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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Creation”

Happy Saturday, everyone! Oh man, oh man, oh man. I think I'll need to steer clear of the general RWBY tags this week, simply because I know the sort of responses I'll see to this episode. From smug celebration at Ironwood's downfall, to bad takes about what makes us human, this episode is a petri dish of sensitive material handled insensitively.

Let’s unpack it, shall we?

We open on an action that feels like a summery of the last three volumes: a grimm attacks an airship from the front, no doubt killing its pilot, while the other grimm conveniently ignore our heroes, no masking in sight. The group looks a little sad at the destruction around them, but ultimately ignore it because they have bigger, heroic things to do. I could write a whole, additional essay on how the huntsmen code — to protect the people — has been warped and abandoned by our protagonists in their effort to do what they think is right. It's a tale that might have been compelling if only RT knew they were writing it.

We get a shot of Atlas drones unloading the bomb before one is taken out, presumably by Qrow and Robyn. Segueing to Ironwood and the Ace Ops, they're waiting for Penny to arrive, the former carrying a massive gun presumably capable of capturing her. Despite the horror we saw on their faces last episode at the realization that Ironwood would kill Marrow for speaking up, it seems that now the Ace Ops are entirely in agreement with these measures. A week ago the implication was that they fell back in line out of fear, but now Harriet talks passionately about "putting down" the group if they were stupid enough to accompany Penny. "The General gave his terms." Vine sighs at this, but doesn't actively disagree. He's just "retracing the steps that led us here."

So, congratulations on introducing four new characters, not bothering to develop any of them, killing one off while ignoring Qrow's hand in that, and having the other three become all, "Yeah! Mass murder is a perfect solution!" off screen. Marrow is the only one with something resembling development and, as covered in these recaps, that's been pretty badly executed too.

Ironwood sends them to deal with Robyn and Qrow after Winter reappears to "assist" him. That gets quotation marks because most viewers at this point have realized that she's who our two birbs spotted in the elevator. Winter isn't on Ironwood's side anymore, she's just skillfully clearing the field for the final attack. Indeed, we get a moment where she hesitantly brings up the bomb and Ironwood responds that he hopes she's not going to try and talk him out of it. No. Winter doesn't think that's possible. This was her final attempt at peace.

One of the reasons why I think I'll stick to my own blog for a while is because the fandom has a tendency to paint broad personality traits as evil when applied to some characters, yet simultaneously heroic when applied to others, when really it's about how that those traits are used. What I mean is, I've seen a lot of Ironwood critical posts that emphasize how stubborn he is. He thinks he's right and he won't back down. He wont listen to others. He's going through with this plan and if anyone tries to stop him? That's their mistake. Totally evil, right? Except, this is the exact same behavior Ruby displays, particularly in Volumes 6 and 7. She was stubborn about stealing from Argus and continuing the fight to the point where it endangered her and her teammates, to say nothing of the rest of the city. She refused to listen to Qrow, or Ironwood, or the Ace Ops, loudly announcing that she was right about, well, everything. If they didn't agree with her, the options were to leave the group entirely, or fight her. The actual difference here is that the writers have taken Ironwood to an extreme, one that's incredibly easy to understand as bad because it is bad: bombing Mantle has no defense. Ruby pulls the exact same nonsense, it's just not to that same extreme and her actions are followed by scenes that are meant to make us forgive her: a sad look because she didn't mean to get a city attacked by a leviathan grimm, a cry on the staircase because she didn't mean to risk the lives of an entire kingdom... even though she did. Ironwood is the bad guy because he's been written to take specific, OOC actions like shooting unarmed kids. He's not the bad guy because when other characters go, "Don't do this" his response is, "I have to." Because that's been Ruby's motto ever since she "had" to use the Lamp to rip Ozpin’s life story away. RWBY introduced those extreme actions of shooting the youngest in the group (for no reason) and threatening to bomb a city (for no reason) or shooting a councilman (for no reason) because when you remove those you've got a man who looks exactly like our hero. Ironwood's arc has been peppered with these confusing, unpersuasive actions because if you just keep the story as him stubbornly keeping to a plan he thinks will save the world, you're left with the reminder that all Ruby has done lately is stubbornly keep to plans she thinks will save the world. This moment with Winter just highlights how ill thought out Ironwood's descent has been because he does everything Ruby does... with a few, tacked on, “and randomly shoots people!” moments to ensure we understand that he’s definitely evil. No comparison to our heroes here, folks!

Ironwood is a bad guy now. That’s certain, but he was made that way so the story never had to grapple with the question of what that means for Ruby if we really start condemning things like lying, secrets, stubbornness, or endangering others for the greater good. Well then damn, if we strip away the hypocrisy then she might not be a good person after all. Or the people she’s simplistically labeled as bad might not be the devils Ruby claims they are.

But that’s a level of nuance RWBY would rather pretend doesn’t exist.

All of which is highlighted by Ironwood’s reaction to "Penny." He sighs and sags over the gun, immediately putting it aside. With his hand on her shoulder, Ironwood tells her she's "done the right thing." Precisely the same way Ruby would lower Crescent Rose and give someone a smile when they decided to fall in line with her.

Which, of course, is the moment when Emerald reveals herself, dispelling the Penny illusion and revealing Team JNPR The Second behind her. She gives a quip about it feeling "weird" to do the right thing before disappearing.

From there the action picks up fast. I really enjoyed this battle simply from a choreography and energy standpoint. It gets the blood pumping, Ironwood's hand-to-hand is spectacular — especially that moment against Ren — and the group actually displays teamwork for the first time in what feels like forever, all of them needed to land a hit on Ironwood. As always, out of the context of the rest of the show it feels and looks great. My primary issue is that we get this fantastic fight against Ironwood. Not Salem, not Cinder, not Watts (like last volume when Ironwood was still a hero), not even Emerald as a means of transitioning from murderous villain to the group's best bud. No, what's arguably the best action sequence in the volume thus far goes to beating up the guy they betrayed from the start. There's no catharsis for me here, only frustration as we watch Ironwood stand in shock as Winter powers up Nora — who's fine now, I guess — and she slams her hammer into his face.

It never should have come to this and when a good character is done so dirty, their downfall doesn't evoke the emotions the writers are looking for. Watching Ironwood fall doesn't generate feelings of victory, or even tragedy at a course of events others were powerless to stop. It's just frustration at watching years worth of bad writing, sprinkled with fantastic ideas that never go anywhere.

Oscar gets a few hits in, Ironwood snatches his cane, and just as he's about to throw a punch, Winter arrives with the most dramatic sword slash I've ever seen.

Ironwood's aura breaks and he falls, unconscious. We cut to an image of a droid's head separated from its body, one of Robyn's arrows through its skull. That doesn't have meaning or anything.

I suppose I should be grateful they didn't rip Ironwood's arm away during the fight, or outright kill him, though I'm still expecting him to die before the end of the volume.

Hmm. Wouldn't that be something? If after Salem's arrival, freezing cold, a Hound attack, grimm soup, a giant whale, a massive army, and a hack ending in self-destruction, the one character who actually dies is Ironwood.

It's looking more and more likely.

Honestly, beyond all the obvious, what's so frustrating about this fight is that characters are only now using their impressive abilities to their fullest. Emerald creates an entire fantasy of what's happening and then straight up disappears, but she only does a half-assed version of that when fighting against Penny. (And really, she put more effort into helping the heroes she just joined over Cinder, the woman she's been obsessed with since the start?) Marrow refuses to use "Stay" against a group they wanted to peacefully arrest because that's just too horrible an act, I guess, but he'll do it on his own teammates the second Qrow and Robyn don’t want to fight.

This is what I mean when I say the rules of the world bend to assist the protagonists in absurd ways. It's not nearly as egregious as Amity suddenly being up and running, but the fact that characters become substantially more powerful while fighting for the protagonists than they do against them is still a significant problem.

So Ironwood is down and out. As much as I hated watching that and didn't necessarily want more, am I the only one who felt like it was... a bit lackluster? I mean, the action was great, yes, but relatively short. There was no dialogue, such as another delve into the moral questions that led to this fight in the first place. There certainly wasn’t any hesitance against fighting a former ally. (Again, we’re meant to believe that the Ace Ops won because they just couldn’t bear to fight the group seriously, but every former ally here is capable of wailing on Ironwood without a single pause or pained look?) Ironwood just skillfully blocks for a while, is blindsided by Winter's betrayal, and then falls unconscious. Given that we learn he and Jacques will be evacuated after the rest of the kingdom, it's possible he'll escape somehow and we'll get a fight 2.0, but if not that feels like a rather tame end to the guy forced into the antagonist seat. Plus, what was the point of having Qrow frothing at the mouth to kill him this whole volume? I never wanted that to happen, I'm glad it hasn't, but I'm nevertheless left to ask why we bothered with that eleven episode side plot if we were going to erase it with one sentence from Robyn about Qrow being better than this. If that's all it took, let them work through Qrow's irrational anger while sitting around in a cell.

Winter tells the group to move onto "phase two" which is when we're treated to a flashback. We return to the ending of the last episode, with Ruby realizing that opening the vault is an option. Jaune, all smiles, goes, "We never considered using what's inside!"

This is what I mean about no consequences! This is what I mean about it all being a meaningless circle that ends with undeserved praise for the group! We started this horror show with Ironwood going, "We don't have a plan to protect the people, so I'm going to take what people we do have to safety" and the group going, "We don't have a plan either, but we're going to stop you implementing your plan because it's not perfect, risking a kingdom's worth of lives in the process." Now, the group has used two plans, one of which two characters knew about at the start and another they could have devised with the information they had. Oscar and Ozpin's, "We have an all powerful magical blast in our cane" and the group's "What if we used the Staff for something other than raising Atlas?" are both things that could have come up in the office debate. These were both always on the table! Instead, Ruby grew furious over the mere thought of cutting their losses, betrayed Ironwood again, attacked his people, denounced him to the world, and then two days later goes, "Oh wait! We could do something now that we could have easily done before if we hadn't made a needless enemy!"

Everyone realizes how much worse they made things, right? Turning against Ironwood, bringing everyone left in Mantle directly under Atlas, sitting around while an army was devoured, drawing it out until Penny was hacked... all of it would have been avoided if the group had thought and discussed things for a few minutes, not jumping straight to violently resisting what Ironwood came up with first. "We never considered..." Ruby says. Yeah, you didn't, except that's not something to smile about. The group made the situation a thousand times worse with their reaction when they could have just magically evacuated the kingdom from the start. “Maybe we could use it to save Penny and get everyone in Atlas and Mantle back to safety." Nothing has changed! They had this ability the whole time! Nothing about the last twelve episodes led them here, they just randomly thought of it after RT had padded the volume with needless drama. Considering that they're heading to Vacuo now, we could have just made this the finale of Volume 7 instead: big fight with Ironwood, revelation, get everyone evacuated while Salem attacks, leave her behind, then Volume 8 begins in Vacuo with the group knowing Salem is out there looking for them. This entire volume has been pointless. What did they accomplish?

Oscar got kidnapped and beat up, Nora was scarred, Ruby and Yang realized horrible things about Summer, and the whole world is panicking about a witch. Good things are... Ren and Ruby unlocked some semblance stuff? Weiss loves her brother again after he proved himself useful to her? Great work, team.

So this one moment makes everything they've done up to this point useless and, of course, once thought up the plan goes off without a hitch. Note that the summary of this episode says, "It's risky, dangerous, and nearly impossible — but it's the only plan they've got." Nearly impossible? That's a whole lot of talk for a plan that was implemented perfectly.

There is, admittedly, one snag, but one that is likewise made meaningless just seconds later. We'll get to that.

We see Winter call Weiss who also smiles at hearing from her sister. Obviously interactions like the group's with Emerald are the bigger concern, but it's still an issue that no one reacts as they should to people reappearing in their lives. Rather, RWBY continually confuses audience knowledge with character knowledge. We know Winter is on their side now, but Weiss hasn't a clue. Last she saw, she and Winter were agreeing to head down different paths. She has no reason to think her sister isn't loyal to Ironwood, so why isn't the group treating this call with suspicion? What if it's Ironwood trying to mess with them through a presumably safe party? I swear to god, with any consistency in the story this group would be dead ten times over because their decisions are so stupid. Oscar decides to believe in the guy currently beating him to a pulp, the group decides to trust a villain over a flawed ally, and now they see Ironwood’s second calling and are like, “Great, big sister Winter is checking in!” There’s a difference between a hopeful story filled with second chances and characters whose reliance on the narrative bending to assist them makes them come across as insanely naive.

None of which even touches on characters forgetting that other characters are presumably dead. Ironwood shot Oscar off the edge of Atlas, but doesn't react to learning he was kidnapped, or when he shows up to the fight. Thanks to Marrow's comment, Winter thinks YJOR have perished in the whale, but also has no reaction to them appearing to help with this plan. Absolutely nothing is followed up on.

We then get a flashback within the flashback (fun) of Winter — shock — not arresting Marrow. It's precisely as I assumed, with Marrow angrily asking why she hit him and Winter responding with, “Because you were about to get killed if I didn’t do something!” As I said last recap, I feel like I should let the marginalized groups lead this discussion, but I do want to add that no matter how well intentioned — or strategic, as I mentioned last time — the imagery itself is still harmful. No matter the context, we were still left with white woman Winter putting her knee on black man Marrow's back to arrest him, and it’s an image that everyone in the U.S. should be familiar with the horror of. Far more of a problem than the (presumed) ignorance of this scene is, I think, the choice to make Winter entirely unrepentant. I think some of this discomfort could have been alleviated if RT had written Winter as apologetic, contrite that it came to that and asking Marrow to understand that she only did it as a means of assisting him. Asking his forgiveness. Instead, we get this

So what, the only emotion we have room for is gratitude that Winter beat him up? Yikes.

As a lighter side note, I find the animation here unintentionally hilarious. Winter's assistive device makes her shoulders look too high, making this gesture more, "Woman exaggeratedly pouts about not getting ice cream for dinner" and less, "Woman sternly closes off during a disagreement about saving lives and betraying their general." Gotta find our humor where we can, right?

What's intentional, but far less funny, is the needless animation to show us that, yes, Marrow is peering at Winter calling Weiss. Oh, the shenanigans.

The elevator opens where Qrow and Robyn spot them. "Speaking of help," Winter says, as if she has any reason to believe Qrow didn't kill Clover. He and Robyn lower their weapons a bit, as if they have any reason to believe Winter and Marrow aren't still loyal to Ironwood. Would it really be so hard to have Winter immediately throw up her hands in the face of their almost-attack, blurting that she's not their enemy and needs their help, please listen? Again, RWBY can't remember which characters know what, let alone what their motivations and reactions should be.

We then enter the third part of the flashback where everyone piles into the Schnee dining room and discusses doing the things they could have done from the start. I'm metaphorically banging my head against that table. In RWBY's favor though, we also get a long shot of Jaune continuing to boost Penny’s aura.

Though it's only one of many issues, just the other day I asked, "Hey, why has Jaune always needed to hold onto the person he's assisting, but now suddenly he can touch Penny once and the boost remains?" It still doesn't explain why he was letting go before/why him needing to boost her continuously didn't put a hard time limit on their plan — not that Mantle's hour limit meant a thing — but at least they're showing more of that here.

Oscar notes that Atlas has enough gravity dust that it won't fall immediately when they use the Relic, but they will have to move fast to ensure no one is underneath. Yeah, like all the civilians you put there. He also cautions that the Staff isn't a "magic wand" that they can just wave to make all their problems go away... even though that's precisely what they're going to do. Ozpin gets some lines that aren't apologies or followed by attacks — hallelujah! — about how the Staff's spirit is a "character" and requires that you be able to precisely explain anything you want him to make. Blueprints, examples, a firm knowledge of how this will be accomplished — all of it is required to actually get what you're after. That's a cool limitation. It's just too bad we didn't know about it episodes ago, forcing our heroes to find ways to meet those requirements. Instead, they already have everything ready to go the moment they learn about it: Penny has her own schematics and Whitley apparently has knowledge of the entire kingdom after sending some ships out. Normally I'd go, "Really?" but I'm still just struck by how much good he's done compared to everyone else in this room. Your show is seriously broken when the side character the writers didn't even want the audience to like until a few episodes ago is more active, mature, and sensible than the heroes.

From there we see the group implementing the plan. They fly up through the hole Oscar left, straight to the vault. Penny opens it without any trouble and Ruby uses her speed to grab the Relic and stop time, halting her self-termination. I do like that combination of skill and their knowledge of how this magic works. That felt like a smart move. What's interesting though is that the Relic appears to stop time in the entire kingdom. We see people in Mantle and Atlas slowing to a halt too. I assume no one remembers that happening after time restarts, otherwise people would be freaked out by suddenly being frozen in place.

Wouldn't that have been cool though? The group often takes a while to use the Relics, either deciding what they need, or watching Jinn's information, so what if you had a population that blinks and suddenly, from their perspective, half an hour has passed? How long might Ozpin have sat on his knees after Jinn told him he wasn't able to defeat Salem? How long was that space frozen? We could have had a world built around rumors and fairy tales. Not the random stories Ozpin brings up to make a point and that we never hear about again, but tiny details that foreshadow these revelations. A Beacon where the kids tell each other spooky stories of people suddenly losing time, once a whole day. The wives, sisters, daughters, and nieces who disappear, or wake up one day with horrifying, unnatural powers. We see magic influence the world around it, but we've seen very little of the world reacting to that influence. The one time I can think of is Blake reading a book about "a man with two souls," the fiction clearly inspired by knowledge of Ozpin. And indeed, it felt great to recognize that as a significant detail and then be proven right years later as the lore was revealed. We could have gotten so much more of that if RWBY was better planned out.

I'm getting off track though. As time stops we see a series of images: Ironwood being led to a cell with Jacques, Penny succumbing to her hack, Team JNPR The Second preparing to contact the kingdom about what's going on. Then everyone is distracted by the giant, blue, buff Ambrosius who comes out of the Staff.

...there's a lot of innuendo in that last statement lol. At least RWBY is committed to the crazy design they chose? I was never particularly comfortable with the image of characters gaping up at a giant, naked woman in chains, so it's nice to balance that a bit with an equally giant, naked dude in chains.

From here things get confusing. In all honesty, I'm not sure if this is another moment where RWBY is trying to pass off a retcon as the group being brilliant, or if I, as an individual, simply didn't follow the logic. I won't bother to rehash the slow, meandering way that Ruby reveals their plan — that certainly didn't help with the clarity. Not in an episode where we didn’t even know these rules ahead of time — but it boils down to this:

The moment they have Ambrosius create something new Atlas will start to fall. Two of his creations can't exist at the same time.

He needs clear instructions about what he's making in order to create it.

The group has brought him Penny's schematics so that he understands how she's built.

They want, specifically, "a new version of her... using her exact robot parts."

They can't just create an exact duplicate of Penny because that would carry the virus with it.

They can't create an exact duplicate without the virus because that Penny would cease to exist as soon as they used Ambrosius to make an evacuation plan instead.

So they essentially want Ambrosius to create a new Penny by removing all the robot parts from the Penny that currently exists, carrying the virus with them, and leaving only the human parts of Penny behind: her aura/soul. Then, the purely robot version is destroyed when Ambrosius creates something new.

Except... this new Penny, this human Penny, still needed a human body. That's what Ambrosius created and that's the snag I don't understand. They want a version of Penny that's just her aura, just her soul, but that soul still needs something to be housed in. Ambrosius himself notes that. At first I thought the group would just have some wisp-like version of Penny they'd have to find a new body for — perhaps leading to a new one for Ozpin too — but she's just... given a human body when he takes the technology away, something she absolutely didn't have before. That is Ambrosius' creation. That is what should have disappeared along with the removed parts of Penny, leaving only her soul — what Ambrosius didn't touch — behind. Instead, the plot oh so conveniently has Penny get a new body for free and it's untouched as they move onto the next task.

Ruby drops a casual line about Ambrosius not being able to kill, or destroy, or something, which I think is meant to be the justification here. The rule (which, again, we JUST learned) about not killing anyone supersedes the rule of two creations not allowed to exist, allowing Penny to stick around. But even if that’s true, it’s a load of bull. What, does the magic think no one in an entire city might die if the floating mechanism is removed and it plummets to the ground? Ambrosius didn’t say, “Sorry, can’t stop floating Atlas because thousands of people are still here and they’ll die if I create something new,” but we’re supposed to believe the group skated by on, “Sorry, can’t destroy the last creation like everything else because there’s a single person still using that body and she’ll die if I create something new”?

Seriously, did I miss something? Or is this another, "Amity is ready because the group needs it" situation? The rule of creations ceasing to exist is bent because the group needs to have their friend around. Ambrosius is certainly enthusiastically complimentary, saying how "smart" the group is and that they've "done their homework," but I'm not so sure. It feels like a moment where the show is (once again) insistent that the group is far more talented and brilliant than their actions actually imply. It's only the rules of the world twisting and turning that allows for their success. To say nothing of how the episode dropped all these rules on the viewer in a ten minute info dump, ensuring we didn’t have any time to think about them before the deed was done.

It doesn't add up for me and honestly, even putting that aside? I hate this. I absolutely despise it. Look, if it turns out this really does make sense then props to the group for coming up with that plan. Our snag aside, the rest is a legitimately well thought out wish. I don't have a problem with the execution so much as the message. I've been saying since Volume 7 that RWBY has done Penny a disservice in terms of her "real girl" narrative. Whereas before we had a firm message that you don't need "squishy guts" to be human, to be real, Volume 8 continued to carry us further and further into the idea that it is necessary. That Penny's body is entirely inhuman, something to hate, but at least her soul is human and good. That's what the virus arc taught us: your terrible, technological body might be betraying you, but hold onto the parts of you that are really human. I hated that too, but I never thought RWBY would go this far. They made Penny fully human and went, “THIS is the version that always should have existed.”

And this isn't just me reading into the implications. It's right there in the text. Blake says that they're looking for “Penny, the girl who’s always been there underneath." Meaning, underneath the metal. The girl exists trapped in the robot body. Yang holds up her arm and says that the metal is only "extra," it's not really who you are.

That gets into two perspectives on disability that RWBY just doesn't have the nuance for: what's an integral and celebratory part of one person's existence can be seen as something separate and discomforting to another. Though there are many people with disabilities who would happily cure themselves with a magic Staff if given the chance, there are just as many who say no, this is a part of my identity. I don't want to change, I just want the world to accommodate my existence. However, RWBY takes a hard stance here, saying that any metal in your body is intrinsically bad. We didn’t use to have this take, but now the show has embraced it. Blake says the real Penny is trapped in there. Yang's words implies that she'd get rid of this "extra" bit of her if possible. Mercury with his metal legs is the enemy. Ironwood with half his metal body is the enemy. Whereas once difference was truly accepted, now it's shunned and fixed whenever possible. Those who can't be fixed, like Yang, must simply deal with the lot they've been dealt, reassuring themselves that the metal isn't really them. But Penny? Penny they can fix.

So they do and the very first thing Penny does is hug Ruby, exclaiming, “Do hugs always make you feel this warm inside? Wow. More!” and proceeds to hug all the others.

What's the underlying message there? Penny didn't understand hugs before this moment. She never experienced the "warmth" of them while an android, despite the fact that here warmth is entirely metaphorical and has nothing to do with a literally cold body. RWBY really went and said that the "real girl” android was never actually real at all — not as real as she could be — because it's only when she's given "squishy guts" that she understands the true happiness of a hug.

Wow.

I mean seriously, wow.

Never-mind that, you know, we've seen that happiness and warmth since she was first introduced.

RWBY is really rewriting all the core themes introduced in Volumes 1-3 and it sucks. The show is absolutely the worse for it.

To say nothing of all the other disservices to Penny's character here. There's all this buildup about whether she'll still be the same Penny once the wish is complete, but of course she is. We wouldn't want to have Penny struggle when she becomes something other than what she's always been, would we? After all, it took Yang an entire volume to work through the shock of a metal arm, but taking away a metal body for a human one is in no way traumatic. Having a normal, human body is intrinsically a good thing! Of course Penny accepts it with nothing but smiles. Becoming human is celebratory, but becoming more machine is a horror.

She gets to watch her body self-destruct, glitching out and collapsing in front of her. But again, nothing to unpack there that can't be covered with a hand over her mouth.

There's no discussion of whether Penny still has the Maiden powers, or whether a wish like that would mess with the transfer in any way. How did the group know this action wouldn't register as a clear-cut death, forcing the power out of her and into someone new? Obviously they couldn’t know, but no one even thought to bring it up?

And the entire time they're formulating their evacuation plan, there's no talk of whether these portals will appear before everyone currently alive in the kingdom. I mean, if they do then Ironwood and Jacques can just waltz through and escape into Vacuo. If they don’t, then Maria and Pietro don't necessarily have a way out. We still don't know if they're stuck floating in Amity, or if Amity crashed, or if they made their way back to Mantle or Atlas. More importantly, the characters don't know. I have no problem with RWBY keeping that a surprise until the finale, but I absolutely take issue with Pietro's daughter walking through a portal, seemingly not to care whether her father is going to make it out too.

It's been the same with Qrow and his nieces' relationships. The show is good at insisting that these families love each other because they hug and smile while on screen together, but when shit is actually going down, none of them care about pesky things like disappearances, arrests, or “The last time I saw you, you were with an old woman on a damaged station after a villain attack, potentially stranded in deadly cold if life support failed.”

So yeah, this entire arc with Penny has been a disaster. From throwing away her framing subplot, to giving her a virus that did absolutely nothing, to giving her the Maiden powers which she's also done nothing with, to erasing her android status for a “She's really human now” message, Penny has been done dirty by the show these last two volumes. Not nearly to the extent Ironwood has, but still. At this point I wish they'd just kept her dead dead. Why do I want her back when that resurrection produces no reaction, her conflicts lead nowhere, and one of the core things that made Penny Penny has now been magically erased?

I've been saying for weeks that killing Penny off and keeping Penny around each had serious downsides attached, yet I never expected RWBY to do BOTH.

Also, I'm warding off any, "But Pinocchio was made into a real boy too" defenses. RWBY is not Pinocchio. Penny is not Pinocchio. I thought the allusion was going to be the Pinocchio inspired girl heading into the whale, not the show forcing the exact plotline — down to a blue, magical creature — onto a character whose entire journey has been about accepting herself as an android. Congratulations, RT. You just obliterated years of work.

Again, if you'd like an example of how to do this far better:

As Penny's character falls apart, Atlas shakes, alerting Jaune and the other that a new wish has been granted. Jaune pecks at the screen and realizes "That did, uh, something…?” but doesn’t realize that there's a giant, red "LIVE" up in the corner.

Jaune tries to warn the entire kingdom about their plan, but what he actually says is

“Atlas is falling, but — !”

And then the communications cut out.

Watts, perhaps?

Our heroes are really good at saying things that make large populaces panic, huh? This is the one (1) snag in their "impossible" plan, but as said above, it doesn't amount to anything. We get a shot of Nora, horrified at the thought of kingdom-wide communications being down, but literally seconds later Team RWBY has made portals appear that everyone can walk through. So... why do we care about communications? More importantly, why does the show try to make us care? So much time is spent getting the viewer invested in problems that never come to mean anything.

Including the problem of Salem herself.

Because the group successfully creates that evacuation plan. This is it. Everyone is leaving while Salem still reforms.

Yang asks if they can use the vaults themselves as a single point for everyone to go to and Ambrosius agrees. So everyone is going to pile into the Vacuo vault that can only be opened by an unknown Maiden? They're going to put an entire kingdom's worth of people, including their enemies, into the vault where the Relic of Destruction is? Yeah, that's great. Prior to this — like if this had been the plan at the end of Volume 7 — I would have 100% agreed that these risks are better than death by Salem/grimm/cold. Now though, Oscar as axed Salem for an unknown length of time, the cold is having no impact on the civilians outside, and the grimm only attack background military personnel that supposedly no one cares about. They couldn't have spent another few minutes (especially with time stopped!) to figure out a means of getting to Vacuo that doesn't involve revealing and providing access to the location of a super secret vault? To say nothing of what they're going to do if Salem wakes up and snags one of those portals for herself. Two kingdoms for the price of one!

But that's what they're going with. Weiss gives Ambrosius a schematic of the kingdom, I guess, and he makes branching pathways appear with numerous portals for everyone to step through. They'll enter through one and, when they exit another, will be in Vacuo. Easy peasy, right? Especially since Ambrosius doesn't seem to have any limitations about how often his power is used. Is it three creations every 100 years like Jinn? We're not told, at least not to my recollection. However, I was expecting there to be a waiting period, that they'd fix Penny, go to evacuate the kingdom, and learn that sorry, I can't make another creation just yet. It feels like the sort of shit move these beings would pull — "Don't cry to me when it's not what you wanted" — it would have been another commentary on the group's insistence on putting friends over the people's safety (like demanding the Ace Ops not bomb the whale because of Oscar), and crucially, would have kept the action in Atlas. Isn't that what this volume is? The battle for and potential destruction of the Kingdom of Atlas? We have two episodes left and, unless something unexpected happens, we're moving that action to Vacuo. Why?

Meanwhile, Penny's corpse is just chilling in the background 😬

While all this is going on, Winter reassures Jacques that he and Ironwood will be evacuated too, though she makes it clear saving him was Weiss' idea. It checks out, considering Weiss is the one who turned her father's arrest into a joke last volume. Winter still takes his abuse seriously.

The group prepares to leave with a celebratory, "We did it!" from Weiss. I'm still banging my head against that dining room table. Before they can pass through the portal though, Ambrosius leaves them with one, dire warning: "Do not fall."

In any other story a line like that is a neon sign announcing to the audience that someone will absolutely fall, and maybe they will, but RWBY has dodged consequences so often I wouldn't be surprised if this was merely another way to string us along. Remember all the hype surrounding Salem? The cold combined with her army and magic? How she was going to decimate Atlas and leave our group broken in a Fall 2.0?

I mean, we still have two episodes left. Forty minutes of content. Salem might still decimate them, especially since something has to happen in the finale. But god, it's a problem that we've come this far without a payoff. Salem randomly decided not to attack anyone, was stopped by a weapon added in solely for this purpose, and now the whole kingdom is being evacuated with a plan the group could have used at the start. This volume really is meaningless.

“We go to vacuo and hope we’ve thought of everything” they say as the camera zooms in on Cinder's smiling face. For the second week in a row.

Bingo time!

Winter betrayed Ironwood, the group used the Staff of Creation, and I'm axing Maria on behalf of Pietro. You can't have the guy's daughter become human — after he was killing himself to give her his aura?? — and magically walk to Vacuo, not knowing if he's even survived since she last saw him, and expect me to think he hasn't been forgotten. Same with Maria. Has the group mentioned her since Amity cut out, notably for reasons they couldn’t explain? Of course not. Did they care to find out what happened? Of course not. I have no doubt they'll both re-appear in the next two episodes, Pietro crying over how perfect his girl is now and Maria congratulating the group on their actions, but we're still marking it.

This is the ugliest thing I’ve ever created, I hope you all are enjoying it :D

Another week, another couple feet added to the hole we’re digging. I know I keep saying I have no idea what's going to happen next... but I have no idea what's going to happen next. A Vacuo ending was not in the cards, not outside of them miraculously showing up in ships. Maybe they have been on their way to Atlas (somehow...) and will arrive precisely when everyone has left! Anything is possible at this point.

See you next Saturday, everyone. Hold on until then lol. 💜

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #rwby recaps #rwby creation

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razorblade180 · 4 years ago

Note

Overall thoughts on V8? Assuming you didn't answer this already.

I meant to do a volume wrap up review but I got incredibly busy and it fell to the waste side. The thing about me judging RWBY I have to come at it from two angles or I won’t feel like I judged it appropriately. There’s the casual, first time seeing the episodes and seeing this through the lens as a casual watcher who probably only sees the episodes once or twice. But then there’s the other side to that coin. I review these episodes, write aus, theorize, check extended lore, listen to the music, etc; that means I have to go back and watch episodes several times for any given reason and that’s when you start noticing the holes or picking up on things you didn’t before.

As a casual watcher, I’d give this an 8/10. There’s plenty of moments where characters do things that got me excited and plot points I wanted explored. This volume actually gave a decent amount of things I wanted for quite some time and some things I didn’t know I needed. Certainly there are things I don’t like in this but I’m open and curious to see where RT takes their storie because it’s their story.

Okay, now as a someone who’s had to deep dive and take a step back multiple times for a variety of reasons. 6.5/10 maybe a 7/10 if I’m being generous. A lot of my problems with this volume are problems that aren’t new to RWBY and that’s just how surface layer portions of arcs are and how a variety of choices/bonds don’t exactly make sense with what we were previously shown, or they only make sense because the writers don’t want introduce other complexities even though they should be there realistically. I’ll give a couple examples of these and yes, I’m aware what I say doesn’t bother everyone but it bothers me.

Qrow was never angry at or brought up Robyn being the reason their airship crashed in the first place because she started the fight; which aids in Clover dying.

Emerald follows Cinder, not Salem. Even if Cinder is working under Salem, why would Emerald be so willingly to complete shift to the side that actively goes against Cinder? There’s been no grand revelation to make Emerald believe Cinder doesn’t give a damn about her. Leaving made sense because she was about to get tortured. Going full turncoat right now doesn’t. No change happened. Emerald always hated being near Salem but adored Cinder no matter the crimes and the show hasn’t done anything to switch that view point.

I’m happy Whitley and Weiss had a touching sibling moment that implies they’re okay and making/made up, but there was never a conversation about the actual problem and thoughts that had them at odds in the first place. Weiss saving his and Willow’s life shouldn’t be the thing that smooths things over. It would’ve been terrible if Weiss do something to save their life. Whitley helping Penny is okay I guess because he really had no reason to contribute but did anyways. Even so, a person doing a morally correct thing doesn’t automatically warrant the conflict between him and Weiss’s resolved.

We got Cinder’s backstory; it didn’t tell us anything about how she eventually came into contact with Salem. Honestly her back story felt more in line of her main goal through the series was an absolute freedom by the means of breaking down the systems that trapped and didn’t give a damn, rather than her quest for power. Yes you can argue gaining power means it’s easier to maintain her freedom to do whatever she wants but I personally think that’s a little off the mark when you gave her a story that involves her trapped by rules and time rather than being too physically weak to gain freedom.

This show has built up that the Schnee family has suffered various types of abuse because of Jacques and uses Weiss as a medium to build towards breaking free from that. Not just overcoming but confronting the abuse by cementing it’s place below you. We don’t really get that. There will never be a moment where the siblings and mother truly get to break out of Jacques grasps emotionally and then put him in his place because he’s dead! Yeah they never have to worry about him again but even last volume they showed Winter still having turmoil and being able to get strung along by him. We don’t even really know how Whitley perceived his father. It feels so lackluster. Then they care to mention how it’s Weiss’s idea to save him like it’s an empowering moment when in actuality, it would be against her character, values of a huntress, and morality to let a person die in cell when you’re the reason they’re in a cell! Letting him die in there would just terrible. I don’t even know why he wasn’t let out in that scene! He’s a coward! He’d follow their orders to save his skin. All he has to do is shut up and walk through a portal.

Ironwood and Oscar both knew they could remove that staff to use it and Atlas wouldn’t drop immediately. Why did nobody have any kind of compromise with one another since there’s nothing stopping them from using the staff for something and then putting it back? They had this morally gray thing going on which I liked but then they decided to make Ironwood go full evil. I’ve never had to say this before but the song he got in V7 and the character they made him be in V8 just don’t connect. I got upset listening to that song recently because I liked that Ironwood.

Clover’s importance. RT tried making a character who had no more than 9 minutes in the series and one meaningful line of dialogue into the cornerstone of a side plot. Clover is such a nothing character. Vine did more than Clover. They try to make him have such a profound impact to the people around him but we never see him bond with his team; Harriet specifically. We get one scene of Clover telling Qrow the kids are fortunate to have Qrow even if he doesn’t think so. First, I doubt Clover knows Qrow decided to get drunk in a ghost town and the kids nearly died and cellar while he did it so that compliment doesn’t hold much weight for me. Second, We see nothing meaningful between the two. V7 has a time skip and just expects viewers to be on board with Clover being this influential change on Qrow without showing anything outside of a witty remark and Clover flexing his semblance. I would’ve bought it more of Qrow almost relapsed and Clover stopped him then had a real meaningful conversation.

Ruby goes against Ironwood only to then want to do a plan that’s aligned to longer term thinking than even his, talks about how everyone should be working together, but then adds a part in her video to actively antagonize and vilify Ironwood. Afterwards, she wonders where everything went wrong and doesn’t think of a plan or do anything to immediately help either kingdom until the final hour between the ultimatum being made, to everything getting destroyed. The inciting incident was disagreeing Mantle should be left in favor of Atlas but the main character didn’t do anything to help Mantle 90% of the season and hindered Atlas’s safety up until the final plan.

Yang is used to be the devil’s advocate in a bunch of situations, but she’s wrong most of the time or her lines just don’t make any sense. They weren’t doing just fine before Atlas. They almost died every step of the way. The team didn’t beat a Leviathan; silver eyes and a robot take credit for that. Why would Blake think less of Yang for wanting to go save people immediately? Blake was never mad at anyone to begin with. Yang consistently calls out people for following orders as if it’s objectively wrong, but is never called out on the fact she hasn’t followed anybody’s orders but her own and added discourse to every situation. I get RT is making her ask questions because that’s what Raven told her to do, but all she’s really doing is picking fights and disobeying every order. Yang states to Ruby they accomplished more than they expected. That’s false, getting Oscar back is correcting a mistake caused by her own plan that she didn’t even complete.

It took 6 volumes before Yang had anything to do with the Summer Rose subplot again and 7 volumes before her and Ruby had a sister to sister conversations; 5 if you wanna count Yang telling Ruby to leave at the end of volume three. The reason I bring this up is because in V8 , they treat their argument as if it’s a big deal but then have every character say it wasn’t that big a deal; but then have two circle back to that conversation later after having neither character discuss to anybody that the argument actually did weigh on them. Yang doesn’t think about Ruby until she sees her again and the closest we get with Ruby is Blake reassuring her that people need her and how Blake admires her. I like that scene but it’s not the same as Ruby actually airing out the specific point that Yang said something that Ruby found hurtful. Vol8 in general people trying to comfort others but nobody ever actually addresses what made them uncomfortable to start with. Except Ren.

This one is a nitpicking but I’ll say it anyways. Penny getting hacked only served as a purpose to go to the vault, a thing Ironwood already wanted them to do. Nobody got her because she was hacked. You can’t even say her getting hacked is the leading factor to her actually dying because Penny became a vulnerable human afterwards that can’t be rebuilt. Pietro was gone, and already stated last volume he doesn’t have the aura to build Penny again. If she died as a robot then it’s still permanent death. No core, no Pietro, and no aura; hacking her was just to create a Hound reveal situation and make them go to the vault on a different set of terms. I’m not exactly upset with this, but I don’t understand why the extra steps. The Hound was hunting her anyways. I would’ve brought some kind of value if she hurt a friend and it caused them to potentially hinder the plan later on or remove them entirely. Penny could’ve rekt Yang and it only adds value to Yang getting one shot later. I don’t know. I’m rambling.

I think I’ve wasted enough people’s time. Honestly, I do like this volume. I’ve enjoyed a bunch of it. But there’s things that legitimately make me think it’s not as good others and makes V7 even worse.

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #ask me stuff

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wu-sisyphus-gang · 4 years ago

Text

Motion Sickness Chapter 70

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"So they're letting you out?" Ruby asked.

"Well I've been in out-patient care and I got out of in-patient care." I shrugged. They were giving me my weapon back with a hefty fine and time-served. I guess they were desperate for reformed huntsmen on the right side of the law.

And my psychiatrist had eagerly pressed me through as truly reformed. I'd had to sit in front of a judge for my sentencing but my psychiatrist had explained who I was and the extenuating circumstances I had been through. A mind control semblance was the declassified word.

Horrifying.

"That's it then? You're free?" Ruby wondered.

"All horizons," I told her.

"Atlas law requires you to see a therapist for nine weeks minimum," Weiss cut in on my other side. "For the PTSD related issues."

"This fucking continent." I clenched a fist.

"It's for your own good. Better to not fight it and come out of it with something." Weiss said.

"I can't believe you're getting off so easily," Blake muttered.

"Hey did you get a deal like this once?" I asked. "And you weren't even mind controlled."

She looked away and said nothing. Truly reformed huntsmen were hard to come by and it was easier to snatch them up where they appeared. My psychiatrist, therapist, and neurologist all greenlit me.

"Speaking of, how are those meds they have you on treating you?" Weiss asked.

"They're sedating. But I'm managing. The ones they had me on before this batch gave me terrible nightmares."

"Is that how it works?" Weiss wondered.

"It's not an exact science. There's some guessing involved to find some that work for you."

"And these ones work for you?" Yang asked.

I waggled a hand. "I miss THC and CBD but this seems like a close second."

"The doctors said that those were both exacerbating your symptoms," Weiss wedged in.

"Those doctors have never had an alien goddess in their mind." I was met with a loud silence. They weren't sure what to say when I said something like that. No one was. Because no one knew what I was going through besides my sisters wherever they are. I paced forward. "So this is Atlas Academy?"

"We'll have to talk to the General about getting you a room," Ruby muttered.

"Oh I'm sure he'll be happy to see you." Yang rolled her eyes. "I mean, no offense."

"Yeah well I have to serve my time somehow. Military service is probably it for somebody like me. With my particular set of skills."

"But will he trust you?" Weiss asked.

"Better question. Should I be trusted or will I sell you all out to Salem again?" I asked.

"You didn't sell us out. You brought us the relic," Ruby said.

"I… I killed Ren and Nora, Ruby." I couldn't believe her. She still believed in me.

"That wasn't you," she denied. Maybe she even believed it. I couldn't be sure with Ruby. Well I could. She was just hard to look at because of it.

"It wasn't not me. I have a lot to atone for, and I might do it again."

"You broke her control over you once," Weiss reminded me. She led the way through grey halls up to the headmaster's office.

"I keep telling everyone I have no idea how I did that though."

"You're not exactly selling me on this. On you," Blake informed me.

"Not really trying to. I'm trying to remind you how dangerous I really am. How much of a liability I could be. It's important."

"Cloud, how does this whole time served thing work?" Yang asked.

"That's a little up to Ironwood. He could send me anywhere but he sort of has to accept me somewhere. That's what the judge ruled. He's not a dictator. Not yet at any rate."

"It'll probably be better if you don't talk to him like that," Weiss said. "He won't appreciate it."

"You're probably right." I sighed. We took a grey elevator up to his office. It provided a scenic look out over the tundra and parts of Mantle.

Neo was out there somewhere. I contacted her and let her know I was watching for Cinder from this side and promised to let her know if anything was going down. I was sure she was managing just fine without me though. I was on the inside now. I could watch for Cinder better from here. I'd just have to trust that Neo would show up when it was opportune. I just hoped she wouldn't think I was abandoning her or the cause. Because I wasn't. I was still in camp ‘murder Cinder’ and she was a big girl, she could look after herself if only for as long as this charade lasted. It couldn't go on forever. Eventually I'd slip up and something Salem related would happen.

I also let her know I was getting some serious psychological help for the psychosis. She seemed neutral about that, though. Maybe she thought I was doing just fine. I hadn't been but I was glad she thought that.

Ironwood wasn't in when we arrived. That left us waiting outside for a bit. You couldn't really expect him to be in at all times.

Winter Schnee was there though. She gave me an icy glare and I just smiled back at her wolfishly.

"Oh, it's you," she said.

"Right back at you. How's the throat?"

"Just fine, thank you. You won't surprise me again."

"I don't need surprise to beat you," I told her. "You're fragile. Like glass. I was worried about breaking you. On accident. And don't think that becoming a maiden will bail you out. I almost killed Cinder and I was weaker then by a country mile."

"Weiss, you told him?" She looked shocked.

"He already knew. All about the bunker and what was in it." Weiss responded calmly.

"Neo and I did some digging in that department," I said.

"Ah yes, your criminal partner. Any idea where she is right now?" Winter asked.

"I have no idea." I told her honestly. "I have had no contact with her since my voluntary imprisonment," I then lied. I mixed the truth with lies.

"I see. Well should you remember anything Atlas would consider that necessary information."

"Yeah, yeah."

"I ought to teach you respect."

"Many have tried. Like my Mother. "

Her eyes gleamed, spotting weakness. "You meant Salem, I am sure."

"I did…" I trailed weakly.

"Winter, that's enough. Leave him be. Family is complicated and he didn't ask to be born to that monster. You and I should have some empathy for that," Weiss said.

Winter sighed down at Weiss. "Weiss…"

The general walked in and spotted us. He noticed Jaune armed with his weapon.

"They gave you your weapon back, so soon?" Ironwood asked.

"A week and half isn't that soon," I muttered. "I'm here for my assignment."

"I see. And team RWBY is…"

"Moral support," I granted.

"Have a seat Mr. Arc."

"It's Strife now."

"You changed your name, then."

"Arc was a fake name anyway. It was the name my parents gave me." I took a seat. There was a lot to unpack in that sentence I just said. Most people were given their names by their parents. Most people just didn't hate their parents like I did.

"I can respect that. Ozpin has recommended an assignment close by for you. I'm less convinced."

"He did? Why?" I asked.

"He wants to see if you are capable of his and Salem's kind of magic. He wants to train you if that is that case."

"Oh," I hadn't thought of that. "Well I did give his current body some training. Maybe he just wants to pay it forward."

"Perhaps. And he's done a great deal to protest your innocence. You should be grateful to him."

"Then I am."

"I have decided you will work out of this Academy. For the time being at least."

"You want me where you can keep an eye on me," I deduced.

"Things will go smoother if you have more trust in me than that. I am sure your therapists will have been trying to work through your paranoid thinking with you. Not everyone is trying to watch you, Mr. Strife." He steepled his fingers.

"But I'm pretty sure you are." Weiss elbowed me fairly hard in the side. "Regardless of your reasons for doing it I am grateful."

"I was hoping we could talk more about how you were made. You explored Merlot's laboratory and might have insights for me," he probed.

"I actually explored two different labs. I ran into someone in the second, near here in Solitas. Near a place called Nibelheim. He was a man with a mustache and a navy suit with yellow trimmings. He had green eyes and dark hair. I didn't see his weapon, though. He never used it. He said he was the one who made my sisters before he tried to use the laboratory…” I struggled for the word. “Defenses? To try and kill me."

"I see. But you found no more information on you or your sisters there?" He asked.

"No. Just more of my father's usual experiments on the Grimm. Something to do with turning them blue. I'm really not sure. The lab in Anima was like that too except he was turning them green and there were humanoid Grimm that he had designed. They were loose and in tanks in the facility. Tanks not dissimilar to the one he grew me in."

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Weiss's comforting aura drew in beside mine. She tasted like whipped cream and clear crisp crushed ice.

"And he grew you in one of these… 'tanks?'" Ironwood asked.

"An incubator of some sort, I'm sure. But to me they were just these sort of pods. Merlot's book has more notes on the one he used for me. It was a bit different than the others. He grew me from a fetus until I was nearly an adult in just a year," I said.

"That would make you young. Like Penny Polendina." His brow went up at me.

"Yeah. Something like that. I'm between three and four years old. I don't have an exact date for my birthday either. Don't remember if they ever gave me one or if it really matters considering I didn't have a birth," I informed him. "Anything else you'd like to know?"

“A great deal. About your origins. How you came to Beacon. Whether you have any insights into Salem’s weaknesses.”

“I don’t really know. And I’ll remind you that I am just a failure, after all." I wasn't really meant to last. I was just a prototype.

"Cloud..." Ruby whined behind me. The noise she made sounded like she was sad for a dog. It wasn't a good sound.

I ignored her. "I don’t really know how I came to attend Beacon. I don’t have any insights into Salem’s weaknesses. From my perspective she seems pretty unstoppable."

"It's impossible to say." Ironwood returned. "But if we should come up with a way to divorce you from her we will let you know."

"Thank you for telling me," I said.

"Of course. Now, let's see what you can do Mr. Strife."

"Finally, something I'm good at."

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I glid through the training chamber at one of the Ace Ops members. I hadn't learned their names but he had a boomerang rifle and he was a dog faunus.

I caught up to him and swung twice horizontally in two enormous strikes that buffeted him around when he tried to block.

He jumped back and tried to fire at me but my profile was low as I came at him in an unrelenting fashion. I palmed a dust crystal and hit him with a lightning bolt that knocked him to his knees.

I came at him with a diagonal cut when another Ace Operative grabbed me with extensions of his aura. He tried to stop me in place but I jumped and twirled and cut at his golden aura. I severed the extended hands and the removed parts dissolved into fading golden light.

I front-flipped, moving on to the new target. I landed up on some of the glowing cubes in the training room. He reformed his hands and tried to beat me but I just sliced through. I flew at him with both hands on my broadsword.

My sixth sense called out to me and I flicked my sword up to block the boomerang rifle. It rebounded back to its user and he opened fire on me as I went after the wacky inflatable arm guy.

I closed the gap on the pillar he stood on and slashed through his aura arms that got in my way. I kicked him off the pillar and brought my sword down on his head. I cleaved deep into his aura and still I chased him as I blew him to the ground level with a massive overhead attack.

He had a lot of aura. He might be the only person I'd ever met in my own percentile of aura. He might even have more than me.

I chased him as he fell from when I slammed him and I beat him to the ground. I Cross Slashed him before he hit the ground. The devastating combination caught him up. The five move slashing attack tore away at his golden aura.

My Limit Break activated.

The dog faunus came around a corner and opened fire on me. I switched opponents again as I flew at him. I held my weapon between us and blocked most of his bullets. The few that got through pinged off my aura. I slashed upwards at him and he rolled to the side with a yelp.

I just stepped up on him again and swung upwards once more. Once he was airborn I had him right where I wanted him. I juggled him once. Then twice. Then again. He couldn't escape from the aerials I swung up at him.

I jumped up to match his height and Octa Slashed him with my Limit Break. He flew towards the ground and slammed into a pile of the boxes.

His light blue aura flowed to place over him before it vanished. I flew down on him in a swooping fashion and tackled him and carried him all the way to a wall of the arena. I stabbed my sword into the ground and beat the aura out of him with my fists. I punched him in the jaw. Then the stomach. Then I picked him up and slammed him into the ground.

Golden arms wrapped around me and picked me up and threw me across the room. I slammed into a pile of boxes back first. My head rocked back against the boxes. I stood up and put my sword against my shoulder.

The wacky arm guy landed next to the dog faunus and helped him to his feet. They turned to stare at me. I stared right back.

A golden arm slithered towards me across the ground and snagged my leg. It picked me up and slammed me face first into the ground. Then it rotated me and slammed me into the ground the other way.

Then it held me in the air and I got rocked by a boomerang to the face.

I snarled and cut myself free.

I landed on a pocket of air and descended towards the ground. I flew at the two of them through machine gun fire. An arm slashed at my side and I grunted but I cut through the next one and kept flying.

I landed between them and just to flex I charged my semblance to full. Then I swept my sword through the dog faunus's aura. He went down in a light blue crackle. He was lucky I hadn't hurt him for real.

I came at the next guy with a front-flip. I brought my sword down on him and he blocked with his aura. Even still my sword bit deep. I kicked him in the middle of the chest and he stumbled back a step. Then I flew at him with a knee and caught him in the face.

A golden claw slashed me to the ground but I never hit. Instead I floated on a pocket of air and rotated in place. I swept my blade around me and forced him back a half step.

The dog faunus stood up. "Marrow, don't!"

'Marrow' opened fire right into my back.

I whipped around and glared at him. I snarled. I hit him in the head with the blunt side of my weapon and he crumpled like a sack of bricks with a large bruise forming on the side of his head.

"Do you want to call this here?" I asked the one still standing. "Or do I have to beat you into unconsciousness, too?"

"I'll surrender. You fought well." The remaining man said sibilantly.

I nodded and put my weapon in the harness on my back. I hope there was more to Ace Ops than this.

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-WG

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mylordshesacactus · 5 years ago

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RWBYmon: Team STRQ

I have THOUGHTS and y’all are gonna HEAR them.

Qrow:

Obviously, Qrow has a Corviknight. Let’s get THAT out of the way.

Actually, both Branwen twins have Corviknights. We’re not talking about Raven right now okay.

The Corviknight was technically Qrow’s starter, but as it was chosen for him, they had...a strained relationship, when they were younger. It’s better now. They’re adults, they’ve grown up, they’ve forgiven each other for the petty shit they pulled when they were resentful teenagers struggling to form a bond beyond that of strictly trainer and powerful tournament pokemon.

They care about more than being the best, now.

Qrow’s bonded more genuinely with his Corviknight by now--but his partner Pokemon, the one with whom his emotional relationship is the least complicated--not the one he’s “closest to” exactly, because like any good Huntsman he has a close bond with his whole team, but--

The bond that’s simplest, easiest, the one that’s never in a pokeball except for safety reasons...

Equally obviously, Qrow has an Absol.

And the last member of his team is one of my incredibly rare exceptions to the “no Legendaries” rule, because Qrow is Ozpin’s spy, his left hand, Qrow is in the inner circle.

Qrow has faced off with Salem’s minions a million times before. Qrow has seen some shit. It makes sense for Qrow to have had the opportunity to bond with some extremely powerful pokemon.

He knows better than to reject a Pokemon outright out of fear or a frightening appearance--his existing team consisted of a Corviknight and an Absol.

Qrow has rescued the victims of some of Salem’s twisted experiments before.

Qrow’s #3 is Silvally.

Very few people actually understand what that means.

Ruby adores Silvally and thinks it’s the coolest weird dogbird Pokemon she’s ever seen, she gives it belly scritches. Anyone not in the inner circle just sort of goes “wow, high-ranking Huntsmen go to such exotic places with such rare Pokemon! fascinating” and moves on.

Raven:

Corviknight, obviously.

Raven’s situation is actually complicated by my theories about Maidens in a RWBY/Pokemon fusion so I’ll cover her later.

Summer:

Most of what the kids know about Summer’s team is that she had an Eevee she never evolved. The adults don’t like talking about it otherwise.

Qrow gets moody and quiet whenever Tai says she “never” evolved her Eevee. Yang and Ruby are pretty sure she evolved it into something right before she left and that their dad leaves that out because it’s too painful.

Summer absolutely had some kind of fuckoff-powerful Legendary on hand that they just sort of kept quiet about but they can’t tell the KIDS that.

Tai:

OKAY LISTEN THIS ONE IS GONNA BE NICE. On god we’re leaving this on a high note. It’s gonna be fine.

Tai has a Yamper named Zwei. Obviously. Obviously he has this.

Zwei is more than high enough level to evolve, but neither of them want him to, so he’s just an adorable, deceptively OP little Yamper and thus shall he remain.

Once upon a time he had a Boltund, and Qrow says affectionately that they were always his favorite Pokemon.

He sent the Boltund after Summer when she left; it was the only one they had with a chance of catching up to her before it was too late.

Tai’s Boltund was a very, very good dog. They think it must have succeeded, must have caught up to her. because it never came back.

He’s never had another Boltund.

NO COME BACK I SWEAR THIS ONE IS HAPPY

Tai, who is canonically a teacher, is obviously, in this universe, a gym leader. So he actually gets a full team, because obviously you can’t run a proper gym with only three pokemon, you have to be able to adjust on the fly to whatever fledgling kid walks in.

Tai runs a Dog-Type gym.

“Daaaaaaad! That’s not even a real thiiiiing!”

Sure it is!

He has a Houndoom, a Stoutland, Zwei, a Furfrou, a Manectric, and an Arcanine!

You know, Dog Types!

”DAD WHYYYYYY”

(The Arcanine is a sleepy, good-natured darling who is mostly seen hitched to a trailer to be ridden/driven around because it’s just better than a car. Its soft eyes and slow, gentle personality are...deceptive. His starter was a Growlithe. That Arcanine has been with him since he was ten years old, and Tai is still an active Huntsman. It’s probably the single most powerful Pokemon on the island of Patch.)

Tai’s gym is considered a must-do by trainers in Vale. The Dog Badge--

[Ruby voice] UUUUUUUUGH DAAAAAAD

--the Dog Badge is not League-recognized, but it does give you bragging rights; and more to the point, it’s a genuinely good learning experience. Tai is a friendly and patient teacher to anyone who comes in with a good attitude and you’ll definitely be better at battling as a result.

It’s a great learning experience in a controlled environment; he provides a wide variety of Pokemon types that you can learn to fight against, but with a level of predictability so that, as with other gyms, you can actually prepare for it. It’s not a straight-up League match where you could face ANYTHING and can’t really prep or build a team specifically to face him; you know that whatever he throws out, it will be a Dog Type.

[Tai grins smugly into the news camera as he accepts his fifth Pillar Of The Community Trainer’s Choice Award while his daughters wail in the background that DOG TYPE isn’t a THING]

Ruby and Yang were given Dog Badges before being sent off to Beacon

OBVIOUSLY they keep the badge

They won that shit fair and square fuck off you’re just jealous YOU don’t have a dog badge--

#rwbymon

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davidmann95 · 4 years ago

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Comics this week (6/30/2021)?

Infinite Frontier Secret Files #1: Since I'm getting Infinite Frontier proper for dad and this is the only tie-in I figured he'd want it, and it's alright! The stars of the show are the bookenders with Thomas/De Landro/Loiuse/Farrell/Napolitano's President Superman story and Watters/Mitten/Stewart/Napolitano's Psycho Pirate tale; otherwise, the Roy Harper and Director Bones stories written by Stepanie Phillips are okay enough but forgettable, and Watters' Jade & Obsidian/Thomas's Totality stories are both reasonably fun.

RWBY/Justice League (digital) #14: Guess that's how they don't get involved in the main series? I think there's a better story I wish Bennett could have told with this premise (hopefully if there's somehow a sequel she could gear it to something more character-centric), or other writers who could have told a better big fight crossover, but while this was kind of a letdown in the end there were good moments and nothing can override the basic joy of this somehow being something that existed.

Catwoman Annual #1: Liked it well enough but tbh I was hoping for something much more fucked-up.

The Mystery of the Meanest Teacher, A Johnny Constantine Graphic Novel: This is a fun little story I cannot begin to understand the point of the existence of. I just assumed the Squirrel Girl team of North and Charm would lean way into how hilariously messed up the very idea of YA Constantine is, but instead it's...pretty much exactly what you'd expect any other creator to try and do with it, except the good version of that. I like it a lot and certainly recommend it, it even largely plays by Constantine 'rules' as I understand them, but I do not understand why this exists.

The Department of Truth #10: A warning as noted by Tynion on Twitter, this was misprinted - in the second prose section, the page with the big red text partway through is meant to be read before the prose page to its left. Past that, this book isn't stumbling yet.

Crossover #7: I actually just wrote up a pocket review for Gatecrashers on this that should be up before long, but in short, as I end the review there with: infuriatingly better than this series deserves.

We Only Ever Find Them When They're Dead #7: Still real good! Not an issue where I have much more to say than that.

Shang-Chi #2: It feels like it's finding its groove, but I'm not sure yet how much that ideal version of this is my thing.

The Marvels #3: Last of the three books this week picked up for my dad and it's fine, still not great this book is built all around Fake Marvel Vietnam but a perfectly amusing little done-in-one.

The United States of Captain America #1: Mixed bag. Eaglesham's predictably slick, and Cantwell sells the opening monologue and the big 'we are all Captain America' conceit when it comes into play, but the actual Captain America action here feels lacking and while he's not a character I closely follow Sam's voice feels off to me, though the backup more than makes up for any shortcomings in the main feature.

Daredevil #31: Ah, that's the ramp-up into gleeful horror I know and love in my DD runs.

Eternals #5: On a certain level this feels like a fairly straightforward "wheels that need to be turned to get going are turned" sort of issue compared to its predecessors, but this is the platonic ideal of such a thing so I'm not complaining.

#Week's Comics #Opinion

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likeanemployee · 6 years ago

Text

A Whiterose Night at the Beach

As days went, she thought to herself stretching and smiling up at the moon shining brightly just beyond the sea spreading endlessly before her, I’ve had worse. To be fair that was a rather lower bar then Weiss might have preferred considering some of the days she had endured. The day in question however was probably one of the best days she had ever had, and the night was looking to be even better.

The water had been almost perfect, cool enough to be refreshing in the day’s blistering heat but not frigid. She and Ruby had “swam” together for a few hours although in Weiss’ opinion that was a bit of a misnomer. Most people did very little actual swimming in the ocean and Ruby and Weiss were no exception. A more accurate description would probably have been to say they stood about waist deep, closer to chest deep when a wave came by, in the water and chatted. There was a fair amount of splashing and dunking under waves as well, entirely retaliatory on Weiss’ part of course. She would never start something so childish… unless Ruby really deserved it.

At one point they had walked as far out as they could, to see how far they could get before they couldn’t touch, and since they were out there already they had waded even deeper which, Weiss supposed, had necessitated at least a little actual swimming, assuming they didn’t want to drown anyway. They hadn’t made it all that much deeper before they agreed the lack of solid ground below them was disconcerting, Ruby had used the word “freaky”, and decided to head back in. Ruby, of course, decide they should make it into a race. Weiss had intended to argue but Ruby started back before she got the chance and something inside Weiss had forced her to chase after the younger girl. She hadn’t tried that hard to catch up, trying to beat Ruby in any challenge of speed was a fool’s errand but she at least tried not to fall too far behind and she came splashing out of the water only a moment behind Ruby giggling like a school girl as she did.

That had just been the start of the day. Yang and Blake had run into some old classmates who had set up a volleyball net and they had all played for a while. Then, Ruby had suggested they build sandcastles. That too had turned into a competition although this time that had been Yang’s idea. She and Blake vs Weiss and Ruby, the losers had to pay for the winners to go out to dinner together. Somehow, Ruby and Weiss had managed to pretend like she wasn’t implying anything about their relationship, after all Yang had clearly designed the bet assuming she would win. She probably hadn’t even considered what that dinner might be like for Ruby and Weiss. Sure, and Ursa are cuddly. Weiss’ smile broadened at the thought as her memories of the day continued to flow through her. Ruby had set right away to building a simply massive moat. It must have been six inches wide and half again as deep running 3ft long on each side. As she dug, she piled all of the sand on the inside of the moat and Weiss had set to building an equally impressive, or at least equally large, curtainwall. The dimension of the wall itself were smaller it couldn’t have been more than three inches thick and less than 8 inches tall, but it also had turrets at each corner. They were round all the way to the base and slightly wider than the wall with a diameter of around four inches. Most impressively they were nearly a foot tall and crowned with parapets. Unfortunately, Weiss and Ruby hadn’t realized until after they had built the wall that they would need to put something inside it and with the wall and moat in the way building their keep had been difficult. In the end they had settled for a simple house like structure which was more or less a box with a triangular roof on top. If they had been building a sand cottage it probably would have been an at least passible facsimile, but it wasn’t much of a keep and it had seemed decidedly out of place among the walls protecting, and dwarfing, it. Still, Weiss had been surprised but what they had accomplished its was perhaps more impressive in scale then intricacy, but it was impressive, and it wasn’t totally devoid of intricacies either. They had carved a simple door into their cottage keep and put a pair of windows, which were little more than boxes drawn on with a finger, on each wall, but they helped flesh out the structure nicely. They had also added periodic archery slits on the turrets with a similar method and Ruby, much to Weiss’ dismay, had poked a hole through part of the wall to be the portcullis. Weiss had been mildly amazed that hadn’t brought an entire section of the wall down around it, but it had added nicely to the design especially after Ruby had found a sunscreen bottle to lay across her moat as the “drawbridge”.

Blake and Yang had built a structure which was somehow simultaneously much more basic and much more complicated. In essence, it was simply a large tower, but it was a very large tower. The top reached above Weiss’ hips and its diameter was almost a foot and a half at the base, although it was still lower the Yang’s hips and it tapered sharply as it rose. Yang had spent pretty much then entire time they were building simply piling more and more sand up to grow that monstrosity as much as she could but while she had done that Blake had decorated. She had started by adding a gently arching set up steps which rose to a door which she had drawn about an inch above the base. Other than that staircase Blake hadn’t been able to add any adornments which protruded from the tower, but she had set to carving details into its face with an artistry which had impressed Weiss. Weiss had seen some of the sketches Blake had made in her various notebooks while they were at Beacon together and she knew the other girl was a highly competent artist but the degree of detail she imparted, drawing into the fragile sand face with nothing but fingertip and sometimes nail, was more than Weiss would have expected even out of her. A doorway and windows with ornate frames gradually filled the perimeter of the tower and once she had been satisfied with those she had set to sketching in individual bricks. Those bricks had probably been a bit oversized relative to the doors and windows, even Blake had a limit to her patience after all, but they were remarkably consistent, and they gave the tower an incredibly realistic look.

Weiss had been impressed both by the size Yang had managed to build and the artistry Blake had added to it, but it had also only been a single tower not a full castle. She had made exactly that argument and claimed that that meant she and Ruby had clearly been the winners. Partially that had been because she had wanted to win that dinner with Ruby, and partially it had been a simple a desire to win regardless of what the competition, or prize was but mostly it was how much she loved the castle she and Ruby had built together. Ruby had jumped right in, probably for mostly the same reasons, to help Weiss claim victory but predictably Yang had disagreed insisting there were no exact rules on what made something a sandcastle and obviously the only reason Weiss had tried to use a technicality like that against her was because of how superior her tower clearly was. Blake had stayed out of the ensuing debate looking up periodically from the bricks she had still been busily drawing to laugh at her teammates. She finally finished them almost a half hour later and listened briefly to the bickering still going on around her, within an amused expression, before standing and suggesting that without an impartial judge they were never going to choose a winner and that maybe it would be best if they just called it a draw. The other three members of team RWBY had glared at one another a moment longer then sighed almost as one and agreed.

They had also decided that meant they would all go to dinner together and headed to a small seaside café just up the beach. They had talked and laughed and enjoyed on another’s company as they ate, and the sun had set. As they left the restaurant the sky had turned a beautiful array of colors as the final rays of sunlight slowly fell below the horizon. They had set out down the beach to watch the sunset and as always happened they had unconsciously and without a word being spoken, split into pairs. Blake and Yang walked ahead of Ruby and Weiss just far enough to create privacy for each pair. They had held hands as they walked and on occasion, they would lean into one another or rest their head against the others shoulder as they talked quietly and enjoyed the beauty of the world around them. Weiss and Ruby had done much the same except there had been no touching between them, that was a shame Weiss had thought but it was also probably her own fault.

And now night had fallen, and Weiss stared up at the shattered moon in a perfectly clearly sky treasuring the memories of the day just past.

“It’s beautiful.” Ruby said quietly, breaking Weiss out her reminiscing.

… and so are you. A corner of Weiss’ brain finished as she slowly turned her head to smile at Ruby. She wasn’t entirely sure if that corner had hoped Ruby would say those words or if she had wanted to say them to Ruby. As she stared silently at the younger woman, she considered doing exactly that but decided better of it. Ruby would almost certainly reply with her normal awkward babbling and the moment was too calm, too still, too... perfect to break that way

“it is.” She answered instead. They had still been walking along the beach before Weiss had paused to look up at the moon and Ruby had taken a few additional steps before she realized Weiss had stopped putting a bit of space between them. Now with Ruby still gazing out to sea Weiss took the few steps to close that gap coming to stand close against Ruby’s side and grabbing her hand. Ruby looked down quickly as she felt Weiss’s hand slide into her own and felt the heat rising in her cheeks as her questioning eyes slowly rose to Weiss’s face, but Weiss was looking away out into the ocean. She said nothing simply stood there with the most content look on her face and took in the sound of the waves rushing quietly along the sand, the feeling of the breeze soft against her cheeks, the glow of the broken moon and it’s shimmering reflections far out to sea and the warmth of the body next to her. Ruby continued to stare at Weiss for a moment questions flying through her mind but as she took in the serene joy on Weiss’ face she look back out across the water to take in the same view, hear the same sounds, and feel the same things. The questions never quite left her mind, but they became much quieter, secondary to the beauty of the moment and suddenly the quiet waves seemed to roar in the silence between them. It stretched out for an eternity that moment and yet ended entirely too soon as Weiss spoke at last “I love you Ruby and nothing would make me happier than if I could call you my girlfriend” after months of agonizing over what to say and how, the words, the simple truth, fell out easily and with almost no thought at all.

Ruby’s eyes grew large and she turned suddenly back to Weiss too shocked to respond immediately but then the shock faded, and the babbling started “Wiess I had no idea! I mean I had hoped but.. I didn’t really think.. that is…”

“Stop. Dolt.” Weiss interrupt sternly but not harshly “You’ll ruin the moment.” She continued in a much softer tone and Ruby realized her eyes still head never left the horizon. “Just say yes or no. Can I call you my girlfriend?”

Ruby stared blankly at her for a second longer then blurted out “YES! Definitely! Of course, you can!”

Weiss shook her head lightly “Technically not just a yes or no.” she said “but I’m glad” She finished sliding her hand back out of Ruby’s so she could wrap her arm around her waist, leaning her head against Ruby’s shoulder as she did.

Ruby hesitated a moment longer before relaxing into the embrace and putting her own arm around Weiss shoulders. “Weiss” she said quietly a moment later

“Yes Ruby?”

“I love you too.”

#rwby #ruby rose #weiss schnee #whiterose

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littlemisssquiggles · 6 years ago

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*fluffs you* Uhm... Any thoughts on Chapter 5 yet? You know I don't mind spoilers :)

Apologies for the late response! Say no more Mizu. I gotchu fam! If I’m beingcompletely honest with you, I don’t have much to say about this episode mostly in the sense that, even after processing it for an entire day, I’m still riding the high of it. I will say overall that I enjoyed this episode so I think for the most part, this time I’m just only going to mention the two key parts that I enjoyed the most about this episode, if that’s okay:

JNPR RISES

First of all, as you’ve probably seen by now from my blog—a wild cute farm boy was sighted in this episode. Naturally this made this squiggle meister very very happy.

Going in CH5 especially following the last episode, what I mostly wantedout of this new chapter on Oscar’s side was mostly to see him show up. I honestly felt like a mom whose kid went away to summer camp and hasn’t seen them in weeks. I just wanted to see Oscar to be reminded that he’s still in the PLOT (unlike certain other characters *coughsMariacoughs*). But I ended up getting more than I bargained for.

This episode showed Oscar teaming up with JNR in an all fours team battle against an Atlesian huntsmen team I’ve been waiting to make a comeback since V3.

RWBY BROUGHT BACK THE FNKI!

Seriously it was SO GREAT seeing Neon and Flynt returning. I was worried that with our heroes spending time mostly with the Ace Ops that we weren’t going to catch them at all.

Luckily Eddy Rivas came in clutch for us FNKI fans this episode. Myfavourite part of CH5 was the fight between FNKI and JNR with Oscar. It wasso good. Seeing their interactions on the battlefield. Hearing Neon roast Nora and having Nora Harry Pottering herself around the battlefield trying to catch her was awesome.

Since when can Nora use the hammer to fly around like a witch on a broomstick!? This is the first time we’ve seen that and I really really love it! Need more hammer Witch Nora!

Watching Jaune fight Flynt and Ren fight Ivory while Oscar fought the giantKobalt and seeing all three of them kick ass. The fact that FNKI lost to JNPRmade me smile because a) it shows how much JNR has indeed improved since FNKI met them during the Vytal Festival, b) it highlights how much Oscar has been improving on his own without Oz and c) it shows how well Oscar works with JNR.

Seriously this scene gave me more hope for Oscar inevitably joining JNR to revive JNPR because that’s something that this squiggle meister has been hoping for since V5. For me, one thing I’ve always wanted for Oscar is for him to gain his own place on the team beyond his role as Ozma’s current descendant in the cycle and Ozpin’s successor.

Hence why I fell in love with the theory of him joining JNR to revive their huntsmen team.

While they’ve done well on their own up until this point, admittedly JNRhas been incomplete since Pyrrha’s death. And one thing I’ve always appreciated about the JNR gang is how they always felt like a family.

I know Team RWBY is our core protagonist team but I’ve always felt more attached to JNPR and I believed them to have the stronger family rapport than RWBY.

This is why I was hoping Oscar would eventually join them. Become a part of their little family and give Oscar three brothers-in-arms that he can count on both off and on the battlefield.

I felt like Oscar would fit well with JNR. Not just because they were short one member and his last name coincidentally provides that missing “P” from JNR…but mostly because I figured Oscar would complement Jaune, Nora and Ren just much as Pyrrha did once before. Thus making the young farm boy turned little barn prince fit well within JNR.

I always liked the idea of Oscar making JNR feel whole again and reviving their group through his growing bond and comradery with each member.

Beyond that, I wanted Oscar to experience what it was like to be a partof huntsmen team since part of the enjoyment of RWBY for me was watching these characters grow close to one another over the seasons.

Becoming teammates then friends and then to a greater extent—a family. I wanted the same experience for Oscar because right now, he could really use that.

He could use more friends. He could use a family. People he could happily call his brothers and sisters. His people and I think JNR can provide that him. No, I know JNR can provide him that. JNR are ¾ of who I believed could become Oscar’s Golden Circle of most trusted confidantes (the final member being Ruby, of course) and I’m not giving up on that headcanon.

I figured that’s what the Writers were going for last season with the whole Argus subplot between Jaune and Oscar. But…well, we all know how that went. Nonetheless, maybe there’s hope for this season. I’d love for the PLOT to revisit Oscar’s departure last season and I’d like to think it could come back up for the sake of his development to come from this season. But as always we, will see how that goes.

—————————

SISTER SISTER

This episode also confirmed what most of us RWBY Theorists has been theorizing for years. Winter is going to be the next candidate for Winter Maiden.

According to the episode, Ironwood has not only been grooming Winter to become the next Winter Maiden following the passing of the old one but he’s also been grooming the Winter Maiden to choose Winter as her next successor by having Winter be the only person to interact with the old Maiden.

That’s an interesting take. I mean, my theory has always been thatIronwood wanted to control the succession of the Maidens but I figured he wouldhave done it using Atlas’ experimental aura technology. Not by literallygrooming the old candidate to pick his designated next one. It’s kind a poor way of doing it because as Oz once put it—”Maidens choose themselves”.

The only time this rule has been broken is when Maidens have been killed and their powers end up going to their assailants as opposed to someone they cared about. This also makes me curious as to what would happened should Ironwood’s plan not work with the Winter Maiden.

I remember Qrow mentioned something about the Maidens back in a previous volume regarding what would happen should a maiden not have someone to choose in mind.

I know Ironwood is trying to make the Granny Winter pick Winter but…what if…this doesn’t happen?

After all, you can’t just make a person care about someone just because she created a controlled scenario for them to force this type of bond. It doesn’t exactly work that way. While Ironwood might succeed in making Granny Winter care for Winter, I doubt he can make her care about her enough to have the powers pass onto her.

Imagine if…it becomes a case where the Winter Maiden had a daughter or a perhaps a granddaughter or great niece? Perhaps the Winter Maiden never had any children of her own since Maidens are usual chosen young. Perhaps Granny Winter has only known the life of a Maiden and has mostly lived it in isolation. However the only exception was her keeping in contact with the last family member that she had before she became a Maiden. Maybe she had a sister? Or a brother who eventually had a child of their own. A daughter.

What if…the Winter Maiden has young niece or great niece she never met. And she’s been thinking about that person for some time. Especially now that’s she on her death bed. Perhaps…Granny Winter has one dying wish that she confided in Winter? That she wanted to be reunited with her niece.

Perhaps…she confided this in Winter and she’s been keeping that little secret from even Ironwood this entire time.

Overall, this whole plot point with Winter and Granny Winter is really intriguing. And what’s more cool about is that it puts Winter more into perspective. This is the first time the show has really focused on Winter as a person; highlighting how she feels. We’ve seen Winter display a softer side to her otherwise stoic demenour but it’s usual reserved for her closest family such as her sister, Weiss.

This is the first time we’ve seen Winter show genuine care for anyone outside of her family. I wish we had gotten more time to spend with Winter and Granny Winter. It was nice to see how Winter has accepted her fate. It was also good to see just how much Winter values General Ironwood. It wouldn’t surprise me if part of the reason Winter respects the General is because she sees him as a father figure—at least a better one than her own father. I just really enjoyed that moment between Weiss and Winter. It’s very rare we see the Schnee Sisters interact so it was lovely seeing them have their moment this episode.

I know I call the Winter Maiden Granny Winter, but in actuality, her name is Fria. And one thing I’m curious about is whether or Fria will be based on the Norse Goddess of the same name?

Is Fria related to Nora?

This isn’t really a point of the episode but a theory I have based on what I learnt of the Winter Maiden. To me, the name “Fria” reminds me of “Freya”

According to research, Freya, in Norse mythology, is the Goddess of love but she is also associated with sex, lust, beauty, sorcery, fertility, gold, war and death.It is also stated that Freya shares a connection to Thor. Since Nora is RWBY’s equivalent of Thor and since it’s been teased that us fans will be learning more about Nora’s backstory soon, I’m starting to wonder if there will be an unspoken connection to Nora and Fria---the Winter Maiden.

Technically, the Maidens are the closest thing to goddesses in Remnant given their strong potency in magic. So I’m curious if at some point it will be revealed that Nora is a long-lost relative of Fria---probably her only living family member---who was stolen from her as a child by bandits who then trafficked Nora off to Mistral where she ultimately escaped her captives and wound up in Kunoyuri where she met Ren.

Imagine if...it’s a case where...Nora hasn’t seen Fria in years. Nor does she even remember her since Nora was abducted as a child so all the trauma of being kidnapped from her family forced Nora to somehow repress her past. Perhaps V7 will end on a cliffhanger note with Fria revealing to Winter her last dying wish---

To be somehow be reunited with her beloved granddaughter before she parted Remnant and returned to the Gods. And her granddaughter’s name was Nora Valkyrie.

Imagine if...V7 ends on Nora just learning that she is the granddaughter of the Winter Maiden who desperately wants to see her before she goes. But Nora becomes torn up about it since hearing about Fria causes all the repressed memories of her past to suddenly resurface after so long and for the first time since she first met Ren, Nora becomes a emotionally vulnerable and scared girl again--- unable to cope with this startling revelation and this time, it will Ren’s turn to support Nora on the qualms of her past along with Jaune (and possibly Oscar to since he is connected to the Maidens being the successor to the man who created them). I’m not sure if this will be the case in the serious.

However I am definitely down for this theory becoming canon if possible.

Nora becoming the Winter Maiden would surprisingly fit given the fact that her fairytale counterpart is an mythological god. Nora will literally become Thor if she rises to Maiden status and thunder is her element of choice.

Just picture Nora like Thor in Thor: Ragnarok. Her crystal blue-green eyes aglow with electricity surging around her body. And Nora using thunder as her element of choice as a Maiden even though she’s supposedly the Winter Maiden still fits since, technically---Cinder is the Fall Maiden and her element of choice is Fire.

Raven is the Spring Maiden and her element of choice was surprisingly Ice of all things. So Nora as the Winter Maiden using thunder. That would be purely badass!

The only gripe that I have with this theory is that Nora rising to Maiden status would put a greater death flag target on her back than her red hair. Theorists are already saying that Nora might be killed by Tyrian since in mythology, Thor was killed by a scorpion.

I personally don’t want Nora to die at all! I like and care too much about Nora as character. Raven is a Maiden and she lived. So if Nora becomes a Maiden, I expect her to live too. I’d actually be livid if Nora ends up dying especially since she’s been with us since V1. Pyrhha’s death was one thing but Nora’s...I’ll be really pissed if she gets killed off. ESPECIALLY in the event of JNPR being revived through Oscar.

So yeah, while I really want Nora to become the Winter Maiden, I don’t want her to die either. But regardless, for now I’m going to stick a pin in this theory and keep it on the table of possibilities.

----

Robynn Death Flags + Ace Frames

And that’s pretty much it. That’s all I have to say on CH5, Mizu. As an honourary mention, I did like seeing Robyn Hill. She was cool and I’m intrigued by her and her Happy Huntresses. I’m especially curious about her possible connection to Clover because they seemed to have history. Definitely giving me Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham vibes. But beyond that, there wasn’t much for me to say on the part with Robyn. However I am looking forward to seeing her and her huntresses in action soon.

The title of the next episode---CH6 is titled “Night Out” and our heroes are expected to be attending the Watch party for the election campaign between Jacques and Robyn.

I have a hunch that CH6 is going to be another “calm before the storm” type of episode just like CH4.

I have a feeling that Tyrian is going to probably show up during the rally targeting Robyn to kill her.

Since Tyrian is working with Watts and since Watts was shown eyeballing the Ace Ops in the opening, my theory is that Watts is going to have Tyrian either kill off Robyn or at least target her and make it look as if Clover of the Ace Ops was responsible for the hit on Robyn at the rally.

Thus making the public of Mantle believe that the Ace Ops were the ones behind all the murders of the spokespeople in Mantle like Forest. #FRWBY

I think it’s going to start with Clover first since he’s the leader of the Aces and we’ve seen more of him than his teammates.

I have a feeling that Watts plan is to use either Clover and/or the Ace Ops as martyrs to further tarnish the General’s public image through a huge scandal with Robyn.

I think Robyn is either going to die or be believed to have been killed with Clover blamed for her death.

An Ace Op---one of the General’s personal attack dogs--- accused of killing the key representative for Mantle to keep her from gaining a seat on the governing council---hence keeping Mantle out of Atlas? That’s a good scandal. One that could destroy James even further.

I still stand by my theory that Jacques plan is to usurp James and through Watts’ aid, I think there’s a huge possibility.

Unless Jacques is nothing but a perfect pawn to Watts for him to pin everything on in the end just to cover his tracks and cause an even worse scandal for Atlas with Mantle.

I dunno. These are all just theories but I’m gonna stick with them for now. In the meantime, I hope this answers your Mizu.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

#mizuike #squiggles answers: rwby #oscar pine #nora valkyrie #jaune arc #lie ren #rwby theories #rwby volume 7 theories #rwby volume 7 spoilers

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kitkatopinions · 4 years ago

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You know, it’s an interesting thing to see RWBY fans act like it’s a bad faith criticism when people don’t automatically assume that everything Ruby does is one hundred percent good and justified. In fact, ever since season six, it seems like people consider the only proper way of thinking to be A) assuming that anything bad that’s happening is entirely not Ruby’s fault. B) assuming that anything Ruby does in these situations is justified, needed, and good. And C) assuming that Ruby is going to fix anything bad that’s happening shortly.

I’m becoming more and more convinced that much of the so called ‘bad faith criticisms’ that mega fans and simps are concerned about are frequently just people not assuming that those three things are always true. Many fans have taken to filling in the blanks for CRWBY, which is something that’s generally expected in all media with a strong fan presence, but is taken to the extreme in RWBY where many fans are now deciding things and deeming them canon all in the name of making Ruby look as blameless and good as possible. That’s why there are fans insisting that Ironwood invaded Vale and has no combat experience, it’s completely untrue with no canon to support it, and yet is seen as the only definitive reading allowed by many fans, and that’s because it makes Ironwood look like he’s always been a horrible incompetent fool, so Ruby no longer looks bad by lying to him and then casting him aside. That’s why there are fans insisting that Ruby and co had to get across the border to Atlas quickly and couldn’t waste any time waiting, that’s why fans insist that Cordovin forced Ruby’s hand by not giving her a peaceful option despite the peaceful option she literally offered on screen. That’s why there are fans insisting that Ruby only stayed in the mansion in volume eight because she couldn’t leave Nora or because Ironwood would’ve arrested her and she was forced to prioritize her safety because she knows she’s imperative to the war. That’s why there are fans saying that no reading where any single person was left behind in the evacuation from Atlas to Vacuo is acceptable despite Qrow, Maria, and Pietro all being left behind, and the concept of ‘Ruby saved everyone’ being unequivocally false due to the soldiers that died facing Salem, the on-screen deaths of named characters including Penny, and anyone who Cinder knocked off the bridge.

These fans are ignoring canon things like that, canon things like there being a clear and peaceful solution to getting over the Atlas border, and Ruby spending episodes and I think around an in-show day despairing that she doesn’t know what to do and wants someone to come save her where characters are literally telling her she needs to leave the mansion and Ruby gives no solid reason why she shouldn’t except that they shouldn’t pick sides. They ignore any indication in canon that Ruby is just wrong or just faulty and construct a narrative where Ruby is one hundred percent right and sympathetic, and then they consider anything that didn’t automatically adhere to that rule to be ‘bad faith.’

“Why didn’t you just assume that Ruby was going to apologize to Ozpin next season? That’s a bad faith criticism, this is a story, so not everything is gonna be resolved super fast.” “Why didn’t you realize that Ruby was right to be upset with Ozpin and was justified because Ozpin lied to her about important things? Oz should be the one apologizing to her, that’s a bad faith criticism.” “Why didn’t you realize that Ruby only lied to Ironwood because she wasn’t sure she could trust him? Her situation with Oz is completely different, he isn’t learning his lesson and hasn’t apologized. Ruby is going to trust James later and prove she’s better than Oz.” “Why didn’t you realize that Ruby never would have trusted James because he’s always been shady and she knew that and she only worked with him in the first place because she had to in order to use his resources?” “Why didn’t you realize that James was the one not trusting Ruby and she was the one trusting and he broke that trust and Ruby was willing to work with him only he wasn’t willing to work with her?” “Why didn’t you realize that Ozpin was always bad and incompetent and Ruby is being gracious to allow him back in her group now that he apologized for not trusting her?”

What we have is a bunch of people deciding what’s going to happen (and quickly forgetting they said that if it doesn’t happen,) re-writing what did happen, ignoring the canon as it’s happening, and filling in any blank they get with whatever makes Ruby look as good as possible, and then they consider anything that doesn’t comply with that to be bad faith.

Ruby is a flawed protagonist. In fact, she’s way more flawed than what the show expects us to think. She’s naïve, she lacks foresight, she’s reckless, she overestimates her own abilities and her friend group, she’s stubborn and only listens when she wants to, she’s arrogant at times, she’s become unforgiving, she’s at least somewhat controlling with her friends, she only sees in black and white and alienates anyone who doesn’t fit her exact moral code, and she’s recently taken to mood swings, shutting down, and bouts of indecisiveness that freeze her up and prevent her from taking possible life saving actions, she’s more ‘ends justify the means’ than she admits, and she’s hypocritical.

Now, if you don’t read Ruby with all of that and think I’m being a bit too harsh, that’s fine. There are good things about Ruby too (though admittedly I’m seeing her amazing traits from the early seasons way less in the recent seasons,) and she does some good things. But she does have flaws and she does make mistakes, and what I’d really like to see is less people constantly making excuses for literally everything she does or says, and more people admitting when she makes mistakes. Maybe a “she really should’ve asked Penny before turning her into a human” instead of a “of course she asked her it was just off screen you loser!” Maybe a “she shouldn’t have decided to lie to Ironwood without talking to her team about it at least,” instead of a “the team trusts Ruby and she would’ve asked them if she’d been given a chance you stupid freak!” Maybe a “Ruby really froze up for a good portion of season eight, she made quite a few mistakes, I wonder how she’ll come back from it,” instead of “Ruby was forced away from the fight because Ironwood would’ve had her executed and she’s smart enough to know that!”

Main characters in stories are supposed to make mistakes and have flaws, it gives a personal growth that’s relatable to their victories and gives opportunity for growth in character dynamics, and goes towards making them feel more realistic and likable. Of course not everyone is going to like, say, a main character who is arrogant and over steps boundaries, but that character also can therefore grow and change and adjust, and that is very likable to most audiences. The best protagonists in media are deeply flawed characters that try hard to overcome not only the big problems they face, but the small conflicts that come from their own actions and the reactions they have to what other people do. Ruby should have flaws, she should make mistakes, and she does! One of the biggest problems with the show RWBY is their refusal to treat Ruby’s flaws as flaws and their inability to let her grow. And one of the biggest problems with the fandom is people’s inability to treat Ruby’s flaws as flaws and their insistence that everyone adhere to the rules of ‘Ruby is always justified, always right, and will always fix everything.’

#rwde #rwby hate #anti rwby #rwby bashing #rwby criticism #anti ruby rose #canoncrit ruby rose #pro ironwood #pro iw #ironwood defense #pro ozpin #anti fndm

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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Hello, everyone! Can you believe this is the third time I've started the recap for this chapter? Between a dying computer and a mass edit during my monthly state of, "Oh my god get rid of everything we can't let people know that we wRITE!" this project is cursed. This is the version though, I can feel it. Be positive!

Now, where were we? It's been some months (RIP) since I last posted, so I wouldn't be surprised if everyone's forgotten what's going on in this insane novel. A quick recap before the recap then: new teams have formed, no one is happy about it, Sun and Velvet went off to a shady club run by The Crown and — shock shock, surprise surprise — got themselves into a heap of trouble. That's the long and the short of it. We have to wait a while to find out what happens to them though because this chapter is focused on Coco.

We learn that Professor Rumpole has sent Coco and her new team — Team ROSC — out into the desert to take care of the grimm around the city's borders. To say that Coco is disappointed in this assignment is an understatement. We learn that they've been at this for a week straight and have gone without showering or a change of clothes that entire time (no one packed a bag?), so for a second I was hugely sympathetic. You know this vine?

youtube

I feel this vine in my soul. Give me hot water and hot coco or give me death. Besides, work is work and dangerous, physical work without a break or basic comforts is incredibly taxing. Toss in the extreme heat of a desert and I'd be pissed at everything too, no matter how important my work was. That's human.

Yet instead of humanizing Coco like this, it turns out she doesn't care at all about the hardship involved. It's fighting grimm that she's annoyed by. She thinks that "Searching for the person or persons kidnapping innocent people for some unknown but dark purpose was way more useful than fighting Grimm far from the city" and I'm just like, Coco, honey...

Do you know what your career path is?

IT'S TO KILL GRIMM.

Okay, there's admittedly a justification here, but it's a stupid one. Coco goes on to say that "This area was called the Wastelands for a reason." She's snarky about it, saying that it wastes “her time, her talent, and her patience," but the real takeaway is that it's, you know, a wasteland. Deserted of grimm and of people. What's the point of defending an area that doesn't need defending? A huntress' job might normally be to fight grimm, but when those grimm aren't around and kidnappers are, that's a whole new set of priorities.

The problem with all this is that the Wastelands is definitely not deserted and it's definitely not as far from the city as Coco would like to imply. In just a few paragraphs an alarm is going to trip and Coco will find six grimm roaming in a pack. Then she finds a person. Then that person says she needs to get back to see someone in the city within half an hour. So there are grimm, there are people about, and this area is apparently close enough to the border that you can get back to the city proper, on foot, and then get wherever it is you’re going in a bustling metropolis... all within half an hour. By that logic these grimm aren't out in the boonies, they're right outside everyone's door.

Yet Coco isn't convinced, saying that "Post Beacon [killing grimm] had been for a noble cause, but this just felt like … busywork." I cannot possibly emphasize enough that this is the job she signed up for. Not to be a detective specializing in missing people, not a war hero always on the front lines of a battle, but one of many huntsmen who perform the daily, routine, very necessary task of protecting the people from grimm. With "protecting" covering both immediate threats and preparatory work that ensures more threats don't come about — like taking care of grimm outside before they become a larger threat. You know what would have happened if Beacon had a daily chore of students killing grimm within a few miles radius of the school? There would have been far less grimm charging a mass of unprotected students when negativity unexpectedly skyrocketed.

And, as always, I am aware that Rumpole is the likely villain here. From a writing perspective, this is very much presented as her getting Coco out of the way so that she can go about her nefarious deeds in peace... but that doesn't erase the fact that the task itself is a sound one. Rumpole's motivations don't matter here, only Coco's annoyance that she... has to do her job?

I mean yeah, everyone complains about their job to one extent or another, but can you imagine if you stumbled across a firefighter complaining about all the kitchen fires they've had to put out lately? "It's so boring! There are much better things I could be spending my time and talent on. I mean, that inferno that took out a city block last year? Putting that out was noble. But routine fires? House fires? Giving lectures on how to prevent fires in the future? Ugh, I can't believe the department expects me to do this grunt work." Meanwhile, you're sneaking off, hoping that this firefighter is never called to your house, nursing mild worries about how much they're romanticizing the recent tragedy that took so many lives...

Complaints about the job turn into complaints about the teams, which makes far more sense for Coco's character. Anyone's, really. Despite my insistence that it's a good thing they're learning to fight with people other than their three besties, that was absolutely a sudden and rather traumatizing change, just given how attached the teams already are. I'm not at all surprised that Coco is struggling to cope.

She says she misses her friends, obviously, but also "surprisingly, Coco missed being in charge."

...That's supposed to be surprising? Coco, you love being in charge! How is this in any way a revelation?

Apparently it is though, stemming from how bad Reese is as their leader. As with so many things in RWBY, I find myself disagreeing with a perspective that's presented as a fact: "She liked to lead by group vote, which wasn’t leading at all." Yes... it is? We could go down a rabbit hole of literal definitions — to lead is to direct, to direct is to regulate, to regulate is to direct again — but ultimately our understanding of a word does not adhere to the dictionary alone. It's a knowledge built on experience and I would hope that everyone's experience with the term "leader" includes that person considering multiple perspectives before making a decision. A leader doesn't impose their view on a group without due consideration of their preferences and needs — that's a dictator — a leader guides the group based on feedback and their personal knowledge. If that feedback and knowledge results in a standstill, or if their knowledge outweighs preferences, they are the deciding vote because the people have previously said, "We trust your decisions" through the act of making them leader in the first place.

Asking for a group vote isn't avoiding leadership, it's an act of leadership. Reese decided that these situations warranted a majority rule. She further decided that whatever they settled on was indeed an appropriate course of action. Leadership skills are required to assess a situation and determine whether it's appropriate to vote on in the first place. If I announce to a group that we're voting on whether we go to the movies or the museum, I've done the work to determine that both of these choices are of roughly equal value and roughly equal availability. I haven't hit on any snags like, "The only movies playing are mindless blockbusters and I want this to be an educational outing" or "The museum is too far away. We'll never make it to dinner on time." Figuring out that a group can vote is its own kind of work. This avenue is particularly useful when the group is of roughly equal standing. With a few exceptions (like Ruby and Jaune) huntsmen classmates are all the same age, underwent the same training, and have had the same combat experiences. This isn't a case of one elite huntsmen lending their knowledge to an otherwise green party, it's a school randomly pointing at a somewhat outgoing individual during orientation and saying, "You. You're leader material, I guess, even though you've done little differently than the person standing beside you." Someone has to lead and Vacuo's switcheroo proves that anyone can be the leader if they're just put in that position. Coco claims a group vote is just "passing the responsibility off to your team" and yes! You want to share the responsibility because you are a team. They are a group of four equals working together with one person to guide them, they are not a boss with three subordinates. Why wouldn't Reese utilize the skills and ideas of those teammates? When making a decision, why wouldn't she see if everyone believes it's a good idea to do Thing A as opposed to Thing B? Unless Reese is outright ignoring her own ideas, beliefs, or gut feelings to cater to the others — which there's no reference of — this is good leadership. She's assisting her team in making decisions as a whole, rather than arbitrarily imposing her view on three others of similar skill and experience.

Yet Coco acts like because Reese doesn't go, "We're doing Thing A! End of discussion!" it's not leadership. Which, frankly, says a lot about how the RWBY-verse sees leadership as a whole.

I realize I'm rambling a great deal, so let me quickly provide a different media example. I'm currently immersed in Star Trek: Voyager and in season two, episode 14 "Alliances," Captain Janeway is faced with a difficult choice: align herself with a violent and so far untrustworthy species, or risk traveling through this quadrant of space without any allies. At first she's entirely against the idea of an alliance, going so far as to say that this isn't a democracy. She's the captain, dammit, she makes the decisions! But her first officer begs her to reconsider. Then the crew express disappointment — even disgust — that she won't consider this alternative. Then her chief of security, being a Vulcan, provides a persuasively logical argument for why an alliance is worth the risk... Long story short, Janeway finds herself in the minority and changes her decision accordingly. She attempts to garner an alliance and the fact that she was right — the species wasn't trustworthy and the alliance fails — is entirely beside the point. She realized that the majority voice matters. As far as we know, Reese is already practicing what Janeway learned.

ANYWAY the point is none of it matters because these characterizations are a mess. Coco also throws out that Reese "dressed like she was a twelve-year-old hanging out at the mall" and supposedly acts like one too. We're not given any examples of what that behavior looks like and, sorry, but I'm not personally inclined to judge someone based on their fashion sense. It would be great if this story actually engaged with some of the flaws the characters demonstrated, rather than just throwing them out to exist in this unacknowledged void.

Not that Coco's fashion-focused personality is really that important. Truly, the best thing about all this is how contradictory Coco's own thoughts are. She also listens to her teammates... except when she doesn't. She know when to go with their ideas and when to dismiss them for her own... except when she gets it totally wrong. As with so much in RWBY, this doesn't feel like the author giving Coco deliberate flaws that the story will grapple with down the line, it just comes across as a nonsense philosophy about leadership we're not meant to examine too closely. Coco gets to make references to the fact that her own, supposedly superior leadership is filled with holes, but heaven forbid she engage with that.

She ends all this with the thought that no matter what she might decide, she trusted her team to "do what she demanded of them” and is now extending that courtesy to Reese. This I'm inclined to praise Coco for. No matter what she might be thinking, it doesn't appear as if she's tried to undermine Reese (well, not yet. More on that at the chapter’s end), and she doesn’t appear to be refusing to listen to that leadership, even if she doesn't like how it comes about. As we're about to see, Coco has her team's best interests at heart, no matter the challenges they're facing.

Her thoughts turn back to her old team and we get... this.

Velvet was with a team that didn’t recognize her awesome capabilities. Fox was withdrawing, having lost his family for the second time. Yatsuhashi was going mad with worry about Velvet and his teammates, knowing that he couldn’t be there to protect them, and worrying he would accidentally hurt someone on his new team.

This is so unnecessarily dramatic. First, how does Coco even know any of this? Because it's been heavily implied that the old teams are barely in contact with one another. See: Velvet refusing to loop anyone in about the club and Coco stuck in the desert for a week. Second, why aren't they in contact, at least those who aren't on away missions? The entire group is acting as if changing teams means they're no longer allowed to be friends — family, as Coco puts it — when the relationship between Team RWBY and Team JNPR creates the opposite expectation right at the start of the series. Clearly, people from different teams can be close. Yatsu's worry that he might stumble using his semblance with new people is the only conflict that holds up here. Everything else has fairly straightforward solutions. Velvet needs to prove herself to new people. Yatsu needs to text Velvet if he's that worried about her. And Fox "having lost his family for a second time" is a pretty ridiculous exaggeration. You're attending the same school! Your family is still living down the hall if Vacuo has dorms like Beacon! In what world are these students unable to interact largely as they did before? They're acting as if the school has outright barred them from hanging out, rather than doing what will no doubt occur the moment they graduate: force them to work with different people. Just catch up with Fox over dinner!

Honestly, this chapter is pretty short, I'm just continually bewildered by this story.

To get back to the actual plot, something trips a sensor the group has set up and Coco responds to the situation in what I think is both a smart and empathetic manner. Previous experience has taught her that it's likely just a lizard, so she doesn't want to wake up her team for no reason. Disagreements aside, she cares enough to let them rest — "They’d probably appreciate the extra sleep." However, if it's a "rare case of something she couldn’t handle alone" she'd immediately call for help. Great plan! It's not often in this novel that I feel like I enjoy the characters, but this little moment actually had me liking Coco. Which, yes, I realize is a complicated claim. Characters should test the reader to a certain degree, mirroring all the personalities we see in real life, including biased, mean, or contradictory people. It's often a good thing to write a character that your reader is frustrated with. That can be the point! The problem with Myers' writing is that it isn't the point. Coco, as the former leader of our heroes in this tale, should be someone we enjoy spending time with and her flaws should be the basis for growth, or an acknowledgement that she is an imperfect, but well-rounded person. As it stands, flaws in this novel just sort of... exist? They bop around in the RWBY universe with almost no acknowledgement from the narrative or other characters, leaving the reader with little to nothing to take away from the text. Is Coco correct in her judgement? Is this a bias she needs to work on? Is she putting on a facade and her natural instinct to care for her team is the real Coco hidden underneath? Who knows! She’s just frustrating to read about most of the time and nothing comes of that.

Regardless, she heads out into the desert, using the night vision glasses Velvet made her.

Now see, this would have been the perfect thing to introduce before Velvet was fixing relay towers after the expert was injured. Remember how I said the novel didn't do enough to establish Velvet's own expertise? Not that a pair of goggles is really comparable to fixing a communications issue, but it still would have gone some way towards convincing me that Velvet is this super impressive tech gal, capable of handling any and all situations that might come her way.

But no, we get this impressive display of skill after Velvet's knowledge was needed in a pinch.

The glasses help Coco navigate the terrain, allowing her to both see in the dark and zoom in on things in the distance. This allows her to spot the six jackalopes that tripped the sensor, as well as the woman currently fighting them: Carmine, a villain from After the Fall that I know nothing about. Ah well. Note though what I said at the start, that Coco's dismissal of this assignment is based entirely in its supposed uselessness. Yet now here we have a pack of dangerous grimm and an enemy to content with.

Also, this is where Coco moves from kindly teammate to overconfident fool. She said she'd call for backup if she needed it... and she clearly needs it! From what I can gather, all of Team CFVY lost to Carmine last time they met up. But now she wants to risk fighting Carmine alone? Go get the others!

She doesn't, of course. Carmine doesn't notice Coco at first. She's talking about how she has to get back into the city. "He’s going to kill me if I’m not back to the Mirage in thirty."

As said, this also implies that Coco isn't nearly as far out as she initially suggested. If Carmine can feasibly finish this fight, cross the desert, navigate who knows how much of the city, and meet up with the mysterious "he" all in under half an hour, then Coco is patrolling pretty much right at the walls. AKA, the area that absolutely needs to be grimm free.

Luckily for those of us who are reading the books out of order, Myers gives a quick recap of Carmine's significance. Last book she had kidnapped Gus and "held off the combined might of Team CFVY in the desert” (oh hey, I was right), presumably escaping afterwards. Now here she is again, likely up to some new, nefarious deed.

Our of curiosity, I googled to see what she looks like and...

WHAT IS THAT OUTFIT?

Coco watches as she works to keep on top of the six grimm, debating whether she should help or walk away, but when Carmine is taken unawares, Coco acts without thinking, throwing herself into the fray.

Sometimes decisions were like that—your body already knew what to do while your brain was still processing the situation. Only in this case, Coco’s body wasn’t necessarily the clearest judge of character. Her brain would have said that Carmine didn’t deserve her help.

Now see, this is a scene I can get behind. The entire RWBY-verse is based around a type of superheroism: people with unnatural abilities, fantasy weapons, and extensive training devote themselves to protecting the people from various threats. Yet too often RWBY fails to convince me that these people are actually heroic, taking the standard flaws of a character and unknowingly exacerbating them to the point where I think, "Is this meant to be a commentary on the anti-hero? Or a critical look at these fantasy formulas? Because we've got the elements of that here, but no indication that the authors realize they're writing something other than that standard story." But this? This works for me. Coco, as a huntress, is so conditioned to help others that her body responds instinctively to someone being in danger, regardless of who that someone is. She outright admits that if she'd had the chance to think about it she would have decided against helping Carmine. The fact that she recognizes this and move anyway says a lot of good about her. Well done, Coco!

We see later that Carmine probably didn't need the help, but between the two of them the grimm really don't stand a chance. What's interesting though is how chummy the two are while defending themselves. Coco comments on Carmine's tendency to talk to grimm (like she does) and Carmine freely offers information about her movements, the fact that she lost her other sword, and that her partner, Bertilak, needs to "recharge a little" before getting back in the game. Carmine asks Coco if she'd like to team up with her instead (she does not) and the two have a number of flirty exchanges to top things off:

“I’ve been dreaming of a rematch with you,” Coco said.

“You’ve been dreaming about me? I’m flattered.” Carmine winked.

***

“Hot date with the Crown?” Coco asked.

“Don’t be jealous, darling.”

I bring all this up not as a criticism of the buddy-enemy dynamic (it's a favorite of mine), but simply because of something that happens next. Before we get to that though, I admit that I am on the fence about the flirting. Given that I haven't read After the Fall (assuming this characterization exists there), I know that Coco is a lesbian mostly via RWBY cultural osmosis, rather than through the text. This is one of the few (the only?) times that I've gotten a hint at her sexuality, yet it's associated with predatory behavior. Carmine, her enemy, is the one who turns an angry dream into a flattering one, the hot date with the bad guy into something to be jealous of. I'm honestly struggling to remember what, if anything, Coco has had to say about women in this book — this is what comes of such slow recapping and I acknowledge that this is entirely my fault — but I'm nevertheless discomforted by knowing Coco's canonical status, knowing RWBY's struggles with queer rep, and then reading a scene where the most overt representation thus far is the bad guy twisting Coco's words into something sexual.

I'm no purist. Give me a good enemies-to-lovers fic any day of the week, but that doesn't mean that kind of dynamic is the best to pull from in a franchise already facing heavy criticism for its queer rep.

Especially since the moment the grimm are gone Carmine turns her sai on Coco.

This is the "something that happens next" that I referenced above. It's weird to have them attacking one another after a whole scene of pretty genuine companionship. Coco doesn't help Carmine as a consequence of defending herself, she willingly gets involved. They tease one another. Carmine appears to answer her questions honestly. There's both implied and overt references to how well they work as a team. Then, suddenly, Carmine is outright trying to kill Coco, not just with her sai but by burying her alive. It's not the sort of banter that Ruby and Roman used to engage in, trading fake compliments and, in Roman's case before his death, legitimate feelings while attacking one another. Nor is Coco prepared for an attack the moment the grimm are gone, and she's not surprised by it. It’s just this sudden change that feels rather jarring.

Though it's far from the first time BTD has failed to convey the emotion of a scene. Here's another example rnow. As said, Carmine is attempting to bury Coco alive by moving the sand with her semblance. That's horrifying enough on its own, but remember that Coco is claustrophobic. Yet none of that panic shines through here. She comes across as indifferent throughout the attack, thinking back to summers when her brother tried to bury her while she sunbathed, amazed that she could ever consider this fun. You know who Coco sounds like in this scene?

At no point during this attack did I get the sense that Coco believes she’s in serious danger, let alone that she's struggling against a long-term phobia. The only time I even remembered that claustrophobia is meant to be a challenge for her is when she throws out the oh-so casual line, "One of her worst nightmares was being buried alive." Oh really? Because it doesn't seem like it! Coco is calm enough to remember that she used to be able to hold her breath for exactly three minutes and forty-two seconds. That doesn't feel like a character fighting against her worst nightmare.

So this scene isn't exactly compelling. Which is too bad because, as said, Coco as some other nice moments in this chapter.

However, during all this we do learn a little more about Carmine. Prior to getting trapped in the sand, Coco comments on how shockingly strong she is. "Carmine should have been at least a little bit worn down from fighting Grimm," but she's not, "She seemed nearly unstoppable now." Coco hits her full in the face, but she doesn't seem fazed. Earlier in the chapter there was that comment about how she previously took on Team CFVY alone and at the end of the battle Coco observes that Carmine "still seemed as fresh as she had at the beginning of the fight. How was she even doing that?" My basic reading comprehension skills tell me that this is setup for something, likely some change enacted by the Crown. Surely the text wouldn't put so much emphasis on Carmine's strength — have Coco questioning it to this extent, framing it as unnatural — unless we were going to get an answer, right?

But this is RWBY, so I'm not inclined to count my chickens before they hatch.

The rest of Coco's team arrives and it's then that she decides to pull the super dangerous stunt to free herself. Yeah, yeah, I get that she's suffocating and needs to do something now, can't wait to be dug out I suppose, but the timing is pretty ridiculous. The cavalry has arrived, yay! Time to blow myself up.

Seriously. She blows herself up. Using her own semblance, Coco focuses on one of her gravity dust bullets and detonates it, causing all the others in her arsenal to detonate too. It gets her out of the hole and "knocked her Aura down to a dangerously low level."

So... let’s see. Coco can literally detonate a bunch of explosives on her person, after suffocating under stand, after fighting Carmine, after fighting grimm, after a week long mission, and her aura doesn't break... but Yang's does from a single Neo slash?

Okay, RWBY.

Reese and Olive try to attack Carmine together, but end up eliminating one another's attacks. I like that a team actually has some realistic difficulties for once. Coco, however, is internally an asshole, calling them "idiots" and saying that they need to learn to coordinate their attacks. Thing is, she apparently hasn't done anything over the last week to help with that. She's been too busy complaining about Reese's clothes.

Carmine runs off as more grimm show up, drawn by Coco's non-existent panic. To her credit she does thank the others for saving her... but then immediately tries to downplay that. “It wasn’t a fair fight,” Coco spat when Reese (correctly) points out that she's the one who was ambushed. She also starts giving orders and when Reese (again, correctly!) goes to point out that she's the leader, Coco talks over her, saying they can't waste any more time out here because she has reason to believe that Shade has been compromised. She needs them only because she's out of bullets and low on aura, but they definitely need her because "let’s face it, I’m the best strategist around for miles."

Coco's a strategist?

And why does she sound like a villain trying to convince the heroes to work with her? She’s already part of the team!

Putting all that aside for the moment, we're back to this prideful characterization. I liked the well-rounded Coco from a few pages ago who balanced caring for her team with the likelihood of needing backup. Now she's flinching from the idea that she'd ever need help (hello, Sun characterization too) and snatching Reese's role the moment she's given the chance. So much for respecting her position. If the book wants me to believe that Reese is unfit to be leader and this is a golden opportunity for Coco to right a wrong... how about we actually show Reese being a bad leader?

Regardless, yay working together? The chapter ends with them presumably taking out the grimm before heading back to Shade, along with an important revelation. Prior to leaving, Carmine asked Coco why Yatsuhashi and Fox weren't rushing to her aid. It's only now that Coco realizes she didn't mention Velvet. Why? Perhaps because Carmine already knows where Velvet is, which obviously doesn't imply anything good.

And that's the end of Chapter Ten! Can you tell I never know how to finish these recaps? Describing cliffhangers doesn't have quite the same punch as, you know, actual cliffhangers. You all just have to suffer through my mediocre endings with me.

But would you look at that! Turns out the third attempt at writing this was the charm! :D

See you for Chapter Eleven! 💜

#rwby #BTD #Before the Dawn #BTD Recaps #mymetas

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pilot-boi · 5 years ago

Text

Missing In Action: Chapter Four

Maelstrom

For the moments when you’re in so deep, it feels easier to just swim down.

AO3 LINK

Jaune wished he could say that he woke up gently, smoothly transitioning from the land of sleep to the waking world. That wasn’t even close to what happened, but in dark twisted sort of luck, he couldn’t really remember the waking up process. One minute he was unconscious, and the next he was awake.

There was a searing pain on one side of his face as well, but he was sure that was unrelated.

He couldn’t move his arms, or really his anything. That wasn’t really the best first thought to have, but Jaune supposed it could’ve been worse.

How it could be worse...well he’d get back to you on that.

How much time had passed? Was it the next day or-?

Another sharp stinging pain, and Jaune nearly fell out of his chair from the force of it. Jaune winced back from the slap and squinted up into the blindingly bright light hanging over him. Right. Kidnapped. Unknown motives and all that. Focus Jaune.

“Good morning, sunshine,” growled a man’s voice from just out of sight. More than ever Jaune longed for the ability to move, to turn and see who was talking. The man sounded less than pleased to see Jaune awake.

“What did I say about talking to the kid?” A silky smooth voice with the hint of a threat said from the darkness in front of him. Jaune stopped trying to crane his neck around to see the first voice, and snapped it back to focus on where the voice had come from.

The man’s silhouette was big, all broad shoulders and barrel chest, but he was smiling. A wolf’s smile. Or at least, he looked that way from the limited amount of the man’s Jaune could see through the light over head.

“Right, sir. Sorry sir,” the first voice grumbled from behind him. So the big guy was in charge then. That...didn’t help him much admittedly, but it was a mite better than the no information he’d had before. Now if only he could figure out what they wanted.

“Who-Who are-” Jaune got cut off by a rough cough, and changed direction half way through his sentence. “What do you want with me?” He wheezed, squinting through the gloom at the indistinct shape of the guy in charge. Sometimes the best course of action was just to be direct.

“Ah ah ah,” the man chuckled softly, “You don’t ask the questions, kid, I do. And I don’t believe I gave you permission to talk. So let me teach you the rules, kid.” The man’s silhouette nodded to the guy behind Jaune, and suddenly his right arm was caught in a vice grip.

“The rules are simple, easy enough for even you to understand,” the man said, stepping forward into Jaune’s little circle of light. He was big, with features chiseled from stone, and hair buzzed down to the scalp. Like a military officer from an action movie. “Rule one: I ask the questions, not you,” Commando said, and the grip on Jaune’s arm tightened, “Rule two: if you don’t answer, there will be consequences.”

Consequences?! What the hell did that mean?! And gods if that guy could let go of his arm, he’d really appreciate it, because that was starting to really hurt.

“And finally, rule three: I’m like king around here, kind of the head honcho,” Commando continued, the reasonable tone set at odds to the table of “tools” that were revealed when he moved, and the tub of water that Jaune could only hope was for cleaning said tools. “And as a king, I expect respect from my subjects, and that includes you, boy. So talking out of turn…” He waved one hand, searching for the right words. “Such things can’t go unpunished.” Commando settled on, giving the man holding Jaune’s arm the go ahead.

And then he yanked, and Jaune’s shoulder whited out into a pinpoint of agony.

There was pain, and then there was pain. This definitely fell into the second category. Someone was screaming, it might’ve even been him.

“Now let’s try this again,” Commando’s voice swam back into his range of hearing, just as Jaune’s screams petered off. Tears were prickling at the corners of his eyes, but for now he was back. “I am going to ask you a question, and if I don’t like the answer I get...well, you can guess what’ll happen.” Jaune just nodded, not trusting that he’d be able to get away with a verbal response.

“We’ll start easy. What’s your name, kid.” Jaune opened his mouth to respond, any name but his own jumping to his mind, but Commando held up one finger to stop him. “And word of advice, no lies, because I’ll know if you’re lying. And you don’t want to lie to me, kid.”

Jaune’s arm gave a particularly painful throb, and his mouth shut with a snap. He’d know if he was lying? But how? Was it his Semblance, or did this guy already know his name? Or maybe he wouldn’t be able to tell, and it was all a trick. Or maybe it was a double trick to see if Jaune would actually answer with his real name. Or maybe-

Commando’s henchman gave a yank to Jaune’s arm that had him yelping out in pain and bursting out with, “Jaune! Jaune Arc! My name’s Jaune Arc!” Well there went any hope of them maybe not knowing who he was. Nice going, idiot. If the questions got more sensitive, he’d have to try harder than that measly effort to keep the answers from them.

“Now, was that so hard, Jauney?” Commando asked, sounding extremely pleased with himself. Jaune glared up at him, but if anything the man looked even more pleased to see him acting defiant. Acting being the operative word, because Jaune was feeling anything except brave at the moment.

“Let’s try a harder one now, shall we?” the man asked, as if he actually expected a response from Jaune. “Where is Ruby Rose?”

Jaune felt like he’d been slapped again. Whatever question he’d been expecting, that hadn’t been anywhere close to it. Not even in the ballpark of what he’d been expecting. The man who’d dislocated or maybe broken Jaune’s arm was bustling around behind Commando now, pouring more water into the tub and dragging it closer.

“I don’t know,” Jaune said, as firmly as he could with his voice shaking. His eyes flicked down to the tub of water in spite of himself.

“Hm, interesting,” Commando said, sounding disappointed. “Dunk him.”

This wasn’t directed to anyone in particular, but Commando’s taller henchman took it as an order. Jaune was hauled out of his chair and forced onto his knees in front of the tub of ebony black water. “No, no no, no, please-” he was sputtering in sudden panic, but Rando had him by the hair, and then his head was underwater.

It was icy cold. The kind of cold that would steal his breath away if the water weren’t already doing that. Because he’d gone into the water screaming, and inhaled at least one mouthful of water before he could stop himself. Jaune fights to retain what little air he can, but already the freezing water is starting to fill his lungs.

Rando pulled him back out, and Jaune was gulping in breaths of air before he even left the water fully. Coughing desperately to rid his lungs of the hated water and replace it with the air he so desperately needed, Jaune only barely heard Commando say, “I’ll ask again: Where is Ruby Rose?”

“I- I don’t know,” Jaune spluttered, somewhat less confidently than before with his teeth chattering from the cold.

“Dunk him again.”

And he was back underwater. Longer this time. His lungs are screaming with pain from the effort of holding the air in, and before too long he gave in again to the instinctual need to breath. His mouth opened and gulped in the needed air, but water poured into his lungs instead.

There wasn’t any air. He needed air. Why couldn’t they understand? He’s going to die. This was how he died, drowned in a bathtub a million miles away from anyone he cared about.

Rando pulled him out again. Jaune couldn’t hear anything with how the water was clogging his ears. Rando dropped him to the floor and his injured arm was shaking with effort as he retched up as much water as he could. He needed air, he needed air.

Commando was mouthing words, but he sounded muffled and far away. Jaune couldn’t even see him properly, but his mouth stumbled out what he hoped was a crushing reply.

“Again.”

It must have worked, but Jaune had only gotten a single lungful of air before he was hefted up and dunked.

Pulled out.

“Where is Ruby Rose?”

“I don’t know.”

“Again.”

Dunked.

How long this continued, Jaune never found out. Commando started switching to other people occasionally. The rest of team RWBY, Jaune’s own teammates, Qrow, Oscar, and others that Jaune didn’t even know. Or maybe he did know them. After a couple dunks in the Tub, Jaune was starting to black out. He couldn’t even remember half of the answers he gave, but he at least had reassurances that he had never answered, because it never stopped.

They tossed him unceremoniously back into his cell.

At least he knew when he landed, if the pain of landing hard on his dislocated and potentially broken arm was anything to go by.

Not bothering to stifle the ragged scream that clawed its way up his throat, Jaune didn’t even notice that his hands were being rechained to the wall he’d woken up by just a few hours ago. Had it only been hours? It felt like a lifetime ago. The only thing keeping him upright now was the insistent tug at his wrists that the chain was providing. His arm was on fire.

The cell door slammed, but not soon enough to hide the casual, almost pleased, laughter from the two men who’d put him in here. The rusty bang of the door plunged his cell back into pitch darkness, and at least helped to snap Jaune out of his pain-filled daze. Cautiously lifting his head from the wall where it had been resting, and deeming it safe enough to move, Jaune’s shoulder decided to remind him that it was still there and hadn’t gone anywhere in the last ten minutes.

You’d have thought that he would’ve gotten used to sudden harsh stabs of blinding pain.

Sucking in a sharp breath, Jaune decided to get it over with and see if he couldn’t alleviate at least a little of the acute pain in his general shoulder area.

He gathered his legs underneath him so he was sitting on his heels. His muscles creaked in protest as they shifted for the first time in hours, stiff from disuse and from cold. Remembering how this went the last time he tried to stand up, he went more cautiously this time. It wasn’t easy going with no hands to help push him up, but after some maneuvering he managed to get to his feet.

His hands were still held behind him at an awkward angle, he had to keep them in the small of his back, but he was on his feet. The shaking in his knees made it questionable how long that would last, but whatever. After a minute of working at it, he managed to get the frozen cuffs loose from the hook and lowered his hands down behind him.

The tension started to leave his shoulders as he gingerly lowered himself back to the ground. That was so much better than before. Even now Jaune could feel the tell-tale tingling in his fingertips as feeling returned to them. Painful, excruciating feeling, but feeling nonetheless. Craning his head around to look, he saw the cuffs had cut into his wrists and now he was bleeding. Great, more injuries, and these were his fault.

Gingerly rotating his injured shoulder, probing it as well as he could without being able to see the damn thing, Jaune was beyond relieved to realise that it was not broken. Dislocated? Yes. Bruised? Almost definitely.

Could he fix this? He had to at least try. His ribs felt trampled, his lungs were still screaming from the Tub, and his eyes were burning with tears. Jaune had to try to do something useful today.

Fumbling for a moment, he leant back against the wall to give himself any sort of balance. He’d once fallen down the stairs and dislocated all the toes on one of his feet, and if this hurt even half as much, then he was going to need the extra support.

His depleted Aura would do nothing to help with healing this until he popped it back into place. Oooohh, this was going to hurt. Very much. He just had to grit his teeth and do it, there was literally no other way. He was prepared. He was okay.

Before he could back out of it or tense back up, Jaune yanked his shoulder and popped it back into place.

He wasn’t prepared.

It popped back in with a sickening noise that vibrated right down to his very core, and he crumpled to the ground with a gasping scream. Knives had to be going into his shoulder socket, that was the only solution. Nothing else could hurt this badly.

He blinked away his pain-induced tears and took a moment to shakily suck in sharp gasps of breath. There. He did it. All was well in the Jaune Arc world. He’d have to get back to that later, when his shoulder wasn’t still throbbing with pain. And when he wasn’t still trapped in a cell who knows where with no hope of escape.

Shifting as gently and slowly as he could, the knight curled into a ball on the cold stone floor. Jaune had to lock his jaw to keep from screaming profanities as he felt his broken ribs agonizingly rub against each other.

Today had been the worst day of his life, without question. Nothing else even came close. And as he drifted off to sleep, Jaune knew in the depths of his heart that the worst was still to come. They would keep asking questions, and he would gladly die rather than answer them, so there was no way the pain would ever abate.

And with that pleasant thought, Jaune’s exhausted mind and body forced him to fall asleep.

#rwby #mine #my writing #jaune arc #missing in action #chapter 4

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