#who knows what happens now (vi v3.)

[save-the-spiral]

PLS PLS LIST THE SWAPS!! TELL ME ABOUT THE SIBLINGS AND ALSO HIFUMI BECAUSE I LOVE HIM (IF YOU WANT!) I will also send more questions in the morning too, excited to see what you’ve been working on!!

OK OK OK !!!!! AHH! So, before assigning talents, I swapped the pools, so for the first game, I use the talents from the second game, and vis versa! For some i listed gender, sexuality, or neurodivergencies, though this isn’t all of them, and I haven’t developed them all to the same level!

This is SO long. I didn’t even bother mentioning things like my plans for the killing games. (I have DR1 planned out in full, but only parts of DR2 and the v3 anime)

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK MY HEART SKIPPED A BEAT IN HAPPINESS WHEN I SAW I HAD NEW ASK NOTIFS!!

LIST:

Trigger Happy Havoc (first game)

Kyoko Kirigiri- Ultimate Luckster- Mastermind (: Sometimes lesbians can be evil okay! was trained as a detective like everyone in her family and didn’t get the ultimate :) she’s definitely not mad about that :) her luck cycle depends on how far she plans things ahead. her good luck is when she’s spontaneous! She hates when ‘normal’ people are accepted by ultimates.

Makoto Naegi- Photographer (Mostly wildlife and nature photography, with Sayaka helping him for some animal photography (: trans and bi <3 One of sayaka’s birds nests in his hair like all the time)

Kiyotaka Ishimaru- Ultimate Swordsman (AUTISTIC ICON, has trained in kendo since he was a kid, then was essentially given away to the Fujisaki clan by his very stressed dad. Semiverbal, rarely speaks.)

Chihiro Fujisaki- Ultimate Yakuza (Taka is her bodyguard! His family is in debt to hers, the Fujisaki clan is the most powerful in Japan. trans icon, of course, dates Sayaka! Very direct, though she’s far more delicate and polite when talking to taka, her best friend)

Sakura Oogami- Ultimate Nurse (Works as an EMT- her clan still is in martial arts, so she’s still very buff, she assists in injuries at the family dojo. Autistic Icon)

Asahina Aoi- Ultimate Gamer (ULTIMATE ADHD. streams and has a ton of fun, will ramble while breaking records, demigirl who loves her girlfriend sakura :)

Mukuro Ikusaba- Ultimate Chef (Works best with ‘cheap’ food, and making them taste good. a byproduct of growing up on the streets with junko, and junko being bored of the same old food they dug out of the trash. now works closely with junko for her teams’ nutritional needs! autistic and sapphic.)

Junko Enoshima- Ultimate Team Manager (there are SO many sports she can never get bored, and the professional scene is always changing! prefers coaching womens’ teams, because being an ultimate brings them more publicity and usually higher pay :)

Mondo Oowada- Ultimate Prince (OH MY BOY. trans adhd icon. now the crown prince of Novoselic, with a reagent in his place until he comes of age. His service dog Chuck is a maltese and an absolute sweetheart. Chihiro takes him under her wing to teach leadership. also dates taka later OF COURSE, though they’re poly and I may add more ppl to their relationship later.)

Celestia Ludenburg- Ultimate Musician (specializes in violin, most strings, though she can play any instrument. grew up poor, dedicated herself to an instrument and persona to cope)

Byakuya Togami- Ultimate Musician (Yep. two musicians. two catty trans gay icons about to throw down. they HATE each other and grew up as rivals. specialize in classical, they literally tore a professional orchestra full of grown adults apart trying to make them side with who was the best musician. they’re so good that they’re matched, and Hope’s Peak accepts them as one student and combined ultimate. they room together. they fight. Literally if one of them gets expelled, the other does too, so they’re STUCK. eventually they become literally inseparable and insufferable together like the WORST siblings. I love them.)

Sayaka Maizono- Breeder (animal handler) (Specializes in birds!!!!!! has songbirds on her shoulders all the time. will give unsettling animal facts without realizing they’re unsettling. sends her songbirds to serenade chihiro when they start dating <3)

Yasuhiro Hagakure- Gymnast (you see this tall goof who acts like an older brother to everyone and wonder HOW he’s a gymnast. he’s completely different in competitions, though still lighthearted. becomes a big brother figure to mukuro and junko especially <3 also trans bc i say so.)

Leon Kuwata- Traditional Dancer (he just. kinda hates it. it takes SO much work and effort but he takes to it naturally. his cousin kanon is NOT like in canon, instead she’s helpful. he’d literally rather be doing anything else. doesn’t know how to do anything like... basic either. can’t cook. cant do his own laundry. everything was dedicated to traditional japanese dancing before he attended HPA.)

Toko Fukawa- Engineer (writes schematics and is very good at it. gets VERY upset when her plans go wrong. her notes are orderly and perfect. host for their system!)

Syo- Mechanic (a factive of genocider syo, NOT an actual killer. she’s a protector mainly, and also is more adept at hands on skills when it comes to fixing things, her hands are less shaky. Her notes are a disaster and she does it to spite Toko.)

Hifumi Yamada- (???) (reserve course) Protagonist! My BOY. HIFUMI IS GOOD OKAY. He’s autistic and loves anime and gaming! he’s not particularly ultimate-leveled at them, or anything else! Attending Hope’s Peak as a reserve course student! At one point he joins the student council as a reserve course representative even if he’s only a freshman :) He’s also a moderator in Hina’s livestream chat, under the username of JusticeHammer, fastest ban hammer this side of the internet. He's internet friends with hina and sakura, and doesn’t realize Oh We Go To the same SCHOOL until he bumps into them. and realizes hina doesnt know what he looks like. but sakura does. its hilarious. he’s aroace, and during the year they’re locked in HPA, is in a queer platonic partnership with Hina and Sakura, while they’re dating each other. it’s great.)

Goodbye Despair! (second game)

Peko Pekoyama- Lucky student (ohohoh. her luck relies on her conviction. if she has doubts her bad luck strikes HARD. trans!, was taken in by Fuyuhiko’s family when she was a baby, grew up as just another kid in the family. They all expected Fuyu to go off to HPA on his own and then BOOM acceptance letter)

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu- Programmer (He. gets so angry while coding. He has an array of rubber ducks to talk to and work through his coding issues with. trans of course. Very protective of Peko when people say she doesn’t have a ‘real’ ultimate. ADHD and Autistic)

Sonia Nevermind- Writer (Literary Girl) (Her family immigrated to Japan when she was young! She writes a lot of serial killer novels, murder mysteries and horror and all that! Trans and bi :)

Gundham Tanaka- Detective (YEAH my guy is a detective. still talks Like That. Trans and bi and he and Sonia were kinda-dating (t4t autistic power couple in the making) when things started happening. He spends some time with his cool older sister who he looks up to a LOT. He and Sonia talk through things together a lot, they both have those red string walls, one for murder cases, another for a fictional plot lmao.)

Mahiru Koizumi- Moral Compass (my GIRL. autistic. Her morals rely a lot on people taking responsibility and being reliable, and she ends up having to work through some biases she didn’t realize she had when she arrived at HPA. Is still protective of Hiyoko, though that protectiveness is spread a bit thinner to extend to the rest of the class.)

Hiyoko Saionji- Clairvoyant!!! (HI YES I COULD TALK ABOUT HER FOR DAYS. Has actual visions in dreams and when she suddenly faints, but doesn’t really realize they’re uhh Real Visions for a WHILE. uses her status as an ultimate clairvoyant to trick and bully kids when in school for a LONG time, though her homelife wasn’t great with her grandmother trying to find ways to make her visions more consistent. SHES ALSO 12 WHEN SHE JOINS THE 77TH CLASS. she’s just so advanced in academics and her ultimate is so interesting hope’s peak cant HELP but scout her early. she has SO many issues guys no one appreciates hiyoko enough, autistic gifted kid hiyoko my beloved.)

Akane Owari- Gambler (started gambling to help out her family and Got Good at it. is very very conscious of money and food like all the time. Runs the hope’s peak betting pools once she arrives. these ultimates bet on a lot of things. she ALWAYS wins. until she doesnt!!!)

Mikan Tsumiki- Martial Artist (ohhhh Mikan. Still anxious and clumsy (though not like THAT in canon) and literally no one looks at her and thinks Oh The ULTIMATE martial artist?? it isn’t until you see her in the ring that you understand. She started learning self defense as a kid because her (bad) parents essentially said she had to rely on and protect herself and no one else would help.)

Kazuichi Souda- Pop Idol (OH TRANS ICON? he’s nervous and paranoid about Everything still, though now it’s like. oh the entire world is always watching my every move this is Okay (: has the brightest neon album eras. he literally keeps up a like. weird chad persona when interacting with people because he’s masking how hard he’s constantly just internally screaming.)

Nagito Komaeda- Soldier (AHAHAH my mans got issues problems disorder he’s a messssss, this trans guy, this absolute gay. this boy leveled a city of thousands of people with his own hands and some bombs. Still has medical issues, but most of his like. treatments and medicine is hold hostage as long as he stays in line. believes the ends justify the means and anyone who dies to him is obviously weak, because look at him! he’s weak, but that doesn’t matter because he doesn’t have to be the strongest, he just has to be stronger than the weakest scum.)

Chiaki Nanami- Heir (OOF. Agender, uses any pronouns. Doesn’t really. enjoy being the heir. grew up with Byakuya in the same circles. she treats the economy and stock market and stuff like games. enjoys gaming but isn’t good at them. collects so many things. has halls full of collections. Her parents stopped controlling her once she was able to prove she had more money than them and could literally bankrupt them if she wanted.)

Hajime Hinata- Baseball Star (Chiaki’s best friend, his family was upper middle class until he hit it BIG as a baseball star. wants to do BIG things and wants to attend hope’s peak more than anything!! Doesn’t really think of baseball as his THING, just a means to an end! trans :)

Teruteru Hanamura- Biker Gang Leader (started with shaking down some jerks who didn’t pay their food and drink tabs at his mama’s restaurant. now he RUNS their tiny town. His siblings are essentially gang mascots, he works hard to keep them out of trouble (while bringing them to like. meetings where he ends up beating a dude almost to death. its fine). most of what he does it to get more money to keep the restaurant afloat and care for his mama with her health conditions.)

Nekomaru Nidai- Fashionista (the drama. the CHAOS. most people are like ohhh we can never understand this artistic genius when he’s literally just. vibing and has ADHD and a love for coffee. Works a lot on accessible clothing lines for disabled people! Also he and Kazuichi work together sometimes, Nekomaru is good at calming Kaz down and seeing like, the root of whatever problem and making it better. ALSO A TRANS ICON and just flaunts it.)

Imposter- In the hope’s peak days they are impersonating Ryota Mitarai, as a part of the 77th class. In the Killing Game they impersonate Mondo Oowada as the Ultimate Prince. They’re doin’ their best.

Ibuki Mioda- (???) (Izuru Kamakura) Protagonist! Gundham Tanaka’s older sister (though they’re in the same school year). Nonbinary and using just. an array of pronouns alongside she/her, and jokingly fights with gundham for neopronouns like MOM said it’s MY TURN on the rawrself pronouns. She attends the reserve course to stay at her brother’s side. She dresses loudly and acts even louder because !!! she wants to stand out!! in the middle of this drab reserve course hell!!  but when things go down, she wants to be someone, to be worthy of being her amazing brother’s big sister. so she accepts some offers.

NON-KILLING GAME:

Ryota Mitarai- Ultimate Analyst (stays in his room. He’s terrified of the outside world but fascinated by it. watches hope’s peak academy through security feeds, picking up on little details. he just wants to understand things but never looks at the big picture.)

Chisa Yukizome- Ultimate Boxer (Homeroom teacher!! She’s working really hard and believes in everyone! Some are intimidated by talent, but she’s never hurt anyone outside of the ring! Dating Kyosuke)

Juzo Sakakura- Ultimate Student Council President (Has anger issues, though his work at reigning them in assisted in becoming an Ultimate. Was responsible for security and the Hope’s Peak student council. Dating Kyosuke)

Kyosuke Munakata- Ultimate Housekeeper (Meticulous, works himself to the BONE even if he’s good enough to not have to do that. Is working on establishing another Hope’s Peak! Dating Chisa and Jozu!!!)

Seiko Kimura- Ultimate Blacksmith (GIVE MY GIRL KNIVES!! She’s an anxious gal, always wearing a facemask that filters the air in her forge because she has some respiratory problems. she prefers making more decorative pieces like an artist, but sometimes can create utilitarian pieces or tools to fit specific needs. Still a doormat)

Ruruka Ando- Ultimate Pharmacist (She constantly asks Seiko for new tools for her developments in medicine, saying its all for the advancement of humanity, so Seiko denying any request is SELFISH, though she never thinks to make anything for seiko’s health issues. Dating Izayoi. Specializes in medicine for mental health. Not Doing Great :)

Sonosuke Izayoi- Ultimate Confectioner (He loves sweets. LOVES them. Creates things that look plain, ordinary. but taste so GOOD you CRY and maybe ascend for a little bit. sometimes Ando makes cool new drugs to put in the sweets, who knows! It’s a mystery! He always has like. a huge refrigerated case of fresh cakes, and constantly has a lollipop in his own specialty recipe in his mouth.)

[mooitstimdrake]

new to dc and batfam shit... do u know what cómics like have batfam stuff in them? also when was it that dick suggested arkham to tim?

I’ll start by addressing your second question first! Hmm I think “Dick suggesting Arkham to Tim” probably refers to Tim’s belief that Bruce is alive post- Batman RIP and throughout Red Robin. Basically, Dick thought Tim needed professional help dealing with his grief after losing Bruce, and that he had created some elaborate delusion to deal with it. This was one of the things that ultimately drove Tim away from Dick and the rest of the family.

so I have to admit that I haven’t been caught up on comics in a long time, and I’m not too familiar with newer characters (Duke Thomas) and newer canons (Rebirth). I’m much more familiar with Preboot comics and New 52 comics. If you have questions about these terms, I’d be happy to make another post to explain!

If you’re new to DC, I definitely recommend watching some cartoons. I grew up with them, so I’ve always been familiar with DC, and I think it helps with transitioning to comics. I’d recommend 

Batman: The Animated Series (+ tie in movies)

The New Batman Adventures (+ tie in movies)

Teen Titans

Justice League and Justice League Unlimited

Some other good older (90s/2000s) cartoons include

Static Shock

Batman Beyond

The Batman (+ tie in movie Return of the Joker)

I’d also really recommend Young Justice!

And if you like Teen Titans and don’t mind things being lighthearted and silly, you may like Teen Titans Go! It’s not my favorite, but I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy some episodes.

ANYWAY! Back to comics!

So before I start recommending comics, I highly recommend checking out wikis (or something like ComicVine) about characters you’re interested in! Most likely when you read, there will be references to other arcs and characters you may not know anything about, and it helps to know what’s up by looking it up reading a quick summary. Crossover events happen, and they can be a nightmare to navigate.

So @lornahs​ has an amazing ‘where to start’ list that I would recommend, and I’ll include the links she has for each character as well! Plus I’ll include some of my own recs!

Starting with Batman/Bruce Wayne comics:

Preboot

Batman: Year One

The Long Halloween

Dark Victory

New 52

Batman: Zero Year

Note: My Batman recs are p short, but he’s in most of the other Batfam recs anyway, and I’ve included some ensemble comics at the bottom that often heavily feature Bruce. But if you want more solo Batman content,  you may enjoy Batman or Detective Comics comics (both are so long running I’m not sure where to tell you to start with them).

Next: Dick Grayson/Robin I/Nightwing/Batman II

Preboot

Robin: Year One*

Robin: The Gauntlet

Nightwing: Year One

Nightwing (1996-2009)

Battle for the Cowl

Batman and Robin v1

Gates of Gotham

The Black Mirror

New 52

Nightwing

Grayson

Note: I haven’t included any ensemble comics here, but Dick has been a part of many teams, such as the Teen Titans, Titans, and Outsiders to name a few.

Next: Barbara Gordon/Batgirl I/Oracle

Preboot

Batgirl: Year One*

New 52

Batgirl (2011)

Batgirl (2016)

Note: I haven’t read a lot of Babs! I’m mostly familiar with her as Batgirl through cartoons, and as Oracle throughout other batfam comics. You can also find more Babs in Birds of Prey!

Next: Jason Todd/Robin II/Red Hood

Preboot

Batman #412-425

Batman #426-429 (A Death in the Family)

Red Hood: The Lost Days*

Batman: Under the Hood*

New 52

Red Hood and the Outlaws

Rebirth

Red Hood and the Outlaws

Next: Tim Drake/Robin III/Red Robin

Preboot

Batman #440-442 (A Lonely Place of Dying)

Batman #443-445

Batman #448-449

Batman #455-457

Robin*

Red Robin*

Note: Tim often appears on teams especially lately since DC doesn’t know what to do with him. He was a founding member of Young Justice (1998), and he had his own iteration of Teen Titans, both in Preboot and in the New 52.

Next: Cassandra Cain/Batgirl II/Black Bat

Preboot

Batman 556-559

Batgirl v1

Batgirl v2

Robin/Batgirl: First Blood*

Rebirth

Batman Eternal

Next: Stephanie Brown/Spoiler/Robin IV/Batgirl III

Also this link!

Preboot

Detective Comics #647-649

Robin #126-128

Batgirl v3

Rebirth

Batman Eternal

Note: the above links are much more comprehensive than mine! Again, I haven’t read a ton of Steph!

Next: Damian Wayne/Robin V

Preboot

Batman and Son (#655-658, 663-666)

The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul*

Batman R.I.P.

Battle for the Cowl

Batman and Robin v1

Streets of Gotham*

New 52

Batman and Robin v2*

Rebirth

Teen Titans (2016)

Super Sons

And here are a few characters I’m not as familiar with, but who are important!

Kate Kane/Batwoman

Harper Row/Blue Bird

Duke Thomas/ Robin VI (?)/ The Signal

Note: there’s a lot more content for Duke now than I or this link can suggest, I encourage you to look into comics like All Star Batman (2017) or Batman and the Signal

Additional ensemble comics:

 Preboot

Batman: Cataclysm

Batman: No Man’s Land

Batman: Hush*

New 52

Court of Owls*

Night of the Owls*

Death of the Family*

Rebirth

Batman Eternal

Batman and Robin Eternal

Other Batfam who primarily exist outside of the primary canon but who everyone knows anyway:

Carrie Kelley

Helena Wayne

Terry McGinnis

This list is far from complete, so I suggest you ask around or do your own research, especially when it comes to characters I didn’t have much familiarity with! I hope this helped!

[commandervisor]

Since you're just about to start vol 7, is there any theories you have going forward? Is there something you really want to see happend? Have you been spoiled for anything?

Putting this under a “Read More” because this is just one thing after another… 

Theories? In hindsight after writing all of this, most of it is not the main cast because I guess at the moment, they’re rather well-adjusted and/or recovering from their issues rather well lol, so I can’t make big enough guesses on them right now.

Emerald and maybe Mercury GTFO there, I think being stuck in Salem’s castle with Hazel until whatever goes down in Atlas I guess will 

Emerald becomes a Maiden, my guesses are:

A “redeemed” Cinder thinks of Emerald in her last moments, but it’s kept vague if she was thinking of her because she actually cared about her or because of something completely unrelated to that (ex. “Emerald better have-*gets killed midsentence*”).

Otherwise, Cinder finds out Emerald is now a Maiden and turns against her. Now Emerald has to deal with her mother figure, the woman who saved her life, wanting her dead.

Either way, I think this could lead to her redemption.

Mercury is pretty hard to read, especially after what he said in V6 about why he acts the way he does and how he feels about his relationship with Cinder and Emerald. Tyrian summed him up as just putting up a tough exterior because he doesn’t know anything else, so if something like Emerald going rogue happens, then it’ll be interesting to see how long he’ll keep those barriers up against Emerald.

Cinder “redemption” arc. I don’t know how, but it would constitute showing her backstory (because that infatuation for power and not wanting to be powerless has to come from something, and she’s based on Cinderella, so.). V6 already had Salem basically kicking her out of the house for disobeying her (albeit she’s apparently still keeping an eye on her…), so Cinder left to her own devices could end up doing a lot more loose cannon-y things outside of trying to get revenge on Ruby and this eventually leads into her becoming an anti-villain and something of an anti-hero?

Pyrrha’s and maybe Amber’s souls are actually connected to Cinder, kind of like with Ozpin and Oscar, because 1) Maiden mechanics? and 2) It seems strange to me that back in V3 when they hooked up Pyrrha to Amber in that aura transfer machine, they made a big deal out of how Pyrrha “might not be the same” if the transfer works but then she died anyways so that part seemingly didn’t matter outside of brief angst? At the moment, I don’t know where this would go other than Pyrrha and Amber kind of haunting Cinder like ghosts, maybe this could lead to her “redemption”?

After what happened with Vernal, I don’t know what to make of Winter Schnee and Summer Rose as possible Maidens, but it seems relevant? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Likewise, I don’t really know where Hazel’s arc may go, either they’ll keep him as someone who refuses to move forward and ends up dying a bitter, meaningless life, or he’ll finally realize that and maybe help the heroes against Salem and/or Em & Merc leave Salem (I think him trying to take the blame for Cinder’s failure in V6 was foreshadowing), probably at the cost of his life because I can’t imagine him turning against Salem and managing to walk away alive.

Weiss tearing Jacques a new one, because we got Yang doing that to Raven in V5 and Blake (and Yang) doing it to Adam in V6 too, so I think we’ll continue to see cycles of abuse, hate, spite, and so on get broken from this point on.

And also take Whitley and GTFO there too, it’d be neat to see him unlearn his behavior from being under Jacques this whole time and I guess “redeem” himself… I have no idea who should take him in but he could stay with Maria if she and the group are parting ways in Atlas, it probably wouldn’t be safe for him to tag along with RRAYNBBOW (or however they’re called now lol). I pretty much envision this as what Eh**z said about Azulademption if it had happened in ATLA (”I’m happy.” “Yes, we know you are, Whitley.”).

Tai fighting, because they’ve established him as being retired while Raven and Qrow are still in action, so I think we might see him fight at some point as things come to a head.

Because RWBY is a good show that knows how to properly “subvert expectations”, it is to be expected that a lot of questions and mysteries will get answered (ex. Almost everything about Summer, Raven/The Spring Maiden subplot to come back, probably if a Maiden killing another Maiden actually boosts their power or not, whatever they have to do to teach Salem her lesson, etc.), and there are a lot of endgames they’re likely building up to (ex. Salem is defeated, Oz and Salem reunite and reconcile in the afterlife, Oscar is the last Oz reincarnation because Oz’s quest finally gets a happy ending, the Gods leave Remnant alone, maybe the Grimm disappear from Remnant, etc.).

Things I want to see happen (outside of ships because I think y’all know already lol):

I think this is a victim of the show trying to find its footing early on, which does happen, but I think it would be/have been neat if we got to see Ruby��s friends from Signal at some point (I’m guessing this might be prime self-insert OC material) or at least get a glimpse of the “elementary”/”primary” Huntsmen academies, if only because I like worldbuilding/lore and Chekhov’s guns/foreshadowing :P. Though I doubt this will happen since the show is moving in a really different direction from the school setting it had back in V1-V3, which is fine.

Jacques joining Adam in clown hell

STRQ flashbacks, and maybe a TRQ reunion? Again, I can see this as something happening as things come to a head, especially since this would require Raven to kind of turncoat back to the good guys.

EDIT: I would also like to see Goodwitch come back, but I guess that might be a while since we’re focusing on Atlas at the moment and then presumably Vacuo?

Watts shaving his dumb moostash

More anime voice actors, because OH WOW IT’S AMAZING HOW THE ACTING INDUSTRY WORKS, HUH VI? 

I think that’s all I can think of for now… Anything else I usually wonder about is something I bring up in my liveblogs? I think??

Have I been spoiled for anything? Yeah, I guess, but it was because of people rb’ing RWBY on my dash/TL/whatever before I started watching the show, so I didn’t have context and I didn’t think much of any of it beyond that they looked neat. That, plus me having the memory of a goldfish about all of that probably helped… For example, ask me about Homestuck, The Adventure Zone, Critical Role, The Arcana, etc. because I see those on my dash a lot, but I have no idea what they’re about other than maybe some general info and a couple of character names.

That being said, I knew/know about some characters that hadn’t/haven’t shown up yet because that’s pretty hard to avoid (at the beginning, I only really knew RWBYJNPR, Sun, Penny, and also Ozpin, Qrow, and Summer but pretty much in name only; back when V7 started, I did notice a lot of popularity with certain characters from that volume), and some things I did know like someone being able to turn into a bird (when the Faunus lore got introduced, I thought this was going to be a Faunus power lol*), Blake was or was not a cat-person, Summer being gone, Bumbleby being the ship, and maybe more that I can’t remember at the moment.

* …“What I expected vs. What I got: RWBY Edition” is probably something that warrants its own post. Hmm…

It’s 3 AM and this is a huge garbled mess, but as you might guess, I’m really invested in RWBY right now and it’s fun wondering where they’ll take the story next. This is quality.

[mistio]

New features, performance and usability improvements in Mist v4.0

We are happy to announce version 4.0 of the Mist Cloud Management Platform which brings several new features, performance and usability improvements. This major release incorporates the lessons we have learned in the past few months while working with teams that manage thousands of resources, e.g. SevOne.

To dig in right away, sign in to your Mist.io account or install Mist Community Edition from GitHub.

For more details on Mist v4.0, keep on reading.

Mist now runs on Python v3.7

Mist v4.0 brings a complete migration from Python v2.7 to Python v3.7. Our goal is to future-proof the code base and take advantage of the latest language improvements.

Thanks to this migration, Mist users will notice considerable improvements in server-side performance.

Apache Libcloud, a key underlying library, already supports Python v3.7. This allowed us to upgrade to the latest stable version which includes many new features for OpenStack, Amazon AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure and Digital Ocean. You can see a full list of new features here.

If you are considering a similar migration for your projects, check out here a nice overview of the differences between Python v2.X and Python v3.X. You can find further useful information in the official Python documentation, here and here. Finally, keep in mind that community support for Python v2.7 will expire on January 1st 2020.

Polymer v2.X and Web Components v1

In Mist v4.0 the front-end code is in Polymer v2.X, up from Polymer v1.X. This is the first step towards moving to Polymer v3.X. The goal of this transition is to offer improved browser interoperability and performance. It also allows us to easily upgrade 3rd party components for additional usability improvements.

Migrating from Polymer v1.X to v2.X is not very simple because v2.X introduces breaking changes. Before you try something similar, make sure you check out this excellent upgrade guide. For more information on what Polymer v2.X brings on the table you can check out this document. Since this will probably be a short-term intermediate step before moving to Polymer v3.X, you should also go over the relevant v3.X documents here and here. The good news is that once you’re on v2.X moving to v3.X requires less effort than moving from v1.X to v2.X.

Usability improvements

Alongside the major changes mentioned in the previous paragraphs, Mist v4.0 includes several usability improvements to ease your day-to-day routines. The most notable ones are:

i) Searchable key & network selection widgets in forms.

ii) Collapsible sections in monitoring dashboards.

iii) Export machine monitoring dashboard as pdf.

iv) Improved user interaction when adding "Other Server" Clouds.

v) Widget for selecting existing tags. 

vi) Configurable filters in every list that persist in localStorage.

vii) Improved display of JSON & XML metadata.

Automatic backup & restore scripts

For Mist Community and Enterprise Edition users who are managing their own Mist installations, v4.0 includes a new backup feature. You can now automatically backup and restore everything, including MongoDB and InfluxDB, by making some simple configuration changes.

Pre and post action hooks

Mist v4.0 allows users to set specific pre and post action hooks at the cloud level, e.g. for all resources in my OpenStack cloud. This is useful for users with large infrastructure footprints that require very custom workflows and integrations with 3rd party systems. For example, one of our users is taking advantage of this feature for metering and billing purposes. When a new VM is provisioned a post-action hook notifies the billing system. The same happens after the VM gets destroyed. Based on this information, it is possible to know how many resources were utilized and for how long. This is then translated to an internal cost unit.

Conclusion

Mist v4.0 is a major stable release which brings lots of changes and significant improvements.

You can check out for yourselves by signing in your Mist.io account here.

For Community Edition users, the latest version and instructions on how to install are on GitHub.

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts at support@mist.io.