#while still keeping the characterisation canon adjacent. canon parallel if you will

[thebiscuitlabryinth]

something something pure vanilla learning more about shadow milk, digging up his past and finding the remnants left behind, connecting the legends around the academy back to this Beast and slowly unearthing more and more fragments until he can put together a haphazard image

something something shadow milk acting less erratic around him in their mind encounters, engaging him in intelletual debate and philosophical questions, almost seeming to settle every once in while with the enrichment of conversation. pure vanilla slowly starting to gather hope that, maybe, the Beasts can be saved, even if he doesn't tell anyone

something something pure vanilla falling in love with a version of someone that is long dead, a heartache he knows too well but can't seem to prevent, and paying for it

(something something shadow milk loving pure vanilla, but not in a way that would ever be compatible with pure vanilla, the way he is now)

[yangingaround]

Bumbleby & Arkos (w/ a little Renora)

okay so back around the time volume 3 wrapped up airing, parts of the fanbase noticed there were a lot of parallels between Bumbleby moments and Arkos moments throughout those few volumes - and to a lesser extent Renora (not so much parallels in characterisations as there were similar uses of narrative tools and themes, though the order, extremity and results could often differ), so i just wanted to review and remind myself of those (as well as any new ones that might have cropped up)

i’ll break it down volume by volume under the cut

Volume 1

alright, we don’t get too many in volume 1 but what we do get are pretty significant

Blake and Pyrrha both take action to ensure they get the partner of their choosing during initiation

when Yang is walking through the forest, for a brief second there’s someone moving across the screen (confirmed to be Blake), and then Blake shows up at the end of her fight with the Ursa and she purposely makes eye contact. Blake had obviously followed Yang and deliberately stepped in so they could partner up. Pyrrha’s more direct, she pinned Jaune to a tree with her weapon so she could go fetch him

there’s a small Renora parallel here in that Nora purposefully sought Ren out, but it’s not as blatant as ensuring they’d team up

Blake and Pyrrha both seem to be rather indulgent to Yang and Jaune’s quirks during initiation - Pyrrha letting the inexperienced Jaune take point despite that they were going the wrong way and she probably knew it, while Blake, while eye-rolling a couple times, clearly doesn’t object to Yang’s silliness and seems to be enjoying spending time with her. both moments also have one asking the other “think this is [the temple with the relics]?’

another small Renora parallel, in that Ren’s clearly used to Nora’s antics and is just kinda tiredly resigned to them

On a smaller note, there’s a couple of interesting parallels in the designs of Blake and Yang compared to Ren and Nora. The first is that both pairs have matching eyes: purple (like Yang’s eyes) is a color associated with Blake and Yang has yellow as her main color (like Blake’s eyes); similarly, Nora’s eyes are green (one of Ren’s colors) and Ren’s are pink (Nora’s primary color). The second is that they each have a color that both members consistently wear, that is, purple for Blake and Yang (all of Blake’s outfits except her dress and all but Yang’s dress and pajamas have it somewhere...that’s four outfits apiece) and pink for Ren and Nora (both of their primary outfits plus Ren’s apron and Nora’s dress in addition to it being the color of their auras).

another thing of note is that Yang and Nora have similar, strength bolstering Semblances, while Blake and Ren are both compared to ninja at some point or another

Volume 2

there ones we get in volume 2 are a bit bigger though it’s still only that major one, however, major scene parallels started kicking in around the dance arc - these scenes were often adjacent to each other from this point

encouragement and promises regarding the dance

at the end of their heart to heart, Yang encourages Blake to do something that will take her mind off things (go to the dance) and get some rest before she burns herself out, because she wants her to be okay, with a lighthearted promise of saving her a dance, so Blake didn’t have to take her up on it if she didn’t want to - Blake then takes her up on the dance offer

similarly, while it’s split up across more scenes and not in the same order, we have a scene where after a talk with Pyrrha, he jokingly promises to wear a dress to the dance if she can’t get a date. later we get Pyrrha encouraging Jaune to ask Weiss out properly, because she wants him to be happy. At the dance, Jaune does change into a dress to keep his word

Volume 3

onto volume 3, where we get a couple of whoppers following the events of episode 6

things happen to Pyrrha and Yang in 3x06 that cause some drama with their partners, though those partners are ultimately supportive of them, that results in them crying in 3x08

Pyrrha learning about the Maidens and the pressure on her leads to her unintentionally lashing out at Jaune when he tries to be supportive but says the worst thing Pyrrha could have heard in that situation, and she runs off in tears. after Yang is framed for attacking Mercury, the uncomfortable surface similarities to Adam make Blake wary - thinking she’d lost Blake’s trust, Yang breaks out in tears - before Blake walks back on the comparison to Adam because she does trust Yang - like Pyrrha, Yang ends this 3x08 isolated from her team

while it’s not a parallel, the danger unfolding in the Vault in 3x11 is intercut with the events in the Dining Room

However, these simultaneous events are a very deliberate directorial choice: Arkos is set up with definite romantic intent from volume 1 onwards thanks to Pyrrha’s feelings for Jaune. intercutting a sequence where something gamechanging happens between Blake and Yang, that will absolutely test the bond they have, into that - it sets up a deliberate comparison; and especially when paired with Adam saying “i will destroy everything you love [...] starting with her”. that’s a deliberate word choice (as he could have easily said ‘everything you care about’), the use of ‘love’ when paired with events involving a pair of characters to which romantic feelings are canonically present is going to romantically charge that statement from a directorial and writing perspective

the next parallels are across 3x11 and 3x12

Blake and Pyrrha try to warn Yang and Jaune away from impending danger (Pyrrha, successful, in getting Jaune away from the fight before it starts, Blake isn’t because she’s too far away and faint for Yang to hear her or make Yang stop)

Pyrrha finally kisses Jaune and makes him fully aware of her feelings before she charges in to fight Cinder. Adam says he’ll destroy everything Blake loves, right before Yang shows up (and then Yang charges in to attack him when she sees Blake is injured)

Pyrrha dies at the hands of a villain she didn’t stand a chance against. Yang is critically and permanently injured by a villain she didn’t stand a chance against.

Jaune will never see Pyrrha again and is very obviously upset and distressed over that. Yang has been abandoned by Blake and the way she talks about it in 3x12 shows that it’s what she’s most affected by from the Fall of Beacon

relatedly, in volume 4 we have Yang saying “a piece of me is gone, and it’s never coming back”, with the heavy implication that she’s not so much talking about the physical loss as she is about losing Blake. and, as we find out in volume 5, it’s highly implied that Yang thought she’d never see Blake again, saying “If she comes back” after Weiss says “when she comes back”)

Volume 4 & 5

Not as many across these two volumes, but there are a couple

Yang and Jaune are both shown to be deeply affected by the loss of their partners

also it’s probably nothing to do with this but interesting to note: Yang and Jaune are the ones shown trusting Ozpin the least

with their redesigns come another important detail, both wearing the colour of someone they’ve lost; the bandana Yang ties around her leg (and not just that, but her shoelaces and hair tie in her DGAS outfit) is now a more vibrant purple, more closely matching the purple that Blake is associated with, while Jaune is wearing red cloth around his waist, part of Pyrrha’s colour scheme

additionally, their ‘upgrades’ in volume 4 (Jaune’s updated armour + sword and Yang’s prosthetic) incorporate the lost partners in some way - Jaune’s literally incorporating Pyrrha into his own gear while Yang changes the blue lights on her prosthetic arm to the same purple as the bandana around her leg

with the reveal of Jaune and Ren’s semblances in these volumes, another parallel manifests between the three named pairings here: each partnership involves an offensive and a defensive/supportive Semblance

Arkos: Pyrrha can control metal and Jaune can act as an Aura battery

Bumbleby: Yang’s strength and damage output increase as she takes hits, Blake’s shadows allow her to avoid taking damage and make her harder to hit

Renora: Nora’s strength and damage output increase when she absorbs electricity, Ren being able to mask negative emotions allows him to essentially become invisible to Grimm

Soundtracks

finally, all three pairings have had outright love songs (Dream Come True, Boop and BMBLB) that have appeared on the soundtrack albums but not in the show (Boop did finally make a small acoustic appearance in the show in volume 4)

interestingly, All That Matters, Dream Come True and Boop all deal with similar themes of the singer (Yang, Pyrrha and Nora, respectively) feeling like the person they’re singing to (Blake, Jaune and Ren, respectively) doesn’t feel the same as, or as much for, them (to various degrees of tragedy given the tones of the songs)

lastly (and the most tenuous point, because it could be that the song is just that generic), Shine seems to draw imagery for all three pairings

for Arkos, the mention of stars (Pyrrha often appeared in starry night scenes, such as her training sessions with Jaune, her fight with Cinder and the message she left for Jaune that he trains with in volume 4) and lines like “That the girl you've been waiting so long for could be me“ - as Jaune was too enamored by Weiss to notice Pyrrha’s feelings

for Bumbleby, there’s a couple of verses that evoke both Yang’s sun imagery and Blake’s shadow imagery: “I was cold in the dark It was empty in my life From the outside it looked so bright But nothing felt right... to me Like a sky with no sun Like a night that has no day My heart was eclipsed by the dark Then something changed I saw a little ray of light come through The tiniest of sparks came into view And then You made me hope again” some of this could be evoking what was already going on between Blake and Yang (with Yang helping Blake out of the darkness she’d found herself steeped in), or it could’ve been foreshadowing how things have changed up between them

for Renora, there’s a few lines that could be foreshadow-y allusions to the backstory we got for Ren (and to a lesser extent, Nora) in volume 4: “When I needed a hero you knew it And you were there And I'm scared but I'll open my heart up I'm ready to dare”

anyways, that about covers it, hope it makes some degree of sense

-Mod S and Mod H