#trans maiden! Weiss | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bestworstcase · 1 year ago

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You know, if the possibility of Summer not only being Salem's final lieutenant, but also possibly the person who accidentally killed the Spring Maiden (and who might also be Gretchen Rainart based on a previous theory mentioned somewhere)...

That's gotta be reaaaaaaally awkward if Summer was ever around Hazel at any point.

i’ve mentioned this before i think (<- i assume by “mentioned somewhere” you mean you read a theory post but can’t remember where in which case, the op was probably me, i’ve been on this train for a while) but:

the official story is that gretchen rainart, after enrolling at beacon academy, “tragically lost her life” on a training mission

per lionheart, the spring maiden was “determined, at first, when she inherited her powers, but the weight of responsibility proved to be too much for the child. she... ran. abandoned her training, everyone. that was over a decade ago.”

per raven: “she was scared when we found her! weak! no matter how much training i put her through, she never learned! she wasn’t cut out for this world! and with those powers, she would’ve been hunted her entire life. what i did—”

(“and which we are you referring to?”)

raven: “that’s why i tried to leave when i did. i’m not afraid, i’m smart.”

raven left taiyang shortly after yang was born. this would be approx. 15-16 years ago as of the beginning of V1. however, her statement that she “tried to leave” suggests that she stayed (reluctantly?) entangled with ozpin’s cause for longer.

eyeballing it, summer left when yang was around five and ruby about three. this would be about 12 years before the start of V1 and 3-4 years after raven broke things off with tai. since raven and summer were obviously still in close contact then, this tracks with the interpretation that leaving tai <> leaving ozpin.

‘more than a decade ago’ is vague but presumably means >10 and <20. so spring running away would have occurred approx. 10-18 years before the start of V1.

hm.

“nice story. but if gretchen’s death taught me anything, it was never to trust you.”

let’s consider the case of the runaway spring maiden. and, more specifically, the assumptions the fandom (myself included) have tended to make.

first assumption: the spring maiden trained in mistral or at haven academy.

no one ever says as much. qrow’s suggestion that the spring maiden was “picked up” by the branwen tribe after she ran away does not, in a world where trans-continental travel is commonplace (and was explicitly safer a decade+ ago than it is now), necessarily imply she ran away from haven. weiss got picked up by the branwen tribe after she ran away from atlas, after all.

likewise, amber’s presence at beacon and, later, fria’s in atlas prime the audience to link the spring maiden to haven. however, both amber and fria were in the academies because they were medically fragile and not expected to live for very long; prior to cinder’s attack, amber was traveling in rural vale, tailed by qrow. it also makes sense, in general, not to keep the living keys to the vaults in the same fortress as the vault they can open.

second assumption: lionheart knew her.

this follows from the assumption that she attended haven, but look at what’s missing from lionheart’s account: he never uses self-referential pronouns. his syntax leaves it ambiguous whether he knew this girl or if he’s simply repeating information he was given.

third assumption: raven’s “we” is the tribe, and she’s talking about finding the spring maiden after the girl ran away.

before V9, this was more plausible, but i don’t think it adds up now that we know raven was still at least notionally aligned with ozpin, via summer, as recently as twelve years ago. in order for “we” to mean the tribe, raven would have had to actually leave (as opposed to “trying to leave”); thus, either summer was conspiring with raven while raven was leading the tribe, or raven met the spring maiden after whatever went down with summer, in which case the third person involved is a complete mystery. the former is possible, but i think the simpler explanation—that this “we” is ozpin’s circle—is more plausible.

especially because what raven says lines up with what lionheart says. except for “she was determined at first,” but even if lionheart did know her, raven was clearly much closer to her and is the type to see through any façade the girl might have put up. (pyrrha was also “determined” but you know that if raven knew her, she would remember how scared pyrrha was. same principle likely applies here.)

fourth assumption: “what i did—” is solely about raven mercy-killing her.

which, it might be.

but if “we” means ozpin’s circle, that would mean raven was training the spring maiden on his behalf—and because it doesn’t really make sense for #3 to be anyone but the spring maiden, we can assume with high confidence that raven had a kindred link with her, ergo she loved the kid like her own family.

the spring maiden “ran away.” gretchen rainart “tragically lost her life on a training mission.” raven “tried to leave.” summer and raven and a third person were involved in a rogue mission to end things once and for all, none of them ever came back, and raven never told anyone what happened.

all of these things happened a bit more than a decade ago.

“what i did—”

i think she’s talking about summer’s last mission. the young spring maiden was overwhelmed, scared, struggling to learn what she needed to learn—and she had a huge target painted on her back because of salem. raven cared about her. if she wasn’t cut out for this world, the one defined by eternal war between ozpin and salem, then maybe the answer is to change the world. end it, once and for all. (sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall?) so she conspires with summer to do exactly that.

and then it goes so catastrophically wrong that a) summer joins salem, b) there’s a fight, c) gretchen is mortally wounded, d) raven either mercy-kills her or just can’t save her, and e) raven becomes the spring maiden.

ok.

now. if gretchen was the spring maiden, how do we square the circle of “died on a training mission” vs “ran away”?

in V3, qrow talks about having to search for maidens and in V5, ozpin says that one of the reasons he gave the branwens bird forms was to make it easier for them to search for new maidens when the transference of power was “unclear.” gretchen enrolled at beacon “against her brother’s wishes” and hazel holds ozpin responsible for her death; i think she was the spring maiden before she enrolled, raven identified her, and ozpin recruited her personally.

(if only because unknown maidens are mentioned twice in connection with the branwens and that has yet to pay narrative dividends; and it fits quite nicely.)

it does not go well. gretchen gets more freaked out with every new inkling she’s given of the conspiracy and is under intense pressure not to back out or tell anyone on the outside what’s happening. raven, her mentor/handler, sours more and more on the whole situation and eventually decides she’s not going to be a part of it anymore.

she’s not backing down from the fight. she’s not running away. but she’ll give gretchen a way out and make sure no one else can find her, and if that blows up her relationships with the rest of the inner circle, so be it.

so the spring maiden runs away. “abandons” her training, except raven still knows where she is and is still trying to help her figure out the magic because, well, she’s sort of stuck with it until she dies. gretchen can’t go home yet (salem might find her), but she can lay low and focus on mastering this power to defend herself away from the pressure of being one of ozpin’s guardians.

raven refuses to tell anyone where gretchen is. hazel is getting increasingly frantic; either she’s dropped out of contact or her vague, cryptic messages have him worried. nobody at beacon can give him a clear answer.

several years go by. the situation does not improve. somehow or another summer and raven cook up a plan to Fix Everything by taking salem down. it goes horribly wrong. summer joined salem, gretchen is dead, raven is the one left standing with blood on her hands and magic in her soul, after years of obfuscating where the spring maiden went.

what to do?

tell no one about summer. no one would fucking believe her if she told the truth. refuse to answer questions about her bond to summer, no one will think twice about her doing that because it’s what she did when gretchen went missing, too.

tell hazel gretchen is dead. he deserves to know. what happened, and why it happened, but leaving out summer’s involvement. if she’s vague on how and when—if she makes it sound like she was too cowardly to tell anyone that she, perhaps, let gretchen die (“[you saved yang] once. because that was your rule.” <- qrow really believes this)—or couldn’t save her—she can reveal that gretchen is dead without linking her death too obviously to summer’s disappearance.

if ozpin hears that gretchen is dead from hazel—when the infuriated meltdown rampage happens—then he can quietly tap qrow to confirm (by talking to raven) and restrict who knows the truth; hazel’s explosive grieving anger is easy to spin as hysterical paranoia.

and playing gretchen’s death “close to the chest” is a classic ozpin move. after all, learning that gretchen has been dead the whole time will only sow negativity, and the situation doesn’t materially change very much either way; they’re looking for the spring maiden either way, and everyone is aware that gretchen might die before they find her, so they’re already keeping an eye out for unknowns. qrow knows the truth, but he’s not about to spill the beans to anyone without ozpin’s say so.

and summer’s the one who suggests recruiting hazel to salem, because it’s her fault gretchen is dead but she can at least bring hazel into the fight to tear down the system that led her there. (“you’ve never wondered why she recruited you? you, specifically, to help her find the relics?” <- a narratively interesting line of attack in that it explicitly puts this question in front of the audience, follows up with an unequivocal confirmation that salem sought hazel out very deliberately, and follows that with ozpin’s overtly manipulative and unsatisfying answer of “because hazel is easy to manipulate.” lots of people are easy to manipulate. why choose hazel? how did she even know about Just Some Guy who lost his sister?)

all it really requires to tie everything together around the discrepancies is for ozpin (a liar) and raven (a matryoshka doll of secrets she refuses to talk about) to be, er, lying and keeping secrets. and narratively gretchen being the spring maiden just makes sense, to almost the same degree that summer joining salem just makes sense. it’s intuitive. it fills in gaps the narrative quietly circled in V8. it tracks with gretchen being so important in the same volume that makes a huge thing of how no one knows what salem is really after. no more gretchens; so you’ve decided against vengeance for your sister, after all this time?; in pursuit of a new world.

but yeah like. it’s fun because hazel is so malleable and so good at pretzeling his thinking that he could conceivably have been told the truth—summer killed gretchen—and still been talked around to aiming all of his fury and vengeance at ozpin because 1. ozpin is the reason gretchen got pulled into this mess, and 2. gretchen died in the crossfires of a fight that broke out when summer learned the truth (that the war was one-sided paranoia), and 3. for salem and summer the point of this war is to end the paranoid conspiracy so nothing like this can happen again. but my god, the tension between him and summer could probably cut glass.

#my girl is haunting the narrative

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min3nc · 11 months ago

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trans girl sun in denail so stil presntaing as male as summerm maidnen as just think have a exarta semebcsule in more comdic way cause waht sun like i guss it ociuld soem in agst if want but dosnt have to

(sorry this took so long! life came at me like a speeding truck. But here we are! closeted TransFem!Sun... who's also the summer maiden, very much against her will. Tried my best, in consideration that I myself am not Transfem and didn't know just how much could I joke around with. Felicia did beta-read this for me, so... yeah!

Sol = Sun in spanish, which is, coincidentially, a popular name here.)

Tapping her fingers against the tabletop, Sol smiled nervously at Blake, and the rest of Team RWBY.

The conversation about Sol's new semblance - or The Summer Maiden Powers... as 3 out of 4 members of team RWBY assumed - continued to hang in the air like a poorly executed dodge.

Ruby, the youngest of the group, looked utterly perplexed. She furrowed her brow, head between her hands, attempting to process the information.

No one can really judge her, though. The stress of being Remnant's Savior To-Be was a fair excuse for something as obvious as this to slip through the cracks.

She had no reason not to believe Sol when she said that she was a man. A big, burly, macho man.

Blake rolls her eyes. She knows her friend. And most importantly? She knows herself... and also sees herself in Sol.

That's a conversation for another day, though. What mattered right now was the apparent new semblance of Sol.

"So... You're telling us... That after Miss Olivia was... attacked by Cinder, you developed a new semblance."

The previous Summer Maiden had gotten attacked by Cinder - A woman named Olivia... who was one of Sol's teachers at Shade. She had passed away as Sol was carrying her away to safety due to her injuries.

"Yeah! You all saw it, right?" She gestures with her hands, clenching her fists. “Yeah, you know, it's like an upgrade or something. Happens all the time! Semblances evolve! Y-You... Weiss, you know about this, right?"

Sol didn't miss the way Weiss' sudden reaction as her name was mentioned, noting the way Weiss jumped, her shoulders leaping up to her ears in surprise.

"I-" She coughs into her fist to recover her composture. "Well, yes, I did evolve my semblance through... Hard work, experience and..." she waves her hand around dismissively, and then turns around to Sol. "B-But! I use dust for elemental attacks, while you just create them... B-By all means, that's ilogical! One does not simply create matter out of nothing-"

"But... What if my semblance allows me to do that? Maybe I just AM that kind of guy!"

Blake does not miss the way Sol's right eye twitch at the last word.

Weiss breathes in heavily, before looking at Blake, silently communicating to her; Guys do not simply become Maidens.

Blake sighs, and looks at Yang, and shortly after, Weiss looks at her too.

Yang grimaces as Weiss huffs frustrated between her explanation as she tries to make sense of Sol's own explanation. Blake and Weiss look at her with pleading eyes. She curses under her breath. Curses being the Older Sister, and thus, the reliable one.

Clasping her hands together, she takes a deep breath. "So... Wukong," she starts.

Sol nods.

"You know... We all know, now, that my mom's the fall maiden..."

Ruby perks up, head almost snapping off her neck as she turns to Yang. "She's WHAT?"

"Yeah, uh, yeah. She is," Rubbing her neck, she smiles nervously. "And... Dad has told me, that she wasn't always called Raven. Uh. Y'know the whole thing about... perfect twins always being the same uh... Gender? At birth, at least."

She cringes, and when Sol shakes her head, she full-on grimaces. "They are? Huh… I'm an only child, so…"

"Well, they are. And... And Ruby and I have two moms, and a dad. My dad wasn't involved in the... huh... conception," She gestures with her hands, fingering her thumb and index, making Weiss and Ruby groan and cover each other eyes. "That was fully my mom's thingy," Blake facepalms, and - does it smell singed? A distinct burning smell comes from Yang, as smoke begins to come out of her mouth as she speaks, her semblance dangerously close to activating and burning the chair she was sitting on. "N-Not thingy! Huh - Deal! Mom's deal!"

Sol simply shrugs as she watches her friends look around awkwardly, avoiding each other's eyes. Particularly Yang's. "...And? What does that have to do with me?"

Ruby, who seemed to have caught up, opened her mouth, babbling out something about the Summer Maiden powers, and how they needed the powers to defeat Salem.

Nothing about how this exactly meant Sol's involvement.

Nervous rambling, through and through.

Blake groans, taking her friend by the shoulders and gripping them as she stares at them. She knew her friend, she knew how Sol wouldn't just... accept something so out of her comfort zone so easily.

And the first step to get her to accept things for her had always been via the crash-landing method.

"You're the Summer Maiden."

"Does that make me cooler?"

"It makes you a woman, Wukong. You're a woman. Congrats on the gender."

#rwby #sun wukong #ah. i was really hesitant to post this. i kept bothering felicia to read it #and see if i was being too rude or anything #bc the way i speak sometimes is rude. so i hope it doesn't come out as that #felicia laughed while reading it so. i take that as a win

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joshy-tomato · 2 years ago

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Suddenly I recalled how one of the earliest theories about Oscar was he being a pre-transition spring maiden or the spring maiden possing as a boy (crazy times, i know) and my sleep deprived brain was like "you know what, that should be an au".

Like, imagine the original spring, the one that canon Raven killed, was able to tough up and Raven decided that she may be able to survive. However she was killed by grimm a few months after the Fall of Beacon. Not wanting to put the tribe in more danger than they already where just by taking her, she dicides to think on some random dude of the tribe or on the grimm attacking her, believing this way Salem wouldnt go after the tribe. So the power ended choosing a random host, that ended being Oscar, who had been recently questioning her gender and suddenly got the confirmation that she was, indeed, a girl.

Maybe she ended in the same white plane with Spring, has Penny and Winter did in Volume 8, and Spring told her to go into hiding and while doing that she found Ruby's group in Mistral, after Qrow told Leonardo that Raven could have the Spring Maiden.

Extra things:

The name I usually use for Fem/Trans girl!Oscar is Ambrosia "Amy" Pine.

Raven and Cinder plot could go that, after Spring death and Salem forces coming to the tribe, Raven and Vernal got scared and decided to pretend that Vernal was the Spring Maiden, maybe using Vernal semblance to trick Cinder. Their plan was that the night of the attack the tribe would evacuate and they would use the scandal of the fight to flee. That plan did not go well.

Who is Oz host now? Im not sure. Could be Amy still, that could be tragically hilarious. Im also thinking on Jaune, that is honestly an idea that I think is so tragic that I love it. Like, he lost his partner and love interest because of Maiden businesses, the man he partially blames for it is now part of him and that little girl that his becoming his new combat partner and surrogate little sister is a maiden too, and he and Oz blame themselves for ruining her life, believing that Amy deserved the life of a normal girl.

Amy temporarily hides her status as maiden by posing as a boy, but after Haven and with Leonardo and Cinder dealed with she ditches that. Weiss, Nora and Ruby helped with the overhaul, combat skirt on the way.

Thinking a way (excuse) for the group to still have to scort the lamp to Atlas (I to get Jinn to spill the tea) im thinking, the reason why they couldn't keep the Lamp in the vault is because Amy used the vault to temporarily seal Cinder inside, and for that they had to take the Lamp out. Amy and Yang having to go down the vault to save Raven (Vernal was already death by that point). Amy had to sit and hear the family drama with Vernal corpse on her side. Beautiful memory.

This is me, so we would be having saphic!Rosegarden, she would have found out about the drama eventually.

Amy fancies earth over other elements and is not quite fond of flying yet.

I'm not sure about her weapon, on one hand could be a sword or knives since Maidens seems to rotate towards them but at the same time and really fond of how canon!Oscar used Long Memory as a bat and blame star rail for this but Amy hitting people with a magical bat would be badass and hilarious.

#rwby #rwby au #transgirl!oscar #oscar pine #spring maiden au #rosegarden #is minimal but is still there #the xiao long-rose sisters being saphic over their badass not yet girlfriends #i want to talk about saphic rosegarden ask me about saphic rosegarden

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lunatriense · 2 years ago

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Nitpick (or maybe a serious problem, I can’t tell anymore): A lot of the details around the Fall of Beacon just don’t make sense.

Who decided that is was a smart idea to have Penny manipulate her swords with strings? Why was she let in to test her strength on human (and Faunus) opponents when she could fight Grimm just as easily with a smaller chance of being found out? Is there some sort of prize for winning in the tournament? Does she have an Aura shield? Why didn’t we see it shattering? How didn’t she notice Pyrrha’s magnetism powers? Considering how Silver Eyes work, it’s really weird that Ruby didn’t unlock them when she saw Yang injured. Or Penny dying. Yang running to save Blake and telling Weiss to find Ruby instead of the other way around will never make sense to me. Why did Weiss and Blake decide to eat dinner instead of watch Pyrrha’s match at the arena itself? Why did Jaune call Weiss instead of Goodwitch and Qrow and Ironwood like he was told to? How did they not design the communication towers in a way where one tower falling didn’t automatically mean all trans-continental communication was down?

Oh, absolutely. In addition to the above:

Why was there such horrible security on the CCT that alarms weren't immediately sounded when an intruder came in?

Why was there no security whatsoever on Amber, when she was so important to protect?

Why did Ozpin insist on doing the aura transfer in the middle of the battle, when it's pretty clear Salem's agent doesn't know where Amber was since, y'know, zero security and she hadn't been attacked again yet?

Why didn't Ozpin take part in the defence? He apparently had a nuke cane with which he could choose to only affect certain targets!!!

Why did Qrow — who had encountered Emerald and dealt with her hallucinations before — not immediately become suspicious when Yang relayed what happened with Mercury?

Where is Beacon's (and Vale's!!) air defences? Do they honestly count on fucking students to do literally everything??

Where was Taiyang? We're seriously supposed to believe that both of his daughters are in the Vytal tournament and he didn't even come to watch them?

As soon as Cinder made her broadcast, people intimately familiar with Beacon's campus (like Ozpin, Glynda, etc.) would know approximately where she was, and none of them were far from her at the time. Why wasn't she swarmed with seasoned hunters?

Why the ever-loving fuck was Amber even at Beacon!? That's the last place she should be! They put the comatose Fall Maiden in the Fall vault with zero security when they knew Salem's agent was after her! She should've been deep in the heart of Atlas surrounded by guards or something, not right where her relic is!

#rwde #answers

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shera-dnd · 2 years ago

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AT LONG LAST IT IS HERE!

It took me powering through several writers blocks, rewriting this TWICE, and (I'm not even kidding me) AO3 GLITCHING ON ME!

But it's finally done. The next step in my long elaborate plot to trans every Schnee's gender

This time it's a story about Whitney following in her brother's footsteps and becoming a huntress

It also features some delightful art by @midnightechoes which you can check now on AO3 or wait for her reblog if you also wanna support her here on tumblr

anyways sorry again for the wait, and I hope you guys enjoy the read

Falling. He was falling.

White and blue surrounded in darkness as he fell further and further into the abyss.

She dove after him, flying as fast as she could.

She had to save him. She couldn’t fail again, couldn’t let another person die for her.

She got closer and closer, her hand reaching for his, barely inches apart.

She screamed his name…

…and then he was gone.

~~~

“Weiss!” Winter screamed as she bolted up in her bed.

Around her were not the golden pathways of that strange place, but a simple tent; one of the many set around the walls of Vacuo, a home for the countless atlesian refugees that now gathered in the desert.

It had been weeks since the incident at the central location.

Weeks since she lost her brother.

And weeks of waking up just like this…

If only she had come sooner, if only she hadn’t wasted so much time with Ironwood. If she had realized earlier that her loyalties weren’t worth all this pain she caused.

It didn’t matter. Winter could sit there all night thinking of what ifs, but it wouldn’t change what had come to pass.

Weiss was gone, and she only had herself to blame.

A sigh escaped her lips. She wouldn’t be getting any sleep like this. It would be better to do something with herself, get her mind away from this, and try again later.

And that’s how she found herself stepping out of her tent and into the desert.

The shattered moon glowed brightly in the sky above, and the brisk air of the desert night almost reminded her of her now lost home.

Winter closed her eyes and allowed herself to just feel the wind on her face, the sands under her feet. It became strangely easy to do so since she gained the winter maiden’s powers, to just connect herself with the elements of the world.

Maybe she could take flight and lose herself among the clouds. Let the night wash away all the worries that would come with the morning. It was a childish thing to even consider, but it’s exactly the kind of thing Penny would want her to do with those powers.

Oh, Penny…

Another life lost to her stubbornness.

Why couldn’t she just listen? Why did she let things go so far?

Why did she–

There was a sound, metal ringing off in the distance.

Had a fight broken out? Had someone invaded their camp?

Instinctively Winter reached for swords… to find them gone. She must have left them in the tent, damn it!

Her eyes glowed a pale blue, and a pair of ice swords formed in her hand - awkward imitations of her blades, but they’d have to do.

Now properly armed, she skulked around the many tents around her, searching for the origin of that sound, swords at the ready, and her senses searching for any threats.

What she did find was a little girl - her sister - awkwardly flailing with Winter’s sword, swinging wildly and with no technique.

Whitney had never been a fighter, had never shown interest in hunting or learning the family semblance. She had always put her focus on the company first and foremost. And yet here she was, practicing in the middle of the night, all by herself.

She would have asked what Whitney thought she was doing - stealing her weapon and sneaking off into the middle of the night - but there was a fire in Whitney’s eyes that she hadn’t seen before; so Winter stepped back and watched as her sister trained.

She must have realized her flailing was nowhere near an effective combat strategy, because she huffed and walked back to her starting position.

She brushed her hair away from her face, wiped the sweat from her brow, and took up a fighting stance.

Then it hit Winter.

It was Weiss’s fighting stance.

The sword was too big for her, and her base was too narrow, but it was still clearly Weiss’s. Like Winter could still see him holding Myrtenaster back when he was a kid, so unsure of himself, but determined to grow.

“Whitney,” she called, and the girl nearly jumped out of her skin.

Jacques’s upbringing immediately kicked in, and she composed herself in record time.

“Ah, sister,” Whitney greeted, trying to hide the sword behind her, “what brings you so far from your tent in the middle of the night?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” she answered truthfully, “and I take it you couldn’t either.”

“Yes… of course,” Whitney replied, “I just decided to go for a nice walk to clear my mind before bed.”

“I see,” she nodded, “and did that little walk happen to involve late night sword practice as well?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Whitney tried to deflect.

Winter simply tossed the ice blades aside and reached one hand towards her, “hand it over.”

Whitney opened her mouth to argue, then looked around to maybe find an escape route, then finally deflated and surrendered the sword back to its owner.

“What were you thinking?” she scolded, “sneaking around, stealing weapons, and then training all by yourself in the middle of the night? Do you know how poorly this could have gone?”

Whitney sighed, “I’m sorry, sister. I promise not to do this again.”

“Good,” Winter answered with a hard military nod, “now meet me back at my tent tomorrow morning so we can start some proper lessons.”

And just like that her sister perked up in attention, her mouth opened and closed several times over as she tried to figure out what to say, eventually settling for, “thank you, sister.”

Winter smiled at that, “don’t thank me yet. Now go get some sleep, you’ll need to be well rested for your training.”

~~~

Wooden swords clashed over the sands.

Sweat dripped from Whitney’s brow as she continued to strike against her sister. Each blow met with a perfectly effortless parry, and each parry followed by a comment.

“Watch your footing.”

“Don’t telegraph so much.”

“Strike higher.”

She had to admit, this was starting to get frustrating.

Sure, Whitney wasn’t an idiot. She didn’t expect to match the years of military training Winter had in just a few days.

But after a whole week of this she was hoping to at least get a hit in!

After a dozen more strikes, Whitney was left breathless, and Winter looked just as composed as she ever did. Which only made this ordeal even more infuriating.

Worse still is that she looked almost satisfied.

She raised a hand to command Whitney to stop - not like she had the energy to keep going anyways - and gave another one of her sharp nods.

“Good,” Winter informed her, “you’re making progress.”

Whitney huffed and panted, but still managed to get out a halfhearted, “thanks.”

Winter put her training sword aside, took off her gloves and announced, “I believe it’s time we moved to the next step of your training.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Whitney grumbled, “can it wait until I’m not a sweaty mess?”

“Don’t worry, this will require no physical effort on your part,” Winter assured her, “this time, we’ll train your aura.”

Oh!

So it was finally time to learn that old family secret.

The Schnee semblance.

Winter approached slowly and placed one hand on her shoulder and the other on her forehead. The white glow of her aura radiating from her hands and through Whitney’s body, reaching into her more and more until–

Something reached back.

That thing expanded through her body, like a wave of warmth, breaching the surface in a bright white glow.

It surrounded her, enveloped and permeated every part of her body, and she felt… safe.

“With your aura unlocked, you have taken the first step on becoming a huntress and learning our family’s legacy,” Winter announced with pride.

The family legacy.

For Whitney that had always been the company.

What did the semblance matter when it was the company that made the real difference in the world? When it was money that would keep her safe?

After the Fall of Atlas that felt like a different life.

She was a huntress in training now, like her brother and sister, and that meant keeping alive the one part of her family’s legacy that had not been destroyed.

Whitney raised her hands before her, bringing them together, willing that force inside her to come to her finger tips.

Her aura glowing a bright white once more as it gathered in front of her and… nothing happened.

She released a breath she hadn’t noticed she was holding, and grumbled, “well, that’s disappointing.”

“Our family’s semblance won’t respond to brute force,” Winter explained, extending her hand and calling upon a small glyph, “it’s the manifestation of our family’s ability to dream, and our will to make those dreams into reality. It lets us turn everything around us into tools for our goals. Even the grimm we fight. It was this semblance that allowed our family to colonize Solitas, that allowed our grandfather to found the SDC, and it’s what allows us to fight for a better future.”

The power to dream?

That felt almost silly. Especially coming from her sister.

Grandpa Nick?

Sure, he was a dreamer, he envisioned this wonderful world he could bring about with the help of the SDC.

But Winter? Whitney? Their mom?

They weren’t dreamers.

That word felt too childish, too hopeful for them.

“What do you dream of, dear sister?” she found herself asking.

That caught her by surprise. Winter looked pensive, unsure of what to do or say. The glyph in her palm disappeared as she turned aside to think.

“I’m… not sure,” she admitted, “I used to dream of a prosperous Atlas, with our family living safe and happy within it, but now I’m not sure that dream can ever be real.”

It should have been sad. To know that her sister had lost the one dream that had kept her going, but at the same time it was good to know that even someone like Winter could still dream and hope like that.

It reminded Whitney of the human hiding behind all the uniforms and titles.

It also confirmed for her something she had started to suspect about her family.

“Weiss really was the only one of us to ever do any self reflection,” Whitney huffed.

It was about time she did some of that too.

~~~

As much as a throwaway comment as they felt in the moment, those words followed Winter around for the following days.

Self reflection? Did she really need to do any of that?

It felt wasteful to spend so much of her time thinking about herself.

She was a maiden now, she had a kingdom to protect, and the power to do so.

What else mattered?

And yet, those words followed her constantly.

Weiss had been happy since he found out who he was. Happier than he’d ever been in their home. Happier than anyone in their family had been in a long time.

Even Whitney seemed to have changed and grown so much since her own journey of self discovery.

To learn that she had gone out of her way to try to save as many of the Mantle refugees as she could, it had been both heartwarming and shocking.

The sister who once would do anything for their father’s praise, now standing defiantly in the face of authority.

To think even Whitney chose rebellion before she did.

No.

No, it didn’t matter.

Focus on protecting people. Focus on using her powers for good.

Winter couldn’t undo the harm she’d done, but maybe if she protected everyone, then she could at least prevent more tragedies from happening.

Keep families from being torn apart.

She sighed and buried her face in her hands. She’d been flying high across the sky, the vacuan desert below, and the shattered moon high above. It was a vain attempt to clear her thoughts, when all it did was leave her alone with them.

One hand extended forward and on it there appeared a glyph, barely bigger than the palm of her hand.

They’d been getting smaller since they arrived in Vacuo, forcing her to rely more and more on her maiden powers. She worried soon the family’s semblance would be lost to her for good.

A maiden more than a Schnee.

This wasn’t working.

She needed to do something.

Anything.

As long as she didn’t have to hear these accursed thoughts any longer. So she made the decision to land in front of someone who would never allow her to self torture like some brooding fool.

“Hey there, Ice Queen,” May Marigold greeted from the entrance to her tent as Winter’s feet gently touched the ground in front of her.

She was wearing a simple nightshirt with little cartoony sheep on it. Her long hair was hanging loose behind her, and she looked downright sleep deprived. But she made time for Winter all the same.

“Hey,” she greeted back, unsure of what else to say.

“So what got you floating around this late at night?” May asked, a half smirk on her face.

Winter sighed, deflating from the all powerful Maiden to the overworked soldier that May was much more familiar with. “I just– I needed to get my mind away from things. I could… use some distraction.”

“You know most girls usually buy me dinner before asking for that,” she replied, cocking an eyebrow.

“May,” came Winter’s severe tone as she crossed her arms.

“Alright, alright, come on in,” May chuckled, waving for her to follow her into the tent, “now what am I distracting you from?”

Of course she wouldn’t just let Winter be.

She glared at her, eyes narrowed, a look that had made many cadets tremble in their boots. But May was no cadet, and she knew Winter too well to fall for her tricks.

She just met her gaze and quirked an eyebrow in amusement.

Winter caved in first.

“My glyphs are still shrinking,” she admitted, taking her usual seat at the foot of May’s bed.

“Right,” May nodded sitting next to her, “I told you beating your head over this isn’t gonna work. Maybe listen to what you told your sister, and don’t try to brute force it.”

She tilted her head at that, “how do you know what I told her?”

“She’s a baby trans, and I’m the big mama trans,” she explained with a shrug, “I check in on her every once in a while.”

Winter pinched the bridge of her nose, “what else did she tell you?”

“Besides that you’re a hardass who could really do with reassuring her more after sparring?” she threw those words out casually.

“I’ll… keep that in mind.”

“That maybe you need to figure yourself out a little instead of hiding behind your duties as a big sister, and a maiden, and whatever else you got going on in there,” she said, poking Winter’s forehead.

Winter shook her head away, “self reflection is a luxury I don’t have time for.”

“Self reflection is a necessity you can’t keep delaying,” May argued back, “you’re the one who said that whole thing about dreams before, so actually listen to yourself then.”

“Fine!” Winter groaned and leaned back onto the bed.

She covered her face in her hands, took a few deep breaths, then took them away. May had laid down next to her too, both of them now staring at the tent’s ceiling.

“...last time I tried to blindly follow a dream, I just ended up getting everyone hurt,” Winter began, her voice heavier than it had been, “I thought I was fighting for a prosperous kingdom and a safe family, but all that did was get Atlas destroyed and Weiss…”

May took Winter’s hand in hers and gave it a little squeeze.

“You know, I envied Weiss back then,” she admitted, “he got to be himself, to find a family that loved him, and live a dream that was all his. He still had a long way to go, but I was so sure he’d be the best huntsman our family had ever seen… if he had the chance.”

“Then be like him,” May said, turning in bed to face her, “you already have a family that loves you, and people who support you. Now you just need to find out who you want to be, and what kinds of dreams that Winter would have.”

Winter turned to face her, blue eyes meeting gold.

Who did she want to be?

It seemed so much easier to figure out who she didn’t want to be. Not like her mother, not like her father, and most certainly not like Ironwood.

Itdid very little to narrow down her options…

Who was Winter Schnee?

“And I mean,” May added, with a smile on her face that let Winter know that nothing good would come of it, “if you envy Weiss in other ways, I can ask Joanna to lend you a binder.”

There it was.

Winter sat back up with a loud exasperated huff, “I told you, I don’t identify as a–,” then the next part hit her and she paused, “wait! Joanna wears a binder?”

“Yeah,” May answered, sitting up after her, “you don’t have to identify as a man to wear one. You can just do stuff because it helps you feel more comfortable with your body. Wild isn’t it?”

That was an option?

Wait…

Now hold on, why did she get so excited over that being an option?

No, don’t let May know that, she’s gonna make fun of her over “cracking her egg” or something silly like that.

“I see,” was all Winter had to say.

“Should I try to hook you up on a packer too?” May offered.

Okay, maybe she really did need some self reflecting.

~~~

Dreams. Dreams. Dreams.

What did Whitney dream of?

She dreamed of being a girl, a dream she’d conquered quite handedly if she might say so herself. But that didn’t feel like the kind of dream Winter was talking about.

Did she dream of inheriting the company?

She used to - and maybe she still does - but that felt secondary now. There was still enough of the SDC around that just dropping the headquarters from the sky isn’t gonna lead to a collapse. The title of heiress was still hers, and if she so desired Jacques’s legacy was hers for the taking.

But Jaques’s legacy wasn’t the one she wanted to live up to.

Did she dream of becoming a huntress?

Oh absolutely not.

Learning to fight was a necessity, not a choice. She would keep the flames of Weiss’s spirit alive, and fight to protect the world he died for, but she never felt the calling for heroism the way Weiss did.

Not to say she didn’t like doing good.

Saving - or at least trying to save - all those people back in Mantle filled her with a unique kind of pride, and if she could continue to help others like that she would. Just not, you know, charging in with a sword in hand or anything.

Texting May also didn’t help that much. As helpful as she was when it came to matters of gender and expression, the Schnee semblance was firmly outside her area of expertise.

Which left her with only one choice. A Schnee who had never been a huntress, never taken the company, and still held her semblance.

It was time to talk to her mom.

She found Willow sitting on her bed, in their shared tent, reading some romance book she managed to get her hands on.

Sitting around and reading had been most of what she had done since arriving in Vacuo. It was her own way of dealing with the loss of her home, and her son, all in one swift blow. It was a sad state, but sadder still was the fact that this was an improvement compared to before.

At the very least she wasn’t caught in a constant drunken stupor anymore.

“Hey, mom,” Whitney called, making her presence known.

Willow perked up, her eyes looking up from her book to meet Whitney’s, “oh, sweetie, do you need something?”

She was also trying to be a better mom. A fact Whitney had not fully gotten used to.

“I needed some help actually,” she admitted, walking up to her mother, “it’s about Winter’s training.”

Willow set her book aside, and turned to face her properly, “I don’t know how much I can help you with that, dear. I’ve never been much of a fighter, and my old hunting rifle…” there was a pause and a frown, “...well, it went away with the house.”

“No, no, it’s about our semblance,” she explained, “she gave this entire speech about dreams and the family legacy and I just–” she sighed, “don’t know what to do with all this.”

Her mother smiled at that and said, “I understand how you feel. Back when your grandpa told me all of that I was so nervous that I would never have a dream worthy of the Schnee semblance.”

She leaned closer and continued “do you wanna know a little secret? It’s never about how big your dream is, it’s about how much you care about it.”

Oh.

“So my dream could be anything?” Whitney asked, somewhat confused.

“As long as it matters to you,” she assured her, “your aura comes from your heart. As long as your heart is in it, it will answer you.”

“Ugh, this is starting to sound like something out of a fairy tale,” Whitney complained, “but I think I get it.”

Something that she could put her heart into.

Yeah, that sounded a lot easier.

“Hey, mom,” she added, still finding that word a little weird to say out loud, “if it’s okay to ask. What was your dream?”

Willow cupped her daughter’s face and looked into her eyes.

“To have a family I could love and care for.”

~~~

Wooden swords clashed over the sands.

Sweat dripped from Whitney’s brow as she continued to strike against her sister. Each blow met with a perfect parry.

Though this time Winter found herself too stuck in her own head to be able to comment on her sister’s progress.

For what it was worth Whitney had grown remarkably as a fighter in such a small span of time.

She was proud of her - genuinely so - but there were too many thoughts swirling in her mind, and even that beaming pride was lost in the maelstrom.

“That’s enough,” Winter declared.

Her sister had nothing to gain from this if Winter’s head wasn’t in it.

Whitney unceremoniously dropped down on her knees, half sitting on the sand.

“Any commentary, sister?” she panted.

Right, she was expected to offer feedback. “You’re making good progress.”

“Wonderful,” Whitney grumbled, “so shall we go about my aura training?”

Should they? When Winter herself had all but lost mastery over her semblance, what right did she have to teach anyone how to use theirs?

That talk with May had given her a path towards perhaps regaining that part of herself, but that was a path she had barely begun to walk, and not one she could guide anyone through.

“Perhaps some other time,” she deflected, turning to put her sword away, “I gave you a lot to think about. You should take your time with it.”

“Actually,” Whitney called, “I wanted to talk to you about that.”

That… was a surprise.

She turned to face her younger sister, who now played with the edge of her skirt.

“I don’t want to be a huntress,” Whitney admitted, “I’m not like you or Weiss. I’m not made for fighting.”

“Understandable,” Winter nodded, trying not to seem disappointed, “then we can stop with the physical training.”

“I didn’t mean I’m not going to fight, especially after everything that happened,” Whitney countered, “but that’s not what I want to do with my life.”

A small hint of a smile formed in Winter’s lips.

That was very noble of her little sister.

“What I really want,” she continued, “is for our family to have a home again. I don’t think any of us ever felt at home in the manor, so that’s what I want. I want to give us a place that feels like home.”

Whitney straightened her posture, and there was a new determination in her eyes.

“And if that means mobilizing every last bit of SDC resources to dig Atlas out of the ditch it landed in, then so be it!” she declared, “because we deserve a place to call home!”

That hint turned into a full blown smile.

Winter walked up to her and dropped on her knees so they could look eye to eye.

“Uh, I guess… that’s my dream,” Whitney added, all her previous confidence melting away in the silence.

But Winter wasn’t about to let that flame die. She took Whitney’s hands and brought them up in front of her face.

So she could see the small glyph that had formed between.

“I think it’s a beautiful dream.”

#rwby #fanfiction #whitley schnee #whitney schnee #winter schnee #willow shcnee #may marigold #hellbore

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greenbeany · 3 years ago

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VACUO REDESIGNS!

I made some redesigns of the kids in Vacuo for a comic I'm working on. Dropping the references below and uh some analysis if u want to read it below the cut 👉👈

Cinder ONCE AGAIN overhauled her look completely.

Hair is grown out a little more again, because it has to blow in the wind it just has to.

Cape is red and gold, in reference to her "killing" Ruby and killing Pyrrha.

Covered her neck because we do love symbolism.

Moved her feather brooch to her neck. More on that later.

Brought back the gold detailing from V2. They were goregeous and she deserves them.

Glove to match with Grimm arm. More gold detailing. Also Grimm arm has red nail polish?

Keeping the playsuit shape from v7, but sleeveless and overhanging coatless, she just looked too hot.

Thigh highs, because she's a maiden.

Oscar is pretty similar to his original design.

A little less red but it's clearly still present to show that he's grieving for Ruby.

Jacket is v similar but it's shorter in length and sleeves, because Vacuo.

Black trousers. Not ideal for desert but I wanted everyone to have some black so you know they're grieving.

Cape is a different shade of green with gold accents as reference to Ozpin. Green is used again on his wrist band. Cape is in reference to both Ozma and Ruby.

Grew out his hair just a little.

Winter has her hair out, because I'm giving the fans what they want. The bun and plait surrounding it are meant to represent a crown but I didn't want to give Winter an actual crown, because I don't think she's into that kinda stuff.

She keeps her swords on her back. One, because this looks cool, and two, because it gives her the silhouette of a snowflake.

Jacket is Weiss-volume-1-esque. Made it less regal and more modern though.

Black tank and shorts. Because grieving. Also she looks hot in them.

Her belt has the Schnee logo with a red crystal on it. Again, to represent Weiss.

Speaking of Weiss, she has Weiss' necklace on her neck. It's positioned to draw parallels with Cinder's brooch because parallels wooo.

Thigh highs, because she's a maiden. Note that they're white, while Cinder has black ones.

Gun holster on leg. This could either contain a gun or dust. But it looks fuckin cool as shit.

Ren's look is very much derived from my casual design for him. He and Nora aren't stressing about practicality too much.

His hair is down again. I'm doing the Ren stans a favour. You're welcome.

Pink scarf. It's to stop sand getting in his mouth and such. Dip dyed red at the end. Resembles Ruby's cape.

Overalls because Ren is fucking sexy. Muted green shirt underneath. Off the shoulders.

He has a black belt around his waist. He keeps dust (and Nora's diabetic medicine) in his pouches. Very responsible.

Black miniboots. He's a fashion diva dontcha know.

Red ribbon wrapping his knife to his arm. I'm using black as the group grieving colour, but Ren also gets red because he loves Jaune secretly shhhhh.

Nora is another growing her hair out. I imagine that Jaune started cutting her hair one day and once he left, she didn't ask Ren to take over again. She just let it grow.

Hair bow, because she loves Penny secretly shhhhh. She has a heart choker too. Just for fun.

Black loose jumper. Again, not Vacuo clothing, but she kinda just needed comfort clothing. Heart with a lightning bolt through it also brings to mind imagery of a broken heart.

Blue skirt. There's no reasoning for this.

Pink and blue combat boots and white socks. She might be trans.

#rwby #rwby fanart #i drew this 🦑#winter schnee #cinder fall #oscar pine #ozma children #lie ren #nora valkyrie #team jnpr #team alpn #vacuo redesigns #Redesigning Rwby #fredmadethis

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ironwoodprotectionsquad · 3 years ago

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Not to mention how Penny's decision to get rid of the virus is decided FOR HER. The last shots of her old, robotic form reaching out to the new Penny, silently pleading for help while her friends laugh and smile with the "real" Penny? Completely invalidating her whole arc, from Vol 2 even. She was always a real girl, that was the point of her arc! Ruby tells her that despite her having nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts didn't make her any less human! Penny getting the Winter Maiden powers further confirmed this!

Only for it all to be thrown aside because suddenly Penny isn't a real girl anymore, she's "trapped" under her robotic parts. So they "freed" her, using some weird ass relic magic I couldn't even begin to understand.

The whole hacking thing was gross, too.

And the assisted suicide in the finale by fucking JAUNE "AUTHOR'S PET" ARC. Jaune, who barely interacted with Penny. Who asked him to kill her so she could "choose one thing in her life", a statement eerily similar to actual suicidal people (I was there once, unfortunately. That scene made me so upset... And not in the way it was intended to.)

Have someone else do it! Hell, Weiss has a sword, too! That would have made much more sense!

But no! Now team RWBY + Jaune + Neo are all in some weird ass void island whatever, where they likely WON'T face consequences for literally destroying a WHOLE KINGDOM and displacing literal thousands and thousands of people! Plus the people from Vale and Haven are there too, along with those who are from Vacuo.

They've gathered most of Remnant in one convenient spot for Salem to just nuke away and get THE LAST TWO RELICS. RWBY already basically handed her two of them, now it's only a matter of time before she gets the last two and completes her goal.

Well done, RWBY. Well fucking done.

-🎼

The whole Penny fiasco is just disgusting and hurtful and fucking TRIGGERING for people. That so call trigger warning was an absolute joke and they had no reason to not put a proper trigger warning for that scene. If they knew it was bad enough to need a trigger warning they should know that you can't just slap on a generic trigger warning and call it a day. People are able to handle different things, saying something maybe might possibly be triggering is not going to cut it, especially in a show that never had anything triggering before. Shows like SVU can get away with generic trigger warnings because every episode deals with emotionally heavy themes so it would be more difficult to put each trigger that gets addressed, people going into that show KNOW the kind of content they're getting into, RWBY doesn't have that benefit, they have never touched on something so triggering before, they needed to be specific and make sure people knew what was happening, spoilers be damned.

Penny suffered through the same fucking arc AT LEAST three times and it has become insulting. Just so much of what was done to Penny was ableist and disgusting and an insult to neurodivergent, trans, and anyone with disabilities. I've seen a lot of shows use a robotic or android character as a stand in for someone with mental illness's or being neurodivergent and so many of these shows handle it pretty well, but RWBY just handled it in the most disgusting way possible it's almost like they where trying to make it bad.

We all know CRWBY threw them to Madagascar so they won't have to deal with the consequences of their actions and by the time they get back everyone will have settled into their new norm and calmed down so they can say "See! We where right! Everything worked out fine!" and I am NOT here for it.

Realistically Salem just has to drop a huge fucking rock on Vacuo with her shiny new staff and call it a fucking day. But somehow for some reason the staff will just stop working or whatever to justify her not doing that so RWBY can somehow pull another win out of their asses.

#RWDE #I AM SALTY OKAY #TW Suicide #TW Assisted Suicide #THAT IS HOW YOU TRIGGER WARNING

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magnhild · 4 years ago

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the misconceptions and mis-framing of penny’s death

i hesitated to make this post here for a good while; partially because i didn’t want to right when people’s emotions were heightened from the finale, partially because i’m sure some people are going to argue with me here and i’m not looking for a debate- if you don’t agree, please just scroll past.

i’ve made a large number of posts of penny’s death on twitter before, but some were based on my own heightened emotions, and they were all scattered over the course of a couple of weeks, so i’m making this psot to kind of gather all of those thoughts together, the most important ones, at least.

a quick disclaimer before we start- don’t mistake this as all being ‘oh you must just not really care that much about penny’. it couldn’t be more untrue. penny is a comfort character of mine, and a kin to boot. her second death was also the only in the show to really impact me, seeing as i watched v1-3 within a couple of days and didn’t give myself enough time to get attatched to any characters (and i just didn’t personally care for clover all that much). so, please don’t assuming this is coming from a place of not caring- it’s coming from the opposite.

i’ve tried my very hardest to look at what people are saying when they call her death inherintly bad writing, and honestly, i can easily see the validity to some of their points. there were a lot of flaws in the scene.

it felt very rushed and blown-over, but then again, the entire episode did, and i have to wonder if it was done on purpose to emulate the chaos of war- you usually don’t get time to process anything. i mean, in rwby’s case, cinder was winning a fight, half of the characters that would’ve moured her were in the void, and the other half was in another kingdom. that left jaune, who had to focus on fighting cinder. it’s the same as when ruby wasn’t given time to mourn yang.

it also was weird to kill her off two episodes and probably only, like, 10-15 in-show minutes, after she’d been saved from death by gaining a human body. i think it would’ve happened anyway, given the many death flags she had, but i’d have expected- and liked- for them to wait a little longer. it would’ve been nice to see her adjust to having a human body, that’s for sure.

and i can fully agree that framing suicide as a good thing is not...a good thing. but, that brings me to the first point when i say ‘misconception’. because, penny’s dead wasn’t suicide at all. and i have no idea why people would frame it that way it the first place.

first of all, if we’re going to start labelling sacrifices as suicides, we’re going to have to say the same about pyrrha, vernal, and probably yang even though she didn’t actually die (but she thought she would). but being killed in a battle while protecting people...is sacrifice. penny asking jaune to kill her quicker, so that she could make sure the powers went to winter, was sacrifice. it also meant that she didn’t have to die slowly and painfully instead. penny was not suicidal. she has never been suicidal. to be suicidal is to want to die. penny never wanted to die- she only ever believed that it was her only choice to save the people she cared about and the city she was assigned to protect. in penny’s situation, i imagine you’d have a hard time finding another way out of all the siuations she’s been in too. it honestly feels like people are only calling it suicide instead of sacrifice to frame the scene as worse than it was, and that rubs me the wrong way.

and now you’re probably wondering, ‘but blaire, if she’d let jaune save her, she wouldn’t have died’. except that everyone who thinks that is missing one critical factor- she would have died anyway.

cinder’s blow was a killing one. from the moment she struck, she was already starting to steal the maiden’s power. a little longer, and she probably would have. but the one thing a lot of people seem to miss is that, even though jaune was there, he would not have been able to save her. firstly, his aura would have been extremely low at that point, considering we see it shatter in this episode; he probably would not have had enough to fill another person. he maybe could’ve sealed the wound a little before his aura would have broken, and then cinder would’ve just kept going with no problem.

but, even if he somehow had been able to- his aura recharges pretty quickly, after all- another critical factor is that there literally wasn’t time. penny said so herself. as i mentioned earlier, cinder was winning the fight agaisnt weiss. and we’ve seen how long it takes for jaune to heal someone. with weiss, he was lucky; there were several other people there to protect him and weiss while he did his work. with penny, there was only weiss. the moment cinder saw jaune healing her, that would’ve been it. with both of them defenselss, she probably would have killed jaune on the spot, given that weiss never would have been able to stop her on her own, and continued to take penny’s power. jaune or not, penny would have died. because penny didn’t kill herself, jaune didn’t kill her, cinder killed her. this was a murder.

bu then, what was all that about penny finally making her own choice? was it not to die?

no. of course it wasn’t. how i ever believed that myself at one point baffles me, because the more i look back, the more it’s very obvious that it wasn’t the case. it’s almost funny, actually, because my current self would’ve called myself from two weeks ago stupid for believeing such a thing.

as i mentioned, penny has never wanted to die. and, in this case, it wasn’t even that she felt she had to for the greator good; she was dying anyway. her choice had nothing to do with death. her choice was who to pass the winter maiden’s power onto. because, if jaune hadn’t used his sword and severe’d cinder’s connection, the power very likely would have gone to cinder instead. she’d have the relics and both the fall and winter powers, and she’d have been near-unstoppable otherwise.

even the wiki editors somehow saw this more clearly than i did, but like i said, it’s actually pretty obvious. once you get the weird idea that penny was suicidal out of your head, it’s clear to see that the choice she was talking about was to choose winter. and it’s a damn good thing she did, because winter probably would have died otherwise, and the evacuees would’ve been left defensless agaisnt the grimm- penny wouldn’t have been able to save them, as we’ve established.

the last thing that everyone should consider is that we literally have no idea what could happen next. it’s hard to write this off as anything when we don’t know what effect it will have on the story and characters, or- though it’s a stretch- if penny will even stay dead. she is, after all, based off a character who dies and is ressurected on a frequent basis. it was the same case with pyrrha and clover’s deaths; both were dismissed as bad writing based purely on assumptions, only for the auidence to find out later that both deaths actually served pretty reasonable purposes; pyrrhas’s to set the stakes and give all of the character’s a reason to keep fighting, and clover’s to demonstrate how loyal-to-a-fault the aceops were, and that ironwood had no problem sacrificing his own men.

in the end, to call this a good writing choice is probably a stretch. but, it wasn’t a bad one either. there were just too many factors that weren’t considered, or were misunderstood, and the aformentioned rushed feeling of the episode probably did not help with picking all this out. these are realizations it took me days and even weeks to come to. what’s instead important is to look at the situation from as many different angles as possible, and to keep in mind that we can’t really say anything for certain about the consequences of the event. nuance is important! espeiclaly in media critisism!

i genuinely hoped this has opened people’s eyes, even if they already didn’t consider it bad writing. seeing crwby, and this show, undermined so drastically, has been pretty hard for me to see, especially when some people are using it to call crwby morally wrong. i’ve even seen people say it was transphobic, because penny was trans-coded, while totally dismissing may, a canonically trans character. and i know that crwby are getting death threats again, which is bitterly disappointing and enraging. stop. and stop enabling this behaviour.

also, if you’ve read over all of this and still don’t personally like the decision, that’s fine and understandable. i can easily see why people still wouldn’t. but i think it’s important to remember that not liking a writing deicsion doesn’t necceserily make it a bad one. kind of like how me not liking any of star wars doesn’t make it a bad franchise.

thanks for reading, and please remember to just...be nice. and if you’re still mourning penny’s death, which is understandable, remember to look after your mental health! she would want you to!

#rwby #rwby essay #rwby analysis #rwby v8 #blaire rambles #my writing #penny polendina #rwby voume 8 #tw penny's death #tw character death #tw suicide

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Strings”

Happy Saturday, RWBY friends! I am, quite obviously, going to dive into the recap in just a moment, but first I wanted to take a short detour to discuss the elephant in the tumblr room. Namely, Supernatural.

For those of you out of the loop, the tl;dr is that a fifteen year, beloved show ended with a truly horrendous finale. Specifically, the finale rejected everything that the show had been building towards: the logical conclusion to character arcs, the theme that “family don’t end in blood,” the potential for a queer romantic relationship… I could go on. The point I want to make is that the fandom had every reason to believe we’d be getting these things. This isn’t a case of fans upset that the finale didn’t go the way they wanted as an individual viewer, but rather that the finale didn’t go the way the show clearly and explicitly said it would. It’s not an exaggeration to say that in many respects, viewers were straight up lied to.

(I recommend reading the reviews.)

What does this all have to do with RWBY? Well, I can’t help but think that history is repeating itself. Certainly there are some notable similarities between the two series. Both have long, meandering plotlines with no clear end in sight (though I hope RWBY doesn’t reach the 15 Volume mark…). Both began with a small, core cast, but quickly expanded—generating the expectation that these now equally important characters will be given their due. Both have moved from the small conflict of fighting everyday monsters to a god-based mythology. Both have a popular queer relationship dangled in front of the viewers, featuring scenes where they’re “obviously” in love… but will it ever be confirmed? Both have a fanbase that says loudly and confidently that the writers know what they’re doing. Just wait! It’s all been planned! We’ll be rewarded for our patience and soon all the naysayers will be proven wrong.

Thing is, the Supernatural fandom wasn’t rewarded. Right up until a week ago those fans—myself included—had faith that the writers knew what they were doing because they can’t really be that out of touch with their own story...right? It’s not possible. Yet they were, it was, and now that I’ve gotten solid proof of precisely how far a show can go to reject its own logic, themes, and premise, that just makes me more wary of RWBY’s mistakes. Before I had a solid faith that things couldn’t possibly get that bad, that no matter how much RWBY might be messing up in the short term, it will undoubtedly pull it together overall, because what show wouldn’t? Especially a show with such promise and, at times, wonderful storytelling. Well, Supernatural didn’t manage it and frankly I’m not sure what to do with that information.

Seriously. I don’t have any grand conclusion here. It’s not my intention to suggest that anyone should stop watching RWBY, or to claim that it will absolutely fail because Supernatural did. Obviously, we don’t know what will happen until we get to see it in the show. I only want to acknowledge these parallels and the similar journey I see both fanbases on. I can’t help but wonder if, a couple years from now, RWBY fans will be making incredibly optimistic posts about how it’s all coming together, just have some faith, everyone who says that the group won’t get a satisfying ending, or Blake and Yang won’t be confirmed are just mean trolls… only to wake up that Saturday morning and get another metaphorical slap in the face.

It’s something to think about.

But here I’ve spent a page talking about the wrong show. Let’s get into the episode!

We open on a black screen with lots of ambiguous noises. At first I thought this was Oscar struggling in the Hound’s grip or something, but then I remembered that RWBY likes to insert an episode between cliffhangers. I watched Ironwood (presumably) shoot a guy and he only came back this week (though that question still isn’t answered. At this point I kind of wonder if it will be). Oscar was kidnapped last week, which means we won’t get to see him until next week. Or… two weeks from now? RT skips the week of Thanksgiving, don’t they? Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Something horrible happens to Oscar and we need to wait two weeks to find out how it’s resolved.

Watch him escape the Hound off screen and return to the group with a new outfit 😂

So it’s not Oscar we hear, but Ruby, the last one coming out of the tube. Weiss is in the process of pulling Nora’s ear for that stunt… with a frankly strange looking hand. What’s up with RWBY animating weird hands lately? I’m pretty sure that’s not how anatomy works.

Anyway, Nora counters that this was a “Once in a lifetime experience,” but they were all going to go through the tubes regardless. Weiss isn’t pissed that you sent her through, she’s pissed that you did it unexpectedly when she was alone, heading into enemy territory. But of course, there’s no one in the room to hinder them, so the mistake is meaningless.

We’re setting the tone again though. For the first half of this episode everything is sunshine and giddy adventure, which doesn’t fit the situation at all. It also creates emotional whiplash when I’m suddenly supposed to be super worried about things later on. This sort of about-face works once in a blue moon, as an emotional punch, like we see in Mulan:

But RWBY does it every other episode, which makes the overall tone of the series confusing instead. Half the time RWBY feels like two different stories—the cartoony tale of girls going on fun adventures, and the traumatic tale of a fantasy war—that have been badly spliced together.

“Alight, Robo-Girl, which way?” May asks and Penny demonstrates why she’s the best for sneaking into a facility. She’s able to map out the whole place, including seeing where everyone is so they can avoid detection. Kudos to RT for going this route. I was worried that they would have Ruby and the others straight up attacking Atlas grunts, knocking them out/potentially even killing them because who cares, right? They’re the bad guys! So I’m glad they’re working to get in and out undetected. Granted, we see in some places that they’re clearly willing to fight the soldiers if it comes to that—they’re reaching for their weapons when Penny opens the final door, expecting the room to be full of people. They were going to attack—but at least they’re trying to lessen that conflict as much as possible. That’s the sort of choice I expect to see from heroes and I’m glad we got it here.

After scouting the area Penny corrects May: “And my name is Penny,” to which Ruby gives a satisfied “Heh.” I’ve got no problem with Penny rejecting nicknames, even potentially well-meaning ones, because she’s always struggled with her status as a real girl and her name is her own. She gets to decide what others call her. I do, however, have a problem with making the presumed trans character the one who is corrected. Granted yes, we haven’t gotten confirmation in the show that May is trans, but RT doesn’t get to cash in on that rep without likewise suffering the consequences for how the character is treated. You’re telling me that a trans woman is going to roll her eyes when someone asks her to use a specific name? Please give May flaws, yes, she’s a person, but out of all the millions of flaws across the human spectrum, this is the one we’re shown?

Not to mention Ruby’s continued attitude. It’s like, ‘Yeah, May. Stop being a horrible person who draws attention to the fact that Penny is a robot. I never did that.’ Except when Ruby first met her she didn’t know Penny was a robot. Just like she didn’t know Blake was a faunus—something we’re reminded of this episode. We might assume Ruby wouldn’t have ever made any missteps at the beginning of these relationships, but the fact remains that she got to know both girls before their minority status was ever revealed. Ruby loved them before she ever had to grapple with their differences.

Put in her place, May then demonstrates that she can make lots of people invisible, not just herself. That’s handy. She creates an invisibility bubble that reminds me of Harry’s invisibility cloak. In the sense that others might not be able to see you, but they can still hear and touch you, which makes sneaking around still pretty challenging.

No sooner have I thought that then two guards get into the elevator with them. The group keeps quiet as the duo discusses how no one can get close to Salem’s storm without “getting shocked right out of the air.” Interesting. And frankly one hell of a roadblock if the Hound escapes into the clouds. Oscar may be gone for a while if he doesn’t escape on his own... The woman also comments about how creepy it is that all the grimm are just hanging out, waiting. It’s “worse than if they’d attacked.”

No it’s not! RT, stop trying to implement the idea that Salem withholding her forces is some epically cool choice. She should have decimated everyone by now and the fact that she hasn’t just shows how transparent the problem is: you’ve created a villain that’s too powerful and now you don’t know what to do with her.

As the group sneaks out of the elevator Nora grins and presses all the buttons, which is, as expected, a dumb move. They’re supposed to be sneaking into this base. If they’re caught they’re going to be thrown in jail at best, killed at worst, but Nora wants to risk that for a practical joke? Again and again we see this insistence on incorporating comedy where it’s not only unnecessary, but actively interferes with other aspects of the scene.

Reaching a terminal, Penny inserts her finger and gains access via Pietro’s credentials. She’s really demonstrating this episode why she’s… pretty terrifying? I mean, Penny is an incredibly powerful fighter with a computer’s view of the world, access to everything in the most powerful Kingdom alongside its information, and she now has Maiden powers to boot. Which, I should add, it took her one fight to master (because remember, the heroes are now always as strong as they need to be to win…). Now that Watts is planning to hack her, I expect her to be an incredibly formidable enemy, just given the amount she could potentially do. I think Penny herself is too kind to exploit all that potential and as we’ll see via Pietro briefly taking control, she doesn’t always have the knowledge to use the tools at her disposal. But in the hands of someone like Watts? He’ll turn Penny into the ultimate weapon.

Access granted, they learn that they have to go “Right through central command!” Of course, Penny makes it sound like a fun game and the spy-movie music/cartoon lecture doesn’t help. Again, tone. It’s adorable! It just doesn’t fit sneaking into a military base with your lives on the line while Salem waits outside. That was a RWBY Chibi moment.

Penny explains—twice—that Ruby can use her semblance to fly them all through central command and it’s treated like a revelation. At first, I was pretty confused because Ruby has been dong this for ages? She carried Weiss in “Argus Limited” and Nora during the Geist fight. But upon close inspection, what Penny seems to have “figured out” is that Ruby can carry multiple people at once because the “mass doesn’t matter.” Okay. Not a contradiction then, though I think RT could have made it a little more clear that Ruby was shocked at the idea of carrying multiple people, not carrying someone at all.

What I do take issue with though is Ruby mastering this skill instantaneously. I mean, why is Ruby being forced to try this on the fly (pun not intended)—Penny has known the layout of the building since they made this plan. She knew they had to get past central control and that it would be packed with people. She’s obviously thought about Ruby’s semblance a great deal—and why is she succeeding? Give me a Volume 7 where Ruby actually trains in this technique, set up via Harriet’s comment early on about her semblance, and then she’s victorious here when it finally matters. Or give me Ruby assuming she can pull off this incredibly difficult skill only to fall out of her semblance halfway through, a roomful of Atlas personnel staring at them. Then what?

Not this.

This is a character who does everything perfectly on the first try without ever having to fail. Ruby is boring like this.

Crisis averted, we transfer to Ironwood who is… working with Watts.

What else is there to say? I’ve already laid out all the reasons why this is stupid and makes no sense. Others keep coming onto my posts to explain to me how Ironwood’s awful deeds up until now fully show his decent into villainy, conveniently ignoring the numerous limitations he was under and his choice to do what he thought was best for the world using inaccurate information. Ironwood was always a divisive character and many are happy to ignore the years’ worth of deconstruction done—a man who looks like the Evil Military General but actually isn’t—because they never liked him to begin with. Not liking him is fine, no one has to like any character, but I’m honestly shocked by the number of viewers who refuse to acknowledge how bad the writing is, even if it means defending a character they hate a teensy tiny bit (#SupernaturalVibes). As a friend put it, Ironwood now feels like a caricature of his former self, a Pure Evil Ironwood who appeared out of nowhere and is now here to stay. He shoots kids. He shoots unarmed civilians. He teams up with Salem’s men and tries to hack Penny. These are undeniably horrible acts, they’ve just been given to a character who never would have done them until RT randomly flipped the Evil switch.

The “RWBY” tag, alongside all the fluff moments of this episode, is now filled with posts encouraging Marrow to turn, yelling at the Ace Ops for being “bootlickers,” and capslock screaming at anyone who dared to speak up for Ironwood. It still sucks to have bad writing twisted into an attack on the fans and it’s going to continue to suck until at least the rest of Volume 8. I’d like to again remind everyone that Qrow teamed up with Tyrian a few episodes, yet because he’s again in Ruby’s graces, that was twisted into a ‘not that bad’ situation. The issue isn’t really that Ironwood is teaming up with one of Salem’s subordinates, but that he’s doing it to go against RWBYJNOR… the second a character teams up with Salem to get what Ruby wants (to not have her team in jail) then that’s totally fine… but that’s a wrinkle a lot of people are happy to ignore.

So yeah, Ironwood is an idiot now too. Like Qrow also was last Volume. He really thinks Watts isn’t going to betray him somehow? Although, I do wonder if the chance to ruin Pietro’s creation outweighs his loyalty to Salem, but the point is that Ironwood can’t be sure of that either. At least he’s smart enough to keep Watts under continuous guard. He puts his hand on Watts’ shoulders and goes, “I’d hate for us to have to try motivating you. Again.”

So he tortures people too now? Like I said, caricature. This was Ironwood and we were given no clear idea of where he disappeared to.

RIP a great character.

Watts notices though that Pietro has apparently accessed a secure area and alerts Ironwood to it. I laugh that the information is just ¡EMERGENCY! In large, red letters. Ironwood immediately makes an announcement for everyone to be on guard. It’s a level 3 lockdown — that won’t impede the group leaving via airship! — and they’re to use “lethal force” if necessary. Weiss is disgusted.

As much as I disagree with making Ironwood into a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy — he’s definitely wrong to be doing this — I also find myself rolling my eyes at reactions like that. Yes, Weiss. You attacked four operatives until they were knocked unconscious. Prevented an entire city from escaping Salem’s wrath, endangering them all. Now you’re breaking into the most classified room in the Kingdom to steal an equally qualified project and use it for your own means. There’s no reason why Ironwood would level his might against you. Is death still an extreme response? Yes. Should Weiss be acting like Ironwood is crazy for responding to them in an extreme manner? No. Her remark makes it sound like Ironwood is attacking her poor, innocent, defenseless team… not the team that’s been lying to him, betraying him, attacking him, and stealing from him. Not the team carrying deadly weapons into a facility to take what they want at any cost.

With their presence known, May wants to go grab an airship. That’s the series now.

Meanwhile, Penny insists that they can still complete their mission and we see Nora come up with some sort of plan.

Except, what plan was this?? What did she say to the group? ‘Hey, let’s wait around until some guy conveniently walks by with a full cup of coffee. Then we can trip him and the mug will fly alllll the way across this gap to land on a terminal, startling at least two workers. Except this guy will be hated by the whole room because he’s always messing things up—his coffee mug has been changed from #1 Dad to #1 Dud—so that this little mishap will create a ruckus that gets everyone involved, giving us the opportunity to slip by them all.’

Seriously, what? This kind of “plan” only works with someone like Clover, where we know he has a good luck semblance and thus all these unlikely pieces fall into place. I could absolutely buy Clover smiling smugly, working under the knowledge that he just has to wait around a few minutes and something will come along that works entirely in his favor. But Nora? How did she know any of this would happen? Obviously she couldn’t have, so what exactly was their intention if this coffee carrying, hated guy didn’t show up? RWBY, your contrived plots are showing.

I do, however, love the grimm Jaws poster. Jaws is an absolute favorite of mine, so seeing a reference to it in RWBY? A funny one at that? It almost makes up for how bad this episode is lol.

Because frankly I’m bored. The group sneaks around, criticizes May and Ironwood, briefly confuses me about Ruby’s semblance knowledge, and gets through tons of Atlas personnel in the stupidest way possible. I have to watch this guy running out of the room with coffee on his pants screaming, “WHHHYYY???” and he doesn’t notice the five girls standing right next to him. It’s silly. It’s boring. Luckily for RWBY, things are about to pick up in the second half.

After Ruby gets them upstairs and the final room is also conveniently devoid of people, Pietro takes control of Penny—including yellow possession eyes like Oscar has with Ozpin—and he...gets Amity started. That’s it. After a whole volume of ‘It’s not finished yet’ and ‘We barely have the resources’ and ‘Robyn stole what we were using to do idek what with’ he presses buttons for a while and they’re in. How good for them!

I do love that Penny calls Pietro “Dad” though. I’m here for the android-father relationship.

While Pietro works we turn to Blake, Weiss, and Nora. Blake tries to convince the audience that Ruby and Yang had an actual fight with, “I’ve never seen Yang and Ruby fight like this.” Yeah, because no one in this group has ever said the sliiiiightest thing against Ruby, so you all read the tinniest disagreement as a “fight” to be worried about. I mean, doesn’t RT have friends to draw inspiration from? They’ve never disagreed about Huge and Complex Questions before? Never gotten pissed and then shrugged it off the next time you want to text? RWBY’s idea of a diverse friend group feels like many other writers’ idea of a sibling relationship: anyone with an actual sibling goes, “What is this?” Speaking of, Weiss explains that sisters often have “very different ideas about what’s right” as if, again, people don’t have different ideas? Just in general? Why is this suddenly a sister thing? She’s clearly thinking about Winter, but doesn’t actually bring it up, so all we’re left with is the same situation we had last Volume. Weiss thinks she’s right, Winter is wrong, and they’re just going down their separate roads because there’s definitely no reason to re-examine any choices here. It’s all static.

Until Winter betrays Ironwood, of course.

Nora tries to reassure Blake that the group will be fine (ha) even though they’ve split, the irony being that we, the audience, know they just got wrecked by the Hound. Jaune is a great leader though, Oscar has grown so much, Yang could defend them all in a fight, and Ren… well, she can’t think of anything to say about Ren. I hate the Nora is acting like Ren has drawn away from her for no reason, after she chose to kiss him—without consent—rather than listening to what was bothering him, then proceeded to pretend that this mystery problem never existed. What does she expect? I do, however, like the general acknowledgement that she doesn’t know who she is without Ren. Who is Nora? Someone who is “strong and hit[s] stuff?”

See, this feels like RT writing self-consciously because Nora doesn’t have much of a personality. Oh, on a surface level she’s bursting with it, but past the bubbly exterior? That single layer? We can add maybe one thing to this “Likes Ren, is strong, hits stuff” list: she’s funny. That’s it. Anything else we might add like “she’s loyal” or “she’s kind” is just a generic characteristic of this entire team. They’re all meant to be crazy talented good guys and even the “is strong” aspect is suspect when others frequently pull off attacks as showy as Nora’s hammer hits. So who is she? What are Nora’s dreams? What are her hobbies? Her fears? Her history? We’ve seen a single flashback of her on the streets and one scene back at Beacon where she listens to music and reads a magazine. Seven years worth of material and that’s it. There’s a reason why the go-to, non-combat action for Nora in fics is “makes pancakes.” We know so little about her still.

So I was excited for a brief, shining moment. Yes! Explore who Nora is outside of being strong and hitting stuff! … and then her big action this episode is, as she says, being strong and hitting something. Don’t get me wrong, outside of that setup it’s pretty epic. I like Nora going to those lengths to save Penny and I absolutely love the repercussions of the choice: a broken aura, passing out, and badass lightning scars all over her arms and neck (especially when women often aren’t allowed to accumulate scars in visual media). That’s pretty damn awesome. It’s just that it comes on the heels of the story insisting that Nora is more than this, that we’ll learn something new about her… and we haven’t. This is indeed cool, but we already knew that Nora was willing to crazy lengths by hitting things really hard. That’s already her established norm.

At least this moment has some really nice characterization alongside the stupidity. The conversation between Ruby and Penny is just plain stupid. Penny wants to stay to help with the evacuations, but Pietro says she should come with him in Amity. Why? As Ruby says, because then she’ll be up in the sky and Salem won’t be able to access the relic.

That’s what Ironwood wanted to do! We could have had this conflict episodes ago with you all working with him! I really can’t with this cast. Also, the rest of this is still confusing. I thought pretty much everyone was in the slums by now, so what evacuation are they talking about? Do they plan to evacuate everyone in Mantle out of the kingdom somehow… like Ironwood wanted to do with Atlas? And why are they acting like Amity is evacuating some people too? I thought they were just using it as a communication device? To add insult to injury, Ruby then contradicts herself a minute later when she tells Harriet that Ironwood can’t have the relic because “Salem will find her way to the relic no matter where you go.” Ruby, if Salem can access the relic high in the sky she can also access Penny in the sky. If you believe that literally nowhere is safe then why are you sending Penny away under the claim that she—and via her the Relic—will be safer? If you want Penny in Amity to lessen the chance of Salem getting the Relic, why can’t Penny be in Atlas while simultaneously (hopefully) getting a whole slew of people to safety?

I’m continually confused by this “plan” of theirs. Their claims just flip-flop according to what (supposedly) contrasts them with Ironwood. Even though that’s not actually the case.

Penny is me, sad while watching this train wreck of a scene.

So yeah, the Ace Ops are here. I’ve wondered since the trailer why Weiss looked smug while everyone else was startled. Turns out it’s because of her line, “So, your first time losing to us wasn’t enough?” I can’t express how much I dislike all the girls’ personalities now. I want to shake some compassion and humility into them. Plus, they never should have won that fight in the first place. Marrow yells, “We were holding back!” but coming from the team’s weakest member it reads as defensive. Like we’re supposed to go, ‘Lol yeah right, Marrow. Just admit you got your ass kicked,’ even tough the Ace Ops should have wiped the floor with them, holding back or not. That’s my biggest takeaway from this fight: it’s the reverse of what we should have gotten. The Ace Ops should have beaten Team RWBY with ease and struggled greatly against an android Maiden, not falling before a bunch of teens and succeeding against Penny if not for Nora’s timely breakthrough. Your half-trained cast of growing heroes should not come across as more powerful than an intelligently designed weapon now wielding magic.

Before the fight starts we get a whole lot of lines that are, frankly, frustrating. Vine tells Penny, “I thought you were supposed to protect the people, not hurt them” which is true enough. Penny is taking action that is putting a lot of people in danger, regardless of the fact that Ruby is at the helm. Problem is, the Ace Ops then blame her for Winter’s injuries and “stealing” the power? That’s not the issue here. The issue is Penny’s blind loyalty to Ruby, but by having the Ace Ops back a stance that is clearly inaccurate—Penny didn’t cause Winter’s injuries, Cinder did; Penny didn’t steal the powers, she was encouraged to take them—it makes them come across as Very Evil people who will twist things to make poor Penny look like the villain. Even if this is a case of Ace Ops having bad intel (which seems unlikely. Wouldn’t Winter have told them what happened?) RT has avoided letting the Ace Ops take a justified stance here because that would make them look too sympathetic… even though they do have multiple justified stances to take. Like, ‘Hey, stop keeping half a kingdom here where Salem can easily kill them all’ or, ‘Hey, why did you spend months betraying Ironwood and then turn on us instead of trying to find a compromise?’ Even, ‘Why did your uncle help kill our leader?’ There’s plenty that the Ace Ops should be rightfully pissed about, so choosing Penny and Winter out of everything feels like RT is firmly backing them into Ironwood’s corner: you’re just bad now and bad people blame innocent girls, rather than acknowledging the actual wrongs done against them.

So we have Ruby contradicting herself and the Ace Ops backing warped ideas that make them look worse than they actually are. Adding to the stupidity is the fact that Elm mentions that Winter is in “critical condition” and Weiss… doesn’t care. Harriet then tells Ruby that she’s “throwing [her] in jail right next to your uncle, runt” and... Ruby doesn’t care. Qrow is missing and Ruby just found out he’s been captured by Ironwood, yet there’s no reaction whatsoever. This show continues to go hard on the ‘screw adults’ mentality, huh? Ozpin needs to keep quiet and is horrible for coming back. Ironwood is now a cartoon villain. Winter made the wrong choice so no one cares about her anymore, not even her sister. The Ace Ops remain enemies despite trying to talk things out. Qrow? Barely know him. Who’s he? This is a Ruby loves Penny episode. There isn’t enough emotional nuance for her to care about him too.

The sad thing is I adore Nuts&Dolts. In a different context these moments would be a goldmine for me.

If anything, this episode feels worse than the majority of last week’s because there are good things here that have been thrown into a bad setup. I can’t get excited for the group’s battles when I see who they’re attacking. It’s hard to squee over Ruby hugging Penny when she doesn’t react to Qrow. Watching Nora go all Thor feels like it only has half its potential when it’s coming out of a very messing, ‘I’m more than just being strong and hitting things… which is why I’ll continue being strong and hitting things.’ RWBY has excellent moments set into a terrible story.

The fight, at least, is exciting. The Ace Ops goad Penny into stepping away so they can trap the rest of Ruby’s team—smart—and she’s forced to hold her own while Weiss tries to break through with her knight, then Nora overloads the system. To be frank, I’m not great at analyzing combat. Not unless I’m looking for something specific like whether a win is justified. I’ve already mentioned above the broad issue of the Ace Ops very nearly beating the most powerful fighter next to Salem herself, yet failing so spectacularly against Team RWBY. Outside of that context though? I really enjoyed this. Lots of tight action, creative attacks, teamwork, some emotional pauses throughout… it feels like a pretty solid battle. Put it on Youtube as a clip, outside of the rest of the story’s messiness, and you’ve got yourself a fantastic watch.

We can’t stay in the combat forever though. During all this Weiss calls the Ace Ops “cowards” for making it four vs. one. You know, RWBY should really just do away with dialogue and make the show purely action because the cast frequently sounds so stupid when they speak. Like her comment about Ironwood’s lockdown… really Weiss? ‘Yes, we might be wanted criminals who betrayed this group in the worst possible way, but how dare they not do the honorable thing and have three of their teammates sit out while trying to capture us? Even though the girl they’re trying to capture has magic. I mean, the nerve of them!’

Weiss, at this point I’m not sure how to explain to you that the people you’ve made into your enemies do not owe you a fair fight.

Another detail: we get to see Ruby fall off the edge of the walkway and this time she remembers she can fly! A definite improvement from Volume 6.

Finally: by the time Penny’s eyes go full Maiden in Elm’s grip, I think we’ve seen everything from our trailer. Episode 4 will truly be a mystery.

Ironwood has, of course, been watching the fight this whole time. When it looks like the Ace Ops will lose against the team he means to send in reinforcements, but Watts says he has “a message for your operatives.” Instead of capturing Penny they steal one of her swords instead, ending with a shot on Marrow looking conflicted.

Because remember, there’s no actual moral grayness in this story. The protagonists are right and everyone else is wrong. It’s (supposedly) black and white. Which means that if the Ace Ops have any hope of surviving this Volume and being seen as anything other than evil bootlickers, they have to join with Ruby. Marrow seems primed to do that.

Am I surprised? No. Disappointed? Always lol.

May has the airship ready to go and they fly off… despite the shields. And the lockdown. Consistency? Who’s she? Nora is said to be “in bad shape” and after another hug Penny leaves to hide in Amity, even though Ruby thinks that hiding is a useless, cowardly choice. Just not when she and her allies choose to do it.

We end the episode with Watts receiving Penny’s sword and making the statement, “If you can’t beat them… then make them join you.” I have to say, his cheesy villainy is something I continue to enjoy, even if it’s heavy handed at times. Watts is just fun. I do have to say though: if Penny is hacked, what does that say about her agency? We double-downed on the ‘real girl’ narrative by giving her the Maiden powers, but she’s simultaneously synthetic enough that a single piece of her can remove all autonomy? It once again feels like RT isn’t sure what point they’re trying to make, they’re just chucking a lot of themes at the wall and seeing what sticks. Still, we’ll have to let it all play out before making any judgements.

And that’s it for this week. It seems like this is a slightly shorter recap than normal, though that may be because I struggle with discussing pure action sequences, which made up a decent chunk of this episode. I’ll no doubt return to the Ace Ops vs. Penny fight when I’m not on a self-imposed, one day deadline for posting. The only thing left is to update the Bingo Card, but I don’t think we made any headway this week. So... good job, RWBY?

I’m still going to hold off on the civilian’s square until Salem’s army actually attacks, as well as the two day timeline square.

No Winter this episode

Watts is teaming up with Ironwood which is… so much worse than him teaming up with Jacques again. Does a square get an X if the canon is even worse than what you assumed it would be??

Maria was mentioned this episode. Jury’s out on whether she’ll actually do anything.

Atlas is still standing, we knew Penny was heading towards a hack so it’s not much of a cliffhanger, no Qrow, no Ozpin, no Neo or Cinder.

It certainly looks like we can check off “The team gets Amity up and running,” but let’s just see if there are any problems next episode. If the problem is only ‘We would have launched it if not for Salem’s attack’ or something, I’m checking it off. The point is it would have worked.

I’m also leaning towards “More obvious Blake/Yang implications without confirming a relationship” given Blake’s heart-to-heart with Nora… but let’s see if the Volume does anything more egregious.

All in all (and perhaps despite what I’ve written above), I don’t think it’s fair to totally drag this episode. As said, this feels like a strong episode in a bad story, something that I would have LOVED if a) Salem weren’t here and b) the ‘ethical dilemma’ wasn’t boiled down to a ‘Team Ruby is good’ and ‘Ironwood and everyone associated with him is evil’ situation. It’s an episode whose tone and character action belong in a different version of RWBY. If you gave us this fun episode in an earlier Volume against a Pure Evil antagonist? It would have been great.

Ah well. It is what it is. Expect more emotional whiplash when we come back and everyone learns that Oscar has been kidnapped by Salem’s talking pooch 🙃

See you then! 💜

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby strings #mymetas #rwby recaps #apologies if this Recap is messier than normal #I have a zoom meeting in five minutes lol #gotta go fast!

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captain-morgan · 4 years ago

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RWBY Volume 8 episode 14 rant

I actually really like the finale. At first I didn’t really enjoy it cause so much happened and it was way to fast. But after a second watch I found myself really enjoying the episode.

I think it definitely had its flaws but I think it also shined spectacularly. Like the whole volume had a problem with sidelining the main girls (tho it did a lot of really good character interactions that I absolutely adored) but honestly I’d give this volume a 9/10.

I think that everyone can agree that Penny was the true main character when it came to the atlas arc and honestly as someone who wasn’t a big penny fan until after vol 7 I can honestly say that her story broke my heart.

When she came back to life I knew it wasn’t for long, I mean that kinda ruins the way death works in the series. So I knew she was gonna die by the end. But that doesn’t mean it hurts less. I think her death was done beautifully. All she ever wanted was to protect her friends and make her own choices. And people kept getting in the way of those wishes.

I’m not gonna get into the whole trans allegory and how many people read her character as that and how they are disappointed in her death cause they think rt hates trans people. (*cough* May is standing right there *cough*) Cause I’m not trans and I don’t want to speak over the people who actually are and that are having very valid feelings while grieving her. But the people who are damning the show because of it are kinda getting on my nerves.

Anyways, Penny’s last moments was her last chance to make her own choice. Even if it was the choice to end her life. Honestly the whole volume she knew this was going to happen. I mean having the maiden powers basically puts a big sign on your back saying, “HEY CINDER COME KILL ME”. But she made the sacrifice to insure that the good guys at least wouldn’t lose everything. And it’s heartbreaking because all we want is for Penny to finally live the life she always wanted. To be with her friends and feel the love that comes with that. But sadly she doesn’t get to experience that.

I think in a show like rwby, that’s basically about war, it’s really appropriate to show people that not everything will be okay. The good people die. For no reason. And it sucks. But that’s war. And I understand the grief, really I do. But in no way does Penny’s death ruin the show for me. If anything it makes me love and understand her character more.

(And penny was always a real girl robot or not so bite me fandom)

I also am so happy with how the girls fell trying to save each other and how Weiss was fighting for her found family even through her grief. She literally had no aura and yet still went full strength against a nuts maiden.

And omg Blake baby I love you and I can’t wait to see you shine in volume 9. Also bumbleby is canon suck my dick haters.

Same with Ruby, she has so much trauma to process and my girl needs a long hug.

And Jaune is the mvp in my heart. Literally I become a Jaune stan recently and I’m so sad for everything he did in this episode. He is the support but Penny was 100% right, healing would have taken to long. I mean come on, Cinder was right there it was a matter of seconds before she pushed Weiss aside and finished the job. Jaune did what Penny asked but the blood is 100% on Cinder. And then the weapon that has never truly been his was shattered. I can’t wait for his journey next volume.

Winter, omg, Winter. Literally I have no words. Her character is so much and I don’t think I can talk about it rn. Just, I love her and I am so so sad for her.

Cinder has finally become a truly terrifying villain and I’m all here for it.

All that out of the way, I loved this volume and I can’t wait for the next one. I know a lot of people a disappointed and I understand that, I really do. You are 100% valid in your sadness. And I understand a lot of people are mad about it not only being rwby who fell into “ gay super hell” but imo I’m so excited for Jaune to be there lol. (I literally yelled “YES” when he fell lol)

I love rwby and I loved this volume. Can’t wait for more ☺️

#rwby #rwby vol8 #rwby vol8 spoilers #rwby spoilers #positive take #long post #I love rwby so much

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bridgyrose · 3 months ago

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Weiss smiled as she looked out at Beacon through the window of her family’s airship, two years of training and exams had practically flown by. And she couldnt be any more nervous. She was sure she belonged at Beacon, and the flight from Atlas was long enough that she was able to change into something that fit her better for a first day at the academy so she wasnt worried about how people would see her. No, her worry was with the strange powers that she had trained with for the last two years, still unable to control them well. She was glad she was able to keep them hidden during the exam her father had administered for her to prove she could attend Beacon, but even then it wasnt easy to explain why her weapon had frosted over or the flames that came in her eyes.

Even as the airship landed, she couldnt help but run her fingers over the gloves she wore in an attempt to hide her powers. Not that they helped, but they certainly helped her feel better. Once the airship went still, she gathered her bags and started to make her way to the Beacon courtyard.

“Would you like any help, Master Weiss?” Klein asked as he stayed near the door to the airship.

“I can handle it, Klein,” Weiss answered. “But… thank you. I am going to miss you while I’m here.”

Klein nodded and gave her a smile. “You know how to reach me if you need anything. And that includes if you need any assistance with doctors here.”

“I think I can handle that on my own, but… I’ll keep that in mind. And I’ll keep in touch.”

“Please do, Miss Weiss.”

A smile crossed Weiss’s lips upon hearing Klein’s words, glad that he still accepted her no matter what. It was a comfort to hear, almost taking away the nervousness that she felt as she made her way towards the cafeteria for orientation. At least, that was the plan until she felt someone run into her and knock her over. Weiss picked herself up with a groan, only to be met with one of the students standing over her and offering a hand.

“I’m sorry, I didnt see you there.”

Weiss took the girl’s hand and stood up, dusting herself off before glaring at the girl. “Dont you know what you could’ve done?!”

The girl rubbed the back of her head. “I… dont know what you’re referring to.”

“You could’ve caused an explosion with dust!” Weiss yelled out as she started to pick up some of the vials that had spilled out from her bags. She inspected the vials and made sure everything was still securely closed before packing them away. “You’re lucky nothing’s loose. Even as a powder its still volatile.”

“You’re the one who needs to pay attention then. How’s anyone supposed to know you have that much dust?”

“W-well… I-I… Most people know who I am!”

“I dont.”

Weiss took a deep breath to try to calm herself as she finished putting away her dust vials. She could already feel the familiar surge of the powers inside her as her eyes started to sting from the heat of flames that wanted to appear. “I’m Weiss. And you are?”

“Ruby,” Ruby answered with a smile.

“You should still pay attention where you’re going.” Weiss paused as she picked up one last vial and looked it over. It was unlabeled but certainly looked more like something you’d get from a doctor. “I dont remember this one-”

“That’s because its mine!” Ruby said as she snatched it away.

Weiss frowned a bit, but let it go. If it was Ruby’s, then there was no sense in getting angry at her snatching her own vial away. Though, she still thought it was rude. She finished making sure the bags were back on the trolly correctly and tightened up a few straps to keep things in place. “It was nice to meet you, but I do need to make my way to orientation.”

“A-actually, could I come with you? I just got here, but… I do feel a little lost about where to go.”

“Lost? How could you be lost-” Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath as her voice strained to keep from yelling. It was just her luck that she’d run into someone so ill-prepared to be at Beacon. “Arent you a bit young to be here?”

“Yeah, but professor Ozpin offered me a spot here after stopping a dust robbery.” Ruby fidgeted a bit while she adjusted her backpack. “I guess I ended up a bit too excited and forgot where we’re supposed to go for orientation. Though, it doesnt help that Yang left me too.”

“Fine, you can follow me but then we go our separate ways.”

“Thanks!”

Weiss rolled her eyes a bit as she felt Ruby pull her into a hug. Once she was let go, she grabbed her trolley and started moving forward towards the cafeteria. Her steps started to slow as she looked around at all the other students around her, her eyes lingering on the girls she saw. Most of them were wearing skirts or pants that let them move around, and those that werent seemed to have weapons that let them sit still at range and far away from combat. She couldnt help but look down at her own clothes feeling ill prepared in her own right. Sure her combat gear was tailored to her body, but it felt… lacking when she thought about it. It still felt like something she was expected to wear to be her father’s heir.

Ruby put a hand on Weiss’s shoulder. “Everything okay? Your eyes look like they’re burning.”

Weiss quietly pulled out a hand mirror and looked at her eyes, heart nearly stopping when she saw the flames in her eyes. At least it was only the flames. She wasnt sure she was ready to try to explain anything else like ice forming or burning someone’s clothes. “Y-yeah, its my…uh.. m-my semblance,” she lied. “Something about getting emotional makes it manifest differently.”

“Sounds like Yang’s. Her eyes change to red when she gets angry or uses hers.”

“Its not really like that, but… I guess that’s close.” Weiss closed her eyes and took a few moments to try to shut off her motions like she trained herself. No anger, no fear, no nervousness or extreme joy, just calm. Nothing to allow her powers to channel themselves. She waited until the sting in her eyes was finally gone before opening them again. “The cafeteria is just ahead. You should be able to find it without too much issue.”

“Arent you going there too?” Ruby asked.

“I have a call I need to make beforehand. You go ahead and maybe we’ll see each other again.”

“Maybe huh?”

“Just go.” Weiss relaxed a bit as she watched Ruby walk off, not quite sure if she made a friend or an annoyance. Either way, she didnt seem to recognize her name just like everyone else around didnt seem to recognize who she was. And while that should’ve made her feel disappointed, it did make her feel better that she could try to be herself without anyone thinking it was strange.

She made sure to get off the main path to the cafeteria and stood next to a tree as she pulled out her scroll and dialed quickly. Her heart started to race as she heard Klein answer the call, her voice went quiet as she spoke. “Can… can you put in an order for a new combat outfit to be ready in a week? I’ll send you the details, but… I think I’m ready.”

#rwby #weiss schnee #klein sieben #drabbles #ruby rose #rwby ruby rose #trans!Weiss #trans maiden!Weiss au #trans maiden!Weiss

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kittyprincessofcats · 4 years ago

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RWBY Volume 8, Episodes 1-7

Since I know there was a hiatus in the middle of this volume, I decided to make a separate post for the first half. (Also because SO MUCH HAPPENED in just the first half that I felt like it deserves a separate post and because I think mid-season speculations can be interesting at times.)

[There will be spoilers for episodes 1-7 of RWBY Volume 8 in this post (duh). Please don’t leave spoilers for any of the later episodes on this post, or I will block you.]

Under the cut because some people might want to avoid spoilers

- So, Ironwood is just a full-on dictator now, cool. Sleet just asked what’s going on and Ironwood straight-up shot him without even trying to explain first. Wow. If there was any doubt in my mind that Ironwood is evil now, it’s gone. Also, just how DUMB do you need to be to work with Watts on trying to hack Penny? HOW DUMB??? Didn’t he realize that Watts still works for Salem and would obviously secretly make this work in Salem’s favour? Did he really think a few guns would stop Watts from that? Ironwood’s a f-ing idiot.

- Also, if Ironwood’s already working with Watts, he could have at least also made Watts turn the heat in Mantle back on? Just saying? I mean, I know Ironwood doesn’t care about Mantle, but he could have at least done that to give them a fighting chance? That would have been the very least if you’re already not evacuating them?

- I like the slight design change in Weiss’ hair; definitely makes the braid look more natural. I also like how they made Blake’s hair a bit fluffier.

- I love the opening, though I’m still trying to figure out what some parts of it mean. (And it scares me how dark and depressing it seems – it’s giving me Volume 3 vibes, but I really don’t want anyone to die.)

- When it comes to dying, I’m particularly worried about Penny, Nora, and Winter. But especially Penny. I hate how Ironwood was trying to pressure her into coming back, how everyone is after her now, and how she herself said she wished she didn’t have the Maiden powers. I just want my baby to be okay 😢. I’m also worried Cinder might die, just because you see her screaming in the opening when the lyrics say “Some lives will end much too soon” – and after getting her backstory, I actually like Cinder now, so I’d be sad about it this time.

- I love Robyn so much. Her comforting Qrow, yelling at Jacques to shut up, and calling out Harriet were all such giant moods.

- The conflict between Yang and Ruby (and by extension the rest of the gang) is interesting, though I’m honestly not completely sure why they’re angry at each other. Both of them have a point about why their respective plans are important and I think splitting up and doing them separately was the best course of action (though they could have maybe split the teams up a bit more evenly). So, I’m not completely sure why their conflict feels like they’re also mad at each other on a personal level. And same for Ren and Nora, by the way.

- The Hound and everything about it freak me the hell out and I don’t want to ever see it again. (Right now, my sister and I are speculating that the Hound might have once been a person and while I think that’s likely, I also hate it – no thanks, do not want to see.)

- The Happy Huntresses are amazing and I love that they’re getting more screen time now. I still think both May and Fiona’s semblances are super OP. I also like that we now got on-screen confirmation of May being trans (yay for some more LGBT+ representation!).

- Blake getting motion-sick and hating being transported with Ruby’s powers was adorable and reminded me of Catra (from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power) and how she hates being teleported by Glimmer’s powers. So, now I’m wondering: Is motion sickness a cat thing or something?

- Can you believe we got 3 Nuts and Dolts hugs in just the first 3 episodes? I’m living!

- Nora’s arc was interesting so far. I loved seeing her hug Oscar so sweetly, and her moment of taking down that door was epic (I really hope she’s okay!). I also think what she said about not knowing who she is without Ren is really interesting. It’s something that happens in real life, that two people who have spent so much time with each other can lose their sense of who they are as individuals. So, I hope she gets the possibility to figure out who she is by herself.

- Ren’s arc was interesting as well. I’m glad he finally voiced what’s been bothering him and while I was annoyed with him during his fight with Jaune and Yang, I loved that moment where he told the Ace Ops that no one is replaceable. (Bold thing to tell Team JNR that people are replaceable after how they lost Pyrrha.) His evolved semblance is really cool, I loved how he analyzed that Marrow and Winter don’t really want to be there, and now I want him to psycho-analyze all the characters. I also like how Jaune telling Ren not to hide his feelings is what eventually led to Ren realizing that hiding their feelings is exactly what the Ace Ops are doing.

- Also, I really want both Winter and Marrow to jump ship and abandon Ironwood and the Ace Ops already. (Winter telling Harriet she outranks her was epic!)

- Honestly, Ironwood and the Ace Ops (minus Marrow) are my most hated characters right now. Because Salem and everyone under her are at least not pretending to be the good guys. They’re evil, but at least they’re honest about it and they’re still interesting and/or entertaining and they have style. So yeah, I don’t really hate the actual villains because they’re at least cool villains, but Ironwood and the Ace Ops are just awful - and they keep insulting my girl Penny and I want to slap them for it every time.

- Salem’s giant whale is one of hell of a villain-lair location. I dig it.

- In general, this volume (so far) once again reminded me how much I love Salem as a villain. She’s so stylish and so deliciously evil, while also being extremely compelling. It’s not often that I find a “big bad” character so intriguing and fascinating while still considering them irredeemable* and wanting the heroes to take them down. I really have to clap for the CrewBY here. Not many writers have managed to make me feel that way about a big bad. And then there was that part where she acted like an orchestra conductor while classical music plays as the Grim attack everyone… she just has style as villain, okay? You have to admit she’s got style.

[*Small correction here: I would be okay with it if the show redeemed Salem and the gods ended up being the final villains, as long as it was handled in a believable way. What I meant to say here - but didn’t express well - is that I don’t necessarily need Salem to be redeemed and I’m okay with just liking her as a villain. That said, no one is ever “irredeemable” because no one is ever unable to make the choice to change.]

- I mean, just that first scene between Salem and Oscar was so good! The way Ozpin has an “okay, don’t panic” moment before Oscar looks up and sees Salem (😂), the way Salem talks to Oscar and refers to Oz as “my Ozma” 😢. How she caresses Oscar’s cheek after he lied to her and her line “like-minded souls indeed”, implying that Ozma lied to her as well – I love all of it. Salem’s such a good character I could go on and on about it.

- I feel so bad for poor Oscar, though! He didn’t ask for any of this, he’s only a kid, and how he’s getting tortured and beaten up after everything he’s already been though. I really hope Yang, Jaune, and Ren manage to save him (possibly with Emerald’s help?). And like, I’m not surprised that Salem isn’t above hurting kids (she did kill her own ones and all that), but Hazel is a hypocrite. His beef with Ozpin aside, he knows full-well that none of this is Oscar’s fault.

- Also, I feel dumb for only now understanding that Salem’s plan is to bring the relics together so the gods will destroy all of humanity and finally let her die as well. Honestly, just having a deep death wish after being alive for so long is also an unconventional motivation for a big bad, and I love it. I also think this should make Oscar and Ozpin’s idea of turning Salem’s followers against her a lot easier: With the exception of Tyrian, I’d say most of Salem’s other followers are probably interested in, you know, staying alive. So, telling them Salem’s real plan should honestly at least make all of them consider the idea of leaving Salem. And we saw that it’s starting to work with Emerald, Mercury and Hazel.

- So yeah, I think Ozpin and Oscar (and Penny) had the right idea when they questioned Salem’s underlings on why they follow her. And honestly, I think whether all of those characters “deserve” a redemption or forgiveness isn’t relevant right now – they don’t need to be forgiven by every character for everything they’ve done, they just need to leave Salem and potentially help fight against her because, frankly, our heroes need all the help they can get right now.

- I loved that moment of Yang asking if “she” would think less of her for not helping with Amity and Jaune reassuring her that Ruby loves her, before Yang implies that she wasn’t talking about Ruby (heavily implying that she meant Blake).

- And yeah, my sister was right about Qrow being even more upset about Clover’s death because he thought Clover was someone his misfortune semblance couldn’t hurt.

- Penny is best girl and best Maiden, I said what I said. I love how she’s only had the maiden powers for a few hours and she’s already better at using them than Cinder (or Raven, for that matter). Holding her own against the Ace Ops 4v1 was epic, as was her fight against Cinder and Emerald. The way she used her powers to freeze those pillars into place, fought off Cinder when she tried to steal her powers, found the real Cinder among the illusions via heat signature – epic stuff. And the way she lifted up Amity all by herself? As much as I hate that everyone’s after her, I love seeing just how strong Penny is now and I loved hearing multiple characters admit they can’t beat her. I also loved all of her funny moments (like figuring out Ruby’s semblance before she did, or that part where she explained which way they’d have to go). I swear though, I’m going to punch every character who’s insulting her or trying to guilt-trip her. And the Ace Ops blaming her for Winter being hurt? Fuck them. (Notice how Penny only attacked them after they insulted Ruby, though? D’awww.)

- The thing that makes me love Penny even more than all her amazing powers though is just how compassionate she is and what a big heart she has. She was the first to ask Cinder why she even serves Salem, before even Oscar and Ozpin thought about trying to turn Salem’s followers against her, and she ultimately let Emerald and Cinder go when she could have finished them off, despite the fact that those two were directly responsible for Penny’s first death in Volume 3 – whether heroes letting dangerous villains go is a good thing or not is a different discussion, but in this case it just showed to me how compassionate Penny is – enough that she felt bad even for the people who hurt her before.

- Pietro and his bond with Penny are giving me all the feels 😢. I really felt for him when he said he didn’t want to lose her again – but he ultimately had to let her make her own choices. That “I love you” before she fell really got to me. Gosh, I hope Penny will be okay.

- Maria fighting Neo was epic as well. Never count out the Grimm reaper just because she’s an old lady!

- I loved the scene of the broadcast and all the cameos of people all over Remnant listening to it. I really didn’t expect to see Terra and Saphron, Sun and Neptune, Ilia, Tai or Glynda! And the moment of Ruby herself watching it with such wide eyes was adorable.

- Okay, now let’s talk about my highlight of the volume so far and my new problematic fave: Cinder. I’m honestly not even surprised at myself. I often have a thing for villain ladies, I love Cinderella as a fairy tale and I’ve thought since Volume 4 that I could probably really like Cinder if they explained her motivations a bit more and gave us a bit more development. Then Volume 5 disappointed me on that front, but I’m glad we’re finally getting there now! I’ve been practically begging to get a backstory or something for her and I’m so glad CRWBY finally delivered! The moment they opened the volume with that little glimpse of her backstory, I became super hyped that we were finally getting it, and the fact that they opened the volume with it makes me think it’s going to become relevant to the main plot somehow. The backstory itself was pretty much what I expected (my prediction was “Cinderella but slightly worse, and then she murders the evil stepmom and stepsisters”), though I have to say the human trafficking, literal child slavery, and shock collar were a surprise. I expected “Cinderella but slightly worse”, but I’d say we got “Cinderella but A LOT worse”. And even though I get why some people might feel that this backstory was introduced too late to make Cinder interesting, I’m personally team “better late than never”, so I’m still glad we got it. And honestly, it puts so much of Cinder’s character into perspective and explains so much about her. How she models herself after the abusive figures in her life (Madame, Salem), how her confident demeanor is an act, her affinity for glass, her treatment of Emerald and Mercury and how she probably sees herself in both of them (Emerald was a starving orphan, Mercury killed his abusive parent, Cinder’s backstory combines both of those). So yeah – I get why opinions here differ, but I personally loved the backstory and have to officially come out as a Cinder fan now.

- I also think Cinder’s backstory reveals a lot about Atlas’ society as a whole. Because, are you seriously telling me that all the high-society hotel guests saw literal child labour in front of them, saw this child being yelled at and mistreated, and except for one Huntsman no one said or did anything about it? Is child labour just normal in Atlas? Or are the people there that heartless? And I’m not sure if the implication is that Rhodes only trained Cinder in secret because he wasn’t willing to do more, or because he wasn’t legally able to do anything else to help her. And if it’s the second one, then what does THAT say about Atlas? No child protective services anywhere? No legal way at all to help a literal child slave instead of waiting for her to turn 17? Because holy hell, that’s messed up, Atlas!

- I also want to again stress what a brilliant manipulator Salem is. That scene where she punishes Cinder at first by hurting her only to backtrack and say it’s her own fault and that she needs to support Cinder is so good. The way Salem reminds Cinder of her pervious abuser before backtracking and pretending to be kind to make sure Cinder doesn’t make the connection and doesn’t realize that Salem is her new abuser – it’s such good emotional manipulation on Salem’s part. Because Salem IS Cinder’s new abuser, but she’s much more psychological about it. She hurt Cinder first before stopping, basically saying “Look, I’m not like your evil stepmom because I stopped”. It’s a brilliant way of making sure Cinder stays under her thumb and won’t rise up against her the way she eventually did against the stepmom. It’s amazing – but I also need Cinder to realize what’s going on and get out of there asap.

- Also, I just want to say: After I finished watching “Midnight”, I went on AO3 hoping that someone had written a canon divergent fanfic where someone actually saves young Cinder – and I wasn’t disappointed. So far, after only skimming through AO3 for a bit, I’ve seen two fanfics where Qrow saves her, one where Tai saves her, one where Summer Rose saves her, one where all of team STRQ save her, and one where a time-travelling Ruby from the future saves her. Thank you FNDM for not disappointing me – I can’t wait to read all of them.

- So yeah, I’m a fan of Cinder now and… uhm… *quietly hides before sharing my very controversial opinion*… I’d like it if she switched sides eventually. I don’t necessarily think a redemption is realistic or likely, but I’m kind of team “redemption for everyone (except Salem because she’s the big bad and awesome at it and Tyrian because he clearly loves what he’s doing)” now. Hazel might be a hypocrite, but he’s still someone who has morals and doesn’t want the world to end. Emerald, Mercury, and Cinder have all had tough lives and I feel bad for them – so I’m kind of like, let’s just redeem them all. (And again – that doesn’t have to include all the heroes forgiving them! In fact, I’d be really disappointed if Teams RWBY or JNR ever forgave Cinder. I just want her to turn against Salem eventually; that doesn’t have to mean anyone forgives her!) And no, I don’t think they will all get redeemed - but I can dream, right?

- In general, I’m really curious to see where they’ll go with all four of those characters (Hazel, Emerald, Mercury, Cinder) now. Oh, and Neo as well! I think Emerald and Mercury definitely care about each other if their parting looks are anything to go by. I also think that despite his words, Mercury was worried about what Emerald told him she overheard. I think either Hazel or Emerald might steal the lamp and ask Jinn the last question (probably Emerald because she’s based on Aladdin and Jinn is the Genie). I’d really love to see all of Salem’s underlings asking the lamp something like “What is Salem hiding from us?” – similar to what Ruby and company asked about Ozpin, but since Mercury left and Cinder’s on her mission, I know that won’t happen. But maybe we’ll still get something like that with just Emerald, Hazel and Neo.

- I loved seeing Klein again (I still can’t get over the fact that he’s just all 7 dwarves in one person) and it was so sweet when he called Weiss “my snowflake” 🥺. And I’m glad Whitley came through and called help for Nora. Weiss hugging him was really sweet.

- That cliffhanger with Penny was honestly evil. That’s what they left people on for a month? Evil. I also think that given that the Hound and Cinder are after Penny, she should definitely stay with Ruby (since Ruby’s silver eyes should work on both of those).

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rwdestuffs · 4 years ago

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Done dirty: Penny

… I really didn’t want to do this…

Penny is, was, and always will be a fan favorite character. So this whole post feels… kinda weird to do.

Now, admittedly, the point of these “Done dirty” posts is to highlight how the subject was wronged by the writers, but right now, the biggest thing that the writers did wrong to Penny is the Volume 8 finale. It’s the characters surrounding Penny that ultimately end up being wronged.

Take Volume 4, for example.

Throughout that Volume, Ruby never once directly mentions Penny on her own (if at all). This is because a majority of the Volume was dedicated to Jaune’s sadtime™ about Pyrrha’s death. No other character even mentions her at all. Not even the next most obvious person, Ironwood, mentions her.

This unfortunate moment is what kinda leads to people thinking that the cast kinda… forgot about Penny to begin with.

Now, fast forward to Volume 7, and Penny is back. After four years, the audience gets to see Penny again. And there is joy.

But this kinda meant that Penny’s death sorta… meant nothing. Without Pietro

(And I’m not sure if this is the original image from the episode or not), Penny’s resurrection feels… Hollow. We didn’t get to know Pietro prior to any of this, so it sorta feels weird.

Now, once again, shoutout to @kali-writes-meta for this post, because we get to see a highlight of something interesting.

The fact that Ironwood is more scared about the reveal that Penny is an android with aura than about anything else. This is kinda important, because given the context of everything that we know now, it feels like Ozpin should have reasonably known that this was a thing.

But back to Volume 7 for a bit, the biggest downside to Penny being back is arguably the fact that there aren’t any real consequences for it. Again: We didn’t get to know Pietro, so the only character who would be impacted by him dying to bring Penny back would be Penny. And since we didn’t get to know either, that wouldn’t impact the audience.

Throughout Volumes 1-3, Ruby has reassured Penny that she’s a real girl, and that she’s as real as her, Yang, Blake, or Weiss. Which I personally really like and enjoy. So when she dies, it impacts Ruby a lot, because to her, that wasn’t “some android” that got mutilated, it was her friend.

Which is why it’s egregious that Penny hardly gets brought up in the later Volumes.

Penny’s Volume 3 death is sad, but it’s arguably not a cruel thing. For one, Penny wasn’t put through anything traumatic or something that would degrade or diminish her autonomy. But in Volume 7, she does go through that.

In Volume 7, she is constantly reassured that the virus that’s hurting her is simply a “part” of her, and that it doesn’t dictate her entire being. So when she gets a real body, it feels… Kinda weird.

Penny is kinda a trans allegory, so at best, this is a transition, but the dialogue of the characters feels… Off.

We had an entire scene where Yang paints her arm to make it more part of her, so this dialogue feels… Strange at best. Now, I think I get what they were going for. Remember that moment from Teen Titans? Where that kid with a prosthetic talks about how Cyborg is just like him? Cyborg points out that it’s not the arm, it’s the stuff connected to it. And I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt that that’s what the writers were going for.

And they did do a good job of doing that, but it’s all undermined when the “connected bits” are no longer connected. After all the assurance that Penny is a person in her own right despite the body she was given, she is ultimately given a new body and sees her old one crumble right in front of her

The main point is that Penny is now “able-bodied” and is no longer “hindered” by her previous android body. Now, I get it. She was suffering from a virus, and there was no way to get rid of it. It was tied to hardware, and they would need to get to the sword for them to really remove it, and that was clearly not an option. So a new body is arguably the best way to go.

And I think I get what the writers were going for with the whole “Save Penny, even at the cost of a kingdom” thing. Remember another robotic being that the main characters risked their lives to protect at the behest of another person that they were close to while trying to simultaneously keep the big bad from getting a special object that could let them destroy the world?- Yeah. The writers were trying to pull off what happened in Avengers: Infinity War here. With their own characters. However, they failed to realize what made that whole thing work.

And it also ties into Penny’s death. See, despite both automatons saying that they have no problems dying to save the world, Vision’s is clearly when he is in clear of mind. Penny’s desire for death comes at several times when she is clearly suffering, and thus, not in a calm state of mind. There’s a reason why hospital residents that sign a “do not resuscitate“ form have to be in the right mind to do so. Vision wasn’t really suffering from any major problems outside of things that had to do with him specifically. There was no outside force forcing him to “self-terminate” after giving the stone to Thanos.

Penny, however, is suffering. And she still has some leftover trauma from that, so her asking Jaune to kill her, even though he didn’t even try to heal her, comes off as forced.

And hot take: But it feels as if the only reason this happened was because maybe a few people on twitter figured out what was going to happen, so the writers decided to go back and do something different to “subvert expectations” or something.

I do kinda like that whole conversation that Penny has with Winter. The biggest issue that I had with that was that we didn’t get to see a whole lot of Penny and Winter interactions, but still. I liked that.

But the fact of the matter is that Jaune had very little emotional connection to Penny to really justify him being the one to do the mercy kill.

Imagine, for a moment, that it was Nora. Nora, the girl who kept reassuring her that the virus couldn’t dictate who she was, and that it never could. That sort of connection would have likely wrecked Nora, and would have made her feel absolutely guilty over the whole thing.

Imagine if it was Ruby. Penny’s closest friend, who was willing to do everything in her power to save Penny. Imagine the level of guilt that she’d feel about the whole thing. Imagine the level of despair that she would have to deal with and grow from if she had been the one to preform the mercy kill.

Imagine if it was Winter. The one who was intended to inherit the Winter Maiden powers. Imagine how she would feel about the whole thing. Thinking that in order to keep the powers safe, that she has to be the one to take them away from Penny. After being there, and realizing that, for all the “parts” that Penny had, that she was as much of a girl as she was, and how guilty she’d feel about it.

Imagine if it was Weiss. The last one standing who had to do it. Weiss, who is out of aura, and can’t do much but delay the inevitable. And she has to put down Penny to keep the powers safe. She’d feel horrible about the whole thing. She just spent half a volume fretting over her health, and now she has to kill her.

Imagine if it was Emerald. As in, the one who was responsible for her first death. After all that of trying to prove that she changed sides, she ends up doing the same thing as before, and kills Penny. She’d feel really shitty after that, and would probably have a nihilistic attitude after that in regards to her own life.

But instead of these characters that have formed a real and an actual emotional connection with Penny, characters who have had an actual significance in Penny’s life… It’s Jaune. The guy that boosted her aura once to fight off the virus.

And between the way Pyrrha’s death was treated, and how the aforementioned things about how Penny wasn’t brought up prior to her resurrection… There’s a very real and legitimate fear that only Jaune will be reacting to Penny’s death come Volume 9.

Penny honestly deserves better than this bullshit. Her death was unnecessarily cruel and wasn’t that deserved from a narrative standpoint. The reason why it works better in Volume 3 is because we saw the bad guys’ plan. We knew that there was going to be a major fallout during the festival. We knew that that was the point that these kids don’t get to be kids anymore, and that they’re going to have to face the harsh reality that not only will they lose, but they’ll wind up seeing the people they’re close to die.

Volume 8… Didn’t do that. It just decided to kill Penny for the shock value. There was no greater reason for it, it was just for shock value.

#done dirty #rwde #penny crit

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