’s a mama’s boy at heart. My biggest worries these days is peeling him out of this shell his semblance had put him in. At the very least I want him to smile like he used to and find away to live in moment when possible. His entire life is ahead of him. Hopefully he doesn’t see all of it.

Ruby:I guess too much of anything really is bad. Knowledge included. I hope things work out.

Yang:Me too. A happy life is something you definitely earned.

Blake:Thanks. That seriously means a lot, which is why I made sure to not end this on a sour note.

The happy faunus pulled out her scroll to scroll through pictures and her friends eyes lit up. The first one was a beach photo. This Jaune was different from what they were used to. He let his hair grow a little bit longer and the back went down his neck, but it was definitely still him. This jaune was pretty toned and went for a lean look than bulky like Weiss’s, but a tad slimmer. On his shoulders was an adorable toddler with wide amber eyes and big blonde cat ears. Both men were enjoying the sunset on the waves.

The next photo was more recent with Blake right in the middle of hopping into Lucas’s arms. Weiss noticed the girl still had on the hospital bracelet. She must’ve just gotten cleared. Lucas had grown like a weed. He was now roughly Jaune’s height. His hair was messy and looked like Jaune’s in his younger years. Also like his father, Lucas was jacked! His sleeveless purple shirt should off his biceps as they wrapped around Blake’s torso for a hug. His baggy purple shorts had black and gold trim through the seams and the shorts stopped right below his knees; but showed of his well defined calves. A smile of pure joy and what could’ve been a few tears were visible as he looked lovingly at his mother. It warmed all of the ladies hearts. Still, the girls also could tell under his eyes were a little dark. Lucas must’ve been very tired.

The final picture had to be the most recent. It was Blake and Lucas sparring. Both looked at each other with excitement and ease as their wooden blades clashed. Their clothes mirrored one another by being black and white kimonos. They even wore the traditional shoes and everything.

Weiss:Yeah, that’s your kid.

Blake:Damn right. Unfortunately that makes him a little too stubborn. But I guess that’s okay. Without a doubt, someone’s gonna break through that shell of his.

Yang:Oh? It sounds like you already know who?

Blake:Well....I have a hunch.

xxxxx

RING! RING! RING! Lucas’s scroll chirped, in the middle of the night. The boy let out a long, agitated groan of sleepiness as he rolled over in bed; reaching for his scroll on the nightstand to answer.

Lucas:Hello?

???:Did you know you are mathematically more likely to choke on a hotdog than get attacked by a shark?

Lucas:....Serenity, who gave you my number?

Serenity:Your parents, and it’s Serendipity!

Lucas:Too many syllables. Also a bit ironic given who you are. With the way you act though, my name for you is better.

Serenity:Ooooo so we’re moving on to pet names? How forward of you.

Lucas:Five seconds before I hang up. Three...two-

Serenity:You’re late! You promised to guide me around the beach at twelve. That’s now.

Lucas:.....P.M. Twelve P.M. Serenity. Why in the world would I mean midnight!?

Serenity:It’s romantic and personal. Nobody else is around. I thought you were trying to use that Belladonna magic on me by acting all cool and aloof in the moonlight.

Lucas:.....

Lucas:Please delete my number.

Serenity:Not on your life, my whiskered bodyguard!

Lucas:Don’t have whiskers-

Serenity:If you don’t wanna move that butt of yours to hang out with a pretty girl in a floppy hat and sundress with a bikini underneath, that’s your loss. I’m still going for a dip.

Lucas:Do not go in the water when nobody is around.

Serenity:Pfft, I’m a strong swimmer.

Lucas:Sharks.

Serenity:It’s more dangerous to eat a hotdog.

Lucas:Sharks feed at night.

Serenity:Are you trying to tell me the statistics aren’t as reliable just because it’s nighttime.

Lucas:That’s exactly what I’m saying.

Serenity:Then you better move your butt just in case. Either you get a snack or the sharks do. Either way, I get attention.

Lucas:Difference is one wants to eat you.

Serenity:My goodness Lucas, oh brazen of you.

Lucas:......

Lucas:Tell the sharks I said hi.

Serenity:Okay! Byyyyyyeeeee! *hangs up*

Lucas:(She’ll be fine.)

..........

Lucas:*putting on shoes* This is bullshit. Who thinks midnight!? *walking down stairs* Can’t have a peaceful day or night....

Jaune:*watching tv* Hey Lucas, going some-

Lucas:I’m giving out your phone number to a homeless man the first chance I get! *walks out door*

Jaune:.....(Whatever gets you outside more.)

It took about fifteen minutes of aggressive walking for Lucas to wrap around to the back of his house towards their section of the beach. Where Serenity walked around humming and collecting seashells without a care in the world.

Lucas:The next shell you grab will have a crab in it.

Serenity:Huh? Oh hey you’re finally-ahhhh! Ow ow ow ow ow ow!

Lucas:Should’ve listened.

Serenity:Have a better warning!!!! It won’t let go!

Lucas:Pull it off.

Serenity:That’s hurt!!! Lucas, help!

Lucas:Fine, if you delete my number.

Serenity:*sniffling* Stop being mean!!! This really hurts, it’s breaking the skin. Isn’t a young and pretty girl’s tears payment enough!? I thought you were getting paid to-

Lucas:Oh my goodness! Okay, just shush. I’m too sleepy for this.

Serenity:You’re mean when you’re sleepy. At least your waking up voice sounds handsome though.

Lucas:Please....stop. Stop everything. *removing crab* Happy?

Serenity:No, you’re not happy. Also my finger is bleeding.

Lucas:Yep, looks like you can’t go swimming now for real.

Serenity:Eh, I lied anyways. I’m not getting in that water. There are sharks in that watery grave.

Lucas:So. Why. Did. You. Wake. Me. Up?

Serenity:....*red* I...don’t really, have friends here. Besides you. Umm *points to pail and shovels* sandcastles?

Lucas:*inhales*......I’ll get the water.

Serenity:*smiles* Yes! I’ll delete your number later.

Lucas:*red* You....can keep it of you really want.

Serenity:....Kek, okay Mr. Tsundere

Lucas:You can remove the next crab alone.

Serenity:Don’t joke like that! That was a joke, right?

Lucas:Welp that pail isn’t gonna fill itself. *leaves*

Serenity:What!? Lucas!!! You were joking right!? Right!? *looking around the sand* you’re a lousy bodyguard!

Lucas:Good, fire me.

Serenity:I...you....ugh!

Lucas:Cheer up, I’m happy now after all. *smiles*

Serenity:*pouting* This is why I’m a dog person.

[razorblade180-heated]

It’s December first

[Yeah, it’s smut]

Weiss lays down on the couch with four water bottles and coffee at her side. Her hair is messy and eyes are tired, yet her skin seems to be extra radiant.

Blake:Morning every-woah, Weiss?

Weiss:Hmm?

Blake:You okay?

Weiss:Fine, just taking a me day.

Blake:I’ve seen your me days. You shop on them, not look drained. What the hell happened, rough night?

Weiss:.....

xxxxx

Twelve hours earlier, Weiss sat on the edge of her bed. Her face was red, legs were fidgety, and heart was pounding as her eyes stared at a slow moving clock. Tick tock tick tock tick- ding! It was one minute past midnight. Right on que, Weiss could heard the sound of her door twist open slowly. She could only look at the floor as footsteps got closer and closer, until...they stopped. Weiss looked up to take in the sight of Jaune, shirtless and barley containing his erection in his pjs.

Weiss pressed her lips against him battled hardened stomach, resisting the urge to start where she really wanted. She slowly made her way down until she had no choice but to hook her thumbs around the waistband and free his thick length. It’s been an entire month since she’s seen it, far too long for her taste; but worth it for the night they were about to have.

Weiss kissed the base of the shaft and had no second thoughts about making Jaune groan by licking his heavy package that was going to be drained fully if she had anything to say about it. Her tongue swirled up and around Jaune’s violently twitching cock. Her right hand drifted in between her damp things and rubbed her folds through her ruined lace panties. Jaune’s hand quickly moved hers away from her aching core and he pushed Weiss onto her back; an action that only deepened her blush.

“I’m the only thing pleasing you tonight.” He rasped. His hands sent chills through her body and he gripped her slender thighs and peeled off her soaked panties to see her aching pussy drip with need. Jaune licked his lips and dove right in. He gave a long lick from her entrance to the top, stopping right on her clit to suckle on it.

Weiss’s hips jerk forward and her hand took hold of Jaune’s hair as he lapped up her arousal. Weiss could feel his tongue barely start dip into her before sliding back up, slurping her up hungrily. He tightened his grip on her legs to keep her still but her couldn’t stop moving. His mouth closed on Weiss’s folds one at a time. The shock made the girl let out a lustful scream scream from Jaune’s relentless sucking and licking of her pussy.

“Aaaaahhhh! Mmmmmph, Jaune! I want it!” She pleaded. The man actually released her body and propped himself over her as she caught her breath. His tip pressed at her womanhood and rubbed its along the folds, getting all nice and wet as they groaned. It was nights like these that made the heiress and knight say things only the bedroom could make them.

Jaune leaned down to Weiss’s ear and whispered, “Tonight, you’re just a hole for me.”

She never wanted him so much in her life. “Yes...”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, daddy.” Her face couldn’t get any redder. Weiss felt his tip slide lower down before spearing himself into her and start her pounding. “Aaaaahhh~ Aaaaa!” Jaune got on his knees and raised Weiss’s hips while she could only grip the sheets and take all of him. Her gown had bunched up to reveal her bouncing breasts. Jaune must’ve liked it, because Weiss felt him hit deeper inside of small frame to the point each thrust knocked against her cervix.

“Fuuuck! Ahh, you’re in...you’re in my fucking stomach!” Weiss bit down on her sheets to control her screaming. Jaune knew all of her buttons the same way she knew his. Weiss loved it roughed and he was going to keep this pace. Her lustful words and mewls made sure of that. There wasn’t a spot he wasn’t touching. He was too thick, too fucking big not to when he was hard like this. And Weiss gripped all of it, tightly.

There wasn’t a moment a second Weiss wasn’t trying to squeeze everything out of Jaune, and her slick walls made it all the easier for him to go as hard as he wanted. Both of them had started to sweat and Jaune hadn’t felt like this in over a month. The first round was always the shortest, but boy was there nothing else like it. “Is..mmmgh, is it safe?” He asked, huskily. Jaune took Weiss wrapping her legs around him as the go ahead sign, then finally erupted inside of her. Waves of his seed shot into her and made Weiss’s walls grip him to know end.

Jaune dropped her waist on the bed and the two stared intensely at each other with rising chests. Jaune leaned down and Weiss crashed her lips against his immediately while she took hold of his still fully erect length and slid it back inside. There will be no sleep tonight.

xxxx

Weiss:....It’s December first.

Blake:Understood. I will make you a hot meal.

Weiss:You’re beautiful.

Blake:Where’s the lucky boy?

In another room of the manor, Jaune was in the same state of blissful tiredness on a couch while Yang made him food.

Yang:What have you learned?

Jaune:Keep food ready for all nighters.

Yang:Yep! Or have a an awesome person like me make you a hardy steak!

Jaune:Yang, I hereby make you the second light of my life behind Weiss. Please do not tell your sister, my sisters, or Nora.

Yang:Haha, deal.

[kitkatopinions]

so i was having a conversion the other day about RWBY and the other guy and me came to the conclusion that "yang's bi vibs are stronger then blake's and blake's vibs bi come off as straight trying to be bi" what do you think?

To be honest, I'm always hesitant to say "straight girl pretending to be bi," just as someone that's felt invalidated before by similar statements. I think the thing is that while I don't believe Yang or Blake were originally intended to be or written to be bisexual for at least the first four seasons, Yang is an outgoing and friendly person, and Blake was a reserved person actively pulling away from friendship and connections. It's easy to read Yang winking at Blake and asking for the first dance and saying "I love it when you're feisty" and complimenting her bow all as Yang showing attraction and interest in Blake. It's also easy to view Yang's interactions with Weiss as potentially being interested or indicating possible future interest. But for the first five seasons of the show, Blake never really went out of her way to engage with her team. Every moment between her and Yang that could be read as romantic was something Yang initiated that Blake only seemed to accept begrudgingly, and the one person she seemed to immediately connect with and open up to was Sun, who A. is a man, and B. is an actually canon confirmed love interest. Even when the writers introduced Ilia, the first LGBTQ+ character in the show who had a confirmed interest in Blake, the way the show was framed made it seem like Blake and Ilia as a couple was never even on the table and they both had always known that. So I get why it's hard to see her as bi. Before volume six, there was zero indicator that Blake had any interest towards women despite her canon confirmed date with Sun and her canon confirmed romantic past with Adam.

However, here's the funny thing: Before volume six, if someone had asked me 'which of the four main RWBY girls are LGBTQ+' I would've guessed Weiss first and then Ruby, but I for sure would've said Blake before I said Yang. Weiss is obvious, I think. You can read her as interested in Pyrrha, or Yang, or even Ruby pretty easily, and is also the most likely of the girls to be closeted or at the very least hesitant to date someone of the same sex (I know the writers said like, the only form of discrimination in Remnant is anti faunus stuff, but they also forgot to check their own prejudice, so.) Ruby hasn't actually showed much interest in boys and her closest friends are all girls or Jaune, who she's never showed the slightest bit of interest in. But the thing about Blake and Yang is that there's a Doylist explanation for both of their lack of queer confirmation - which is that I don't think the writers cared to include it at first and wrote all their characters through a very heteronormative lens - but there's a Watsonian explanation for Blake and with Yang, there's... Not really.

Like I said before, Blake is a reserved character, but she also dealt with Adam, and all three of her teammates have done or said something anti-Faunus towards her. The most egregious is obviously Weiss, but the second worst was Yang leading her around with a laser pointer, and then Ruby's "she has kitty ears and they're actually really cute-" which I don't think was badly intended, but I could still see having crossed a line and made Blake less likely to trust her. So her hesitance to get close to people makes perfect sense, with Sun - a fellow Faunus who wasn't pushy and who's first lines were affirming Blake's Faunus traits - as the exception to that rule. Even the lack of even a hint towards Blake being gay during the seasons where Ilia was heavily involved in her story makes sense to me, because... Ilia was actively trying to kill her parents and ship her back to her abusive ex boyfriend who wanted to kill her. Yes, the writers could've confirmed her as bi before then and their mistakes make Blake seem wholly uninterested in women for the first five seasons point blank period, but as a bisexual woman who is very hesitant to get into relationships and doesn't make friends easily and doesn't like to flirt much due partially to a bad experience with a manipulative ex boyfriend... Blake still makes a lot of sense to me.

Yang is a confident, open, reckless, rebellious, and even flirty person. She displayed an active interest in men in season one (leering at a group of shirtless men and stating her approval,) and she may have winked at Blake but she's also winked at Ruby, so it isn't really a clear sign of interest. Yes, she's easily read as interested in Blake or Weiss, but there's no Watsonian reason why she's never expressed any confirmed interest towards women. Her family seems like they'd definitely be supportive of her, and anyway, she's very unapologetically herself and as I said before, a rebel. There's no reason why she wouldn't leer at women as openly as she does men (not that she should be leering at anyone,) there's no reason why she couldn't talk to Ruby about attraction to Blake or Weiss that she might've had during any point in the first five seasons, etc. Even post-season eight, there's still plenty of reasons why Blake would be hesitant to get into a confirmed relationship with Yang or talk about what they have with anyone or even make any clear moves, and Yang doesn't have that. Again, the real reason is the RWBY writers refusing to canonize the bees, but in-universe, just looking at the characters, it makes Yang's behavior seem weird.

Maybe I just tend to read bi vibes into Blake because I tend to read bi vibes into quite a lot of characters in general lol. And I do read Yang as bi, I just don’t think it comes across very clearly in canon. But yeah, I get bi vibes from Blake, and I also get bi vibes from Yang, and I get bi vibes from Qrow, and I get bi vibes from Ironwood, and from Ren, and from Neo, and from Whitley Schnee, and from Mercury, and from Neon Katt, and from Amber the former Fall Maiden, and from the captain that Blake talks to on the boat, and from that Waitress that winks at Qrow... Plus a lot more. XD Idk, it's just me personally though.

[dragonotaku-justineverything]

Maid/ Butler AU: Have there been times where it’s just solely Jaune and Weiss or Pyrrha and Weiss having sex while the other is away? For example: While Pyrrha is out helping Winter with some errands, is Jaune back at the mansion railing Weiss?

Whoops, I got carried away again.

Pyrrha blushed in embarrassment as she was indeed out in a clothing store in Atlas with Miss Winter at the moment, as per a suggestion she made. While it was nice spending time with Miss Winter, Pyrrha had a very good idea what kind of fun that was happening back at the Schnee Manor right now. 

Mainly because she received a short video from Jaune of Weiss and him while they were out shopping. 

Pyrrha quickly looked around to make sure no one was nearby, as she was waiting outside the changing room Winter was currently using. Seeing no one at all, she pulled out her scroll again and discreetly opened the video on mute.

-.-.-.-.-.-In video-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“FUCK FUCK FUCK! Fuck me more daddy!” 

Normally, Weiss Schnee would be appalled after hearing such vulgarity. However in this moment, she was actually the one saying, or more accurately screaming, them. And she didn’t feel the slightest bit ashamed.

Nor was she ashamed of her current position. Face down on her bed, her cheek pressing harshly against the once neatly made light blue blanket. Her eyes watering and makeup running off her face as tears escaped from the pleasure, landing on her sheets. She had her small pale ass propped up in the air for her daddy to easily pump his cock into her dripping cunt.

Something that Jaune, who was her daddy at the moment, was all too happy to do. 

“That’s my good little Snow Slut.” Jaune was positioned behind her also on the be. He was on his left knee with his right leg up, letting him fuck her pussy with every inch of his cock. His left hand was clamped down on her slim hip, not letting her get too far away from his jackhammer like thrusts. His hips were slamming forward with such force the way they were slapping into her petite ass was probably going to leave some bruising. 

Good thing Weiss was such a kinky slut during sex that she actually loved it.

“How’s! This! For! Harder! You! Pompous! Bitch!?” Each word from Jaune was accompanied by a harsh thrust into his current fuck toy. 

Weiss’s eyes almost rolled back as the pleasure from her pussy tripled. She clenched her teeth briefly, trying to adjust to the new force fucking her. She wasn’t even aware that some drool still leaked out past her teeth. When she finally managed to speak again, it was just what Jaune wanted to hear. “YES OH FUCK YES! I love it Daddy! I’m a filthy slut and I love your cock so much! I love it when you’re so rough with me! Yo- AAH!” 

Weiss was suddenly yanked backwards to be against Jaune’s chest, a sharp cry leaving her throat. No one would be able to tell if it was from pain or pleasure, but for Weiss it didn’t matter because they were pretty much the same thing to her right now. 

“You like this that much huh?” Jaune’s grip tightened in her ponytail. This was his preferred method of getting her in position. His left hand was clenched tightly and the heiress’s silky white hair was tangled around his fingers. The slightest pull and Jaune could move Wiess however he wanted with ease.

And she fucking loved it!

Though despite having all the control, Jaune just kept her pulled tightly back against his body, still thrusting against her. Jaune moved his head next to hers and used her ponytail to make her turn her head to the left to face him. She looked at him like the fucked stupid girl she was at the moment, with hearts in her pupils and everything. “J-Ja-? MMMPH!”

Her question was stopped as he kissed her roughly, dominating her mouth as per usual. His tongue pushed against hers and pushed it down, then slowly swirled around it. 

As he did, he thrust one last time into her pussy, entering as far as he could and erupted. Weiss felt the sensation of Jaune’s warm cum pumping into her pussy and came hard. Her eyes rolled back as spurt after spurt of cum emptied into her hungry pussy. She would never get tired of how amazing it felt to be filled with his seed. Fortunately she had an IUD so she didn’t need to worry about getting pregnant….. just yet.

After a last few twitches from his cock, Jaune pulled his out of her pussy while. Some of his cum following behind and dripping onto the bed. He ended their kiss, sucking on her bottom lip as he pulled away which got a needy whimper from Weiss. With one last nibble, he pulled away completely. Jaune looked at her with a warm smile, and Weiss looked back at him with a bliss filled panting love. Panting a little, Jaune leaned towards her again, but not for another kiss like she was both expecting and hoping for. 

Instead, Jaune leaned in next to her ear and in a slightly smug voice he said, “Smile and say hi to the camera my little Snow Slut~.”

Weiss still had enough self-awareness for her eyes to widen slightly. Weiss, with some help from Jaune’s hand in her ponytail, turned her head to look to the right of her. 

There was Jaune’s right arm reaching behind her, holding up his scroll in his hand. On the screen she could see herself looking like a complete mess from the rough fucking she just been through. She could also see a small red light at the bottom, indicating the scroll was recording. Just as soon as she saw it, it was taken away as Jaune lowered his scroll again. Now completely coherent again, Weiss turned back to face Jaune and quietly yelled, “J-Jaune! W-what are you doing!?! You recorded us!? Why?!” Worry was evident in her voice.

Jaune dropped the scroll onto the bed with a quiet *Thud* and moved his now free hand under her arm to gently cup her chin. “Because, you mention that you’ve wanted to try filming your fun times with Pyrrha and me for your own personal use, so I figured why not start now? Oh, and Pyrrha did ask Winter to install a modified Atlas Military grade security chip into all of our scrolls. She did that about two days ago, so we’re all safe from hacking. Don’t worry Weiss,” Jaune kissed her again, this time it was quick, but also much more gently and loving. “Pyrrha and I are the only ones that get to see you like this~.” He ended his explanation with another tender kiss, this one lasting longer, and Jaune felt Weiss melt back into him.

Weiss pulled away and pouted cutely at him. “You scared me, you dolt.”

“I’m sorry Snow Angel, I should have warned you. But dust, you were so hot.” Weiss blushed slightly at his genuine compliment. “How about I make it up to you? That is, if you’re up for it.”

Weiss smiled, his stamina really was incredible. “I suppose I could let you have the chance, but I’d rather just cuddle. My father was… rather hard to deal with today.”

Jaune nodded and slowly guided them both to laying down on the soft mattress. He then quickly pulled the blanket over both them and became the big spoon. Weiss sighed happily as Jaune’s arm wrapped around her and held her close, making her feel very… cared for.

However, she noticed that she was laying something under her thigh that wasn’t too comfortable. She reached down and pulled out a scroll. She offered it behind her and got comfortable again. “Jaune. Your scroll.”

“Oh, sorry Weiss.” Jaune gently took his scroll from her. As he did, he noticed he never ended the recording. ‘Whoops.’ He tapped the stop button and the video ended.

-.-.-.-.-.-Back at clothing store with Pyrrha-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Pyrrha was blushing as she lowered her scroll, though her blush was more from being turned on rather than being embarrassed. “It took some time, but yes Jaune and I do solely sleep with Miss Weiss on occasion. There is no doubt that Jaune loves me and I him, but Miss Weiss has grown quite attached to our ‘affection’, and we are more than willing to give her it.” 

Pyrrha’s imagination started to wander again, but she reeled it back in and continued. “However, we aren’t always together for Miss Weiss to get her needed affection, so we just agreed that this would be best. Though I we all agreed that we shouldn’t get too carried away with how often we do it in a row. For example, Jaune shouldn’t spend a week in a row having sex with Weiss every night without me joining or having a turn.” 

Pyrrha was still thinking about the video and how turned on it got her. She bit her lips, trying to calm herself down. “Jaune also needs to make sure he saves some for me~.”

Whether she meant sex, energy, cum, or time with Weiss was anyone’s guess.

“I suppose I’ll be asking for a turn when we retu-”

A call from the changing room interrupted Pyrrha. “Pyrrha, could you please come in her and help me with this dress?”

“Yes Miss Winter, right away!” Pyrrha quickly put her scroll away into her purse  and stood up. She swiftly opened the door and swiftly closed it behind her. 

Inside the small room she was greeted by the sight of a bare naked Winter Schnee sitting on the bench inside, looking Pyrrha in the eye with a somewhat nervous yet very excited smile. Her left hand was down between her legs spreading her pussy lips open for Pyrrha to see. The shocked redhead could already see how wet and excited Winter was. “Surprise~.”

Pyrrha was able to recover from her shock after Winter spoke up. With a swift movement of her hand a Pyrrha locked the changing room door with a *click*. She then stepped towards Winter. ‘I guess I’ll be having some fun of my own before we head back~.’ She stopped right in front of Winter and slowly began to undress, an eager smirk on her own lips to match Winter’s.

“I received quite a fun little video from Jaune just now.”

“And I see you’re as aroused as I am then~?”

“Very much so… Mistress.”

A confident chuckle filled the room. “So that’s what you want right now? Well I hope you’ll be able to stay quiet~.”

“I will, I promise.”

“We’ll see about that won’t we… my good little Ice Bitch~.”

Jaune wasn’t the only one that would be having some fun with a Schnee tonight.

[dragynkeep]

Hi there, ironpines! (Love the name btw, I read a really good fic about ironwood being a father-figure to Oscar when RWBY and co. get to Atlas).

So this is probably going to be very long but I’ve really gotta vent about some stuff.

(Also, first ask. I honestly didn’t know how to do this for the longest time. Just got back into tumblr a bit ago).

1. I hate Jaune Arc (a lot of people do), but I want to know why. Do you think/believe he’s an author’s pet? Also, why the HELL did he kill Penny in the first place?!? Why not Winter, Nora, or Ruby? Why did he have to go to the island? Just- WHY?

2. In the first three volumes I really liked Team RWBY, but now….how did they get so skewed? What went wrong? How can Ruby be THAT arrogant that she point-blank says to Qrow: “we never needed an adult’s help.” Like- yes you did! If not for Qrow killing the Grimm in v4 they would have been continuously fighting Grimm. I’m the fight against Tyrian (one of my favorite characters and favorite fights) if not for Ruby getting in the way Qrow wouldn’t have been POISONED!

3. (This is the one I’m going to get cyber-ly killed for). (I also had just started RWBY when volume 5 was airing weekly.) The beginning of Volume 5, in my opinion was good. I liked the first five-six chapters, but when AU watched ‘Rest and Resolutions’ V5C7, I was so angry! Everything about the conversation between Ruby, Weiss, and Yang felt so out of character and out of place. It was so bad and the next episodes following that were not good either (only the raven v cinder fight was any good). The battle of Haven was a train wreck that I honestly have no idea how I even retained braincells after that. Like- why KEEP teasing Weiss v emerald if you aren’t going to do anything with it. Why tease Mercury v Yang if you’re not going to do anything new and interesting with the two (Mercury isn’t even a character anymore!)

4. I wish we got good rep. I really wish we didn’t get confirmation on LGBTQ+ characters from supplemental material (that’s not even canon). And I’ve gotta ask, why do you consider cannon? Cuz for me, the only things I consider actually CANNON to the storyline are the Red, White, Black, Yellow Trailers and the show itself (Grimm Eclipse just for the sake of more cool lore about Mountain Glenn and the fact of mutant Grimm). That’s it. I don’t consider the World of Remnants, manga (DC or otherwise, those were HORRIBLE!), anthologies, and the DISGUSTING novels.

(This is the last thing, I promise!)

5. I’m working on a quasi-rewrite RWBY fic and I didn’t know whether or not I should post the first chapter on my page or not. I just really don’t want the simps to come for my head (though it might happen anyway). But I’ve been writing this for about a year and a half now and I really want to post it but I’m so nervous about the reception and backlash. What do you think?

Thanks for answering me and indulging the fact that it’s okay to like something and still want it to be better (critics/the Rwde tag is my favorite because I can read opinions that I mused share but are too scared to put as a post).

Thanks, we picked Ironpines because we loved Ironwood and Oscar, and then our friends, being the good friends they are, immediately told us it was the ship name for them so now we can't have anything nice.

1) First off, yes, we absolutely think Jaune is an author's pet. We don't really go for self-insert anymore since everyone in RWBY was a self-insert, Monty clearly based them off his friends. But now, Jaune is absolutely an author's pet and has been since the start of the show.

Just look at Volume 1. Jaune literally had more of a storyline than Yang, one of the girls in the title. He then went on to have a dumb love triangle in V2, only to resolve it with Neptune without any input from Weiss, because why not, and then V3 was Jaune finally taking more of a step back for Pyrrha, who was long over due some character.

Until V4 where, rather than everyone mourning Pyrrha, we focused on Jaune mourning her instead. Nevermind that Pyrrha was Ren and Nora's teammate too, probably their only family since they're orphans, or how Ruby literally watched Pyrrha die in front of her. Nope, gotta focus on Jaune. Add that it stretches into V5 also, adding another storyline about his Semblance while Ren, Nora, and Ruby have to stand in the background and wait their turn, while Weiss literally loses all her braincells so she's injured for Jaune's development, how the confrontation with Cinder doesn't go to Ruby, the main protagonist, but Jaune.

Then we get that stupid statue scene in V6 that took over Oscar finally getting some development of his own. It's not even the whole team, because it's only Jaune that gets to meet the lady who totally isn't Pyrrha's mother, it's Jaune that gets the big teary moment, and how Ren and Nora have to stop and comfort Jaune because of course they have to.

I was glad that Jaune finally took a backseat in V7. I actually started to like him again, because he wasn't sucking screentime away from those who need it. But then V8 happened and now I want him dead.

I've said it countless times before so I don't wanna repeat myself, but Jaune is one of the last people that should've killed Penny. He shouldn't have killed her, he shouldn't have had the big tearful scene because another redhead died, he shouldn't have fallen into the void to join Team RWBY, but he did. Now there's no doubt in my mind that Jaune is a fucking author's pet, because the writers won't let him go into the background where he belongs.

2) There's not much to say about Team RWBY. They just suck now.

3) After watching V8, V5 is no longer my least favourite volume. That's how bad it was.

4) Yeah, RWBY's rep is absolute trash and it's because they keep putting it in supplemental material, and also because they look at the LGBT and only see L. The only MLM we have is Scarlet, and he's a catty fae gay stereotype that is so unlikeable and voiced by a creep. Nevermind the whole Fairgame queerbait controversy because this company can't stop themselves for five minutes.

5) I always say that, when you post work on the internet, whether its art of writing, you have to understand that you will get criticism back. It'll suck, especially when you've put so much time and effort into something, but that's the risk you have to take as a content creator.

The good thing is that AO3 has features that let you manage what you see properly. If people just want to hate without giving proper criticism, you can always remove it and ignore it, but I personally believe that people aren't entitled to criticism when it's only said nicely. Sometimes, people will get annoyed and say it in a meaner way, but that doesn't make the criticism any less valid.

Either way, decide based on how you think you'll react to it. If you don't want the stress of criticism, be careful, but if you think you can handle it? Then go for it, the world's your oyster.

[remnantoforario]

7 Things I Want to See in RWBY Volume 8

So with Volume 8 being stalled because of the pandemic (though they are still working on it in increments) I thought about doing a post about things I would like to see in the next volume. This is similar to the “Questions I Want Answered in Volume 7″ before that volume came out, but this one will be more centered on the actual story and characters rather than the broader stuff I wanted in 7. These have no real order, just seven random things I want to see. Here we go:

1. More Varied Character Interactions

This is one of the bigger sticking points I’ve had with the show in general rather than a problem I had with V7 itself. It’s no secret that one of the biggest complaints about RWBY from even it’s most hardcore stans is the lack of interpersonal interactions between characters outside of their given pairs. Ruby only talks to Weiss, Blake only talks to Yang, Ren only talks to Nora, and vice versa. 

Yang and Weiss had moments in Volume 5, but when was the last time Ruby and Blake had a conversation? Volume 1? What about Yang and Qrow? A big part of his arc in Volume 5 was his alcoholism and Yang was nowhere near that. Ruby and Yang are also big offenders. Weiss and Blake had one small moment in the mine and then went right back to being perfect strangers. Weiss and Jaune haven’t “talked” since volume 2 (I don’t count their dialogue after she got stabbed in V5) and I can’t recall anytime Ren and Nora have ever had a conversation with Yang and Blake. These kids are supposed to be friends who have been through thick and thin together, but they seem more like strangers outside of their supposed “pairings”.

The preview with Yang interacting with Oscar, Jaune, and Ren gave me some hope. Hopefully the show continues it. 

2. More Information on Summer Rose

Volume 7 dropped the only notable information we’ve had about Summer since Qrow’s talk about the Silver Eyes in Volume 3, that being that Salem was likely responsible for Summer’s death. It’s now time to finally get more information on her. Who was she as a character? What was her semblance? What was her weapon? How did others view her? What is her connection to Ozpin? Why was she so important? How exactly did she die? I think some, if not all, of these questions should be answered in either this volume, or the next. We need a reason to care about her. 

One more important thing I would stress is that it needs to be Ruby actively searching for these answers. She shouldn’t have them handed to her, she should ask Yang and Qrow. Hell, if I wanted to get crazy I would just have a bottle episode with the three trapped in a bunker or something while Salem is attacking and all they do is talk about Summer.  Anything to highlight just why this woman who has been hanging over the show like a specter since the red trailer is so important. 

3. Give Yang Something to Do

Yang has been mostly directionless as a character since Volume 4. Her goal was to find Ruby, and that mostly carried her through V5, but now that they are reunited she’s mostly used to dress up the background or play will they won’t they with Blake (we’ll get to her) for ship bait. Put her on a path of wanting revenge on Salem for killing her mother (Summer), make her more worried about Ruby, or add her to Nora’s “defend Mantle” plotline. Something to make her an active character in the story again. 

4. Put Blake Back on track

Told you we’d get to her. Blake is an interesting character when you sit down and think about. In theory she should be the most compelling character with the deepest story arc, but she’s not. She was usurped by Weiss (who we will also get to in a moment) not long after Volume 5 ran its course. Her original course was to face her past, which morphed into taking back the White Fang from Adam, and then finally devolved into getting rid of Adam. Since then she has had little to no direction as well. 

Atlas is a hotbed for Faunus discrimination (as far as the show has implied) so I would like to see Blake get back to that. There was a slight moment in V7 with the mine, but that was quickly discarded. It would be interesting if she was able to rally the Faunus in Mantle similar to how she did in Menagerie.

Also, fix her hair. Come on, CRWBY. My girl out here looking like a used swiffer duster.

5. More Focus on the Schnee Family

A lot of people expected Volume 7 to be Weiss’ volume and its not hard to see why. The set up was there. She ran away from Atlas at the end of Volume 4 to find Winter, only to find out that her sister had been called back home. Now she was going back and not only would she reunite with her sister, she would also have to face her Father once more. Ultimately, this didn’t pan out and Weiss was mostly window dressing for what should have been the biggest part of her story. 

The other Schnees weren’t much better. Winter got some things to do, but it was more in service to Penny’s character than hers. Jacques remained the same. Whitley STARTED to get a character arc and Willow did little more than drink and a be plot convenience for Weiss. With Jacques now in jail and the company and family in shambles, this is the perfect time to give us something to latch onto with these five individuals. 

6. Character Conflict and Consequences

RWBY has had a nasty habit of late of pushing “protagonist-centered morality”. Meaning that no matter the situation, our main characters are always right and whoever opposes them is wrong (despite the litany of examples illustrating the opposite). This has to stop going forward. It only serves to irritate the audience because it makes it seem like the characters can’t make mistakes. Nothing they do has any lasting consequences or stakes. 

Team RWBY stalled Atlas’ defense plans against Salem by lying and unwitting sabotage, yet the story treated it as if they were in the right despite them offering no alternatives. Any attempts to speak against them were framed as “villainous”, turning once compelling characters into caricatures (Ironwood did nothing wrong). 

When it comes to character conflict, Ruby is always right. No matter what she says or does, her group falls in line no questions asked. That’s not natural. Someone should question her, someone should disagree with her methods and give a different perspective. 

Yang blistered Ozpin for lying about Salem and the Relic, but she was ok with Ruby doing the same thing to Ironwood? It made no sense and made her look like a hypocrite. 

Blake abandoned her friends, yet was welcomed back with open arms with little to no conflict. Even if the audience knew her reasons, her friends didn’t. For all they know she just up and left because she felt like it. Yang talked all this mess about Blake leaving, but didn’t keep that same energy when she came back. 

It’s ok for characters, for friends, to argue and disagree. It’s normal and happens all the time. Let them fight in the beginning of the volume, break up, and come back together in the end. Something. Maybe Ruby has a plan that Blake, Weiss, or sister don’t agree with and their clashing ideas split the group in half for a while. Then you can have the underlying narrative be them coming back together with new ideas to combat Salem when their individual plans don’t work. 

7. Give the Villains A Win

This is probably the most important thing I want to see. Salem and her forces are supposed to be the most evil group of people the planet has ever seen. A force of nature filled with killers, monsters, and madmen who want nothing more than to watch the world burn...but they haven’t posed a real threat since the Fall of Beacon. 

The show TELLS us Salem is a big deal, but until the end of Volume 7 all we’ve seen her do is sit in her tower and yell about Ozpin. She had yet to directly do anything that made our main characters want to stop her other than “she bad person”. Cinder has had more impact on the plot than her, and she hasn’t been useful since Volume 3. 

The villains NEED win this and the next volume. They need it so the writers can reestablish the stakes and make it so we WANT to see these bad guys defeated. Whether that be killing notable character off, taking the relic and Maiden powers, or dropping Atlas out the sky and destroying both it and Mantle completely, SOMETHING needs to happen to assert the villains dominance again in the plot.  

These are just what I personally want to happen in the next volume. I’m expecting them all to happen, but I least hope one or two of them do. We’ll see how it goes. 

[vecnawrites]

Velvet, are you actually shy and reserved or are you kinky as hell?

Have Fun With This One. It Got Out Of Hand. Quickly.

“Oh, please! Everyone knows that Velvet is the shyest person in Beacon!” Weiss snorted, making the rabbit faunus blush and look down, rubbing the back of her head and scraping her shoe along the floor. “See!? Now, enough of this nonsense; I have to go and make sure Ruby studies, and Velvet has to make sure that dense dunce Arc doesn’t fail...even with Pyrrha’s help I don’t think that’s possible...” Weiss stomped off angrily, leaving Velvet alone in the hallway.

Glancing left and right, Velvet headed back into her own dorm, humming a happy tune as she entered the bathroom, carefully removing her school uniform, revealing that she was wearing a strapless leather bustier and leather framing her hips, but leaving her core and rear completely bare.

The tune she was humming getting more cheerful, Velvet pulled on thigh high stockings, loving the feel of the fabric against her legs. Looking at herself in the mirror, Velvet winked, before opening the door and marching back out into the bedroom. “Sorry to keep you waiting, sweeties! Ruby’s partner wouldn’t stop talking!” she smiled at her boyfriend and girlfriend, waiting patiently for her.

“MMMPH!” Jaune and Pyrrha both moaned through gags, tugging on their silken restraints, toys happily buzzing away at them. Jaune’s cock was hard and weeping, worsened by the bullet vibrator that was attached to the underside of his tip, while Pyrrha was squirming and shaking from the bullet vibrators attached to her clit and both of her nipples. They were on the lowest settings, meaning that it was the worst tease.

Velvet smiled, taking a deep breath of the air, saturated by the smell of their arousal, the musky, sweet tang making her loins soak. She sauntered over, swinging her hips as walked forwards, smiling at the desperate looks on their faces.

Climbing onto the bed, she smiled at her lovers, gently reaching out and cupping Jaune’s balls, humming in delight as she cradled the heavy, swollen spheres in her palm.

“Mmm...so full for me…” she hummed, eyes going to the band around the base of Jaune’s cock, preventing any of his thick, potent, tasty cum from escaping those swollen cum tanks. “You’ve both been so good lately...how would you like a nice reward? To empty those swollen balls of yours into Mistress Velvet’s belly? Or her womb? And you Pyrrha, would you like to be allowed to eat your mistress out?” Velvet smiled as both nodded rapidly, muffled sounds escaping their lips as both bucked upwards to her.

Velvet licked her lips, leaning forward and kissing both on the lips firmly, one hand cupping one of Pyrrha’s breasts and the other stroking Jaune’s cock tenderly and lovingly as she switched between them.

Grabbing the bits of fabric in Jaune’s and Pyrrha’s mouths between her teeth as she kissed them, Velvet jerked her head to the side, revealing that the gags were pairs of her own panties; innocent, childish pairs, pristine white with orange carrots all over them. Spitting them to the side, Velvet grinned down at her flushed, breathless lovers. “Did you enjoy my taste, sweeties?” there were no demeaning nicknames that Velvet used, this was an act of love and trust between the three of them.

“Y-Yes, M-Mistress Velvet…” Jaune gasped, arching as Velvet cupped his straining erection and pumped it, mindful of the bullet vibrator attached to him. “S-So sweet~” Pyrrha mewled, arching up and showing her moist lips to her lapin lover.

Velvet giggled, the sound a beautiful chime in the air. “You saw the sweetest thing, my lovelies...your mistress will let you do something special today~”

Jaune and Pyrrha, despite their pleasure, blinked, Jaune hissing as Velvet carefully removed the bullet vibrator attached to his cock, before carefully undoing the ring that had kept him from cumming for so long. The blonde moaned loudly, the sensations becoming that much more without the block.

“I know you love looking at your mistress’s bottom, Jaune…” Velvet began, smiling at the look of mortification on Juane’s face. Obviously, he hadn’t expected to be noticed admiring her backside. She kissed him again, this time on the tip of his nose while palming one of Pyrrha’s breasts. “There’s nothing wrong with loving your mistress’s body, Jaune.” she comforted, reaching up and fluffing his hair lovingly, kissing him and then Pyrrha sweetly on the lips.

Nuzzling against Juane’s nose, she hummed. “Better, sweetie?” she asked, getting a nod from her blonde lover. “Good~ Now, as I was saying, I know you like looking at your mistress’s bottom…” Velvet climbed onto the bed and seized the leash attached to Pyrrha’s collar as she straddled Jaune’s waist. “After all, I could smell your cock leaking precum, and don’t think I didn’t immediately realize why you always let me and Pyrrha go first!” the bunny wiggled her backside, giggling as Jaune’s cock lurched between her cheeks, slapping against the skin. “Hmm...I guess the Bunny Booty is irresistible, huh?” she bounced up and down a bit, feeling her cheeks pop and smack against his cock and one another, enjoying Jaune’s helpless moans as she shamelessly twerked her bubbly bunny booty.

~

Velvet had always know that she had a big butt; her sisters, the kids in her hometown, even her own partner, made sure she knew that. It embarrassed her so badly! Even as she grew older, her butt just grew and grew more, until her cheeks were the nigh monstrous, jiggly swells of fat that they were now, shaming her even more.

She had hid so long that she was frightened of telling anyone or letting anyone see her body...until she had met Jaune and Pyrrha, and had, quite literally, stumbled into the blonde’s lap, showcasing her hidden treasure hidden under her skirt as it smashed into his waist and hip, her skirt flipping up and revealing it in its entirety.

She had been mortified, but she heard the shocked little whimpers and felt the rising poke against her belly, making her look back in shock to see Jaune and Pyrrha looking as mortified as she felt, both looking down as though expecting to be screamed at, to be hit.

Something had come over her that day, and she had told both Jaune and Pyrrha that if they wanted to ‘make it up to her’ that they would do what she said...which led to taking the pair back to her dorm. All three of them had lost their virginities that day...as well as Velvet finding out that she thrived on control. And just her luck, both Pyrrha and Jaune thrived on being controlled and loved! The three of them were a match made in heaven!

~

She adored being loved and worshiped, and Jaune and Pyrrha needed love and positive reinforcement! Leaning down, she rocked her ass cheeks up and down Jaune’s cock, already feeling him leaking against her, her skin getting slick and sticky from his precum.

Part of her was torn; she truly loved the taste of Jaune’s cum (as did Pyrrha, the little scamp often tried sneaking it), since her sweetheart ate a very healthy diet, along with a healthy serving of pineapple with every meal, so it was one of her favorite treats! She often got an ‘all natural smoothie’ between classes.

But on the other hand, she loved bouncing on Jaune’s cock, riding him and draining those fat, heavy balls of his into her womb, carrying around his warmth within her belly of hours on end after the deed was done.

But which? Both of her sweethearts had been so good for her, not touching themselves beyond cleaning purposes for the entire past week (which must have been truly hard for Pyrrha, who she noticed trying to lean her head and look behind her), leaving Jaune’s balls swollen and overfilled for today. They both deserved the best.

She nodded to herself, making her decision as she leaned down and pressed another kiss to Jaune’s lips, giving her rear end another wiggle for Jaune’s enjoyment. After a moment, she sat back up and smiled down at him and Pyrrha.

“You’ve both been so good for me, sweethearts,” she hummed, “Mistress is going to let you do something you haven’t before…” leaning over, she unlatched Pyrrha’s cuffs, before hopping up and spinning around so her rear was facing the pair, squatting over Jaune’s cock as she tugged on Pyrrha’s leash, leading the redhead towards her front.

Looking back with a smirk, Velvet grabbed her fat cheeks and pulled them apart, watching Jaune’s eyes go wide and his cock throb, spitting out a bit of precum as his eyes locked on her twitching winking little hole.

“You’re going to be allowed to fuck your mistress’s bottom~” Velvet purred, smiling at Jaune as she lowered herself a bit, feeling the fat head of his cock wedge itself between her cheeks. She could feel large fat drops of his precum shuttling out and spreading against her little hole, slickening up the crevasse between her cheeks.

Rabbit ears twitching, Velvet smiled. “What do you say, sweetie?” she would forgive him for being for being speechless; he had been the same when she had sucked his balls dry the first time.

She heard an audible swallow from both of her lovers, before Jaune spoke. “T-Thank you for this gift, Mistress! It means so much!” her heart swelled as she heard the brutal honestly in his voice; he truly was grateful.

Licking her lips, Velvet pressed herself down, forcing herself to relax as she felt herself being spread open by her male lover’s thick cock. A tiny grunt escaped her lips as the wide head slipped inside her with a ‘pop’, the slight burn at the stretch making her flinch, but immediately being soothed away by her aura.

Locking eyes with her male lover, Velvet bore down more, her eyes hooding as she felt the intense stretch as she impaled herself upon Jaune’s cock. A muffled moan escaped both of their mouths as she eased further and further down his cock, both gasping and moaning, the bunny twisting her hips side to side as she slipped down closer and closer to the base, her pussy dripping her arousal as she came close to the bottom, feeling her rear touch his hips before flattening out, squishing against his skin as her twitching anus flexed around the base of Jaune’s cock, trying desperately to force the invader out.

“Mmm...you’re so deep inside of me…” she purred, squeezing around Jaune, getting a needy, keening whimper from him. She moaned as she felt a spurt of heat enter her backside. “Did you cum, sweetie?” she knew that Jaune hadn’t, after keeping himself backed up for a week for her, there would be far more than that little bit of warmth.

“N-No, Mistress! I...oh, Gods, so tight, so hot, feels so good…” she smiled as Jaune bucked his hips upwards a bit, his thighs tensing and straining underneath her, swollen sack twitching.

A whimper grabbed her attention and she saw Pyrrha looking at her leaking pussy desperately, licking her lips and staring hungrily. Velvet ignored that for the moment, reaching down and trailing her fingers along the stretched skin, her own flesh breaking out in goosebumps as she could swear she felt a sloshing noise in them. “Hmm...you really are backed up for me, aren’t you baby?” she purred, shifting her hips left and right, feeling Jaune’s cock throb within her as she stared into Pyrrha’s emerald eyes.

“Yuh...Yessss…” Jaune hissed out, his breath coming in rapid, harsh pants, his muscles tensing as he fought to keep from cumming before his mistress did. He didn’t want to disappoint her, or Pyrrha, not after all they did for him…

Velvet hummed again. “I’m going to start moving sweetie...feel free to cum, whenever you want~” she purred, before lifting her lower half and bringing it down with a clap.

Both cried out loudly, Jaune from the tight squeeze and heavenly sensations wrapping around his cock, and Velvet, due to the new sensations of her ass being filled so well by her lover. “Fuck~♥” she moaned out, wiggling her hips left and right, squeezing down hard on her precious lovers cock.

Looking down at Pyrrha, Velvet spread her legs a bit wider. “Go ahead, precious~” she cooed, before moaning as Pyrrha dove forwards, eating her out with a vengeance as she slowly rocked up and down on Jaune’s thick cock.

The trio writhed and the air was filled with moans, whimpers, and the scent of sex. Pyrrha in particular, was leaking heavily down her inner thighs, having no stimulation other than eating Velvet out. But, that mattered little, as the bunny could see that Pyrrha was twitchy, close to orgasm already.

Velvet was the first to cum, unsurprisingly, being pleased from both ends. The bunny’s ears went slack and her eyes rolled up in her head, her ass ruthlessly clenching down on the invader in her ass as she squirted, spraying Pyrrha’s face with her slick.

Pyrrha followed with a squeal, her hips going wild and humping the air, her pussy quivering and flexing around nothing.

Jaune came with almost a howl, his balls finally getting release after over a week of not having any relief after they were used to daily emptying, the fat orbs pulsing and pumping and shooting out every drop of fluid that they held within them, massive shots of his thick cum shooting upwards like a geyser into Velvet’s belly. His eyes rolled up in his head as he slumped back onto the bed, trying desperately not to black out.

Velvet moaned as her orgasm finally tapered off, despite the fact that Pyrrha was still licking her pussy with a fervor almost unmatched. She rubbed her belly, which had a large bulge on it from all the cum that had been pumped into her. “So...full…” she moaned softly, reaching out and stroking Pyrrha’s hair. “Hang on a moment, sweetie...and we can all start round two when Jaune gets his breath back...I know you’d like to be filled up too…”

The excited sound from both her lovers made her smile. It truly was wonderful having two submissive lovers to care for and love whenever she wanted...now the only question was…

What position would the three of them do next?